Foodstuffs

The weather has officially turned. It's dark just after 4pm; it's rainy; it's cold. Kenz isn't impressed. 

Last weekend, she and I went to Borough Market. It's only about a 15 minute bus ride from our house (which is to say it's really convenient), but Kenz had never been there before. Saturdays are the busiest days in the market.

Borough is to food what Brick Lane is to artisans, hipsters, and 'vintage' clothes. Translated: Borough is McKenzie's new favorite place in the world. The entire time we were there, Kenz kept muttering - half to me, half to herself - look at all this fun stuff; we need to come here every Saturday. I mentioned to her that this wasn't fun stuff - it's food, forgetting that food is fun for Kenz.

I knew she was genuinely happy to be there when I realized that the crowds (overwhelming, clustered, slow, frustrating) didn't phase her; they got to me, though. It's usually the other way 'round.

I've come to believe that any market can begin to bleed into itself after a while. Borough is basically a series of butcher, cheese maker, butcher, cheese maker, florist, butcher, organic grocer, cheese maker, poultry dealer, and sausage maker. After thirty minutes, I lose interest, thinking that it's all kind of the same. Of course, that's not to say it's not cool. I just don't want to spend all day there.

Kenz loves cheese, though, so she has absolutely no problem strolling from one cheese booth to another for hours.

Spending lots of money on cheese; happy girl

I bought some wild boar sausage

I also bought some of the best coffee I've ever tasted.

Sunday was pancakes, haircuts, Owen in British attire, and cheese & onion pie.

Just a normal 'going to the grocery store' outfit. It's the most noble combination of colors and patterns I've ever seen. 

Kenz had requested we get pancake mix, but the little baggie we found in the grocery store didn't cut Owen's culinary standards. We wound up buying the necessary ingredients instead.

Kenz's job was staying warm

Sunday Funday!

I've become Owen's barber; he let me 'experiment' with a 'part' in his hair...

Kenz wound up, late in the afternoon, seeing a recipe for cheese & onion pie that she wanted to make. Another trip to the grocery store (which I refused to make myself, "I've already gone once today!"), and she had all the necessary ingredients to make the pie crust and fill it with the cheese she had purchased at Borough Market the previous day. Result!

It must've weighed 12 pounds.

Everything's better with gravy. I mean, the plating may not be 5-star, but the taste was great!

 Random picture break:

Likely the only book you can effectively judge by its cover.

Kenz's ability to fall asleep in any circumstance is uncanny. "The computer keeps me warm!"

Filmmakers on Walworth Road!

My in-laws gifted me an Amazon gift card for my birthday. In an effort to follow my own gift rules (buy something for someone they'd want but couldn't justify buying for themselves), I bought a juicer! You'll likely see too many pictures of various juice concoctions in the coming months.

Owen and I unpacked it the day it arrived and went to town. The instructions read as if they had been plugged directly into 'Google Translate' from some language that doesn't have the same syntactic structure as English. We quickly abandoned the directions. In all reality, directions are for people who don't know what they're doing, right? We convinced ourselves that two reasonably intelligent men could figure out the machine and set, straight away, to making delicious juices.

The color wasn't appetizing. Owen: it looks somewhat like cat sick.

 
Our first attempt was blueberries, apples, an orange, and two bananas. After noting that the bananas were vaporized in the juicer, we did go back to read the instructions about what kinds of fruits are best and what 'speed' we were supposed to set the juicer to in order to yield the most juice. The instructions said fruits with starch aren't meant for the juicer - at the top of that list was bananas...

The taste, though, was great!

Then we got ahead of ourselves. I opened the tupperware container that houses all my week's prepared 'snack' vegetables (about a week old), and emptied it into the juicer. A head of broccoli, about fifteen chopped carrot sticks, and what amounted to an entire bell pepper. That concoction is not recommended.

Afterward, I dared Owen to eat a handful of pulp that had collected inside the 'pulp bin'. Not capable of backing down from a dare, he acquiesced...and made himself sick.

"It looks like Vermont in the Fall" - Owen, in his best American accent

I think it was the bits of broccoli that got him

All in all, I'm happy with the present. Thanks, Patti & Michael!

Look at that face! Supportive wife!

 Keeping with tradition, I snapped a few FaceTime pictures throughout the week as well:

Long distance uncle-ing. My favorite part: Garrett is attending college in Vermont, yet he has a massive Texas flag hanging on his wall. I call that 'keeping it real'. 

More long distance uncle-ing! Lucy's growing rapidly and wearing out her parents just as quickly.

I'm already doling out advice...

And, of course, making MOMA laugh is my favorite pastime. 

I went back to the drawing board with the juicer this morning, trying to follow a recipe my friend, Ryan, sent me yesterday. I added too many beets and forgot the cucumber. Needless to say it wasn't as good as he promised. Chalk it up to operator's error. Next time!

4 green apples, 1 inch ginger, 2 beets, 1/2 sweet potato, 4 carrots, 5 celery stalks, 1 lemon, and a forgotten cucumber.

Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend!