I met Anna as she dug through a mound of packed pea pods. She had a slightly prickly look about her, as if she might not be interested in talking, but as soon as she understood that I wasn’t trying to take advantage of her, she relaxed and started to tell me stories about her life and her attachment to the Market.

Since moving to Philadelphia from the Ukraine in 1950 at the age of 24, she has shopped at the Market regularly. Now that she’s retired, Anna stops in almost every day to hunt for bargains on fresh vegetables. She told me that Iovine’s and OK Lee often compete with each other, so if one lowers a price a bit, the other will respond by making their prices five or ten cents lower on the same item. That’s when she swoops in and snatches up the bargain.

“I save ten cents here and ten cents there, and it makes a difference. The prices of everything else keep going up, up. I have to save someplace.”

When I asked her what she liked to cook, she patted my arm and leaned in, as if to protect a big secret from the prying ears around us. “I’m not a fancy cooker. I eat meat very rarely. Vegetables, lots of vegetables. That’s the secret to staying healthy!”

She jabbed the arm with her finger then, to emphasis her point. She cooks her vegetables quickly, in a little olive oil with lots of garlic and onions, but always making sure that they aren’t too crunchy, as her digestion can’t handle that anymore. She admonished me not to cook vegetables in water, because all the vitamins rinse away when you drain them.

After instructing me on her method of cooking, she adjusted the fishing hat she was wearing over her short, gray hair and said, “You’re young.  Follow my advice.  Eat vegetables and stay away from fried foods.”  I assured her that I ate quite a lot of veggies and that I would continue to do so (I made no promises about the fried foods though).

Anna was fascinating to talk to, because she had definite opinions and didn’t hesitate sharing them. When she was 15 years old, World War II had broken out and she was enlisted into the forced labor movement in the Ukraine.  She told me about coming to America when she was 24 with her four-year-old son.  She said that she always called it her “milk and honey country” and that she still thinks that it is the best country in the whole world.  She is firmly opposed to the war in Iraq, which she feels is very different from World War II.  She hates how people with children and families are dying for nothing.

After 15 minutes of non-stop talking, blocking the display of pea pods at OK Lee’s, she took a deep breath in and said, “I’ve bored you enough.  I should finish my shopping and go home.”  I thanked her for her time, we shook hands and she went on her way.  Hopefully I’ll run into her again soon, as I think she has many more interesting stories to tell.