the South Bank

So, the south bank of the Thames... huge deal in London! Not only the outer limits of the city, but also home to City Hall, The London Eye, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the Tate Modern, the Design Museum... and the list goes on. I decided to visit this area of town primarily for Borough Market, a HUGE fresh food and farmers market that Jamie Oliver, my Naked Chef, has made incredibly popular. There is a major trend here in London for buying fresh. local produce that has not been altered in any way, or force fed, or kept in unnatural environments, etc. And Jamie Oliver did a lot of work at the beginning of his career to puch for this. So Borough Market - too busy to really take pictures on your first trip there, but ABSOLUTELY PHENOMINAL food - from fresh produce to fruit, hand-rolled chocolate truffles, honeycomb, naturally dried fruits and nuts, cheese... EVERYTHING! At first I passed the market because I didn't realize that it was there, but when I stopped to look at my map, I realized that it was set back from the river a bit. A series of small nooks and crannies make up the individual stands, and together they cover over 16 city blocks on the South Bank.

This was my first visit...

But of course I had to go back, being the kind of person I am with fresh fruit and veg in the summer... and guess who was there, the one and only Naked Chef himself. Having just opened an Italian restaurant in Oxford, called Jamie's Italian, he was tehre promoting a few of the stands who supply him with produce and meats. It was later in the evening, so the market wasn't quite as busy as it had been on my first visit... I approached the stand, pretending to be interested in the large, red-raddishes before me :) He immediately asked me if he could help at all, and when I said, "No, I'm all set", he immediately noticed the lack of accent (as everyone has been doing). So I had a chat with Jamie, and asked where he would recommend I grab a bite to eat before I left - and silly me, I had no idea that they were making sandwiches... so Jamie made my dinner! Marvelous... it was a grillefd eggplant, asparagus, and bell pepper wrap - DELICIOUS! I ended up inhaling it before I got to take a picture, but here's a few to give you an idea of what I saw.

After reluctantly parting with the Naked Chef, I realized something, the "celebreality" in London is SO different from Los Angeles, California, or New York. The chefs here are much more interested in the vivid culture that exists around them, and seem excited at the opportunity to interact and really teach people something about the food that they are eating. I figure, Emeril would hardly have been as kind :)