Carrefour
Tuesday, June 27
In addition to Angelo’s vegetable shop and Rosalia’s pop-up vegetable stand in front of her house, the small supermarket in the village was another important shop for us, where we often did our shopping.
Although the supermarket is quite small in terms of area, you can basically buy everything you need there. The large vegetable department with fresh fruit and vegetables, which can be seen here in my illustration, is particularly beautiful. If you walk past the vegetable department, you walk along a narrow aisle and end up at a large deli counter at the end of the aisle. All kinds of hard cheese, mozzarella, ricotta and also ham, porchetta and mortadella are sold there. However, cheese and cold cuts are not only available here to take home. Behind the counter is a large basket full of rolls that you can have freshly made on site. A dream especially for Christoph, who loves a good sandwich! Despite the language barrier, we actually managed to order a sandwich for Christoph at the fresh food counter in the supermarket on one of our first days in Grottole. As generous as the sandwiches were topped with ham and mozzarella, it made the perfect lunch or picnic food when we were out picnicking in the fields above Grottole.
It was always a highlight to shop in this little supermarket because the people working there were all so welcoming and nice. After we had acquired a little Italian, we were also able to have a few short conversations. Because we shopped there so often, we quickly became friends with Teresa who works there, who treated us incredibly patiently and kindly with every purchase. Over the course of the next three weeks that we spent in Grottole, we had many nice conversations with Teresa, got a lot of helpful advice on various products and preparation methods, and bought a large number of sandwiches at the deli counter.
