Rock the Casbah: Nagi Mediterranean Grocery

Where to go? Where to go? Monday night, 7:15. I'd gotten sucked into an hour and a half of "Project Runway" at my mom's house (shameful, I know, but what can I say? I don't have tv at my house, so I have no natural immunity to bad reality programing.) Not much is open on a Monday night besides restaurants (but I did not want to eat out) and bars (I didn't want to drink alone, and Billy was at the Y). I could have gone to the hospital where my step-sister was in labor with her first child (but both hospitals and babies scare me. I would rather wait the babies are cleaned up and have use of their thumbs and vomit reflex at like age 25). So I took the long way home, getting more resigned to the fact that there would be no adventure that day.

Then, less than a mile from home, I spot it out of the corner of my eye, the new Mediterranean Grocery store in the shops at 42nd and University. I'd seen the grand opening sign a few weeks before and then forgot about the shop immediately. I'm not all the keen on Mediterranean food. I mean, I like it in theory. Olive oil, good. Olives, good. Bread, good. Cucumbers and tomatoes, okay. But, I was burned by a bad can of hummus from the Arabian grocery on 28th Street and University, and honestly, does anyone really like tabbouleh?

The Nagi Mediterranean Grocery is a humble affair, like a grocery store in a foreign country: clean, well-organized, and a bit spartan. Who needs four choices of brand-name jumbo lima beans anyway, the shelves scream? This will work, so take what you can get. And, it is clear that when they say "Mediterranean," they don't mean My-Big-Fat-Greek-Wedding-Mediterranean. They mean the other side of the Mediterranean, with camels, and veiled-ladies, and, it turns out, sesame fudge.

Well, I skipped the sesame fudge (tempting as it was, a quick glance at the nutritional content made me drop it like it's hot). But, I was surprised with how many items that I actually wanted: dried dates, dried figs, Kefir, and olive oil. Hey! I needed olive oil. And everything was reasonably priced. My friend Jessica has been making delicious cheese-stuff, bacon wrapped, grilled figs, but the cost of buying those high-in-fiber wonders at the Gateway is cost-prohibitive. Not anymore.

While I was shopping, the shop keeper's daughter (geez, that sounds like the title of one of those many, best-selling novels that keep coming out, doesn't it?), who was a darling, kept asking her daddy, who was working diligently at the shop computer and leaving me alone (another thing I like about grocery stores in foreign countries; there are no smile-plastered teenagers in Dockers and cheap button-down shirts asking me how I am. I am at the grocery store, of course I am terrible. Now, where's the friggin' corn meal?) if she could have a) mango juice or b) candy. She alternated between the two. He kept saying no, that they were going home soon, over and over, with a patience that I envied.

As I was paying for my olive oil, ($4.99) I asked if I could take some pictures. The shop keeper's daughter, who introduced herself as Imam, graced one shot with a dance. Imam and her father were total sweet-hearts, and the shop is not only a welcome addition to the neighborhood, but also a sign of the changes that are taking place in Des Moines, especially in the Drake area. More and more families from the "Mediterranean" are moving to the neighborhood, and they need figs, and Kefir, and olive oil too. And, as they shop, and send their kids to school, (and try to get them to eat less candy), and live regular lives, they are changing the way we define it means to be Mediterranean and what it means to be American. That change, I think, can only be for the better.