Good Eats

Here's the thing: before I came to this fine country, one of my greatest worries was that I would completely loathe the food and probably starve to death. People do not come to London for the food, I gathered, they come for everything else and settle for the food. That's why they drink so much, I thought to myself, to distract from the fact that everything else that goes into their mouths is utter rubbish!
How wrong I was.
Two nights ago was the first time I had a meal that wasn't absolutely delicious (margarita pizza at a theatre), and even then, it was a far cry from "bad" or even "bit not good" and I've been here nearly three weeks! The food is amazing. Everything. I spend a worrying amount of time dreaming about my next meal and I am never disappointed.
Here's a bit of breakdown: typically, I try to eat two meals at the flat and one meal out every day, which means I should be spending more time preparing meals than eating out which means I probably must describe my new friend - the British grocery.
Enter Sainsbury's.
This large shop is the furtherest thing we regularly travel to on foot (a mile), but it's hard to beat for selection and price. The hard part is that you have to bag your own groceries and if you're like me and experience a certain amount of social anxiety, it gets worrying to have to bag, figure out the correct amount of change, remember whether it's bag first or pay first, and do it all quickly so the next person can go. Picture going through the security scanner at the airport, only you have to wrap Christmas presents as you go and present the officer with Monopoly money. And actually the harder part is getting home. See, most people in London don't own cars (and why would they?), so they're forced to carry home their purchases on foot, just like us, limiting the amount of things you can buy at a time. I've seen a number of older women shopping with these curious little suitcase-type thingies on wheels and have been wondering if maybe I could rent one out. It's good fun having to go frequently to the store though, plus it forces one to have to buy fresh produce sparingly (so it's always new and delicious).
What do I actually buy at the store?
-Cheese
-Yogurt
-Satsumas
-Bread (which always proudly notes, "Made with British Wheat")
-Dried pasta (greater selection of fresh here though)
-Cereal bars (THE BEST EVER)
-Instant Porridge (Instant oatmeal exactly, it's even Quaker Oats, except THE BEST EVER)
-Granola and berries cereal (NO REALLY, THE BEST EVER)
-Chorizo (I don't know either, it's delicious and lasts a long time)
-Crumpets/scones
-Honey
-Peanut butter (THE BEST EVER, I MEAN IT THIS TIME, I EAT IT STRAIGHT FROM THE JAR AND I'VE NEVER DONE THAT)
-Some article of JUNK (to be discussed later)

Three things about the selection of cheese and yogurt here: the selection is astonishing, they're pretty cheap, and they. are. THE BEST EVER.
You may or may not have noticed I didn't have milk or eggs on the list. Milk here is sold in a variety of forms, notably boxes, bags (?), and tiny cartons, which are what most people buy. I only bought one tiny carton, at the start, which went bad almost immediately, but I tried again on today's trip just so I can eat my delicious cereal....also eggs are not kept refrigerated. This does not especially bother me, I just think it interesting. I don't buy eggs because I'm sure I'll break them on the long walk home.

Oh yeah, and junk food. Brit junk food is the bomb.com. The board of education officially closed down the school, it's so dang cool. There are chips, of course, which are just big, greasy fries, and crisps, which are chips, but the selection of biscuits and cakes (cookies and doughnut-type things, seriously, who says you don't need to know another language to visit this country?) at Sainsbury's always manages to floor me. See, plenty of folk still do observe tea time, which means there must be accompanying snacks, usually digestive biscuits or scones, I think. I bought a very basic, store-brand variety pack of biscuits for tea today for a pound and I'm having to exercise serious self-disipline to keep from eating the whole pack right now. So there are cookies and gummies and lollies and cakes (not pies though, "pies" refer to meat pies, which are incredibly, surprisingly delicious) and then, then, there are Jammie Dodgers. Oh my. Jammie Dodgers. They're just shortbread cookies with raspberry filling but so heavenly, I would buy them ALL if they weren't also so outlandishly expensive.
Plus, there's the chocolate. It's typically a lot richer and better than back home, but I'm not much of a chocolate eater so this didn't much impress me until we arrived to a tube station half an hour early and had to kill some time at a cafe. I bought a "special hot chocolate" in the smallest size available (very small indeed, only a few ounces) and it tasted like they'd just melted a chocolate bar into a styrofoam cup. It was so rich, it nearly put me to sleep, making it very hard to get around for a bit (typing this out made me realize it sounds like there was something very dodgy in that hot chocolate, but I'm going to assume it was just very rich, but very innocent chocolate).
Ummm, sadly this post seems to be lacking in photos, which seems very mean considering you'd probably like to see all the delightful food I've been describing, but I honestly never think to take pictures before I eat. Here's some of my groceries?

(tomatos, peanut butter, honey, some sort of quiche I bought for dinner, Greek yogurt with bits of ginger, porriage!, milk, and crumpets)

I just realized my finger is in the photo too. I would retake it but I spent the entire day at Hampton Court Palace in 80 degree heat and am now unable to get up from the couch. Sorry 'bout that.