Remembrance of things bought. Week 2

Poorly, poorly credit card. I am currently single-handedly trying to redress the US balance of payments deficit.

1. Heirloom Tomatoes. Location - Farmers Market, Federal Centre Square Chicago - Of all the places in the world to get a little rural, Chicago is one where the paradigm shift must be the most extreme. But, there in the heart of the menacing but magnificent metropolis every Tuesday assemble farmers from neighbouring Michigan and Indiana selling their wares. In certain places, Americans are serious foodies, cherishing what is natural and seeking infinite variety not supermarket uniformity. I bought a couple of Cherokee Purple tomatoes from a stall selling 50 different types of tomatoes reputed to be heirloom breeds. Bulbous purple ones, distorted green ones, tiny orange and yellow ones, flat ones oval ones. It made Borough Market look terribly dull and the perfect red supermarket tomatoes strange distortions of nature.


2. Unspecified number of clothes. Location - 24th Street, Noe (pronounced No-eee), San Francisco. April and Jerry live in the very cool Noe Valley area. It is probably like Islington was about 5 years ago. good architecture, enough money swilling around to keep quirky, what you desire rather than what you need shops in business, and still up and coming enough that the arty shops subsist on rents of yesteryear than than the rents to come. Starbucks has arrived and who knows what follows in its wake. For the time being though it's delightful and its clothes and shoe shops quite irresistible.

3. Obama pin. Location - Market St, Downtown San Francisco. Downtown is packed full of banks with soaring c19th lobbies designed to be sufficiently ornate and embellished that gold-panners would believe them places that understand how to nourish hard won capital. They are temples to financial success where the supplicants come bearing their offerings which they present at the altars of marble tended by reverential cashiers. The banking system is what built the West - Wells Fargo being the name that has endured but also Bank of California, Bank of Italy which bizarrely is now Bank of America and so on. Crouched modestly within this Luxor of Mamon was a little stall staffed by Democratic campaigners. Yes I am voting for change by giving $4 to support its coming. in return for an Obama pin. Hardly a subversive gesture in a very liberal city but good to be part of it. In fact I seem to be travelling largely around Democractic America. New York and Massachusetts very 'liberal'. Chicago is Obama's homeland. San Francisco is so alternative that republicans don't get much of a look in (although Arnie as Governor is republican). Austin is the only democratic stronghold in Texas. The coasts are typically more 'blue' but there is a cottage industry in proving that the dramatic state level red-blue split in majority vote should actually be a more nuanced wash of purples and mauves. Just put "red blue maps US" into google or look at this link (with thanks to Jerry Michalski) to see what I mean.

4. Pluots and figs. Location - Ferry Building Farmers Market. San Francisco was the sea port of the West until air travel took over. All along the bay is the Embarcadero which at one point was an extended array of piers and now a mix of the crumbling, the touristy kitsch, the cool office rehab and the glorious Farmers Market in the old Ferry Building. I am used to Farmers Markets but it is always exciting to see the local fecundity. Here we had lots of fruits from the central California Plains, huge colourful delicious nectarines, peaches, plums, pears and the pluot which is a cross between a plum and an apricot. It is larger than both fruit with a firm flesh and sweet but not sugary taste. Yum. Also lots of types of fig including little bright light green figs as well as the rich purple ones that I know. Like Borough, stalls offer fresh cooked food so one wanders around with taste buds making themselves known and chemical signals sending feet over to investigate. We settled on Hayes St bakery where I had a crabcake sandwich (crab fishing big in the bay) and Jerry ate a Po'boys - griddled oyster sandwich. Sad addendum to this delightful morning was that April's bike was stolen. I am an old hand at being ' victim of crime' in London as I am now on Steed The 5th but April's bike was much nicer than any of the ones I have had. To rub salt into the wounds one of the homeless guys who was there offered us a bike 'he has in his garage... bought for $500 but available to us for $300'. Hum.

5. Salads of Radish, buffalo mozzarella, lemon cucumber and feta and confit of tuna, broccoli spears and tomato, ash covered goats cheese, artisan bread and olive mix. Location -Cowgirl Dairy Point Reyes Station. California does great food. It's fresh, local, bursting with colour and flavour. It's come off the land in the same way since the US agricultural lands became cultivated but it is no longer typical for the country. My brain struggles to understand how at one point a generation that had tasted such bounty could be weened off it in favour of mass produced industrialised food that fills the shelves in supermarkets. We were lucky and ate sat outside the shed in the sun in this small town known now for its access to the hiking and biking in the Point Reyes coastline area where we came for a hike to see the pelicans, seals and sunlight glinting on the Pacific ocean rising between here and Japan.

The wages of sin in my case are not death but ridicule. My purchases have now caused luggage spillover and Jerry and April have (kindly) given me the huge pink Pooh Bear plastic holdall that they bought in Mexico to carry my stuff. Am going to enjoy picking that off the conveyor belt.