Times food writer Hansen grazes in markets as far afield as Bangkok, Thailand, where she recalls watching a pretty girl prepare a dish of piping hot, utterly authentic Thai noodles. At the covered market in the Mexican city of Veracruz, she routinely ate breakfast of tacos with eggs or guacamole. It became a popular offering on the menu at Ciudad, the restaurant she owns with co-chef Mary Sue Milliken. Feniger takes in foreign markets isn't limited to the sense of taste. Suddenly I understood why art and food are related.'' Not buying or eating a thing, I wandered through Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi, India, and the market in Oaxaca, and left with all my senses nourished.
Markets are as much about people as they are about food.
On the Hawaiian island of Kauai, I learned how hungry people are for reasonably priced fresh produce when I went to a farmers' market at the ballpark in the old sugar plantation town of Koloa. Children and the elderly were allowed in first, followed by the rest of the crowd, which, fortunately, was well-behaved. My favorite market is the one in the Trastevere section of Rome, an old working-class neighborhood across the Tiber River from the city center. Although it lies across the street from a little gem of a 10th century church, the piazza is nothing much to speak of as Roman piazzas go. But in the morning the market transforms the square into a Garden of Eden, where I bought juicy cantaloupes and fresh flowers.