Saturday, September 8, 2007

only appropriate for a saturday morning

since i was a baby (and probably before that...) my parents have been taking me to Reading Market on saturday mornings (afternoons) to pick up food for the week, and you know... schmooze. after all these years they (we) have created a nice little ritual of greetings, jokes, and small talk - and the women of the family have all taken on the nickname "smiley."
so today, saturday morning, i wake up and decide to make my way over to the outdoor/open-air market.
it was wonderful. imagine the most italian parts of the italian market in philly, plus some of the ambiance of reading, and everything else was just... italian - and also, dare i say, roman?
it went on for blocks on top of blocks. the fruit and vegetables went on for piles and piles. fresh, dried, fried, everything. things hung, strung, packed, and stocked in as many ways as you could imagine. there were stocky italian fellows chatting up anyone and everyone, as helpful and friendly as can be, and behind them were italian women, in command posts, all business, but with some smiles.
it was great.
the pictures i took just from the entrance are not that telling, but no worries, i am planning on going back every saturday. so there will be more to come.


and on another note. when walking back to the bus with my two small bags of fresh goodness, i saw this wall. i am starting to wonder if some of this stuff is commissioned, cause... dang.

2 comments:

citygrrrl said...

Sigh. You show pictures of a real Italian market, and I show a blow up condom.

And the graffiti? I am continually dismayed at the paltry examples that the Philadelphia graffiti community posts. all they do it tag. it's annoying and stupid.

Coming from NY, where the graffiti explodes with creativity, to here was a shock.

So the Italian stuff is probably not commissioned, it’s just good.

root said...

those characters are sickkk and the peices are wild, i cant even find the letters, MAN i wanna seee.

i hope you got extra fruit in the Eskind tradition.

also, everytime someone (mom or dad) makes a corny joke, afterwards we're like "hey! someone write that down, sarah would love to hear that one!" but of course, there are no utensils in the kitchen.

here's the only one i remember: i took out a book from the rutgers library called "manifesto" - an anthology of manifestos (pretty sweet, actually), and mom begins to notice that theres only like three women authors in the whole thing, and dad says: "well, they're all in the womanifesto".

ha.