More reasons to move to Hillsborough

#7, the Jockey Lot. Not technically in Hillsborough, but only a few minutes away, the Jockey Lot is a big flea market on Buckhorn Road just outside of Efland. North Carolina is currently experiencing a major demographic change as an influx of workers from Mexico have flooded in over the last decade or so, working in agriculture, the mills, construction, etc. Take a drive down Highway 70 toward Burlington and you'll find a dozen business that were once empty now occupied by Mexican grocers and restaurants. Spanish language newspapers are easy to find.

The full impact of the Mexican immigration really hits home when you go to the Jockey Lot.

Flea Markets used to be as lilly white a gathering place as you can imagine. Now, walking through the central tent mainstreets of the Jockey Lot has the feel of walking through an open air market in Mexico (or so I imagine, not having actually been to Mexico). Vendors are set up hawking everything from lingerie to bootleg videos to seafood. You can walk past several tents without seeing or hearing a single word of English.

I went there Saturday with Joy Marchand (pictured above), fellow Codexian and culinary artiste. We browsed among stands full of the most amazing fresh vegetables you can imagine. Ripe, juicy tomatoes were fifty cents a pound. Avacados at the perfect peak of ripeness were going for eighty cents each. Limes were ten for a buck. We bought some shrimp that looked like they'd been swimming in the ocean a few hours before, and some fresh cat fish, whiskers and all. Later that day we made salsa and ceviche that rivaled anything I've had in a restaurant, and we chased it down with fresh mangos and watermelon. Yum!

Since the internet has yet developed a way for me to transmit the tastes and smells of the rewards of Jockey Lot shopping, I hope you'll be content with the following photos, snapped by Ms. Marchand, who turns out to be as talented with a camera as she is with a keyboard. Get ready to feel hungry....