Shop light, feel light

Spot the needle!

Today*, I cycled for food. Today was the perfect day for it; not too hot or cold, the scent of flowering trees and bushes in the air, a light breeze, freshly cut grass... fresh spring green all around me. Today, the dreaded weekly supermarket trip was transformed into a needle in a haystack in terms of its significance in my day.

On food, (super)markets, streets, and smell & co.

Is the local market dead?

I got very excited about some of the passages I read today in one my favourite books, which I have already mentioned previously - "Hungry City: How food shapes our lives" by Carolyn Steel. So I decided to share a "flavour" of it here...

.... on markets:

"Borough [market] feels odd because it exists in a country that has lost touch with its food culture - where the vast majority of us do most of our shopping in supermarkets. [...] Borough is not really about buying food at all, it is about celebrating it. [...]

At Borough, food has become an end in itself. It has become fetishised, as if it were invested with some cathartic power to transform lives. The people who come here, although plainly enjoying themselves, seem to be searching for something more: for roots, for meaning, for salvation, even. [...]