“Would you like the nice tomatoes from the farmers or will mine do? They’re just from my garden, they’re not as big,” Chiara, the owner of the small fresh produce store in town, asks me in Italian. “Yours please!” I reply, delighted to be buying casually-organic produce, picked this morning from a garden a few hundred meters from where I stand.

We stay here surrounded by all the fruits and vegetables of the season, discussing each thing I want to buy in detail, her carefully choosing the perfect specimen of each. There is no rush and our interaction lasts 15 full minutes but I’ve learned to enjoy this time and not let my time-is-money, city-life brain hurry me. There’s a line out the door four people deep but when I exit they each greet me warmly, not a trace of annoyance on their faces.