January 29, 2006

Selling a couch for couscous...

Yesterday I read the most marvellous story in my local paper. There was this lady, in her late sixties I would guess, who wanted to get rid of an old couch. Therefore she asked the owner of her local shop here in my town if she could put up a note in the shop. Then he asked what she wanted for the couch (apparently he needed one), but she didn´t want to sell it, she just wanted to give it away.
Since he insisted on giving her something for the couch they agreed on him getting it in exchange of him arranging an event in the shop to give the customers a chance to taste some of the "exotic" foods he has to offer, like couscous and wine leaf domladas and such. The lady in question had seen these food items but dared not buy it because she didn´t know what it was like and how to cook it.

You should have seen the feature in the paper, it was so wonderful. Elderly ladies sitting on their (ah, I don´t know the word in English. Rullator in Swedish, it is a small carriage on wheels which you can lean on and with a basket to put things in and a little seat to rest in), eating dolmadas with great delight, and couscous salad. A great success! Next time he was going to arrange a taste of Finnish food which are sold in many shops here since we have a lot of Finnish immigrants.
Food is such a big part of our culture, and learning to try new things and least of all wanting to, is so important. This story warms my heart, really!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Clivia,

What a wonderful story! Thank you for sharing. It's proof that food (and I guess couches) unite everyone!

Ciao!

Journal Actif said...

It's so great to hear such things happening. Couscous! Our national food in Morocco. I'm glad this nice shop owner allowed these ladies to have a taste of other country's food. And I'm even more please with these ladies to be open-minded enough to want to taste it. It's not always the case infortunately.
Thanks Clivia for such a heart warming story.

Clivia said...

Yes isn´t it sweet! Again: make food, not war!

Anonymous said...

What a fun story. Thanks for sharing. Your story reminded me of another funny couch story by Rob Bloom who's a humor writer here in the States. His funny couch story is on his website at http://www.robbloom.com/creative.html
The actual story is at http://www.robbloom.com/creative/couch.htm

Have a good laugh!

Anonymous said...

That is a really great story! That's news I really am interested in.
My mother used one of those fancy walkers. She considered calling it a Rolls but decided it was more a Bently. I guess she would have like to have a Bently over a Roll Royce! But on Halloween, it turned into a witch's broom.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the post about the Rob Bloom humor piece about selling a couch. Very cheery!