In The Market

This past Saturday morning we went to the Borough Market. This is an open air market located just south of London Bridge, which has food stalls featuring delights from around Europe. Our goal was to pick up various foodstuffs for dinner, and we made out like bandits. We started with prosciutto di Parma, which was actually di Parma! We also got a nice rustic loaf of bread, a beautifully creamy fresh mozzarella, a decent tomato (considering the season), some apricots, and some great olives from Turkey. We picked up wine on the way home and had dinner sorted.

This is the second time that we've gone, and both times it has been very crowded. It seems to have a mix of brits and foreigners, but I am not sure how often Londoners themselves go there. The fancier fare was priced high, though the produce stalls that fringe it are more reasonable. There are many smaller markets around the city as well, so as we are setting into our new neighborhood we'll have to seek some out.

In the afternoon, we made our way to Ikea for a very different experience. We were testing out and pricing beds, primarily. Since ours is over 15 years old, we thought we may take the move as a chance to get a new one. Sizes are all different here, of course, and I suspect that I will miss the three inches in length. We also took a look at some options for closets (our place has no built-in ones which is not uncommon here) and kitchen work stations/islands. Our kitchen is nice and open, but lacking a bit of counter space so this would give us a touch more storage and prep space.

While there, I also picked up a small knife set. Our good knives are on the boat and the ones at the temp place are so dull they cut by erosion. So dull, in fact, that a one pound fifty knife set is noticeably better. There were signs posted that you need to be 21 to buy knives at this store, presumably due to UK rules. Drink at 16, chop at 21. Whatever, UK.

Pipsqueak and Pipsqueak

This past Thursday we went out for dinner (as we do about half the time these days) for burgers. The burgers ended up being great, but the highlight was the beverage selection. I usually read the beer menu by the descriptions, so when Mary announced "Are you getting a dead pony?" I had to go back and check the names. She ultimately had to get a cider, because it was Pipsqueak brand (and that, if you didn't know, is the name of one of our cats.) Both beer and cider were very good.

The real pipsqueak, meanwhile, has little spells where he has some trouble adjusting. We think that his main issue is the lack of space. In our Chicago place, he was able to run around like a madman and could sprint from one end to the other and back. Because of the size and layout of the temp apartment, there really aren't long runways for him. Instead, he has taken to totally spazzing out on two square feet of space. Now in reality, he did this some in Chicago too, but in such tight quarters it's much more obvious. His newest behavior is hanging out in a pillow fortress of solitude. As part of our move to London, The Firm provided us with temporary housing. Finding a place that allowed our little darlings was a bit of a challenge. When they ultimately did, a rather large deposit was required. Having not rented for a while, having the place be furnished, and not knowing how anal UK landlords are we live in a state of constant pet-monitoring vigilance. Unless we are sitting on it, the sofa cushions are all up. Also, we cover all arms and attractively scratchable bits with throw pillows, sweatshirts, or less destructible blankets. It's not the most attractive setup, but such is the life of the pet owner. Recently, one of the cushions of the sofa shifted enough to allow pip to get behind. He then when through a spazmo stage where he jumped in and out of this space a dozen times in five minutes, and magically he had created a workable hiding space! He may be dumb, but he's dumb like a fox.

Strange Things Are Afoot At the Circle-K

One thing that we are working on adjusting to is the absence of large grocery stores in our area of London. The main chain in the city is Tesco, and they are everywhere, sort of. You see, there are tiers of Tesco.

Everywhere you go, you see a Tesco Express. These have a little bit more than what a 7-eleven might have in the US, though not by much. They have 1-2 brands of the basics, with a focus on convenience foods. They do have a surprisingly decent fresh bakery section, which I assume that is brought in throughout the day. They have a very small selection of produce. They have one brand of litter, non-clumping.

A step up from the express is the Tesco Metro. These are less common, and bigger. They have a larger produce area, which has what must be the basics for the area. We were surprised to find no cooking greens at all (no chard, no kale) at ours, but they did have some exotic-looking-to-me stuff (rapini, some Asian ingredients I did not recognize.) They also have more basic ingredients, though those are mixed in with a large number of convenience items still. More brand selection starts rearing its head here: There were two brands of litter, both non-clumping.

I am told that if you venture outside the city that you might encounter a vanilla Tesco, or even that mythical beast the Tesco Superstore. We have not been to either of these just yet, though we have gone to a Waitrose which seems to be larger than a metro but smaller than what I would expect from a full-sized store. The Waitrose is apparently both fancy and schmancy, based on people's reactions to my saying that we had shopped there. It did have much more of a selection than our local Tescos, and you could tell it was aiming for higher end. It has fancier convenience foods (frozen pizzas with all kinds of exotic ingredients, for example) and a decent brand selection. Waitrose, finally, had clumping litter (though only store brand.)

A curious side-effect of doing our shopping at this series of ever growing, but never large, stores is that we are having some troubles acclimating to the grocery culture. For example, we were at the Tesco Metro, looking for chicken stock. This is a pretty common ingredient in the US, and something that we use in many, many dishes (probably more than half.) We had looked at the express and had no luck. Then we went to the Metro and started searching through the aisles. We got well past where we would find it in the US, and still had no luck. I eventually went back and asked a worker, but it wasn't clear he knew what I was talking about. He pointed out some cans of chicken gravy, and I stumbled my way from there to bullion cubes, which were close enough. The real problem with being in these small stores though, is this central conundrum: Does this item not exist in the UK, or does this item not exist in this store? In a larger supermarket, I could more accurately make that judgement, but with this series of smaller stores it's much harder to know if I should hold on to hope or adjust my expectations from life.

Update! Since starting the draft of this post, we made it out to a Tesco Superstore. I have apparently become more acclimated to local custom than I realized, because when we walked in I actually gasped aloud, "So big! So much stuff!" This fella was larger than a normal US grocery, and had home and office goods as well. What was odd (and probably representative of the culture) is that while the store was much larger and had many more items, it didn't necessarily have more brand variety for each individual item. We did verify that they did not have cans of chicken stock, so that's just not a thing. Oddly they did not have clumping cat litter, so we apparently need to aim for a middle-sized store for that. Very odd.