Oh the charm of my local veggie lady, who sets up stall in Tossicia on Friday mornings rain or shine. She oozes rapport and could teach some of the so-called ‘Retail Experts’ a thing or two about selling and getting your customer to come back time after time.

Each week she gives us a special little freebie treat, this week her parting gift was a huge bag of sweet and beautiful new season peas from Puglia; not too heavy on food miles over the border so to speak, with but a skip & jump over Molise, and of course using an environmentally-friendly brown paper bag with a little array of butterflies printed on one side for good measure, arh those little extra touches that shopping locally in Italy delivers.  It’s such a shame that supermarkets still insist on plastic bags to pick up your fruit and veg. Now it’s just decisions decisions as to how and what they will be served with…

Author: Sam Dunham

Sam is a very lucky midlife Mum to A who is 13 and juggles working as a freelance SEO copywriter with teaching IGCSEs at Istituto Cristo Re in Rome. She is the founder of the Life In Abruzzo Cultural Association, co-founder of Let's Blog Abruzzo and the 'English in the Woods' initiative.