Budget Market shopping - Shuk HaCarmel - Tel Aviv

Not all shopping is therapy but Open Market Food Shopping is an energy booster of another kind.
It can be nourishing, exhilarating, and always surprising.
The colours, the smells, the very sound of LIFE itself.  I go with a list but often stray as you can never know what's abundant on that day (and usually cheapest)  Much like flea markets, go with a 'general ' search but be open to grab unexpected opportunities.  

I love shopping at the open food market and getting bargain prices, most of the produce here were at at least 1/2 price or even less, lemons, kiwis, plums, nectarines, apples, peppers, carrots, courgettes, aubergines (shakshuka) tomatoes.

So the lemons here are not perfectly yellow and glossy.  They ARE thin-skinned and bursting with juice.  The tomatoes juicy soft, if not used immediately are painlessly moved from fridge to freezer for the perfect sauce-making dish at a later date, nothing wasted!
A reduced price doesn't mean lesser quality, on the contrary, it means they are ripe now! it could also mean they are less 'attractive' and weird shaped but perfectly tasty and consumable. For fruit or veg shakes who's going to see or even care about the shape of the fruit?  Plus fully ripe produce makes the best flavourful drinks ever.

So what the apples are a bit blotchy, they'll do very nicely once cleaned and cubed in a freshly baked apple pie, and hey! at 1/3 of the regular price who's going to know the difference.  The taste will be the same if not better as these apples are at their peak!   The bag on the bottom left is a bag of assorted salamis, pastramis and other cold meats, also at a reduced price (perfectly fresh, just the ends of, or close to the ends of the roll).
Used for either sandwich fillers, omelets, pasta, pizza topping or simply frozen for a lovely minestrone soup some wintery day.

In essence, what the buyer is paying is TIME.
The longer the shelf life, the longer the time we have before we MUST use it or loose it.

Couldn't resist adding this lovely display of bacon. 

Both my sons have tried to follow the fad and be vegetarians, then they say Mum goes on "Bacon Alert!" and all their hopes are dashed.