Food, food, food

As you may know, I like to cook and am a foodie (in my mind, a foodie is a person who wants to eat delicious, healthy, local food). Back in Bangor, we mostly ate at home, since eating out, in my opinion, is expensive and fattening. Of course, in Bangor there were only 3-4 restaurants we liked. So, a big change in Glasgow is the hundreds of restaurants to choose from, many within walking distance of our flat. However, they are still expensive and hit-or-miss in quality. A cheap meal for four is about $45, which doesn't seem like too much unless you're eating out a few times a week, as we could easily do. And although we've had some immemorable meals, we've also found a couple of great places -- more on that later.

In order to stretch our pennies, we do still eat in a lot. But shopping seems very different here, more of a daily journey. In part due to the size of the refrigerator. Notice the freezer is the same size as the fridge, which seems like a waste of space to me, especially since all that we found in the freezer were bags of ice.

Luckily, we live near a commercial street that has three grocery stores, plus a butcher, fish shop, cheese shop, and fruit and vegetable shop. We could really do European style shopping here with stops in different stores for each item. I'm too American to really shop this way, but I also love a bargain, so mostly I use the different stores to comparison shop. The big challenge is remembering I have to carry the groceries home, so not to buy too much.

Scots are famous for their sweet tooth, and the aisles of the groceries

confirm this.

Two aisles of candy choices!

Scots also love crisps (chips), so there is also a full aisle of these, including some unusual flavors, like prawn (shrimp), lamb and mint, thai chili chicken, cheddar and onion.

By contrast, notice small selection of peanut butter, hidden on the bottom shelf.

Also, near our house every other weekend is a farmers' market, with loads of seasonal vegetables (beets, cabbage, kale, potatoes, leeks), local meat, baked goods, and prepared Indian food.

The vegetables are great here (even the ones from the chain supermarkets)! After our first trip to the farmers' market, we had bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes). This week, we will try venison sausages, four-berry jam, smoked salmon, and moonga dal. As you can tell, Indian food is pervasive in Glasgow, even at the farmers' market.

So, we won't go hungry in this land of restaurants and markets, but we might have to watch our waistlines!