Vegetables and the Feria.

My diet has been consisting mostly of six things: olive oil, bread, tomatoes, oranges, cheese and sausage. I've not been cooking for myself much. When I do, I can only keep making the same old thing. Rice with eggplant or calabacin (long things) - oh yeah, zucchini!
I try to buy my vegetables from the same place. Behind the clock tower of the church in Plaza San Lorenzo, with the grass growing on top of it, and the sun hitting the grass, way up there, there is an unmarked metal sliding door that opens between 9 and 2:30 usually. I buy my stuff there despite occasional interminable waits behind ladies with rolling baskets, because it's good. The older man who runs the place is always as quick as his style of service permits, and pleasantly cordial. When you ask for oranges, you are asked for what purpose you want them. That goes for many other kinds of vegetables as well. These tomatoes are good for salads, those ones are perfect for salmorejo. He knows where his stuff comes from - these eggs are from the mountains; they're the best ones around. The oranges come with a coating of dust, and often there are leaves in the bin. Again, you never pick them for yourself. It is very awkward to get used to telling someone, "I want 5 mushrooms, 3 oranges and 2 tomatoes." I never think about the numerical quantity of fruit - it is always more of a rough feeling - how large of a bag-full I want. Especially with mushrooms. This week señor whoever he is, is closing at 2, as are many shops, due to the Feria.
There are vegetables at the supermarket in my neighborhood. They are really lame though, and there is only a small selection.
I don't really get the Feria. I prefer Semana Santa. I don't get that either, but I can more easily justify it and mentally understand the reason - it seems to have something of more depth behind it. The night before last I ended up there with Amanda, my southern belle friend. Sevilla suits her fine, as she's spent recent years in Miami. We put flowers in our hair and arreglar-ed ourselves. The bars in the center of the city have been unusually dead this whole week. We did find one near the cathedral full of people, and with 5 men drinking manzanilla, still seated on their horses. They of course had the full grey outfits with flat-topped hat. As we both love horses, we stood and stared until a Dutch guy came and told us we should go see the Feria. I'd never been in the Remedios - the neighborhood across the river where the feria-grounds are. It wasn't hard to find. We followed the stream of people and the first street we got to had an enormous spectacle of light at the end. It was no wonder the streets have been dead at night. The Dutch man said a million people come to the feria. I don't know over what time period, but I believe it could have been all at once - each evening, or each day. Decked out tents ran for great distances, in branching alleys. All week many women have been appearing even in the city and all the neighborhoods, attired for it. As far as I can see, it is the dresses that it's all about. And maybe the horses - though I have to go during the day to see them, as they are off limits during the night. This is of course the whole purpose of Sevillanas (the dance, a verse from which I took the title of this blog). Of course people in their dresses were dancing them in many of the tents, but it seemed slightly half-heartedly in many cases. The best was a group of young girls dancing outside the tents. The vast majority of women in this huge crowd in this enormous fairground, were dressed in the "flamenco" dresses, ruffles, hair piled up, combs, and huge flower on the top of the head. And they were of all ages. To Amanda and me it was bizarre. There are a couple of public tents, although it was not at all obvious which they were. The rest are like many, many private parties all held together in a public place. It really doesn't make any sense. As a teenager, it would have been exciting - a perfect place to hang out in your beautiful dress and dance with a cute boy, and maybe while hanging out just outside the tent, you might meet a new boy you don't know, from a neighboring tent. Other than that, it seems a bit meaningless. But again, that was my thought about Semana Santa when I tried to go alone, without locals. As far as a venue for wearing a beautiful dress and showing off, I find it totally illogical. If I were to go to a private party in a stunning dress, I'd prefer to go to some swank place, rather than an enormous dirt lot, surrounded by fairground candy sellers. Sure, one of the tents we saw was decorated more beautifully, and the insides were hidden, with security guards on the outside (only one out of hundreds, that we saw), but that is even more illogical. Why not go to an exclusive restaurant on the banks of the river? Obviously a tradition that has evolved from something that once made sense. Semana Santa on the other hand doesn't seem inappropriate, and has elements I find profound.
I wouldn't mind seeing the Rocio, a similar event, but in the form of a pilgrimage.