Dr. VEGETABLES, Ph.D, Gr. (Grocerian)

‘Doctor of Philosophy in Vegetables’ may sound weird to me or maybe to anyone or even to someone who's pursuing a doctorate study unless if it is mentioned as doctorate study in Aquaculture or even Crop Science, Agribusiness and Bio-resource Economics. Plant Protection or even Agriculture Technology even sound a lot better than ‘Vegetables’ because all the above mentioned are all actual courses offered in a university that specialises in anything to do with agricultural. While ‘Doctorate in Vegetables’ alone do sound a bit weird because as far as I Googled on agricultural related courses offered in universities, there was none single highhandedly titled as Ph.D in Vegetables.

The Grocer (left) and my wife a week before we departed back to our home country. Notice all sorts of stuff she had on the shelves and on the table. Photo is of my own. All copyrights reserved.

Not until I met, Leyla, a local grocer lady in the market near the Coventry City Centre with a rich Algerian native background and if you're a regular customer in Coventry Market, you can find her selling all sorts of vegetables of Europe, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean or African origin all in the middle of the City’s bustling market. Besides vegetables, she also sells fruits, be it fresh, dried or fermented, spices, condiments, sauces, canned foods all labelled in full French or Arabic which are hard to find locally, you name it, she got it as all her groceries sold were gathered once a week from as far as the Northern African countries like Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon and she even got the best of Europe’s fresh produce from the likes of France and Spain. As a very unique store in a large market near the city centre, no other store sells like her does.

But that is only half of the story. The thing is she sells all this grocery despite completed her doctorate study from a local United Kingdom university in a course that I could hardly remember she told me years ago.

Business as usual at her stall in Coventry Market. The hanging dried chilli are actually edible. Photo is of my own. All copyrights reserved.

Being one of my favourite grocer, every time I cycled down to the city centre to do my weekly groceries, her hospitality, just like anyone with an Arabic origin, mesmerised me. Yes, we have other local favourite English folk local produce stores with their politeness and all but this lady got something else that made me loved talking to her more than I ever used to talk to my favourite three buffed Afghani Butchers five stalls away from this Algerian stall.

In one of our conversation, I was told that she decided to open a stall in the day market because that this business profits her more than her career itself since she chose to live and work here with her charming husband which is also an Algerian and her three lovely children with the youngest one being recently born less than 12 months when this story is written.

Furthermore, as a proud Algerian origin, she is amazingly highly fluent in English, Arabic, French and even Spanish, speaking them out loud like on the back of her hand every time she had any customers from one of these countries talk to her while doing business with her in the market. She’s the best in what she does. When asked whether she’s doing the selling full time or spend her off days on her post-doctorate career or whether we should address her as Dr. Leyla, all she said was ‘’Just call me, the Doctor of Vegetables…’’ left me thinking whether that was a light joke that I didn’t get or just me being silly.

There was this one time we got a bespoke 12” chocolate middle eastern celebration cake for half the price of what it usually costs, we also got free vegetables when the day is right, marked down prices for the Tunisian dates that we bought during the fasting month, a free treat of rose water fragranced Algerian delicacies almost every time we stopped by and not just that, she also deliberately talked to my wife about her study research progress and offered to help with the writings and proof-reading until it reached a point where we were so embarrassed to do groceries at her store because she got so much of her stuff offered to us and we don’t have anything to give her in return besides just a good small weekly business but all she said was ‘’It’s okay. If you’re happy then I’m happy. Hamdan lillaah…. (In Arabic which means, All Praise to God)’’ and that was one of the coolest moment.

Fresh Hot Peppers of the Caribbean, Green Capsicum from Spain, Tomatoes from Algeria, you name it, she got it. Photo is of my own. All copyrights reserved.

For me, she is not just the Doctor of Vegetables but the also the Doctor of Love and Compassion, Doctor of Life and Motivation, Doctor of A Thousand Doves and Wisdom which are obviously not offered in any universities within the United Kingdom and all these Doctorates are purely awarded by the beauty of friendship and humanity hidden behind a pile of colourful vegetables because of a path that she chose for herself and her family not because she had to but because she chose to and I respected her for that.

God bless you Leyla and your family. We missed you. And your love. Fruits and vegetables included.