When your mom gets you up early to go shopping for vegetables, and you're a 10-year-old boy, you might look something like this when she asks for a picture. :)
A sweet expat lady offered to show us how to market at the local palengke, so we decided to take her up on that one weekday when David was traveling and wouldn't need our van to get to work. We picked her up at her place, and she directed us to the side streets of Makati where the everyday magic happens.
You want fresh, shredded coconut? No problem. Just buy a coconut for about $.80 U.S., and then this guy will use his shredder to clean it out for ya. This makes those plastic bags of shredded coconut I always bought at Harris Teeter look pretty sad.
What's that you say? You want coconut milk? And not from a can? Well, this guy will take those coconut shreds the other guy gave you and squeeze them in this little vise you see here, and then the milk will run down this clean pan and into a plastic bag. Take that home and put it in a pitcher for a refreshing drink. It'll last a few days in the fridge.
Last stop before heading home was the local panderia. The locals buy their rolls fresh daily from places like this. We got a bag of steaming hot pandesal, but that wasn't all. We also discovered pan de coco. That's pandesal with shredded coconut baked inside. It's about 6 cents a roll, and it's just a little sweet and totally delish.
(Evan is ready to go home in this pic. But he definitely enjoyed the pandesal on the way home. Don't cry for him, Argentina.)
If you're local, you can find this daily market off of Evangelista St. in Makati. Go before 8:00 to find it fully open. I hear it closes up during the heat of the day and starts up again as people are headed home from work.
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