Spitalfields Market

As I moonlight as a tour guide during my parents visit, I figured I’d post this well overdue trip to Spitalfields Market. If everyone is still standing at the end of “Bailey’s Tour of London” (please email me in advance for rates and availability, and plan to bring your favorite walking shoes!) I will detail their visit – but let it be known, they were on a very strict excel timesheet of activities. More to come on that…for now let’s journey back in time a bit to the weekend after the big storm.

Finally a break in the cold weather, I guess I now have to resume my running “regimen.” I decided I wanted to make it a nice long one on a sunny Sunday morning. I chose the route carefully, along the tube line of course, just in case I decided that was enough for me! The end goal – Spitalfields Market! I had heard amazing things about their market, and even better things about their nearby infamous Brick Lane Indian food. Seeing as it was circa 10am by the time I got there, I decided to do the market first and wait for a more respectable hour to try my hand at curry.

 

I got to the market (7 miles later, and a few internal battles with myself as to whether or not I should give up and get on the tube) right as they were setting up shop. Or so I thought. The clientele was a little scruffier than I imagined and a lot of the “treasures” were coming from garbage bags that seemed to have fallen from trucks beholden of some less than legal wares. It was like a EURO Canal Street, complete with your whispering vendors telling you the real goods were just behind the truck if I were to follow him a ways down the street.

After giving it a few more blocks, chalking it up to it being the European way, I realized it wasn’t getting much better the farther I went, and this was certainly no market I had been expecting. Stop in place.  U-turn. Out of there.

So I finally found my way to the real market and began my walk from stall to stall. This place had everything (legally) for sale! Something for everyone!

Yum yums for Kate (on her birthday!!!)

Fancies for Annie! (This may have been were the original in fact came from!)

And a very special little purchase I made which had my very own post code on a card holder – a necessity for my daily commute and Oyster Card holder/work ID. It's cooler thank it looks. Hand stitched from the pages of a London A-Z Guide. 

 

English word of the day: Lorry = truck. Like the ones that housed the stolen wares of Spitalfield Canal Street sidewalks. 

Back to the spreadsheet grind...my parents should have invested in pedometers.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

The beauty of not having Thanksgiving over here is that nothing holds you back from getting into the Christmas spirit. Christmas decorating in the states has crept up a bit on the calendar, with more and more people flipping the switch on their icicle lights and nativity scenes before they are officially allowed to, i.e. before Turkey Day, but here they take it to that next level. What started with a reindeer in the street…

                   Ended in a Winter Wonderland!!!

 

Deliveries for the Winter Wonderland extravaganza began at the end of October. And at some point between then and November 18^th, the elves must have swooped in while we were asleep and assembled this masterpiece! 

Filled with people, this North Pole wonderment is a great place for people of all ages. Sprinkled throughout are games and rides for the youngins, and then shopping and dining for the young at heart. 

Since I missed it in New Orleans I made sure to plan a visit to the rotating Carousel Bar. Much like the one in New Orleans, this one too gives you that spinning sensation while you drink. And yes, it is most certainly the carousel that gives you the spinning sensation, not the alcohol which you are imbibing. 

Now I heard rumor of this famous Bavarian Beer Garden, and when I stumbled on it, I was immediately transported back to my time in the German beer gardens of München. They had das boots. They had beer wenches. They had spätzle. They had potato pancakes. (and great advertising!) 

 And THEY. HAD. SAUSAGES. Boy oh boy, did they have sausages.

White sausages. Red sausages. Curry sausages. Spicy Sausages. You name it! All being cooked on these massive sausage grills. This would be my dad’s DREAM COME TRUE to have this in our backyard.

I can officially say I am in the Christmas spirit now!! And got my fill of German bangers too...

English word of the day: Clothes horse = drying rack. I was watching the British version of The Soup and one of the clips they rolled was a woman “stuck in a clothes horse.” Don’t ask why or how, just know that no animals were harmed in the making.

Let them eat CHEESE

After much hype I decided to take people up on their insistence to go to Borough Market on a Saturday when the stalls were full in bloom and the crowd bursting with excitement. Although it took effort to drag my morning after pub-going self out of bed, I was not disappointed. Although I missed Apple Day (yea still not sure what that must have entailed - how many things can you do to apples) at the market the week before it was still quite the experience. Tucked away in the shadows of London Bridge, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday these stalls appear with locals selling all sorts of things.

Popular items included:

·      Oils, in fact I tasted an amazing truffle oil that I had to buy right then and there. And I don’t even like truffles.

·      Jams and Jellies everywhere you turned. They were making jams out of things I'm not sure they should make jam out of... 

·      Hummus spreads, strangest one I tasted – apple spice hummus…must have been leftover from Apple Day.

·      Chocolate covered everything. There was this one stall with every fruit, nut, and veggie under the sun dipped in all sorts of chocolates. I put on my best, "kid in a candy store face" and sampled a nice array of white chocolate covered cranberries, dark chocolate banana chips, and milk chocolate pistachios. 

·      Fishes, meats, and cheeses. As well as beers from around the world and hot mulled red wines. Us Americans even brought in our very own pumpkin ale from the great wild yonder – Saranac Valley!

The Main Event:

I can't say I wasn't sniffing it out, because we all know I have this ingrained tendency to gravitate toward anything cheese-related, BUT the most amazing stumble upon was when I followed this line that snaked all the way through the market ending at THE pot of gold, or rather, cheese, that put all other pots of cheese to shame! This picture does not do it justice but the amazing grilled cheese creations that came from this place looked like a delicious clogged artery in a dish. They have these special cheese harnesses to melt the whole cheese wheel, and then they slice off melted gooeyness from the top, lumping it ooze after ooze on your fresh-made baguette. PLUS toppings!! If I hadn’t filled up on all the other free sampling I would have tried this heart attack sandwich with cheese on top. A true fat kid at heart, I now find myself singing the jump rope playground tune that will swiffer the United Kingdom;

"Heart Attack Sandwich, Cheese on Top. 

Tell me The Name of my Sweetheart. Is it A? Brie?....you get the point. 

Oh well, reason enough for me to go back.

All in all successful trip to the Borough. (Cronin that word takes on new meaning now doesn't it?)

English word of the day: Candy Floss = cotton candy!! This one came about when a coworker kept insisting the office smelled like candy floss. Cringing in my chair for what that could possibly mean, I knew it didn’t sound pleasant, she decided it was coming from her coffee, and she happily gulped down some more. After looking it up online, I was able to rest assured, it was nothing more than good old flavored sugar. Mind out of the gutter.