Food Vendors Quotes

Ish #303 "It's a street food vendor! Stop asking for the health score rating.

She knows how dangerous it is to trust anyone on La Bestia. There are thugs and rapists and thieves and narcos hidden in the ranks of la policía in every town, but it’s not only the police who deserve their suspicion. It’s every single person they meet—shopkeepers, food vendors, humanitarians, children, priests, even their fellow migrants.

He ate a hot dog from a vendor cart for lunch and had a three course French meal for dinner. He rather preferred the hot dog.

I was on a radio talk show in Vermont one January and the host was giving me a hard time about organic food prices. “I had a party at my house last week and wanted to serve corn on the cob, so I went down to the supermarket and the regular corn was $2.49 for a dozen ears and the organic was $4.89. How can you justify that?” Wrong question. The question is, “Why do you need fresh sweet corn in Vermont in January? You should be eating canned, frozen, or parched corn that you made late in the summer when farmers could scarcely give their corn away because people were over that and going for the fall squash and potatoes.” He should have been feeding these guests from his own larder, amassed months earlier when farmers’ market vendors were feeding half their late-season success to the compost pile. It happens everywhere and all the time. Restoring normalcy is our problem—you and me—not somebody else’s problem.

Margo Brinker always thought summer would never end. It always felt like an annual celebration that thankfully stayed alive long day after long day, and warm night after warm night. And DC was the best place for it. Every year, spring would vanish with an explosion of cherry blossoms that let forth the confetti of silky little pink petals, giving way to the joys of summer. Farmer's markets popped up on every roadside. Vendors sold fresh, shining fruits, vegetables and herbs, wine from family vineyards, and handed over warm loaves of bread. Anyone with enough money and enough to do on a Sunday morning would peruse the tents, trying slices of crisp peaches and bites of juicy smoked sausage, and fill their fisherman net bags with weekly wares. Of all the summer months, Margo liked June the best. The sun-drunk beginning, when the days were long, long, long with the promise that summer would last forever. Sleeping late, waking only to catch the best tanning hours. It was the time when the last school year felt like a lifetime ago, and there were ages to go until the next one. Weekend cookouts smelled like the backyard- basil, tomatoes on the vine, and freshly cut grass. That familiar backyard scent was then smoked by the rich addition of burgers, hot dogs, and buttered buns sizzling over charcoal.

I dreamed not long ago of that market with all its vivid textures. I walked through the stalls with a basket over my arms as always and went right to Edita for a bunch of fresh cilantro. We chatted and laughed and when I held out my coins she waved them off, patting my arm and sending me away. A gift, she said. Muchas gracias, señora, I replied. There was my favorite panadera, with clean cloths laid over the round loaves. I chose a few rolls, opened my purse, and this vendor too gestured away my money as if I were impolite to suggest paying. I looked around in bewilderment; this was my familiar market and yet everything had changed. It wasn't just for me—no shopper was paying. I floated through the market with a sense of euphoria. Gratitude was the only currency accepted here. It was all a gift. It was like picking strawberries in my field: the merchants were just the intermediaries passing on gifts from the earth. I looked in my basket: two zucchinis, an onion, tomatoes, bread, and a bunch of cilantro. It was still half empty, but it felt full. I had everything I needed. I glanced over at the cheese stall, thinking to get some, but knowing it would be given, not sold, I decided I could do without. It's funny: Had all the things in the market merely been a very low price, I probably would have scooped up as much as I could. But when everything became a gift, I felt self-restraint. I didn't want to take too much. And I began thinking of what small presents I might bring to the vendors tomorrow. The dream faded, of course, but the feelings of euphoria and then of self-restraint remain. I've thought of it often and recognize now that I was witness there to the conversion of a market economy to a gift economy, from private goods to common wealth. And in that transformation the relationships became as nourishing as the food I was getting. Across the market stalls and blankets, warmth and compassion were changing hands. There was a shared celebration of abundance for all we'd been given. And since every market basket contained a meal, there was justice.

Unscrupulous vendors turn the situation to their advantage. In China, nouveau-riche status-seekers are spending small fortunes on counterfeit Bordeaux. A related scenario exists here vis-à-vis olive oil. “The United States is a dumping ground for bad olive oil,” Langstaff told me. It’s no secret among European manufacturers that Americans have no palate for olive oils. The Olive Center—a recent addition to the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, on the campus of the University of California at Davis—aims to change that.

I meant to run down every road and up to every house if necessary. Movement conjured appetite, specific and sharp. For carne asada fries sweating in Styrofoam. For Australian fairy bread doused in sprinkles so plastic they'd outlast the coral reefs. For jian bing and soy milk and man tou strung each morning down Beijing's hutongs, where vendors were rumored to whiten their dough with lead paint, not fatal in such quantities, but sweet, addictive, you could cultivate a dangerous passion. Every artist needs a muse, the pastry chef had said, and it occurred to me that the muse might be myself.

and Anna could smell sushi, baked bread, and frying hot dogs. She could even catch the faint tang of Indian spices- not the kinds of spices she was used to, of course, the very specific kind in pandhi curry or masala crab, but then she had never come across those flavors outside the small, beautiful corner of India that her mother had once called home. That said, this place did smell yummy. There was food everywhere she looked: street vendors, bakeries, cafés, take-out places, you name it. Hungry Heart Row, that's what this neighborhood was called, and it seemed its residents had taken that very seriously.

Obviously, in those situations, we lose the sale. But we’re not trying to maximize each and every transaction. Instead, we’re trying to build a lifelong relationship with each customer, one phone call at a time. A lot of people may think it’s strange that an Internet company is so focused on the telephone, when only about 5 percent of our sales happen through the telephone. In fact, most of our phone calls don’t even result in sales. But what we’ve found is that on average, every customer contacts us at least once sometime during his or her lifetime, and we just need to make sure that we use that opportunity to create a lasting memory. The majority of phone calls don’t result in an immediate order. Sometimes a customer may be calling because it’s her first time returning an item, and she just wants a little help stepping through the process. Other times, a customer may call because there’s a wedding coming up this weekend and he wants a little fashion advice. And sometimes, we get customers who call simply because they’re a little lonely and want someone to talk to. I’m reminded of a time when I was in Santa Monica, California, a few years ago at a Skechers sales conference. After a long night of bar-hopping, a small group of us headed up to someone’s hotel room to order some food. My friend from Skechers tried to order a pepperoni pizza from the room-service menu, but was disappointed to learn that the hotel we were staying at did not deliver hot food after 11:00 PM. We had missed the deadline by several hours. In our inebriated state, a few of us cajoled her into calling Zappos to try to order a pizza. She took us up on our dare, turned on the speakerphone, and explained to the (very) patient Zappos rep that she was staying in a Santa Monica hotel and really craving a pepperoni pizza, that room service was no longer delivering hot food, and that she wanted to know if there was anything Zappos could do to help. The Zappos rep was initially a bit confused by the request, but she quickly recovered and put us on hold. She returned two minutes later, listing the five closest places in the Santa Monica area that were still open and delivering pizzas at that time. Now, truth be told, I was a little hesitant to include this story because I don’t actually want everyone who reads this book to start calling Zappos and ordering pizza. But I just think it’s a fun story to illustrate the power of not having scripts in your call center and empowering your employees to do what’s right for your brand, no matter how unusual or bizarre the situation. As for my friend from Skechers? After that phone call, she’s now a customer for life. Top 10 Ways to Instill Customer Service into Your Company   1. Make customer service a priority for the whole company, not just a department. A customer service attitude needs to come from the top.   2. Make WOW a verb that is part of your company’s everyday vocabulary.   3. Empower and trust your customer service reps. Trust that they want to provide great service… because they actually do. Escalations to a supervisor should be rare.   4. Realize that it’s okay to fire customers who are insatiable or abuse your employees.   5. Don’t measure call times, don’t force employees to upsell, and don’t use scripts.   6. Don’t hide your 1-800 number. It’s a message not just to your customers, but to your employees as well.   7. View each call as an investment in building a customer service brand, not as an expense you’re seeking to minimize.   8. Have the entire company celebrate great service. Tell stories of WOW experiences to everyone in the company.   9. Find and hire people who are already passionate about customer service. 10. Give great service to everyone: customers, employees, and vendors.

After Mrs. Ma hurried off, Charlie tested the shaved ice and glanced at the spirits drifting into Hungry Heart Row. They'd been pouring in since dawn, wandering through the stalls that each participating restaurant had set up, clustering around a fragrant Crock-Pot of ash-e-reshte and platters full of pumpkin tamales. Across the street, Lila from the local pastelería was unboxing dozens of conchas and novias, each one more brightly colored than the last. Charlie got to work setting out the fixings. Assembling a bowl of shaved ice was a lot like making an ice cream sundae. Just replace the ice cream with slivers of ice and cover them with toppings that take on a special Asian flair- grass jelly, chunks of mango or sliced strawberries, and Waipo's mung beans in syrup.

As noted in About ESC Electrol Specialties Company began fabricating CIP System components as a vendor to one of the nations largest suppliers of cleaning chemicals to the Dairy industry more than 50 years ago. This vendor was a major provider of the engineering services, components and skilled personnel required to design and install CIPable automaed processes, for dairies initialy, and later food and beverage processors. This vendor was actively involved with new facility construction, but more importantly, also developed and applied the methodos of applying such new technology equally well to "recycle old dairies" via rennovation projects planned to provide the exisitng facility increased capacity, efficiency and quality capabilities, and keep it running during the rennovation process. This vendor worked on a design and install" basis and used its own wsanitary welding crews, even Internationally, through the mid 70s.

A visible cloud of steam rose from a long wide pipe protruding from the roof of a large concrete factory-like building nearby, and the air all around was filled with the intensely savory scent of barbecue potato chips, a flavor being manufactured in quantity for one of Southern's vendors. Grace knew that the barbecue scent came from a massive vat of liquefied compounds, which could be cooled and then poured into hundreds of fifty-five-gallon drums in the morning, carefully sealed, loaded onto tractor-trailers, and shipped out, to be warehoused for as long as two years and then, eventually, utilized in the industrial production of billions of pounds of highly processed potato-based snack foods. She knew what she smelled was a by-product from the manufacture of a highly concentrated chemical. Nevertheless, the scent evoked picnics in the park, bag lunches in elementary school lunchrooms shared over laughter with her dearest friends, long-buried feelings from childhood that rose from her heart.

Imagine going to a sporting event with sixty thousand seats around the stadium. You arrive early with your grandmother, and the two of you take the first seats. Next to your grandmother sits her grandmother, your great-great-grandmother. Next to her is your great-great-great-great-grandmother. The stadium fills with the ghosts of preceding grandmothers. An hour later the seat next to you is occupied by the last to sit down, the ancestor of you all. She nudges your elbow, and you turn to find a strange nonhuman face. Beneath a low forehead and big brow-ridge, bright dark eyes surmount a massive jaw. Her long, muscular arms and short legs intimate her gymnastic climbing ability. She is your ancestor and an australopithecine, hardly a companion your grandmother can be expected to enjoy. She grabs an overhead beam and swings away over the crowd to steal some peanuts from a vendor. She is connected to you by over three million years of rain and sun and searching for food in the rich and scary African bush.

Clark Air base in Angeles City is a hub of commerce. The streets teem with industrious Filipinos hustling to make a living. Rusty cars and trucks clog narrow streets and honk their horns with abandon. Jeepneys ferry passengers around town for only a few pesos and serve as public transportation. The jeepney is the official vehicle of the Philippines. Jeepneys are long, open-sided jeeps and have bench seats for passengers. The best jeepneys are very ornate, their hoods festooned with a multitude of fancy chrome horses and ornaments, multihued streamers, and hand-operated rubber-bulb horns. Safety standards are third-world-relaxed in the PI, and jeepney drivers casually smoke cigarettes while they sit with plastic containers of gasoline nestled between their feet. The clear plastic jugs have a tube that connects to the engine and serves as the jeepney’s improvised gas tank, making it easier for the driver to monitor and conserve fuel. Jeepneys are not the only transportation available. Small, sidecar-equipped motorcycles called tricycles, also serve as cheap taxis, crowding the streets near popular establishments. The alleys are lined with side-by-side food stalls, and street vendors occupy every corner.

Below us was a frozen lake. It was perfectly round, a great gleaming eye in which the moon and stars were mirrored. Lanterns glowing the same cold white as the aurora dangled from the lake's edge to a scattering of benches and merchant-stands, draped in bright awnings of opal and blue. Delicious smells floated on the wind---smoked fish; fire-roasted nuts and candies; spiced cakes. A winter fair.* * Outside of Russia, almost all known species of courtly fae, and many common fae also, are fond of fairs and markets; indeed, such gatherings appear in stories as the interstitial spaces between their worlds and ours, and thus it is not particularly surprising that they feature in so many encounters with the Folk. The character of such markets, however, varies widely, from sinister to benign. The following features are universal: 1) Dancing, which the mortal visitor may be invited to partake in; 2) A variety of vendors selling foods and goods which the visitor is unable to recall afterwards. More often than not, the markets take place at night. Numerous scholars have attempted to document these gatherings; the most widely referenced accounts are by Baltasar Lenz, who successfully visited two fairs in Bavaria before his disappearance in 1899.

I want more, I said, putting a hand to my stomach, which rides higher than most know. Closer to the heart. I want the jiang bing that vendor will make when she runs out of nut butter. I don't think she's arrogant. I think she's right. I want to sample jian bing from every cart in Beijing, and I want to taste what those kids are eating at home, what they don't teach in cookbooks at Le Cordon Bleu. There's so much out there--- Helplessly, I said, I haven't even told you how much I love foods wrapped in other foods. Then tell me. I tried. I tried. Banh xeo in Hanoi, I said, and duck folded in the translucent bing of northern China. I spoke of tacos in Mexico City: suadero, al pastor, gringas. South Indian dosas as long as my arm, thinner than a rib of a feather. Oh, Aida, I said when I fumbled the names of the chutneys. How can I know all I've ever want? Something will get left out. I was wrong about cilantro. Tlayudas, she said stubbornly, as if she hadn't heard. Blini. Crêpes. They're basically French jian bing, I said with a strangled laugh. Pita sandwiches. Pickle roll-ups. Calzone. Bossam! I yelled, and the dogs barked and the children cheered and the streets of old Milan rang with the imported memory of pork kissed by brine, earthy with Korean bean paste, safe in its bed of red leaf lettuce.

There were strange stories going around about adults who preyed on children. Not just for sex, but for food. Hyuck was told about people who would drug children, kill them, and butcher them for meat. Behind the station near the railroad tracks were vendors who cooked soup and noodles over small burners, and it was said that the gray chunks of meat floating in the broth were human flesh. Whether urban legend or not, tales of cannibalism swept through the markets. Mrs. Song heard the stories from a gossipy ajumma she had met there. “Don’t buy any meat if you don’t know where it comes from,” she warned darkly. The woman claimed she knew somebody who had actually eaten human flesh and proclaimed it delicious. “If you didn’t know, you’d swear it was pork or beef,” she whispered to a horrified Mrs. Song. The stories got more and more horrific. Supposedly, one father went so insane with hunger that he ate his own baby. A market woman was said to have been arrested for selling soup made from human bones. From my interviews with defectors, it does appear that there were at least two cases—one in Chongjin and the other in Sinuiju—in which people were arrested and executed for cannibalism. It does not seem, though, that the practice was widespread or even occurred to the degree that was chronicled in China during the 1958-62 famine, which killed as many as 30 million people.

Palermo is dotted everywhere with frittura shacks- street carts and storefronts specializing in fried foods of all shapes and cardiac impacts. On the fringes of the Ballarò market are bars serving pane e panelle, fried wedges of mashed chickpeas combined with potato fritters and stuffed into a roll the size of a catcher's mitt. This is how the vendors start their days; this is how you should start yours, too. If fried chickpea sandwiches don't register as breakfast food, consider an early evening at Friggitoria Chiluzzo, posted on a plastic stool with a pack of locals, knocking back beers with plates of fried artichokes and arancini, glorious balls of saffron-stained rice stuffed with ragù and fried golden- another delicious ode to Africa. Indeed, frying food is one of the favorite pastimes of the palermitani, and they do it- as all great frying should be done- with a mix of skill and reckless abandon. Ganci is among the city's most beloved oil baths, a sliver of a store offering more calories per square foot than anywhere I've ever eaten. You can smell the mischief a block before you hit the front door: pizza topped with french fries and fried eggplant, fried rice balls stuffed with ham and cubes of mozzarella, and a ghastly concoction called spiedino that involves a brick of béchamel and meat sauce coated in bread crumbs and fried until you could break someone's window with it.

I also gained a deeper appreciation of what it must have been like for my mother to be in a foreign country unable to speak the language (in her case, unable to read or write any language). As I walked around by myself, however, it was obvious that based on my body language people perceived me as American but at the same time different enough from other Americans that they felt free to come up and ask me all kinds of personal questions about where I came from, what kind of work I did, whether I was married, how many people there were in my family. Back in the 1930s when I asked personal questions like these of a Chinese student at Bryn Mawr, she reprimanded me for being too personal. I’m not sure whether that was because she came from a higher social class or because the revolution has opened things up. I answered their questions as best as I could in my limited Chinese. The ingenuity and energy of the Chinese reminded me of my father, for example, the way that they used bicycles, often transformed into tricycles, for transporting all kinds of things: little children (sometimes in a sidecar), bricks and concrete, beds and furniture. I was amazed at the number of entrepreneurs lining the sidewalks with little sewing machines ready to alter or make a garment, barbers with stools and scissors, knife sharpeners, shoe repairmen, vendors selling food and other kinds of merchandise from carts. Everywhere I went I saw women knitting, as they waited for a bus or walked along the street, as if they couldn’t waste a minute. I had never seen such an industrious people. It was unlike anything that I had witnessed in England, France, the West Indies, Africa, or the United States.

Now, there are a few dryadologists who could resist the opportunity to sample faerie food, the enchanted sort served at the tables of the courtly fae---I know several who have dedicated their careers to the subject and would hand over their eye teeth for the opportunity. I stopped at a stand offering toasted cheese---a very strange sort of cheese, threaded with glittering mold. It smelled divine, and the faerie merchant rolled it in crushed nuts before handing it over on a stick, but as soon as it touched my palm, it began to melt. The merchant was watching me, so I put it in my mouth, pantomiming my delight. The cheese tasted like snow and melted within seconds. I stopped next at a stand equipped with a smoking hut. The faerie handed me a delicate fillet of fish, almost perfectly clear despite the smoking. I offered it to Shadow, but he only looked at me with incomprehension in his eyes. And, indeed, when I popped it into my mouth, it too melted flavorlessly against my tongue. I took a wandering course to the lakeshore, conscious of the need to avoid suspicion. I paused at the wine merchant, who had the largest stand. It was brighter than the others, snow piled up behind it in a wall that caught the lantern light and threw it back in a blinding glitter. I had to look down at my feet, blinking back tears, as one of the Folk pressed an ice-glass into my hand. Like the food, the wine smelled lovely, of sugared apples and cloves, but it slid eerily within the ice, more like oil than wine. Shadow kept growling at it, as he had not with the faerie food, and so I tipped it onto the snow. Beside the wine merchant was a stand offering trinkets, frozen wildflowers that many of the Folk threaded through their hair or wove through unused buttonholes on their cloaks, as well as an array of jewels with pins in them. I could not compare them to any jewels I knew; they were mostly in shades of white and winter grey, hundreds of them, each impossibly different from the next. I selected one that I knew, without understanding how, was the precise color of the icicles that hung from the stone ledges of the Cambridge libraries in winter. But moments after I pinned it to my breast, all that remained was a patch of damp.

We've been here three days already, and I've yet to cook a single meal. The night we arrived, my dad ordered Chinese takeout from the old Cantonese restaurant around the corner, where they still serve the best egg foo yung, light and fluffy and swimming in rich, brown gravy. Then there had been Mineo's pizza and corned beef sandwiches from the kosher deli on Murray, all my childhood favorites. But last night I'd fallen asleep reading Arthur Schwartz's Naples at Table and had dreamed of pizza rustica, so when I awoke early on Saturday morning with a powerful craving for Italian peasant food, I decided to go shopping. Besides, I don't ever really feel at home anywhere until I've cooked a meal. The Strip is down by the Allegheny River, a five- or six-block stretch filled with produce markets, old-fashioned butcher shops, fishmongers, cheese shops, flower stalls, and a shop that sells coffee that's been roasted on the premises. It used to be, and perhaps still is, where chefs pick up their produce and order cheeses, meats, and fish. The side streets and alleys are littered with moldering vegetables, fruits, and discarded lettuce leaves, and the smell in places is vaguely unpleasant. There are lots of beautiful, old warehouse buildings, brick with lovely arched windows, some of which are now, to my surprise, being converted into trendy loft apartments. If you're a restaurateur you get here early, four or five in the morning. Around seven or eight o'clock, home cooks, tourists, and various passers-through begin to clog the Strip, aggressively vying for the precious few available parking spaces, not to mention tables at Pamela's, a retro diner that serves the best hotcakes in Pittsburgh. On weekends, street vendors crowd the sidewalks, selling beaded necklaces, used CDs, bandanas in exotic colors, cheap, plastic running shoes, and Steelers paraphernalia by the ton. It's a loud, jostling, carnivalesque experience and one of the best things about Pittsburgh. There's even a bakery called Bruno's that sells only biscotti- at least fifteen different varieties daily. Bruno used to be an accountant until he retired from Mellon Bank at the age of sixty-five to bake biscotti full-time. There's a little hand-scrawled sign in the front of window that says, GET IN HERE! You can't pass it without smiling. It's a little after eight when Chloe and I finish up at the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company where, in addition to the prosciutto, soppressata, both hot and sweet sausages, fresh ricotta, mozzarella, and imported Parmigiano Reggiano, all essential ingredients for pizza rustica, I've also picked up a couple of cans of San Marzano tomatoes, which I happily note are thirty-nine cents cheaper here than in New York.

A specification is a clear and concise but complete description of the exact item desired so that all vendors have a common basis for price quotations and bids. As such, it is an essential communication tool between buyer and seller. Specifications should be realistic and should not include details that cannot be verified or tested or that would make the product too costly. Without up-to-date product information, specifications are useless. The specific information varies with each type of food, but all specifications should include at least the following information:Δ Clear, simple description using common or trade or brand name of product; when possible, use a name or standard of identity formulated by the government such as IMPS Amount to be purchased in the most commonly used terms (case, package, or unit) Name and size of basic container (10/10# packages) Count and size of the item or units within the basic container (50 pork chops, 4 ounces each) Range in weight, thickness, or size Minimum and maximum trims, or fat content percentage (ground meat, 90 percent lean and 10 percent fat, referred to as 90/10) Degree of maturity or stage of ripening Type of processing required (such as individually quick-frozen [IQF]) Type of packaging desired Unit on which price will be based Weight tolerance limit (range of acceptable weights, usually in meat, seafood, and poultry)

DENGUE FEVER (BREAKBONE FEVER) Dengue fever is a viral infection found throughout Central America. In Costa Rica outbreaks involving thousands of people occur every year. Dengue is transmitted by aedes mosquitoes, which often bite during the daytime and are usually found close to human habitations, often indoors. They breed primarily in artificial water containers such as jars, barrels, cans, plastic containers and discarded tires. Dengue is especially common in densely populated, urban environments. Dengue usually causes flulike symptoms including fever, muscle aches, joint pains, headaches, nausea and vomiting, often followed by a rash. Most cases resolve uneventfully in a few days. Severe cases usually occur in children under the age of 15 who are experiencing their second dengue infection. There is no treatment for dengue fever except taking analgesics such as acetaminophen/paracetamol (Tylenol) and drinking plenty of fluids. Severe cases may require hospitalization for intravenous fluids and supportive care. There is no vaccine. The key to prevention is taking insect-protection measures. HEPATITIS A Hepatitis A is the second-most-common travel-related infection (after traveler’s diarrhea). It’s a viral infection of the liver that is usually acquired by ingestion of contaminated water, food or ice, though it may also be acquired by direct contact with infected persons. Symptoms may include fever, malaise, jaundice, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Most cases resolve without complications, though hepatitis A occasionally causes severe liver damage. There is no treatment. The vaccine for hepatitis A is extremely safe and highly effective. You should get vaccinated before you go to Costa Rica. Because the safety of hepatitis A vaccine has not been established for pregnant women or children under the age of two, they should instead be given a gammaglobulin injection. LEISHMANIASIS Leishmaniasis occurs in the mountains and jungles of all Central American countries. The infection is transmitted by sand flies, which are about one-third the size of mosquitoes. Most cases occur in newly cleared forest or areas of secondary growth. The highest incidence is in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. It causes slow-growing ulcers over exposed parts of the body There is no vaccine. RABIES Rabies is a viral infection of the brain and spinal cord that is almost always fatal. The rabies virus is carried in the saliva of infected animals and is typically transmitted through an animal bite, though contamination of any break in the skin with infected saliva may result in rabies. Rabies occurs in all Central American countries. However, in Costa Rica only two cases have been reported over the last 30 years. TYPHOID Typhoid fever is caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated by a species of salmonella known as Salmonella typhi . Fever occurs in virtually all cases. Other symptoms may include headache, malaise, muscle aches, dizziness, loss of appetite, nausea and abdominal pain. A pretrip vaccination for typoid is recommended, but not required. It’s usually given orally, and is also available as an injection. TRAVELER’S DIARRHEA Tap water is safe and of a high quality in Costa Rica, but when you’re far off the beaten path it’s best to avoid tap water unless it has been boiled, filtered or chemically disinfected (iodine tablets). To prevent diarrhea, be wary of dairy products that might contain unpasteurized milk; and be highly selective when eating food from street vendors.

It was surreal to see such normalcy in the midst of my personal crisis. The horses still raced. The vendors still served food. The world did not stop because I had a brain tumor.

I’ve often wondered what the original foods tasted like. My parents complain on a regular basis about things that have been taken away. “First they took away our two-martini lunches, then vendor-supplied golf outings, then they tried to take our guns (thank goodness that failed); when they couldn’t get our guns, then they took our cigarettes, then finally meat.

Hunger was by now as natural as walking, and we walked out of the yard and into the streets of the old city, scruffy, and beautiful, and grimy at the same time, lit up by the fires of food vendors with their clouds of sweet smoke hawking the flavors louder than the blaring brassy women tending their flames and selling the foods.

The fish vendor had delivered a sea of heavenly delights. Les gambas, large shrimp, were the size of my hand. Once cooked, they'd be lovely and pink. The oysters were enormous and beautiful, the briny scent conjuring up the sea. I couldn't remember the last time I'd swum in open water. Six years ago on a Sunday trip to the Hamptons with Eric? Oh God, I didn't want to think about him. Besides the work of shucking more than three hundred of them, oysters were easy. They'd be served raw with a mignonette sauce and lemons, along with crayfish, crab, and shrimp, accompanied by a saffron-infused aioli dipping sauce. I lifted the top of another crate, and fifty or so lobsters with spiny backs greeted me- beautiful and big, and the top portion freckled by the sea. I loved working with lobster, the way their color changed from mottled brown and orange to a fiery red when cooked. I'd use the tails for le plat principal, flambéed in cognac and simmered in a spicy tomato- my version of my grandmother's recipe for langouste à la armoricaine. The garnish? A sprig of fresh rosemary. The other crates were filled with lovely mussels, scallops, whelks, and smoked salmon filets, along with another surprise- escargots. Save for the snails, this meal would be a true seafood extravaganza.

If you need to buy a cell and you have a thousand dollars for it, then instead of wasting the entire thousand dollars on one phone, use three hundred dollars for it, and with the rest buy some food and clothes from street vendors and distribute them among the homeless people in the block. This way you are not only buying a cellphone, but also empowering small businesses as well as helping the poor. And that’s the way to end economic disparities.

Inside an H Mart complex, there will be some kind of food court, an appliance shop, and a pharmacy. Usually, there's a beauty counter where you can buy Korean makeup and skin-care products with snail mucin or caviar oil, or a face mask that vaguely boasts "placenta." (Whose placenta? Who knows?) There will usually be a pseudo-French bakery with weak coffee, bubble tea, and an array of glowing pastries that always look much better than they taste. My local H Mart these days is in Elkins Park, a town northeast of Philadelphia. My routine is to drive in for lunch on the weekends, stock up on groceries for the week, and cook something for dinner with whatever fresh bounty inspires me. The H Mart in Elkins Park has two stories; the grocery is on the first floor and the food court is above it. Upstairs, there is an array of stalls serving different kinds of food. One is dedicated to sushi, one is strictly Chinese. Another is for traditional Korean jjigaes, bubbling soups served in traditional earthenware pots called ttukbaegis, which act as mini cauldrons to ensure that your soup is still bubbling a good ten minutes past arrival. There's a stall for Korean street food that serves up Korean ramen (basically just Shin Cup noodles with an egg cracked in); giant steamed dumplings full of pork and glass noodles housed in a thick, cakelike dough; and tteokbokki, chewy, bite-sized cylindrical rice cakes boiled in a stock with fish cakes, red pepper, and gochujang, a sweet-and-spicy paste that's one of the three mother sauces used in pretty much all Korean dishes. Last, there's my personal favorite: Korean-Chinese fusion, which serves tangsuyuk---a glossy, sweet-and-sour orange pork---seafood noodle soup, fried rice, and black bean noodles.

Noryangjin is a wholesale market where you can choose live fish and seafood from the tanks of different vendors and have them sent up to be prepared in a number of cooking styles at restaurants upstairs. My mother and I were with her two sisters, Nami and Eunmi, and they had picked out pounds of abalone, scallops, sea cucumber, amberjack, octopus, and king crab to eat raw and boiled in spicy soups. Upstairs, our table filled immediately with banchan dotting around the butane burner for our stew. The first dish to arrive was sannakji---live long-armed octopus. A plate full of gray-and-white tentacles wriggled before me, freshly severed from their head, every suction cup still pulsing.

When the major met with Kufa’s mayor, he made an odd request: Could they keep food vendors out of the plazas? Sure, the mayor said. A few weeks later, a small crowd gathered near the Masjid al-Kufa, or Great Mosque of Kufa. Throughout the afternoon, it grew in size. Some people started chanting angry slogans. Iraqi police, sensing trouble, radioed the base and asked U.S. troops to stand by. At dusk, the crowd started getting restless and hungry. People looked for the kebab sellers normally filling the plaza, but there were none to be found. The spectators left. The chanters became dispirited. By 8 P.M., everyone was gone.

Whatever fear he’d instilled in people on the streets was of no consequence inside the market, packed with ramshackle stalls and vendors and food stands, smoke drifting throughout, the tang of blood and spark of magic acrid in his nostrils. And above it all, against the far wall of the enormous space, was a towering mosaic, the tiles taken from an ancient temple in Pangera, restored and re-created here in loving detail, despite its gruesome depiction: cloaked and hooded death, the skeleton’s face grinning out from the cowl, a scythe in one hand and an hourglass in the other. Above its head, words had been crafted in the Republic’s most ancient language: Memento Mori.

I stopped worrying about the precise amounts of tiny caviar pearls that went atop each pillow of cheese, and started looking around me to see what the other chefs were doing. As I knew, Vanilla Joe on my left was handing out his homemade pigs in a blanket, his hand-ground sausages wrapped in what looked like hand-rolled pastry, all served with a variety of dipping sauces he must also have made himself (including vanilla aioli, obviously). The judges were at his station now. From the big, cheesy grin on Vanilla Joe's mustached mouth and the rhapsodizing tones of Charles Weston's and Maz's voices that floated my way, they loved it. I scowled. On my other side, Kaitlyn looked to be handing out arancini balls atop a bed of crisp greens and pickled vegetables. Probably tasty, but hard to eat in one bite---the judges always took that into account. She was laughing and talking with each guest, assembling her dishes in a way that looked totally effortless; was she even sweating at all? Guests wandered by with charred meat on a skewer, alternating with ripe chunks of watermelon and tomato. In the distance I could see Kel cooking up spoon bread with what looked like mushrooms. Megan was frying dumplings, which made my mouth water thinking about the inner mixture of pork and cabbage and water chestnuts. When I saw somebody eating takoyaki balls, I assumed that was Bald Joe's work----after all, the tender balls of fried dough and octopus were a traditional Japanese street food. Somebody else had soup shooters.

Even, sometimes, top-down fiat: see the strange case of pad Thai, a Chinese-origin noodle dish (like ramen) that got “Thaified” with tamarind and palm sugar and decreed the national street food by the 1930s dictator Phibun—part of his campaign that included renaming Siam as Thailand, banning minority languages, and pushing Chinese vendors off the streets.

As soon as we emerge from the tube and walk through the limestone archway on Borough High Street, we are bombarded by purveyors of everything from fresh vegetables and buttery pastries to goat's milk ice cream and soft, eggy strands of pasta. Hugh lets me wander up and down the aisles, and I stop to watch one vendor stir a three-foot-wide paella pan, offering up piping hot bowls of tender prawns and rice to a throng of hungry customers.

A fanfare of plastic flags with cutout patterns of skeletons flapped noisily in the air and overhead a piñata swayed, waiting for the hard blows of the breaking ceremony. He searched through the crowd lined up for the puppet show, then glanced down Olvera Street. The street had been closed to traffic for a long time now and looked like a Mexican marketplace, with stands selling boldly colored ceramics and paper flowers. He didn't see Serena, but her brother, Collin, had said she had gone to the Día de los Muertos celebration with Jimena. He turned to see candy skulls with green sequin eyes and frosting lips staring back at him from a stall. When the vendor looked away, he grabbed three and tossed one into his mouth. The sugar dissolved with tangy sweetness. He spun around, sensing other eyes. An old woman shook her head at him as she placed a bowl of spicy-smelling sauce on her ofrenda. Orange flowers, white candles, and faded snapshots of her dead relatives covered the altar. Stanton liked the way some people waited for the spirits of their loved ones to come back and visit, while others were terrified at the thought. The old woman placed a sign on the table: SINCE DEATH IS INEVITABLE, IT SHOULD NOT BE FEARED, BUT HONORED. "Not for everyone," he said softly. She looked at him. "What's not for everyone?" "Death." He smiled.

Practice, Ami. There is no talent without practice." And practice you did. You hacked at livers and pig brains for sisig, spent hours over a hot stove for the perfect sourness to sinigang. You dug out intestines and wound them around bamboo sticks for grilled isaw, and monitored egg incubation times to make balut. Lola didn't frequent clean and well-lit farmers markets. Instead, you accompanied her to a Filipino palengke, a makeshift union of vendors who occasionally set up shop near Mandrake Bridge and fled at the first sight of a police uniform. Popular features of such a palengke included slippery floors slicked with unknown ichor; wet, shabby stalls piled high with entrails and meat underneath flickering light bulbs; and enough health code violations to chase away more gentrification in the area. Your grandmother ruled here like some dark sorceress and was treated by the vendors with the reverence of one. You learned how to make the crackled pork strips they called crispy pata, the pickled-sour raw kilawin fish, the perfect full-bodied peanuty sauce for the oxtail in your kare-kare. One day, after you have mastered them all, you will decide on a specialty of your own and conduct your own tests for the worthy. Asaprán witches have too much magic in their blood, and not all their meals are suitable for consumption. Like candy and heartbreak, moderation is key. And after all, recipes are much like spells, aren't they? Instead of eyes of newt and wings of bat they are now a quarter kilo of marrow and a pound of garlic, boiled for hours until the meat melts off their bones. Pots have replaced cauldrons, but the attention to detail remains constant.

I spent my time between the hospital and Sloan’s house where I watered her plants and brought in packages. I washed whatever laundry she left when she did her momentary stops at home to shower and change before heading back to the ICU. I checked her mail. I’d made all the calls to her wedding vendors to cancel the wedding until further notice. At the hospital I brought books, magazines, coffee, and food for Sloan so she never had to leave her bedside vigil for anything trivial. Then I went home to my empty house. I cleaned for hours on end. I pulled out the contents of every cabinet in my kitchen and washed it all. I wiped out the drawers in the bathroom. I took apart my bed to vacuum underneath, and all the vacuum lines on the carpet had to be in just the right direction. I detailed the grout in my laundry room. I took a toothpick to the cracks in the stove, and I thirsted for relief from my own mind. My perfectionism was something I harnessed and cultivated for my own purposes. Something useful that made me focused so I could get things done. But now it was spiraling. None of the rituals made it better. Nothing shut off the urges or satisfied the feelings of incompleteness. Nothing gave me control again. I missed Josh. I missed him like I missed my sanity. It had become clear, almost immediately, that the burden of saving him from himself was going to fall on me.

dozens of vendors offering food pills that would allow him not to eat for three days, people selling dehydrated water, and all sorts of things that,

We even made it to the holy mecca of Brooklyn food fanaticism: Smorgasburg, a collection of food vendors that battle it out for the most outrageously delicious, ridiculously inventive food. We duly ate our heads off, sampling panko-crusted chicken sandwiches topped with pickled cucumbers and daikon, brown butter cookies doused in flies of sea salt, and the coup d'état- gigantic, billowy doughnuts from a Bed-Stuy bakery called Dough, one sweetly flavored with hibiscus, the other a savory, roasted café au last varietal.

The narrow streets are lined with food stalls and vendor carts and plain, identical buildings—with one notable exception: Slurps and Burps (the Dizznee family’s tremendously popular apothecary), which adds a bold splash of color and a topsy-turvy style of architecture, along with a door that belches when anyone enters or exits.

I pulled into the parking lot, went inside, turned down a free sample of nasty-looking Bourbon chicken from a vendor in the food court, and proceeded to Gamer's Castle. "Hi," said the gawky teenager behind the counter. I nodded and briefly looked through the racks of role-playing game merchandise. There was Dungeons and Dragons stuff out the wazoo, and even kits for hosting your own murder mystery parties, should I ever grow weary of having my murder mystery needs satisfied by real life.

TINY CRAB CAKES 1 egg 1½ cups fresh breadcrumbs (see Note) ¼ cup finely chopped scallions (2–3 scallions) 1 tablespoon mayonnaise 1 teaspoon lemon juice (juice of about ⅙ medium lemon) ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce ¼ teaspoon seafood seasoning mix, such as Old Bay 8 ounces fresh lump-style crabmeat, picked over 2–3 tablespoons vegetable oil Scallion brushes for garnish (optional; see page 19) MAKES ABOUT 24 MINI CAKES (4–6 SERVINGS) 1. To make the Curry-Orange Mayo, whisk together the mayonnaise, curry powder, orange zest, orange juice, and Tabasco in a small bowl. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days. When ready to serve, transfer to a pretty bowl and sprinkle with the scallions. 2. To make the crab cakes, lightly beat the egg in a large bowl. Add ¾ cup of the breadcrumbs, the scallions, mayonnaise, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and seasoning mix. Stir well to blend. Add the crabmeat and mix gently, being careful not to shred the crabmeat entirely. 3. Spread the remaining ¾ cup of breadcrumbs onto a plate. Form the crab mixture into 24 cakes, using a scant tablespoon for each one, and dredge lightly in the crumbs. Arrange on a wax paper-lined baking sheet. 4. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in one or two large skillets over medium heat. Cook the cakes until golden brown and crisp on one side, about 2 to 2½ minutes. Flip and repeat. The cakes should be hot inside. Repeat with any remaining cakes, adding more oil as necessary. Serve immediately, or place on a foil-lined baking sheet, wrap well, and refrigerate for up to 24 hours, or freeze for up to 2 weeks. 5. If you make the cakes ahead, remove from the refrigerator or freezer 30 minutes prior to reheating. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Bake the cakes until hot and crisp, 10 to 15 minutes. 6. Arrange on a platter with the sauce for dipping, and garnish with the scallion brushes, if desired. Note: Tear 3 slices of good-quality bread into pieces and whir in a food processor to make breadcrumbs. Portland Public Market The Portland Public Market, which opened in 1998, continues Maine’s long tradition of downtown public markets, dating back to the 19th century. Housed in an award-winning brick, glass, and wood structure, the market, which was the brainchild of Maine philanthropist Elizabeth Noyce, is a food-lover’s heaven. Vendors include organic produce farms; butchers selling locally raised meat; purveyors of Maine-made cheeses, sausages, and smoked seafood; artisan bakers; and flower sellers. Prepared take-away food includes Mexican delicacies, pizza, soups, smoothies, and sandwiches, and such well-known Portland culinary stars as Sam Hayward (see page 127) and Dana Street (see page 129) have opened casual dining concessions.

Not that I don't treat myself to a Papaya King hotdog sometimes, or maybe a falafel sandwich from a street vendor. And occasionally Gus will take me somewhere nice to "develop my palate," but that's rare. Though I can't afford anything sold at them, I do love wandering through the fancy gourmet markets, especially the one at Bloomingdale's. That place is so amazing, Meemaw. You have never seen so much good stuff in one place. I looked for Schrafft's when I first got here- wanting to eat a butterscotch sundae like the one you told me about- but I think they've all shut down. Mostly I shop at this really cheap grocery store I found in Spanish Harlem. They sell cheap cuts of meat- oxtail, trotters, and pigs' ears- as well as all varieties of offal. (I always think of you, Meemaw, when eating livers, think of you eating them every Sunday after church at The Colonnade.) I like to poke around the Asian markets, too, bringing home gingerroot, lemongrass, fish sauce, dehydrated shrimp, wonton wrappers, dozens of different chilies, and soft little candies wrapped in rice paper that dissolves in your mouth. As a special treat I go to the green market in Union Square on the weekends- which is a farmer's market smack-dab in the middle of downtown. Even though I really can't afford the produce, I'll often splurge anyway, arriving home with one or two perfect things- carrots the color of rubies with bright springy tops, or a little bag of fingerling potatoes, their skins delicate and golden.

Vendors walked among the crowds both inside and out selling the bubbly, cold white wine Tirulia was known for along with savory little treats: bread topped with triangles of cheese and olive oil, paper cones filled with crispy fried baby squid, sticks threaded with honey-preserved chestnuts that glittered in the sunlight.

Fines, often in the thousands of dollars, are assessed against many prisoners when they are sentenced. There are twenty-two fines that can be imposed in New Jersey, including the Violent Crime Compensation Assessment (VCCA), the Law Enforcement Officers Training & Equipment Fund (LEOT), and Extradition Costs (EXTRA). The state takes a percentage each month out of a prisoner’s wages to pay for penalties. It can take decades to pay fines. Some 10 million Americans owe $50 billion in fees and fines because of their arrest or imprisonment, according to a 2015 report by the Brennan Center. If a prisoner who is fined $10,000 at sentencing relies solely on a prison salary, he or she will owe about $4,000 after making monthly payments for twenty-five years. Prisoners often leave prison in debt to the state. And if they cannot continue to make regular payments—difficult because of high unemployment among ex-felons—they are sent back to prison. High recidivism is part of the design. Most of the prison functions once handled by governments have become privatized. Corporations run prison commissaries and, since the prisoners have nowhere else to shop, often jack up prices by as much as 100 percent. Corporations have taken over the phone systems and grossly overcharge prisoners and their families. They demand exorbitant fees for money transfers from families to prisoners. And corporations, with workshops inside prisons, pay little more than a dollar a day to prison laborers. Food and merchandise vendors, construction companies, laundry services, uniform companies, prison equipment vendors, cafeteria services, manufacturers of pepper spray, body armor, and the array of medieval-looking instruments used for the physical control of prisoners, and a host of other contractors feed like jackals off prisons. Prisons, in America, are big business.

at the wedding the ceremony and the reception is for the bride, the honeymoon is for the groom, the food is for the guest, the money is for the vendors, and the empty bank account is for the parents

Q: Did you know? A: Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water. > A Buddhist monk approaches a burger food-truck and says, “Make me one with everything.  > The Buddhist monk pays with a $20 bill, which the vendor takes, puts in his cash box, and closes the lid.  > Where’s my change?  > The monk asks. > The vendor replies: > “change comes from within.

To experience Mexico City is to be absorbed into its history. Every street and plaza pulsates with vestiges of the past – palaces, cathedrals, and the ruins of unearthed temples stand alongside bustling markets, informal vendors and food stands.

The second market, the Palace of Bone and Salt, was one of the Twin Squares: one on this side of the river, the other one—the Palace of Hoof and Leaf—across it, both crammed with vendors selling meat, produce, prepared foods, livestock, confections, spices … So many spices, scents familiar and forgotten from those precious years when I had known the comfort of an invincible father and bottomless wealth.