Veggie Heaven

To say that I am not a vegetarian would be understating how much I enjoy the primal satisfaction that I get out of consuming a mixed grill or a kebab at the Turkish restaurant up the road. Although I would not be considered a raging carnivore as I don't even eat meat every day, I find that I am truly satiated only after a meal that includes a good piece of iron rich meat. Anemic self-righteous vegetarians often annoy me and I get a smug pleasure out of scientific discoveries that confirm my views such as the research published last week linking soya with infertility. As a friend once said after a talk I organised on the subject of meat, “these people don't smell right and they tend to pair off.” I wouldn't go that far and I do know a few people who are non anemic, non self-righteous vegetarians and I like them in spite of their choices. I am open minded in that way. I just don't invite them over for dinner as I can't fathom the thought of serving a big salad followed by a piece of fruit... I've always enjoyed my vegetable side dishes but they don't make for a meal now do they?
Since I've moved close to one of London's biggest/cheapest/most chaotic outdoor food market though, I've had to come to terms with a new frenzied consumption of fruit and vegetable. For instance, this morning I left the flat with my little cloth bag to pick up milk and paper but I came back with a dozen courgettes (which I will grill with lemon juice, olive oil and garlic for dinner), three gigantic avocados, half a dozen lemons, a pound of satsuma oranges (so sweet and seedless!), a pound of tomatoes (which I will turn into sauce) and a box of litchis. Yes, a box that could easily fit a pair of shoes, full of litchis. All this set me back less than a fiver...

Of course, all that is delicious and healthy and I get to cook and prepare it while I'm writing which fills my little doll's house of a flat with lovely smells but what really gets me to fill my little bag with vegetarian goodies every time I leave the house is the market itself. It's the perfect cross between my memories of living in Congo, my souvenirs of traipsing through Istanbul and a typical London outing. I ask you, where else could you get a “Ta, love!” for buying a big stinking durian fruit and plantain? What's more, the displays are stunning in a mouth-watering way. It's all so colorful: the stalls, the stall owners, their language when they curse at people who haggle. Why wouldn't I want to bring a bit of that home? The vegetables, that is, not the stall owners or their colorful language.

Well, I might eventually get used to it and be able to resist the siren song of this vegetable paradise but right now, I have courgettes and tomatoes to process...