I spend a lot in markets, in terms of both time and money. A lunchtime trip to the fruit, veg, fish and meat stalls of Kirkgate Market in Leeds has become a weekly ritual, and I return to the office with one of those blue IKEA bags full of stuff. My colleagues ask me what unspeakable things [...]
Years ago, I used to ‘do’ veg boxes. Every week, a weird selection of vegetables would land on my back doorstep. I’d peer into the box early every Wednesday morning to see more kale to add to the mountain of kale from the week before. Nobody really likes kale, except the people who run veg [...]
A few weeks ago, we went to Edinburgh. It was the Edinburgh Festival, and the whole city was heaving with people, half of whom were apparently students in a show of some kind … my favourite pitch was for a show that was apparently a cross between American Psycho and American Pie. We didn’t go to [...]
http://youtu.be/9dqQblZYQ1w “In his way, the meat cutter is an artist”. Here’s a wonderful little American promotional film from the Fifties, that walks through the process of butchering a side of beef into cuts suitable for selling shrink-wrapped in those new-fangled supermarkets. Just look at the marbling on that beef. Try to ignore the naïve sexism [...]