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Food for Thought: Shop the world's food at Renton's DK Market

Nancy Leson
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KNKX
Nancy's husband Mac in his favorite aisle

I love world travel if I don't have to leave Tacoma to do it.  But after hearing from Nancy Leson about DK Market I'm willing to make an exception and journey all the way to exotic Renton. DK is a cavernous, warehouse-style market on Renton's Lind Avenue offering foodstuffs from a dozen cultures around the world.

Nancy can't believe she hadn't known about this place. "The store itself is an international extravaganza. There's an enormous produce section – anything you could possibly want..."

Credit Nancy Leson / KNKX
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KNKX
Not lemons but sweet limes in DK's produce section

DK offers ingredients for the food of  many different cultures. "India and Mexico. There's an enormous amount of Eastern European food." There's Southeast Asia food products, a Russian deli, "and an amazing amount of Middle Eastern ingredients... whole aisles of dried dates and figs and honeys." 

And another whole aisle of pickled Eastern European vegetables.

Credit Nancy Leson / KNKX
/
KNKX

And, Nancy adds, "no matter what corner of the globe you grew up in you'd be a kid in a candy store in the candy aisle here."

Credit Nancy Leson / KNKX
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KNKX
Candies Nance has almost finished after they were"accidentally" left in her car by friend and co-shopper Silver.

And the place is BIG.

Credit Nancy Leson / KNKX
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KNKX

Plus, she reports, "every kind of rice and lentils and pastas and oils and olives and spices and snacks." A big part of the fun of shopping DK is "When you walk the aisles – especially on a busy weekend – you can easily hear a dozen different languages spoken." 

And you don't even need a passport.

"Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure" – Petrarch

Dick Stein joined KNKX in January 1992. He retired in 2020 after three decades on air. During his storied radio career, he hosted the morning jazz show, co-hosted and produced "Food for Thought" with Nancy Leson and wrote and directed the Jimmy Jazzoid live radio musical comedies and 100 episodes of Jazz Kitchen.