Here's the latest from Rinie.



"A few more from the market. It's a nice place to go, although it's often so busy that you can't move ahead. I thought of Leighton of course, although this is far from a farmer's market with one's own produce. There's a small 'organic' farmer's market on Tuesday in the city, but I've never been there, as it's finished when I come home from work.
Nevertheless, it's a nice place to go and take pictures as well. Rotterdam houses 169 different nationalities and a lot of products from all sorts of countries can be bought here. Lovely!  

Here's my supplier from North African decent (Morocco),  for dried fruits, nuts, olives, herbs (cilantro, mint) and Moroccan and Turkish food. He's a very kind guy, laughs a lot, and addresses you in Arabic, Dutch, Italian, French. Don't know whether he speaks those languages well, but I do think so. His Dutch is perfect, and his Italian and French sound very good too. He said he was afraid of my lens, and I told him she was a sophisticated old lady, who scares no one.

Raw herring (fresh catch) is VERY popular in the Netherlands, you'll find shops and market places everywhere. 

Here's some one who prepares it. When I asked whether I could take his picture, a woman standing beside me made all sorts of comments, like "smile" look at her' laugh in the lens" etc. Laughing at me as well. Should have taken her picture.....

And this is how you eat it. Take it by the tail, and eat it with cut raw onions. Curtis likes it very much too. (I don't eat it, I'm not a fish eater though I try to learn to, but raw herring is a bit too far yet).

We have a big Chinese community in the Netherlands, very active in the restaurant business but that business is declining and they are trying to do everything to turn that. Make the restaurants more modern etc. But the older people hardly speak any Dutch, it has always been a very 'closed' community. Older people used to be part of the family untill they died, but now often they go to older people's homes, where it is quite difficult for them as often they hardly speak the Dutch language. Nowadays they tend to do better, but when the restaurant business was declining, they had a hard time as they had problems finding their way to social security.  

Anyway, here are two older Chinese people on the market."

The lady @ f/2.8 and the gentleman @ f/1.8