I want my strawberries!!!! Missing Portobello market

Yeah, I want my strawberries!!! Peaches, grapes, raspberry and melons too.

Straberries and cream is just the perfect summer desert. Thinking of it made me salivate.

Portobello Market is probably the thing that I miss most about London. The Saturday fruit sweep, hahaha.

Imagine, I got a basket of grapes, seedless and sweet at £1.00. 3 gala melons for £1. 2 punnets of British summer strawberries for £1.20 or even £1.00!! In winter, we setteled for the lesser cousins, strawberries from Spain at a rate of 3 punnets for £1!!! Befor I came back , I got 2 pounds of cherries for £1.20 there, and 2 punnets of ripe yummy peaches for £1.50. Cheap?? Definitely.

Portobello has a reputation as "expensive", because people are put off by the prices displayed, particularly those nearer to the antique shop.

But the gems of Portobello market are down the road. Yes, go DOWN hill.

Nah, that organic pastry stall is crap. Expensive, and not yummy!! I would rather walk to the Wild and Natural at Westbourne grove, pay a little more, and dine with the good lookers from Notting Hill. Knowing that some stars like to eat the muffin I was having make me feel..... errr... well, I don't know. But it is better than that pathetic pastry stall!!!

The Banana and Tomato King is my favourite stall. This is where a big chunck of my fruits came from. Cherries, which are in season now, raspberry (woah, thinking of it make me salivate!!!) in winter/autumn and British strawberries. They also probably have the cheapest "fresh" bananas in town. Their apples are always crisp, and can be terribly cheap sometimes. Ok, you definitely can get 1 basket of apples for £1 somewhere else, but those probably will have bruises. If you talk about "perfect" condition apples, this is the place.

The stall next to it, (its name has the word "Banana" in it as well), is cheap too. However, you can only buy boxed, and priced items from them. Try giving them a bag of grapes/bananas whateer, and you will end up wondering why the bag is so "heavy", cos the price did not come up as cheap. The thing I will get from them is just boxes of strawberries.

Many times bitten by them, now very shy :). I get "bullied" by them whenever I go alone, and hubby not with me. Hmmm, it must be because hubby look more like a gangster, and I look more like a sheep??? hahah. But this sheep is known to "bleat" at sales people when they try to cheat, and tell them off!!

If you go at closing times, ie past 4 pm some stalls get rid of their fruits by the boxes. YOu wil get big crates of grapes, melons, apples, satsumas (something like mandarin orange, but 10 times more yummy and juicy) for £2. Some of our happiest buys include a box of satsumas, which we shared with another customer for £1.00 each. That £1.00 bought us more that 40 satsumas, and we happily ate the satsumas, and give them away to friends. Another time, we got so much grapes, ie sharing a BIG crate with another person for £1.00, we had to distribute them away.

Those crates of fruits are usually very ripe, and must be eaten on the same day or the next two days, but hey, that is how you could have only fruits for dinner!!! (and breakfast, and lunch too!!) Imagine, by breakfast cereals used to be served as an accompaniment to my fruits (ie more strawberries in my bowl than cereal, hehehehe).

On the afternoon England played, I did my last Portobello Sweep, and was an extremely happy and contented gal to have no one fighting for the goodies with me, and the stall holders giving things away cheaply to go home and watch England play. Peaches, appricots, grapes, strawberries... etc etc, all those things that I tell myself I would buy and eat as much as I want IF I ever get RICH.

Now, back to reality. Back to that supermarket that I wish no longer monopolise the town.
Well, nothing wrong with them. It is just that they offer apples apples and more apples. Apples from Brazil, China, new Zealand, Washington?? etc etc. Green apples, red apples. Ok, they also offer lots of orranges, orranges and orranges. Ok to be fair, they also offer not so fresh grapes, for $3+++ a small box. It is difficult for me to buy, cos I think the grapes look like "crate" material!!! Well. SIgh..................

I walked around the aisles like a mad woman, past those expensive blueberries, strawberries, and also 3 for $3.55 pathetic looking peaches (definitely "crate" material)....finally settling on 5 gala apples. I have only eaten 1 apple (I mean fruits) since I landed, other than those generous fruit platter served by my "taitai" auntie.

I think i better find excuse to go to her place and get my strawberries?? Maybe I should also whine about the cherries and peaches??? If I whine enough, maybe her personal "fruit-er" will source for them??? Ok. Nah, better dun get so low down. Back to reality, and console myself that a durian goes for $5 or less, and news say Malaysia over produced durians this season!!!!
Woah hahaha. Poor farmers. But happy me. Cruel me. Hmmm, maybe these thoughts will affect my karma.... but who cares. i want durians!!!

And talking about Portobello, have I ever mentioned that I fell in love with Romeo Pires and thinking of losing weight for him in that fateful day when my "Shrek" was given a red card?

Ops... better shut up. Hubby will be spying here.