Afterwards, I visited a new store, Russo's in Watertown. It's a local grocer with a ton of produce. It kind of reminded me of Berkeley Bowl in California. They both have a ton of produce you've never heard of. A french friend recommended the place for their cheese selection and prices. They didn't have my favorite cheese, brilliant-savant. Although I did find some cheese with the same name but seemed to be flavored - bananas or pineapples. I forget what anas is. In the end I got a cheese that was right next to them and super fragrant, Prefere de nos Montagnes. I can't wait to try it. I was able to find my currants for a Moroccan lamb dish I'm making. And next to them were dried cantelope. Have you ever heard of that? And what's a Florida avacado? I got one of those too. They are almost twice the size and when I shook it you could hear the pit. They had a pound of rolled Amish butter in butter. I always want to buy some when I'm in ohio or Virginia visiting, but it doesn't travel that well. The place was quite crowded for a mid-morning Tuesday. I hear it's crazy on the weekends.
Overall the place is like Wilson's in lexington. Mostly produce with a cheese shop, bakery and deli. I love these places. Russo's has a completely different vibe, having a large Italian contigency. The waspy Wilson's seems calm after playing bumper cars with the older Italian women. Plus Russo's is just more crowded in their layout.
I hit up Target on my way back and man my bill got expensive. I unpacked everything and it's just a lot of little things that just add up. I only popped in for the 2 gallon zip bags. They had a sale on my laundry detergent and the special is buy 3, get 1 free. So that added up. But now I'm set for a long long time. I hit up the beauty aisles first to check out a product I had seen online. As I was looking, an associate walked up and asked me if I needed help. Usually I hate being interrupted by my shopping and just like to be left to myself. If I need help, I'll seek it out. But this time I was more friendly and she turned out to be really helpful. I was trying to find a cream I had seen on a youtube beauty chanel. I didn't expect to find it this visit since I hadn't written it down and in the end, she found it for me. It's a La Roche-Posay product. The whole aisle was target's british products. Which is awesome since I tend to watch more british youtubers which makes it hard buying products from Boots (the UKs CVS). The make-up wipes even had the Boots logo on it. I love it! No need to import the stuff from my trips. And as an added bonus, after the associate finished helping me she gave me a little goody bag with samples - a lotion I wanted to try, a hair mask and even some chewy vitamins. Good lesson learned, it doesn't hurt to be friendly to the sales people, even if you don't really want to socialize.
Then off to the Fromaggia shop in Cambridge. Their cheeses are expensive but their bakery breads are so affordable and good. And just down the street I popped into a little old antique store. The prices were not that bad for the area and such a nice mix of old English, Japanese and Art Deco. I made friends with the owner, Lee and walked out with a wall mirror. I was trying to negotiate the price, but couldn't find a second item that wasnt too much. In the end I was good and just bought the one item. I was resigned to pay the marked price since it was just the one item. And he ended up ringing me up with a discount of about $7. I love that type of negotiating, where you don't ask and they just give you a better price. I think it helped that I talked him up during my perusing.
I'm back home to whip up some cheesecake coconut bites and Moroccan cous cous lamb dish. I've been working through my pile of recipes ripped from magazines and pinned on pinterest. It's amazing how many recipes I've accumulated. About a dozen variations on cornbread with something (apples, bacon,etc). I'm organizing all the recipes I like into a cookbook, done by season and identifying ingredients not usually in my pantry. The purpose being, I'll have something leftover, like coconut milk I didn't use the entire container and now need to use in another recipe. My challenge is that I have a lot of dessert recipes. Cookies alone, I probably have about 30 recipes. And being that I'm eating less sugar, whats a girl to do. I'm planning on baking up goodies before visits and giving stuff away. That or doing half recipes.
