Groceries From Neighborhood Markets
One of my favorite aspects of living in The Netherlands is the abundance of markets, local mom & pop shops, and accessibility to multiple grocery stores.
Because food here has so little preservatives, you honestly can only buy fresh food a few days at a time. For example, if we get bread from our bakery on Monday - it will have mold by Friday. Although it might sound inconvenient to have to get groceries so often, it’s actually such a part of the lifestyle here to get a tote bag worth of fresh food each day. Typically, we have our breakfast and lunch staples that we purchase every few days and then we plan out dinner a day or two in advance, and grab whatever else we need to make it.
Not every single neighborhood of the country is like this, but we choose to live in the north part of Haarlem and we can easily walk to 10+ markets. Some of these are only open once a week, but others are open daily.
Here’s some of my favorite things we buy at the local markets or small neighborhood mom and pop shops that specialize in one specific thing (for example a cheese shop, bakery, tea, etc).
Local Eggs // They’re so fresh that I’ve found feathers stuck to them multiple times, which was such a shock after getting crispy clean white eggs at grocery stores in the US for so many stores.
Flowers // We actually have three different flower stands within a half mile of our apartment but one of them is my favorite. Can you believe these roses were $3.50?! You can see the big mixed bouquets in the front are only $7.50 as well. The prices are so good and they last for almost two weeks.
Honey // There’s a stand at the Thursday street market that has local honey. Their bee farm is less than 20 miles from our apartment, which is super cool. The owner is really knowledgable and passionate. It’s been fun to taste test different types of honey. I enjoy it with tea, or my daily date yogurt bowls.
Marcona Almonds and Garlic Olives // Oh.my.god. These are beyond addicting. They’re both only at the Thursday market from the Yuksel Deli stand. We have never made them last past Tuesday lol.
Apples // This might be a little skewed as it is apple season but wow the apples have been absolutely delicious lately. So crispy!
Bakery Bread, Croissants and Oatmeal Cookies // Let’s just say, we’re at the Haarlem Bakery at least three times a week. We get our loaves, fresh pastries and cookies there. If you come visit us, we will force you to go and try it for yourself.
