Groceries in the Hood
The giant new Mi Pueblo (my people) supermercado is finally open, right across the street from the little Mi Tierra (my land) market.
On opening day, the parking lot overflowed with people, cars, a snappily dressed mariachi band, radio station vans, and a gazillion massive, bright yellow shopping carts. To enter the store, the teeming crowds passed through a balloon arch with "Bienvenidos" spelled out in silver mylar.
The building was once an Albertson's, and a foul place it was. It always smelled faintly of vomit and cleanser, as though several small children had just thrown up in a far-off aisle. The produce was limp, the bread moldy, the lines long. Prostitutes roamed the parking lot.
All that has changed. The owners of Mi Pueblo spiffed up the edifice, giving it a Spanish Colonial mission façade. They cleaned up the parking lot and even did some landscaping.

The other night, out of curiosity, I stopped by. I approached the shopping carts lined up outside the store, amazed at their size. Larger than Costco's, they are truly the blue whales of the shopping cart world. Magnificently yellow, they're big enough to hold a week's worth of Mexican groceries for an extended family of, say, 15 or 20 people.

I could have chosen a hand basket, but I wanted the full "Mi Pueblo" experience. So I latched on to the shiny plastic handlebar of a cart and trundled it into the store, knowing already that whatever paltry purchase I made would barely register in its depths.
I wandered contentedly through the aisles, feeling like I was in a foreign country. Namely, Mexico. This is actually one of my favorite things to do in a foreign country -- visit the grocery stores, the drugstores, just to see how people really live, what they really buy. Forget the tourist sights -- I'm happiest shopping for toothpaste.
The place is overwhelmingly bright, organized, bountiful. The meat and fish counters stretch for what seems like miles, crammed with meat you don't often see in anglo (or "gapacho") markets. Hooves, entrails, and noses sit right next to chops and hamburger.
The produce is gorgeous, piled in bright, polished pyramids. Peppers, tomatoes, yucca, papaya, apples, oranges, carrots -- everything. I don't know where it comes from, I know it's not organic, but it is fresh food in a neighborhood that really needs it.
In the end I only bought an avocado and a bag of horchata mix. They rattled around in the big cart. At the checkstand, I started out in Spanish but the cashier saw my face, my blond hair, and some strange filter prevented her from understanding my really fluent español. After a couple of tries I gave up and we spoke inglés.
I still feel loyal to the little Mi Tierra market, but I'll visit Mi Pueblo again, just to be a tourist.