Rocky and Shadow's Guide to Street Food

Popcorn is always a fine choice. - Photo via Flickr "face it" by Amancay Maahs

As the air turns chilly and thoughts of pumpkin spice everything floats in our heads, it is time to consider enjoying a pumpkin spice latte on a walk through the freshly chilled air.  A lazy afternoon stroll in the autumn air capped off with the perfect snack from a street food vendor is the recipe for a perfect Saturday afternoon.  And it just so happens that combining walks and street food is a favorite pastime of Rocky and Shadow.  So, it stands to reason that they would know the ins and outs of all the best local street foods.  "Everyone raves about street tacos," says Shadow "but my personal favorite is sidewalk popcorn.  All those delicious little kettle-corn kernels just sprinkled in the cracks of the sidewalk.  They brighten up even the longest most tiring walks."

The finest street popcorn - Photo via Flickr by Nadia Hatoum

Shadow is always on the lookout for tasty morsels left behind by foolish humans.  Rocky is more interested in the walking, but even he agrees that Saturdays are the best for finding street treats.

Photo via Flickr "Sunbathing Popcorn" by Mika

"Saturday evening walks always produce the best smells," Rocky tells us.  "Market day is a big deal here.  Everyone likes it.  Dogs and people abound throughout the morning, and by evening the very best aromas have blended together into a perfect Saturday evening sunset of smells.  There's really nothing like it."

Rocky and Shadow are foodies.  They like to regale their new friends with stories of the best foods they've found in the area.  Gutter apples sprinkled with flakes of perfectly blended autumn leaves sound almost too magical to be real.  But Rocky claims he found one once, and Shadow seems to remember with great pain that he didn't stumble across this find himself.  Also to Rocky's credit is the discovery of several quaint little neighborhood spots that have produced bush leftovers in the form of par-eaten ribs with a hint of earthy soil sauce.  

Lest you think that all the great discoveries are Rocky's, it should be noted that Shadow can claim discovery of the motor-oil infused road crackers that are a new and growing trend in the neighborhood, much to both dogs' continued delight.  While the absolute favorite is still bite-sized bread crusts and a hearty helping of veggies wrapped gently in grease-soaked paper and laid aside in, dare I say, hole-in-the-wall eateries near the sidewalk; they are only for the most discerning of foodies.  

Aren't these wrappers mouth-wateringly beautiful? - Photo via Flickr "Cupcake wrappers" by Joy

If all of this talk of street food has made you hungry, Rocky and Shadow cannot recommend market day enough.  As a matter of fact, they are always on the lookout for the latest and greatest in food trends in the area.  And don't worry, for those of you who love dessert but are watching waste-lines, be on the lookout for a local rosebush cafe that offers delectable and low-carb candy wrappers with just a hint of chocolate.  With so many irresistible street-food options right around the corner, it's hard to see how life could get any better.

Delectable low-carb candy wrappers - Photo via Flickr "laziness" by Leonard J Matthews

Mad Travel Favorites: Unexpected Pleasures

No doubt, you've heard that oft used quote by the incomparable Robert Burns "the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry".  No doubt you've also heard it used to mock the very idea of making plans.  Plans do have an alarming tendency to go awry, it is true.  But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't have them.  Plans do have their place.  You just need to recognize that they aren't the end all be all of travel.  The seasoned traveler knows that they must make plans AND expect them to fall apart at times.  Being able to roll with unexpected circumstances is just a part of travel.

For instance, I love planning my trips to maximize the amount of cool things I can see in a short period of time.  It can be convenient to know that two of the things you most want to see are in the same area.  It saves on unnecessary backtracking.  Yet, after reflection, it seems that my favorite parts of trips have all been the unexpected parts I could not, and did not, plan for at all.

Unexpected Discoveries in Rome

In Rome, one of my favorite discoveries was a little church that I hadn't planned to visit.  Rome is full of churches and there is simply not enough time to visit every single one of them.  No matter how beautiful they are, how historic, or how full of incredible art they are, the numbers make it impossible to see them all.

So, my friend and I had planned to visit only a few.  On the way to the Capitoline Museums we came across the side entrance of another church and impulsively decided to enter.

The Santa Maria in Aracoeli has a particularly uninspiring exterior.  But we decided it was worth a quick peek through the door since we were there.

And boy was it ever!  It is hard to describe the vast discrepancy between the exterior and interior of this church.  Let's just say that we stood frozen two feet inside the door gaping at arches bedazzled with chandeliers.  

I mean, I have never seen that many chandeliers in one place.  Have you?  Not only does every arch down the colonnade have a chandelier in it, the main arches in the crossing/transept of the church have them every two feet.  

I know it's not the best photo of the interior, but it's good enough for you to get an idea of how truly amazing it was.  If you find yourself in Rome anywhere near the Capitoline Hill you should pop in to see it.  Truly, it's worth the five minute detour.

    

The guidebook only mentioned the ceiling, which is clearly impressive.  However, I have seen many intricate and gorgeous ceilings.  Nowhere else have I seen chandeliers adorning arches the way they do in the Santa Maria in Aracoeli.  

It is my favorite little church and we would have missed it altogether if we had stuck to our plan. 

Take a minute, peek into something you didn't plan to see and you might be astonished by what you find. 

Delightful Surprises in Naples

In Naples my friend and I met a delightful older gentleman sketching in the sculpture rooms.  He gave us a sketch each and introduced us to a gentleman who worked at the museum.  The gentleman asked us if we wanted to know where to go for dinner.  We said we would definitely be interested in his advice on the subject.  He then personally escorted us across the street to a local restaurant.  Whatever he told the people there must have been good because our pizzas arrived in heart shapes and we were told which desserts were the best.  We weren't given menus we were given a personal description of the desserts.  It was the best evening in our whole trip even though none of it was planned at all.

This is an Il Baba.  

Apparently an il Baba is a traditional dessert from Naples and it is gorgeously delicious.  Had we been left to our own devices and a menu we may never have chosen it and that would have been a true loss.  Sometimes the unexpected, unplanned for, locally recommended things, truly are the best.

Hidden Treasures in Granada

In Granada, one of my favorite discoveries was a little unexpected house tucked away down a narrow alley street.  A great friend and I wandered down a tiny alley, lured by an intriguing vine growing from a gutter that we wanted to photograph.  

Then we wandered through tiny alleys heading vaguely uphill looking for views of the Alhambra.  Then, by accidentally losing ourselves down these tiny alleyways, we accidentally found this incredible old Moorish house.  The door was open and looked intriguing but at first we couldn't tell if it was just someone's house or actually something open to the public.  The lack of furniture and a plaque on a far wall convinced us to step inside and have a peek.  

We found ourselves in an old Moorish house with a beautiful courtyard pool and a spectacular view of the Alhambra.    

It even had some of the original wall plaster with the original Moorish wall decorations.

               

If we had stuck to a strict plan and only gone up the wide roads that led to the top of the hill without twisty turns we would never have found this place.  The Unofficial Best Tourist Award for that year went to my friend for suggesting the alley that led us to this place.  It may not be in a guidebook's list of highlights every tourist to Granada must see, but it's one of my favorite memories of the trip.  

Get Lost to Find the Best Things in Life

Sometimes the detours, the bits where you get lost on purpose in a great little neighborhood, turn out to be the best path.  Get lost and find something unexpected and exciting.  Take a local's advice and see something that hasn't made it on the top five list of every tourist in the city.  Pop in a random doorway to satisfy your curiosity and see what treasures you might find.  Eat in a local place or in some place recommended to you by a local.  Do at least one thing you didn't plan to do on your trip.  It may even turn out to be the best thing you could've done and become your favorite memory of the whole trip.  

Article and photos by The Madder Hatter for more travel stories and tips visit The Madder Hatter Traveler Blog.  

Breaking News: Mugger claims Scurvy made them do it!

Some day it will come to this.  One day I will hardly be able to fend off the scurvy and the madness and I will simply snap.  This will be my headline.  Mugger claims "Scurvy made me do it!"

I can tell you are confused.  That furrowed look on your brow, that raised eyebrow, that slightly narrowed eye tell all.  You cannot understand what I am talking about.  Well how could you?  YOU do not have scurvy.

At first I just thought I was tired from working too hard and maybe the tiniest bit lazy.  But then I realized the terrible truth.  I was in line to buy my handful of bargains at M&S when realization struck.  Out of all the things I could have selected to buy I had chosen to buy a lemon cake, a lemon mousse and a grapefruit.  I wasn't just tired and lazy.  I was craving fruit.  I had scurvy!  The hard yellow evidence was staring me straight in my scorbutic face.

Maybe the presence of this pirate cake alongside my lemon cake subconsciously started this whole thing? Nah, it was the scurvy.  Had to be.

Scorbutic, that's just such a great word.  No, focus Madder Hatter, you must stay focused.  Don't let the scurvy take you like this.

Ok, produce wallet, produce change, pay for citrusy products.  Almost safe.  No, the madness is taking over.  The scurvy... It. Is. Too. Powerful.

I stumbled back to my desk at work, delirious with laughter and the sickness.  I managed to obtain a spoon somehow in this state, peeled back the lid with trembling fingers and dug into the lemony mousse.  Ahhh.  The cure.  I could feel the sugary lemony goodness fixing me.  The madness slowly receded to a normal level and I went back to my work.  I had been saved from the scurvy, but not before I had realized my fate.

You see, it seems to be my fate to constantly battle scurvy.  I do not eat enough broccoli obviously, as I have explained before here.  So it is with a heavy heart that I must realize what my eventual fate will be.  I am destined to battle with scurvy my entire life.  Yes, tragic, but true.

I will not always be so lucky as to be within reach of a cure, however.  So, I am doomed to be the madman on the loose grasping at anything that even looks like a cure.

Mad with the scurvy I will scuttle down the street.  Nobody sitting at a quiet breakfast with grapefruit will be safe from my ravenous need for citrus.  I will be forced to grab lemony desserts from people's hands and down them without elegance or dignity.  Scorbutic hands trembling I am doomed to terrify the lone bearers of fruit flavoured cakes on public transportation.

With wild and anxious aspect I will spy the cakes from a distance, perched prettily on the lap of an unsuspecting bus passenger.  My desperate deficiency heightening my senses and screaming that I act now to restore my health, I will leap to my feet and race to my supposed salvation.  Muttering in demented demeanor aloud to myself about the scurvy I will pitch back and forth with the motion of the bus.  The scurvy will feel the motion, reach back into its ancient memory and believe with renewed audacity that it is afflicting a hapless sailor, demanding satisfaction in a fruit flavoured cake sacrifice to its honour.

I will battle with the scurvy.  I am a good person and won't want to take the poor passenger's cake.  But the scurvy will be strong and I will eventually be forced to steal their cake.  Unceremoniously, I will be found tearing into it to relieve my scurvy and become the world's weirdest and wildest mugger.  Stealing cakes from innocent people.  Once the scurvy has been sated and my sanity has returned to me it will be too late.  I will try to explain that the scurvy made me do it as I am led away in handcuffs for mugging some poor old lady bringing a lemon cake to her friends birthday.  But it will be too late she will already be terrified and traumatized by my public scorbutic debacle.

I am doomed.  Summer days may find me trying to pry orange popsicles from unsuspecting little fingers.  Fingers that will point me out as the orange-handed culprit.  Sure, sure I could have asked where they got their popsicles from, but scurvy doesn't heed logic.  Scurvy does not brook disappointment.  Scurvy is a law unto itself.  It is a bleak bleak future that awaits me.

Even if I try to stockpile on citrus products there is no telling when scurvy could strike.  I could be anywhere and nobody will be safe from my scorbutic mania.  Maybe I should get a lawyer.  Perhaps a good lawyer could explain that these innocent victims had knowledge of the whereabouts of the popsicle and cake vendors and that they were withholding that information from me.  I was forced to steal the popsicles and cakes out of great underprivileged need.

Or insanity.  The insanity plea could work.  The terrified lady from the bus could probably testify on my behalf even.  Insanity may just be my salvation. 

Serves Four? Think again.

Food in the UK is different.  They use less preservatives which is probably better for you but also means the food spoils faster.  They also sell foods we would almost never see in the US.

Sometimes food here perplexes me.  What, for instance, is a chicken teddy?

After reading the label I was assured that they were actually made of chicken, and were presumably breaded chicken nuggets.

They were just shaped like teddy bears.  Now, I understand the need to eat animal shaped foods.  Animal crackers, teddy grahams, and fish crackers are all staple snack foods from my childhood.  I've just never heard of teddy chickens.

Don't worry I ate them in the proper order.

Then there is dessert.  There is really nothing confusing about that, except, just maybe, how much of it you should eat.  A lot.  The answer is always a lot.

A glance at the packaging suggested the pie served four.  Huh.  Four.

I pre heated the oven carefully to gas mark 6.  Yes, I am so international, I can now pretend I understand British cooking measurements and appliances.  It's only taken me two years.

I put the pie in for the correct amount of time.  I used my phone as a timer.  Since I've discovered that my magic phone can do this less things have been burnt by my inattention.  I do love my phone.

The lovely golden delicious smelling pie came out of the oven on time and waited on the counter impatiently for me to eat it.

Serves four.  I cut the cinnamon apple pecan pie into six even slices, mostly because I like the way six slices looks better than four.

Then I unceremoniously put two in my bowl with a large portion of extra thick cream.  Mmm.  I'm not sharing.

Yep, more like serves one at a slightly slower rate than four. Only slightly mind.

I'm also pretty sure I know what I'm having for breakfast.

If you give a moose a muffin Madder Hatter style

I was sitting in my room calmly doing productive things such as checking emails when I decided I wanted a dessert.  I remembered that I had a lemon cheesecake cup waiting for me, but I had no spoon.

I went downstairs to the kitchen to get a spoon and I saw the kettle.  That reminded me that I was cold in my room and should heat some water for a hot water bottle.

While the water was heating I remembered that I should transfer tomorrow's lunch into containers that could be microwaved.

When I opened the refrigerator I realized that I wanted something salty first.  So I ate some bread and hummus.

Eating the bread reminded me that I had accidentally bought two loaves of bread and I needed to freeze one.

Putting the bread in the freezer reminded me that I was cold and I needed the hot water bottle, but it was upstairs.

Going upstairs I found my hot water bottle next to the piles of laundry and remembered I needed to put in a load of clothes.

Thinking about clothes reminded me that I needed to pick out something to wear for work tomorrow.  Which made me think about how cold it was going to be.

Thinking about the cold reminded me that I wanted my hot water bottle.

Going back down to the kitchen with the hot water bottle I thought I should be rewarded for being productive with something sweet.

Then I remembered that all I'd really wanted was a spoon.

Oh, so it's reduced, is it?

So, I'm still working on fashion.  It still makes me want to scream.  The only thing that gets me through my late shift is the food.  You see, Marks and Spencer's is a five minute walk from my work place.  So I can run in at 7:40pm during my break and grab all the super discounted stuff before it closes for the day.

How can you not love this little guy on your sandwich packaging?

They start reducing things that have reached their sell by date and need to go.  So on some nights you can find little cups of delicious trifle for only 10p.  Or a loaf of walnut bread for only 10p.  Or a nice sandwich, that is normally more than I want to pay for it, that is suddenly super cheap.  Or an entire cheesecake for only 50p.  Let's just say I live for dessert.  I grab the cookies, donuts, trifles and chocolate that goes on sale, as well as some of the amazing bread.  Then I sit at work soothing myself with junk food while I carry on with my loathsome tasks.

Why yes, I would like a tiny butler to serve me my pre-packaged sandwich.  Thanks.

So, last night I found milk chocolate Belgian mousse and donuts reduced just for me.  I also found some cream for 10p, some pineapple for 10p, some reduced bread and an interesting flavour of yogurt for only 10p.  This yogurt claimed to be luxury yogurt.  It was Gooseberry and Elderflower Luxury Yogurt.  It was actually pretty good though I don't think it was quite the "essence of warm summer days".  It had little bits in it, and even though I normally hate texture in my yogurt I still liked this.  It was very good, maybe even luxurious.

Luxury yogurt is indeed luxurious.

My dinner after shift was a red onion and Gruyere focaccia bread that was really good, and you guessed it, only 10p.  Then I finished dinner with some donuts.  Maybe I can't hate my job too much.