Shopping in Porto

Evening View from our Window

Like the Spaniards, the Portuguese eat at an ungodly late hour, around 9pm. So we decided to have lunch out and eat dinner in the apartment because Dick can't sleep on a full stomach. However I can. As a matter of fact, I sleep better.


We went to the central open market and there was a wonderful variety of fruits and vegetables, and we spent an hour trying to decide what to buy. Afterwards we bought a couple of steaks and some pork chops at a local butcher. Despite the language difficulties, we've been pretty successful in finding what we want.


We went to a cafe and had lattes. The milk tasted really bad but familiar. I found out it was long life milk, a product which lasts for three months without being refrigerated. I remembered that we drank this once in Italy, when we lived in Florence.  I thought homogenized milk killed nutrients. What about irradiated milk used in Europe? Shocking. 


So out we went to find milk. No dice. The babies and toddlers drink only soy milk, if they drink milk at all. I was shocked again. From all the medical reports I've read this stuff is lethal unless it;s fermented. Even the Japanese eat soy fermented. Dick finally found little squares of cream to use in his coffee. That was imported from Germany.


We had lunch at the Le Corte Inglese  High Class Cafe and as we had discovered in other restaurants, they don't provide salt and pepper. When we asked for salt, they were terribly incensed, said it was already included in the olive oil on the salad and on the egg dish. I always wonder why people care if you want salt. I always test the food first. 


We went home exhausted from walking all morning and cooked our steak with a nice salad. It was a good day.