From the Roadside to the Table

You never know what you're going to see as you drive through town . . . 

motorcycles piled high with wares to sell or equipment, such as a ladder, to take to a job. 

Cyclists somehow manage to arrange and hang a whole vegetable stand right on their bike.
One day we followed this truck with bulls, their heads buried in corn stalks.

Driving along the road you will see merchants setting up stands,

very much like a lemonade stand. 

If you drive through a market area, you will see row upon row of local vegetables

in neat piles.

Often times you will see a truck on the side of the road selling fruit or vegetables.

Small grocery stores sell staples such as flour, sugar, oil, soaps, snack foods. 

Our granddaughter says it's hard to generalize what they sell, 

because they sell what they have and you may get something once but not the next time.  

I kept asking where the coconut was because I was intent on making coconut pancakes 

when finally Julene stopped by the side of the road. 

Not a place I would have dreamt of getting shredded coconut. 

She asked the young man to shred a coconut for us and he proceeded to cut one in half, 

pour out the milk and put it through a grater, 

while I just stood there dumbfounded at this unexpected procedure. 

The shredded coconut was a mix of brown and white, 

so I asked if he could peel a coconut before grating it.

Happy to please a foreigner, he started again.

And this is how we got shredded coconut. 

I have to smile about how we buy it nicely packaged and dried 

and only care about what kind of shred it is and wether it's sweetened or not. 

Here we got white coconut in fine shred, moist and fresh, unsweetened.

The coconut pancakes were yummy, made with coconut milk and shredded coconut. 

The pineapple on the table was picked in the yard.

A small taste of getting food on the table.