Willow texts Winona and asks if she wants to go to the market this weekend. Winona replies, asking which market?

Willow said that she has heard of a farmer’s market that has started up in one of the parks.

Winona asks if she means the one in Thorndon, or Te Aro, or on the waterfront?

Once this is clarified, Winona notes that the weather will be bad this weekend. Perhaps, she suggests, they can go together to the crafts market instead?

If Winona means the one at the museum in Lower Hutt, then Willow doesn’t want to go to that one, since she would rather go to the one that takes place in that bar downtown, on Sunday.

Winona actually meant one that is taking place this weekend in a pop-up shop.

By now, both of them are staring at their cell phones, uncertain of how to reply.

Winona is vexed. Markets used to be special. But dairies and fruit shops used to be special, too. Coming back from three years in a London made bland by globalization, she is starting to realize that, while it may be virtuous to buy from a table that appears once a week, it’s also good to give money to stores that aren’t franchise clones.

Willow, contemplating her mortgage-tightened budget, is obliged to admit that very few of these markets sell anything she actually needs. She has a limited requirement for felt owls, beaded jewelry, screenprinted merino, or tea cosies. Even the food markets in Wellington, which once had slightly imperfect vegetables sold off the back of a truck, now focus on $6 loaves of bread and expensive confections.

Winona ends the deadlock by suggesting that they just catch up over coffee, instead. She wants Willow’s advice on her upcoming job interview next week.

Tags:   food · social mores · willow · winona2 Comments