Time Machine to London-Borough Market!!!!

Have you heard of Borough Market? Have you been there!?

Well, if the answer is “No” let me introduce you to the culinary braingasm that is London’s Borough Market.

It’s basically a farmer’s market on steroids, with a past stretching back to 1014!
Ummm….yeah…That is seriously old.

It is impossible for me to do this place justice in one post.
I didn’t have the opportunity to take as many photos as would be needed to really explain the massiveness and sheer volume of edible delights waiting within.

But I would love to share with you the photos I did get, and the spoils that I took home with me!

Where to begin?!

The Juice Bar!

Of course, being the juice lover that I am, I cut a path through the insane swarms of people directly to the juice bar without any previous knowledge of its existence.

I have the gift.

This finding was quickly matched by my next discovery of the Indian spices/chutney stall where I sampled very very spicy things and made happy/painful faces.

Which was followed by the joyful arrival to the chocolate area, where my face-making turned to lustful amazement.

And the gigantic vats of Paella! And the samples of Paella! Yummmm

Mussels!!

I had to have my own!

This place is simply unreal.
I could spend an entire day here. Just eating. Everything.

Look at those Tomatoes. Just look at them! With your eyes!

Fungi!

Squids!

Exclamation Marks!!!!!

My Personal Spoils!

Tomatoes, the most delicious lemon & garlic olives on Earth, crusty sourdough round, baguette, elderflower & apple juice, brie, local honey, local raspberry preserves, drunken cheese, and lemon & rose turkish delights…

SNACKY TIME!

This…

is…

the Life.

This is all I have, FOR NOW. Trust me, there will be so much more Borough Market coverage in the VERY near future.

http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/

The Remover of Obstacles…

This is a story about being patient, told to you by the least patient person on Earth, yours truly.

On September 10th, 2011 I was married to the sweetest, most wonderfully reliable, hard-working, and patient man.

How did I get so lucky?

We had a gorgeous little ceremony at my beloved Aunt Cheri and Uncle Joe’s house in Cleveland and it was everything a wedding should be.

You could feel the love in the air. You could taste it. It was a seriously celestial amount of love.

What better way to celebrate than to hang out in the massively awesome city where we originally fell in love? (and of course, wait for my visa to arrive)

But then…it didn’t arrive…and Saturday rolled around…and I had to cancel my flight to London… leaving me stuck in immigration limbo…indefinitely.

My husband had to get back to work immediately so he flew back as planned, and basically… I’ve just been sort of hanging out aimlessly since then.

I am lucky enough to have awesome friends in Chi-town that have been incredible and beyond gracious in letting me crash on their couch and hog their adorable dog for the last week.

Fluffy Wonderful Neruda Dog!!!!!!

Thanks Rea & Alex!!!!

But let’s get back to the story I’m telling…

As soon as we were engaged to be married we started doing research regarding the specifics of getting me moved over to London as painlessly as possible, realizing very quickly that securing a marriage visa could actually be quite tricky.
After even more research, we decided to use an immigration agency (specifically this one: http://www.ukvisaandimmigration.co.uk/) to help us sort out everything and prepare our application.

What a bunch of idiots.

To be fair, they did proofread our ridiculously long application and make sure it was filled out flawlessly, but other than that, most of the information we were given when we presented them with questions regarding the process was pretty much guesswork.

Due to the fact that it became evident early on in the process that the agency we had hired to assist us was pretty much a load of horse shit, my husband did about 90% of the work himself while working full time and helping me sort out our wedding details from across the Atlantic Ocean.

(I married an amazing man y’all.)

We were told that we could pay more and get the visa faster (a 15 day guaranteed turn-around time with 2-3 days being typical) so of course, we opted for that.

2-3 days my ASS.

To keep myself busy and not crazy with impatient frustration, this week I did loads of walking, sight-seeing, and sampling the many treats Chicago has to offer.

(I’ll have more detailed Chicago posts following this one)

On Tuesday I visited the Chicago Art Institute and had a very special moment standing in front of this guy:

Ganesh: remover of obstacles

We had a little psychic chat and I kindly asked that he use his ancient Hindu elephant powers to remove some freakin obstacles for me.

Well, shit…thanks Ganesh!

I am OVERJOYED to announce that my marriage visa FINALLY ARRIVED TODAY!

HAPPYHAPPYHAPPY!

I board a plane to Heathrow bright & early tomorrow morning and I am SO READY to get over there!!

Good things come to those who wait and keep bitching about it to a minimum (I did my best anyway)

Stay tuned for more back-in-time London food/art posts and Chicago posts.

Feel free to send me positive thoughts tomorrow as I hate flying/airplanes!

Cheers!

Gimmeyummy goes to London! Yes! Fancy Londontown!

Love is a powerful thing.

Five weeks after my crazy fabulous Chicago adventure, I was boarding a plane to travel to my crazy fabulous London adventure.

And although there is much love in this story, there are also lots of delicious culinary tales (and photos)!!!

Shall we begin?

Belgo!!!

Steamed Mussels welcomed me to London!

And yes, nearly everything comes with Fries (chips if you are fancy) and mayo!

I actually don’t even get down with fries very often as they are unpredictable and very bad for you.
These fries were different.
Crispy on the outside with a soft fluffy potato center.
I could get down with these…even though they are still bad news.

AND Posh Belgian beers in funny glasses…

It’s like a science experiment…

Oh! And we went back again later that week and had more goodies.

AND BY “GOODIES” I MEAN LOBSTER!

My first whole Lobster ever! I destroyed it! Like a cave woman.

There was serious carnage.
Lobster bits were on my face, in my hair, all over the floor…

My hot date didn’t do so badly either with his half chicken smothered in gorgeous mushroom cream heaven sauce.

Also, BREAD! Because if there is bread to be eaten I will eat it!

Besides the fact that everything we had the pleasure of eating at Belgo was stunning, they have this really sweet deal from 5:00pm-7:00pm called “Beat The Clock”.
Basically, you select from a special menu and whatever time it is when you order is what you pay!
(The half chicken cost us £5.25!!!)

http://www.belgo-restaurants.co.uk/food

Chicago and falling in love…

After my fantastic journey out West visiting Abigail, my life took a new path in a BIG way.

I found myself suddenly out of a relationship that had pretty much been DOA for a long, long time.

I decided to not only move on with my life, but to not be frightened anymore at the idea of opening my heart to the possibility of good and amazing things happening to me!

I closed my eyes and thought to myself, “What do I REALLY want out of this life?”

The answers came easily.

I want to find someone that can love me with the same depth and sincerity that I am capable of loving them with.
I want to travel the world and BE a part of it!
I want to stop being afraid of failure and the judgement of others.
I want to live my life the way I did when I was eight years old and everything was awesome.

And then I did a crazy thing. A rash thing. A romantic thing.

I emailed a very special man I had always wondered what had happened to…

And then…well…Cupid took over…

This past May, my now husband was brave enough to travel across the pond from London to escort a girl (ME!) he had never actually met in the flesh to her friend’s wedding in gorgeous Chicago.

After years of internet correspondence, and wondering about “what could have been” we decided to see if the magic that had always seemed real over the web, was in all actuality a tangible and legitimate thing in person.

Why not? What was there to lose?

Chicago is such a great city to fall in love in!

MUCH to my cynical amazement, this guy was the Dreamboat Prince Charming that does not exist…but apparently does.
He was basically hand-crafted by pixies in the heavens and put on this Earth to make silly faces with me.

We were ultra super totally meant for each other.

It was simply more than I could have ever hoped for.

Finding something like this is akin to seeing the ocean for the first time.

You just want to dive in and get carried away in the weight of the waves…I know, I know…GROSS.

So gross. But SO WONDERFUL!

Stay tuned for the beginning of my London Adventure….

So where were we six months ago?

Ah! Arizona! Yes. I went to visit my best friend Abigail…it’s all coming back to me now.

There were lots of treats consumed in Arizona.
Specifically Sedona, Jerome, & Cottonwood.
Home of everything magical, mystical, and holistic.

I ate quite a bit of yummy vegan and vegetarian fare and visited the cutest little breakfast/gelato cafe.
Also, a visit to candy mountain (sort of) and a cute wine bar with an insanely scrumptious foccacia appetizer.

Let us begin!

The following delights are from New Frontiers in Sedona…

Kale salad that made my face happy.

The best cold falafel I have ever eaten, also from New Frontiers grocery store.

Deviled eggs (because they are delicious)

Pear and Mesclun salad.

Magic healing bars!

Now, onto my breakfast at Crema Cafe in Cottonwood, AZ.

THINGS TO EAT! Just my kinda place!

Quick and gorgeous little egg & cheese croissant delivered by the sweetest server.

Close-up!

Pretty much the lightest, fluffiest, most breakfasty cloud of sunshine you could possibly introduce your taste buds to.

Oh, and the super sweet server!

Isn’t she just adorable?

AND, there was gelato!

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to sample the gelato as the croissant was the size of my face and very filling!

Scones & biscotti

Who wants to take a trip to candy mountain?

Rock candy in everyone’s favorite flavor “BLUE”

SCOOPS!

There was a time in my life where I would have attempted to eat all of these lollies in one sitting.

Finally, the Focaccia to put all other Focaccia to shame at Grapes Restaurant & Bar in Jerome, AZ.

It doesn’t look like much, but trust me, a little olive oil or marinara dipping action and you have a masterpiece of textures and flavors that satiate all carb-loading desires.

Crunchy, pillowy, buttery, sweet, savory…

MOUTH MAGIC!

http://grapesjerome.com/
http://www.cremacoffeeandcreamery.com/

Well Look what the cat dragged in!

It’s been about 6 months since I last posted to gimmeyummy.
The 6 months before that was also fairly quiet as I was enslaved to incredibly difficult course work and wading through my half-dead personal life.
Suddenly, everything sort of went into hyperdrive (in a fabulous way) and wow, there is so much to share!

Basically…in a nutshell…

I got my heart broken.
I got over it.
I fell in love with THE MOST AMAZING man. (Gorgeous and British to boot!)
Traveling ensued, and then a proposal…and YES, I got hitched!
Happy dance!

Of course, that is the most basic explanation of what has been a much more beautiful, romantic, challenging love story.
But, in general, that’s what’s been going on in my life.

My husband (HUSBAND!EEEE!) lives in London, and I am currently stuck in Chicago awaiting the arrival of my marriage visa that should have been here last week.
Sadly, my man had to fly back for work and I am gratefully crashing on my girl Rea’s couch while I wait on my paperwork.

We are going to have to do some major time traveling to catch up on all the super amazing food/travel experiences I have been so blessed with since March, so I hope you are ready.

Sorry for the disappearing act, but it was well worth it.
Relaunch!

xxoo-JamieSusan