EYW Blog

All photos by Gigi Griffis

Saskatoon.

When I decided to road-trip across Canada, this small city in the prairie province of Saskatchewan was little more than a stop in between up-and-coming Winnipeg and gateway-to-the-parks Calgary. The prairies of Canada were a necessary evil, something I had to get across in order to get from charming French Canada to the jagged peaks of the national parks.

Little did I know, I’d come to love the prairies for their own sakes. For their vast open spaces. For their bright yellow fields of canola flowers—an industry that contributes $26.7 billion in Canada each year and that makes the prairie fields look like strange, beautiful art pieces. And,...

Our friends at Eat Mexico tell us why the Merced Market is a Mexico City must-see.

Photos by Christie Pham

Forget what you may have heard about the Merced Market, in Mexico City. In my opinion there is only one real danger: You will, inevitably, time and time again, come home with bags full to overflowing with unnecessary items that you found impossible to resist. Personally, I have at various times and with varying degrees of regret purchased 3 kilos of sliced nopal cactus, a frog tamal, a bag of violet-colored beans from Puebla, a dozen mini tlacoyos that fit in the palm of my hand, and a set of white porcelain espresso cups—and I don’t even own an espresso maker. Each...

Markets are often the best place to experience the very essence of a city's culinary culture—and quickly. Contributor Giulia Blocal brings us this introduction to the food markets of Athens, Greece.


The farmers market at Perissos. All photos by Giulia Blocal.
 

From the heart of the Mediterranean basin, Greek cuisine is composed of a wide variety of dishes mirroring its long history, variegated landscape, and crossroads nature. On a recent trip to Athens, I encountered lots of meat (pork, lamb, beef, goat, chicken, veal, and rabbit), vegetables, and tasty savory pies (including tiropita, layered phyllo pastry filled with cheese, and spanakopita, spinach pie), as well as Greek...

Drive down to the Maine Avenue Fish Market, in southwest D.C., early on a Saturday evening, and you may immediately regret it. Cars are everywhere, vying for parking and backed up in slow-moving lines; a parade of people move toward the open-air seafood counters, where more long lines await; wholesale trucks pull into the middle of the space to unload or pick up crabs at what seem like inopportune times. It’s crowded and chaotic, it smells like fish, you will wait on long lines, and if you happen to have a one-year-old like we do, well, he won’t be happy about it. But as all the locals who drive out of their way to stop here know, the haul you get will be dirt-cheap and super...

After just three days, dusty Dakar has drawn us in with its street-corner baguettes, mellow fishing villages, surf-friendly beaches, and mad markets. A highlight among our explorations thus far has been the fish market at Soumbedioune, a cove on which the men's brightly painted pirogues, or canoes, are pulled from the water each evening, and the day's haul of seafood put out to sale. One side of the market is crowded by grill stations, manned by women cooking fresh fish over hot coals.

Between about 4pm and 6pm, the boats are lugged in, requiring a team of heaving men and two logs (or big empty metal canisters) to facilitate movement. The shore is crowded with onlookers,...

It was such a relief last week to find out the local Queens farmers market has been changed to year round. With only a week left to Thanksgiving, we usually are stocking up on the turkey meat and sausage that we will freeze and use throughout the winter. We have previously made good use of that system, but not getting seasonal vegetables has been the hard part. “Do we really have to go to Trade Fair [our overcrowded supermarket] for produce?” This is a common question we repeat throughout the cold months. “I miss the farmers market,” with a sad face, is another generic overused statement during the dark days of January and February.

We have become so accustomed to our Sunday walk...