Five Market Finds That Changed How I Cook

None of them were expensive. All of them quietly rearranged the way I think about a Tuesday dinner.

The best cooking advice I ever got came from a woman selling anchovies out of a wooden crate. Buy the good ones, she said, and you will need almost nothing else. She was right, and it cost me four euros to learn it.

A market teaches you seasonality faster than any book. You notice what is loud and cheap and piled high, and you build the week around it instead of against it.

Cook what is in front of you. The season is a better recipe than the recipe.

These days I shop with a loose idea and an open bag. What I come home with decides dinner. It is slower, and occasionally inconvenient, and it has made me a far happier cook.