The chalkboard sign outside Konstam on Kings Cross Road said “Cute as a button”, and truly, inside, it was: heavy woodbench tables wobbling on the uneven floor, and the thumbtacks in silver and rusted spelling out a full-size elk on the corkboard wall. We were leaning over our coffees, me and Nai, and it was awfully nice in a way that rainy Sunday brunches are nice. We were wordless for being newly back in town, and wordless for Sunday morning, but that was nice too.
I wanted some chocolate, after, just a square, really, and everything on the menu looked good, but none of it looked like chocolate—it looked like eggs and mushrooms and squeak and blood pudding, but it sure didn’t look like chocolate—so we headed out into the drizzle, where an off-licence uncle sold me a Flake bar for fifty p.
’Round the corner we went up five flights on Killick Street, and the boy made tea, and we read the paper, and it was awfully nice in a way that warm Sunday kitchens are nice. And then I said “Grocery store?” and he said “Ya,” and the rain came down fine, and we avoided the puddles all the way to, HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS, THE BIGGEST SAINSBURY’S KNOWN TO MAN.
The aisles were wide, the lights were bright, it was a hypermarket to match the best America has to offer. Nai was all Meh-I-come-here-all-the-time, but I was wild-eyed, I’m sure, in the Sunday crowd, trying to make the boy buy bags of clementines on special and boxes of dodgy generic pizza and packs of chicken nuggets in the shapes of X’s and O’s. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” he said, “or at least pretending to.” But I mean, COME ON. In the face of heavy cream yoghurts in the flavour of “Raspberry Fool”, of bottles of lychee-scented ironing water, there is neither time nor space for pretence. “Oh,” I said, “you make London good,” and he let me put a box of ice creams in his basket.
I wanted some chocolate, after, just a square, really, and everything on the menu looked good, but none of it looked like chocolate—it looked like eggs and mushrooms and squeak and blood pudding, but it sure didn’t look like chocolate—so we headed out into the drizzle, where an off-licence uncle sold me a Flake bar for fifty p.
’Round the corner we went up five flights on Killick Street, and the boy made tea, and we read the paper, and it was awfully nice in a way that warm Sunday kitchens are nice. And then I said “Grocery store?” and he said “Ya,” and the rain came down fine, and we avoided the puddles all the way to, HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS, THE BIGGEST SAINSBURY’S KNOWN TO MAN.
The aisles were wide, the lights were bright, it was a hypermarket to match the best America has to offer. Nai was all Meh-I-come-here-all-the-time, but I was wild-eyed, I’m sure, in the Sunday crowd, trying to make the boy buy bags of clementines on special and boxes of dodgy generic pizza and packs of chicken nuggets in the shapes of X’s and O’s. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” he said, “or at least pretending to.” But I mean, COME ON. In the face of heavy cream yoghurts in the flavour of “Raspberry Fool”, of bottles of lychee-scented ironing water, there is neither time nor space for pretence. “Oh,” I said, “you make London good,” and he let me put a box of ice creams in his basket.
posted by stellou at 2:02 PM
7 Comments:
i would like to go to the biggest sainsbury's ITW, me. i am the raspberry fool.
(me and the baby just got back from about life where a punnet of raspberries and a punnet of blueberries was procured, at $5 a punnet. she was already eating them in the checkout aisle. thus concludes your babt story for the day.)
a boy? is this a new development?
i see you were wild eyed and not wide eyed. so instead of awe i imagine you running around drinking the lychee scented ironing water smothered in some kind of raspberry dairy product - all in the pommy kind of hyper-market.
and as an aside: raspberries for $5 a punnet???? i must be there. now.
cc > that baby is a raspberry la raspberry raspberry. eh i ask you, is it okay to eat raspberries and blueberries out of the punnet WITHOUT WASHING??? am i psycho? it's just...you know how sometimes tomatoes in the store smell of pesticide? yurgh.
saffron > i like that idea of drinking the lychee-scented ironing water. i came close, i think. i kept unscrewing the cap to smell it. and i was all "you HAVE to SMELL this i mean COME ON PLEASE it is AMAZING this STORE is AMAZING no but PLEASE SMELL this EVERYTHING is AMAZING RIGHT NOW."
ps. oh ya boy do we like this new development. :-p
nellie: i had that discussion (washing berries) with myself in that split second it took for the whining to up a decibel into keening. apparently washing berries washes away the flavour. at home... see how lah, sometimes wash sometimes don't wash. it all balances out innit?
oh. in the previous message, "babt" means "baby".
saffron: yes, run! raspberries, blackberries and blueberries all $10 for 2 punnets. the baby had a bowl of raspberries, blueberries and cherries with honey-cinammon yoghurt for dessert. she eats better than i do.
i really like honey yoghurt. my top two yoghurts are honey and citron. i just said "citron" because i am SO pretentious. well, my fingers are pretentious. i meant lemon. tankyu!
here is the thing on washing berries according to moi:
strawberries : can be washed
blueberries, raspberries, mulberries, blackberries: are to delicate to be washed. if need be put them in the fridge and then rub them as you would a mushroom - and that is gentlely with scotch paper.
yoghurt anything is yummy! have you tried the almond and honey from harris farm markets. sometimes i eat only that for breakfast, lunch and dinner :)
I concur. The Harris Farm Market yoghurt is like the heaven of yoghurt. I like...berry best I think...though I can't be sure.
(had to take a commenting break, boy brought me a dark cherry jelly. I like it coz its red, it tricks my mind to thinking it is more yummy then it is)
(boys are sometimes useful. keep developing em)
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