Special on bergamots at the Garden of Eden

This fall has been a season of digital food shopping of one kind or other. This week, I signed up for Chef’s Plate deliveries (here’s a link for a week of meals totalling about CDN$25). From Whole Foods deliveries by Amazon to Hello Fresh and DoorDash, all these online grocery solutions are a testament to the way North Americans have sequestered their food retailers away from the living, breathing, walking humans.

Tuesday street market in Athens

It occurs to me that grocery shopping is often my primary connection to a new culture when I’m travelling. I don’t sit with gurus and learn meditation or yoga. I don’t spend much time in local watering holes. Okay, I have at times gotten familiar with the swimmers-of-a-certain-age who frequent the beaches early in the day before the beautiful people show up. But grocery shopping, that seems to be my way in.