Shopping with Lisa AKA
The Fish Market
 |
| Sea urchin shuckers |
 |
| Crabs |
 |
| Tasty raw fish snacks |
 |
| Egg lady and her husband |
Lisa, the other crew, who has been with Sven and Dana for two years, is a Canadian woman. She was, however, born and
brought up in Hong Kong. On Friday Sven hands over a long and specific list and
sends the two of us off shopping together. As we enter the grocery store I pull
out the list but Lisa, her Asian side appearing for the first time, and her
accent suddenly more pronounced, declares that she never follows the list, she
just buys what looks good. ‘What he know?’ she adds, ‘He never cook.’ As we
wander round I feel more and more like her kid. ‘Feel the onions,’ I am told,
‘get rock hard ones. Choose long skinny avocados, they have smaller pits. Only
take apples with stems on.’ We fill our cart with as much as we think we can
carry and then lug our backpacks and grocery bags with us onto the bus and to
the marina. ‘Pumpkin seeds,’ the list said, ‘tomatoes…’ instead we have bananas
and blueberries, vinegar and wine. I hope I will be able to find something
amongst all this to cook for supper! The next day we are sent shopping together
again, this time to the fish market. Here I am totally out of my depth. Lisa
pokes and prods the various fish, asks the sellers pointed questions, barters
the prices down. I tag along behind taking photos of the egg man and his wife. She
chooses smoked salmon, and large shrimps with the shells on, a chunk of real
pork that will need deboning, and something else, a skinny silver fish so fresh
it is almost still alive. ‘You want to cook that one for lunch?’ she asks, but
I tactfully manage to suggest that she does, that I will do supper again
instead, and so she supervises the gutting of the fish and we head home grocery
bags full once again, and she does cook it for lunch, with ginger and green
onion and it is delicious. Totally intimidated I decide I can’t compete so I
won’t even try. I make garlic and mushroom fettuccini for supper, with a side
salad, and home-made fresh bread, and it is, if I say so myself, though not as
wonderful as the fish was, quite good too.
