Chocolate and Shakespeare

Sunny and warm, albeit a little windy.

There was a chocolate festival at Southbank today. Chocolatiers from all over London attended, from the organic, raw, gluten free, dairy free, melted, honey, crumbly and dark chocolate vendors all there to peddle their goods. I even got to try a true, honest to God coco bean. It was at first not so bad but then the bitterness kicks in and you can’t wait to get something else to eat. There was even a churro vendor selling freshly made, right before your eyes, churros with melted chocolate. Between me and my two friends the cupful of sugary goodness and chocolate was just enough. The festival wasn’t all that big to be honest but with all that chocolate it is probably a good thing there wasn’t more to tempt the stomach and take from the wallet.

Camden market is really a wonder. If you go into the giant stalls that have dresses, shirts and purses everywhere you turn, the people selling are so desperate to sell to you that you can get some really great deals. Dresses that are marked at £15 went for £10 (I didn’t buy it) and bags marked at the same £15 went for £8 (I did buy that one). Though we didn’t spend too much time in the stalls that are right next to the tube station it still was a fun little outing in the sunshine.

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) was written by three American’s probably over 10 years ago now, and since then many companies and troops have taken on the project in their own way. The New Red Lion in Angel took on the project for a few weeks this year with a cast of two men and one woman. The show is meant to be funny if not a tiniest bit offensive to some people (the mention Hitler a few times and though it was funny to us Yanks and young adults, to the older woman behind us, she was really not amused and thought it “in extremely bad taste”) but you get over any offense you may have by their energy to go from one play to the next not skipping any in the entire Shakespeare Cannon, and they do this all in 2 hours’ time. Lot of fun that gets the audience involved in the action (my purse was actually “stolen” by the woman in the troop, who upon returning it to me said “it’s very sensible of you to carry those” garnering a laugh from all of my friends, the audience and me as well, it’s all in good fun), everyone in fact that was used in the show was from our group, but that’s what we get for sitting in the front row.

The Hard Rock Café isn’t known for its food but for its rock n’ roll memorabilia and atmosphere. I went with a small group of 5 other people to the Café off of Hyde Park Corner for desert, apparently they had good brownie sundaes. When we got there me and two more of my friends got roped in by a very clever waitress into getting the cocktail in a souvenir cocktail glass. I got a lovely strawberry daiquiri and it was so big in that hurricane glass it really was two of the normal drinks (although I seem to be building immunity to alcohol of late even though I haven’t had any in about a month). And yes I got to take a nice glass from the Hard Rock London Café, London, home with me. We were teased by our waitress for only getting drinks and dessert and no burgers, she apparently thought it was odd for six American 20 something’s to not order food, and of course being the sly waitress she was tried to rope us in to split a burger amongst the six of us, we didn’t bite this time thought. For dessert (of course we still got dessert), three of them got the Brownie Sundae thing while I got the Crème Brule. I love Crème Brule; it is one of my favorite desserts ever created, this one even had chocolate at the bottom of the cream! So delicious and so worth it.

Tomorrow: ?