Today we finally made our trip to the Asian market in Perugia. There are a couple of markets there. One we had known of, but the one we went to today was new to us.

It is near the train station which tends to have a lot of immigrants and ethnic places to serve them. As you can see…it has a very catchy name — “ASIA MARKET”. I have to say, I hate the traffic in Perugia… a maniac designed their roads.

So, anyway, we found it fairly easily. It is, as advertised, cleaner than the other market, and the people are friendlier. I was disappointed in the selection, however. In the fresh produce there was no okra or sugar snap peas, nor was there any cilantro. I did get bok choy. I guess that’s something. I found most of the other stuff I wanted, even though the selection was smaller. I got fish sauce, oyster sauce, wide rice noodles, Korean BBQ sauce (trying for the first time), sesame oil, rice vinegar, sweet piquante sauce for sticky chicken. Lots of coconut milk and evaporated milk. Even some kimchi, which I love! Here is a picture!

I see Thai and Korean in my future.
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Its funny. I read the Facebook groups for people who live in Italy (from other countries). There also tend to be a lot of wannabes as well who still live in their native country. Someone posted a question about where to find Jalapeños in Italy. Fresh in the store, canned, or even plants. There were plenty of helpful answers as usual. But also there were the idiots who insist they know best and if you come to Italy to live you should “embrace the culture 🎶“ and only eat Italian food. Well, that’s fine and all, I love Italian food and I generally let the Italians cook it for me when I go out. But there is the inevitable pull of “Home”. The foods you grew up with. Comfort foods. If that happens to be spaghetti and meatballs, so be it. It’s not an Italian dish, it’s an Italian-American dish but if you miss it, you miss it. Same for ethnic foods, plentiful and embraced in the US, but seldom seen here. So – we cook the spicy stuff…and the different flavors. It surely doesn’t mean we don’t love Italian food!
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Along our drive to the store we passed a Vaccination center…it was teeming with people waiting for shots. What a great thing to see! Italy is finally making real progress.
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Italiano phrase for today, “loro erano molto amici” — in English “they were very close friends”. Pronounced, lore-oh err-ah-noh mole-toe am-ee-chi.
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Ciao, i miei amici! 🌈