threadwalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threadwalker) wrote2009-11-02 07:21 am
threadwalker) wrote2009-11-02 07:21 am
I love our town's Diversity.
Shopping and Diversity in Concord. It just amazes me that in Concord, which is a suburb and not one celebrated for its cultural diversity, there are so many opportunities to learn about other cultures and experience ethnic foods.
I grew up in Redwood City which is more or less racially and financially divided by the railroad tracks (how cliche!) and my commute-to-work work-a-holic parents liked to spend weekends hanging around the house, so they rarely exposed us to anything outside of our middlel-class white school and our middle-class white church and our middle class local grocery store. However, in middle school my mom put me in a private school in San Francisco and I went from being one anglo face in a sea of anglo faces to one of three white kids in a sea of Latinos and Phillipinos.
What did I discover? Besides being the only student who only spoke one language and that I didn't have the genes to be a cholo? I LOVE foreign food. Guess what? When Lupe's mom invites you over after school to do homework (and your mom finally approves this) and you tell Mrs. Gomez that her home-made tamales made from secret family recipe are the most amazing thing you've had, you get invited back. Oh yeah!
Being thrown to the dorsal-fin equipped middle schoolers with sharp teeth was both one of the harshest things my mom ever did and a blessing in disguise. I credit that with my love of ethnic food and I love exploring foreign food stores. Normally I can't leave one of these places without buying something. I think it's because on a certain level it's like visiting the country of origin just a little bit. And I LOVE to travel, so there it is. And now that I have kids, they get dragged along with me and aggressively encouraged to try stuff. I enjoy watching them become a bit adventuresome in their own way. Frankly, I'd rather introduce them to piroshki through SirSt or through either of the two European food stores near my house than from Birds Eye or Swansons frozen food options at the large chain down the street. We are so lucky to have so many opportunities to experience other cultures through their foods right here in our own town.
I've been pretty sick for about a week and my "get well" diet consisted of miso soup and bananas. I have become an expert on several different brands of instant miso soup. However, in order to acquire my soup expertise had to get some miso so I shopped on Sick-Saturday (aka Collegium Saturday for those who track time by the SCA calendar). Miss E kept me company and we went to the local "Park-n-Shop" where there's a variety of ethnic grocery stores, ethnic restaurants, clothing stores, a Fryes, Black Diamond Games, a weight watchers office, and a craft store; it truly is a shopping area that caters to all types. I decided that even though I was feeling like crap, it felt good to be out in the sunshine, so Miss E and I took our time exploring.
Las Montanas, the Latino food store, was fully stocked with a butcher counter, bakery, and taqueria along with all sorts of intriguing canned goods from Mexico. They did not have fish stock, which is an item I've been looking for, but I will have to go back the next time I make spicy chicken soup and try out their chilis. Miss E, ever the diplomat, declared the place smelled funny in her loud little kid voice while we were cruising the bakery. *sigh* I did not exactly sush her, but I asked her to be more respectful (if you can't say anything nice then be quiet) and explained that they make their food different and she was smelling different spices. She gave the place a disapproving glare, crossed her arms across her chest and quietly waited for me to finish looking around. We'll be back as many times as it takes for her to get over the smell because I'm like that.
Then we headed into the newish Ranch Market 99 which is an asian grocery. Miss E greeted this place with a whispered, "this place stinks funny too". I rolled my eyes, but at least she was learning discretion. It was a wonderful store; just being there made me want to shop, so I did my weeks worth of shopping there. There was a fresh fish counter, tanks of live fish, live crab, bins of live clams, a dim sum counter, a real live butcher and ... wow. so many foods. Miss E forgot all about the smell when she saw the live fish; she was very excited and kept pointing out all the cool swimming fish and crab. Then we got to the dead-fish counter where the fish are laid out on ice where you can touch them and the butcher can grab them and weigh out how much you want. She was both excited and grossed-out by the dead fish with a train-wreck fasincation. No longer whispering, she was loudly calling out, "Look mommy! MORE dead fish!" At least it was enthusiastic.
I really enjoyed exploring the fresh produce and it drove home the point that I don't know how to prepare a lot of the stuff I saw. I'm going to have to do some home work because there were fruits and vegetables from around the world that would be fun to know more about. It was like the international version of walking into Berkeley Bowl. Like other grocery stores they had people offereing cooked samples and although I had to bully Miss E into tasting the fish soup, once she had a small bite she declared she loved it and begged me to make it for dinner. I didn't tell her that she'd just had calamari. My visit netted me fish pieces for soup, udon, miso soup, elusive fish stock and lemon grass.
My MiL was over this past weekend and after telling her about our adventure the previous week, she commented she'd never been in a foreign grocery. Since I was out of Miso (and the best so far is a brand I've only seen there), I took her with me to Ranck Market 99. She had quite the adventure as well. Miss E acted as tour guide, showing Nanny where the live fish were, the dead fish, and taking us to the ladies who give out samples. We got a variety of stuff from the Dim Sum counter and shared that as well.
So dinner last night was stuffed pork loin, udon with a variety of sea food, gyoza, and steammed broccoli-cauliflower. I like bringing the diversity home so that my kids will learn to embrace other cultures through their food and hopefully have fewer barriers to understanding that although people are different, we are all the same as well.
I grew up in Redwood City which is more or less racially and financially divided by the railroad tracks (how cliche!) and my commute-to-work work-a-holic parents liked to spend weekends hanging around the house, so they rarely exposed us to anything outside of our middlel-class white school and our middle-class white church and our middle class local grocery store. However, in middle school my mom put me in a private school in San Francisco and I went from being one anglo face in a sea of anglo faces to one of three white kids in a sea of Latinos and Phillipinos.
What did I discover? Besides being the only student who only spoke one language and that I didn't have the genes to be a cholo? I LOVE foreign food. Guess what? When Lupe's mom invites you over after school to do homework (and your mom finally approves this) and you tell Mrs. Gomez that her home-made tamales made from secret family recipe are the most amazing thing you've had, you get invited back. Oh yeah!
Being thrown to the dorsal-fin equipped middle schoolers with sharp teeth was both one of the harshest things my mom ever did and a blessing in disguise. I credit that with my love of ethnic food and I love exploring foreign food stores. Normally I can't leave one of these places without buying something. I think it's because on a certain level it's like visiting the country of origin just a little bit. And I LOVE to travel, so there it is. And now that I have kids, they get dragged along with me and aggressively encouraged to try stuff. I enjoy watching them become a bit adventuresome in their own way. Frankly, I'd rather introduce them to piroshki through SirSt or through either of the two European food stores near my house than from Birds Eye or Swansons frozen food options at the large chain down the street. We are so lucky to have so many opportunities to experience other cultures through their foods right here in our own town.
I've been pretty sick for about a week and my "get well" diet consisted of miso soup and bananas. I have become an expert on several different brands of instant miso soup. However, in order to acquire my soup expertise had to get some miso so I shopped on Sick-Saturday (aka Collegium Saturday for those who track time by the SCA calendar). Miss E kept me company and we went to the local "Park-n-Shop" where there's a variety of ethnic grocery stores, ethnic restaurants, clothing stores, a Fryes, Black Diamond Games, a weight watchers office, and a craft store; it truly is a shopping area that caters to all types. I decided that even though I was feeling like crap, it felt good to be out in the sunshine, so Miss E and I took our time exploring.
Las Montanas, the Latino food store, was fully stocked with a butcher counter, bakery, and taqueria along with all sorts of intriguing canned goods from Mexico. They did not have fish stock, which is an item I've been looking for, but I will have to go back the next time I make spicy chicken soup and try out their chilis. Miss E, ever the diplomat, declared the place smelled funny in her loud little kid voice while we were cruising the bakery. *sigh* I did not exactly sush her, but I asked her to be more respectful (if you can't say anything nice then be quiet) and explained that they make their food different and she was smelling different spices. She gave the place a disapproving glare, crossed her arms across her chest and quietly waited for me to finish looking around. We'll be back as many times as it takes for her to get over the smell because I'm like that.
Then we headed into the newish Ranch Market 99 which is an asian grocery. Miss E greeted this place with a whispered, "this place stinks funny too". I rolled my eyes, but at least she was learning discretion. It was a wonderful store; just being there made me want to shop, so I did my weeks worth of shopping there. There was a fresh fish counter, tanks of live fish, live crab, bins of live clams, a dim sum counter, a real live butcher and ... wow. so many foods. Miss E forgot all about the smell when she saw the live fish; she was very excited and kept pointing out all the cool swimming fish and crab. Then we got to the dead-fish counter where the fish are laid out on ice where you can touch them and the butcher can grab them and weigh out how much you want. She was both excited and grossed-out by the dead fish with a train-wreck fasincation. No longer whispering, she was loudly calling out, "Look mommy! MORE dead fish!" At least it was enthusiastic.
I really enjoyed exploring the fresh produce and it drove home the point that I don't know how to prepare a lot of the stuff I saw. I'm going to have to do some home work because there were fruits and vegetables from around the world that would be fun to know more about. It was like the international version of walking into Berkeley Bowl. Like other grocery stores they had people offereing cooked samples and although I had to bully Miss E into tasting the fish soup, once she had a small bite she declared she loved it and begged me to make it for dinner. I didn't tell her that she'd just had calamari. My visit netted me fish pieces for soup, udon, miso soup, elusive fish stock and lemon grass.
My MiL was over this past weekend and after telling her about our adventure the previous week, she commented she'd never been in a foreign grocery. Since I was out of Miso (and the best so far is a brand I've only seen there), I took her with me to Ranck Market 99. She had quite the adventure as well. Miss E acted as tour guide, showing Nanny where the live fish were, the dead fish, and taking us to the ladies who give out samples. We got a variety of stuff from the Dim Sum counter and shared that as well.
So dinner last night was stuffed pork loin, udon with a variety of sea food, gyoza, and steammed broccoli-cauliflower. I like bringing the diversity home so that my kids will learn to embrace other cultures through their food and hopefully have fewer barriers to understanding that although people are different, we are all the same as well.
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Oh, we are SO on the same page! I shopped there yesterday and loved it. Did my whole shopping except for dairy goods. It was a read adventure. I bought two days worth of fish and some pork chops too. Will go back again soon, I'm sure. What brand of Miso do you use? I am needing some too.
Did you get some coupons for the deli? I did and am anxious to go in and spend them. Since the place was so crowded I didn't stop in the deli Sunday.
Let's go together one of these days.
PS: One of the reasons we bought in Concord was because we could see so much diversity in the school we checked out (Monte Gardens) for our kids.
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Growing up in small town south Georgia was just not an adventure where food is concerned. I first had Chinese food when I was 16, to give you a picture. Once I had the experience of another cuisine there was no turning back, I am pleased to report.
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