a walk to a different grocery store.

A year, maybe two, ago they demolished an old Latino supermarket and put in a brand new C-town. The old one was kind-of creepy, at least for me. The other market choice is Ahart's and it's closer to my house. It's kind-of creepy too. They haven't painted or replaced anything in 20 years. I have witnessed them clean the floors and they still look dirty. They are way overdue for a remodel.

Anyway, it's still nice out and I am determined to start walking every day again. So I decided to walk to C-town. I was in there once just to buy water, but I knew that they had a nice produce section. Plus Ahart's is barely a mile and half round trip.

I head out and decided to walk out Pawnee street, past mom's old house. I was actively looking at the houses still decorated for Christmas and I was going to take a pix and add a caption like "It's over. Take them down." when I saw this house.

Clearly they didn't want visitors. There were more signs. I was afraid if I stepped on the sidewalk I might get shot or something. Poor mailman.

 I arrived at 4th and went down the hill, then cut thru the CVS parking lot and went out Graham street. They are apparently demolishing a full city block.

I walked down the Greenway and down Fillmore to the store. I anticipated something like PriceRite. Nice produce and then aisles of things in cardboard boxes. I was wrong.

First thing I noticed was the "restaurant" like area with fresh to-go Latino food. It smelled good. They have a little counter in the window. Then the boxes of brightly colored fruit that I usually only see dried.  I am sure that my brother Dave will know and have tasted everyone of them. His son lives in Texas and I bet he's purchased his fair share of Latino veggies.

I encountered these pear shaped veggies in the first group. I've come to know them as chayote, but I didn't know then. Only 2/$1. Maybe. I could google it.

The next thing to catch my eye was this purple globe. I was trying to figure out what it was and a man asked if I knew. I didn't. He didn't. But we agreed at $6.99 it was not an impulse item. Then I asked him if he knew what the green pears were. He did. And he told me how to cook them. And how to pick them. And how to store them.

(Turns out these are pitaya, or pink dragon fruit.)

 I have no idea what this ugly beast is. Or the massive, size of my thigh, brown thing in the potato section. All the veggies I knew—like yucca—were labeled. Everything I didn't know, was not.

I ended up buying the chayote and broccoli. Then off to the meat department. If you are into unique cuts of meat they had it. Waste not, want not. As the saying goes. I saw a wide variety of organs, necks, feet, tails for pigs, fowl, and cows.   Did you know turkeys had a tail? I didn't. Yet alone that it was eatable. I can't tell you the last time I saw an oxtail in a store. Or a skirt steak. They even had goat.

Next was the dairy wall. I didn't really look, but the tortillas forced me to. The colors were vibrant. What kind of maize are they using? They did have that white yummy Mexican cheese. Tempted, but I didn't buy it.

I didn't even look at the grocery aisles.

I checked out, and headed down Third, then Broadway for home thinking it's been a long time since I had that much fun in a grocery store.

I made chicken with the chayote for dinner. It was really good. And the roomie ate it. And there was none left. Score one for me.