How the other 1 percent lives

Today was a fun day of errands. First stop: a Bureau de Change on High Street Islington, where I changed my $113 into pounds. It was a little depressing when the clerk handed me 56 pounds in exchange for $113! People used to say they were "sound as a dollar." Now, you can be "sound as a pound," but if you're like a dollar, you might as well be dead.
From there, we went to Kings Cross/St. Pancras station to update our Travelcards. This is something we will do weekly. Kings Cross/St. Pancras is a huge station for both underground and the National Rail Service. It's a old station and is where the terrorists set off bombs in 2005.
From there, we took the Tube to Picadilly Circus. My destination was the venerable Fortnum & Mason. I wanted to buy a tin of their wonderful Royal Blend tea.
I went to F&M for the first time in 2000. Keith and I had a lovely tea in their St. James's Restaurant. It was dreafully expensive but so worth it ... it was the ultimate British experience.
F&M is an old department store, founded in 1707. The bottom two floors are a grocery of sorts - in fact, F&M is the Queen's Grocer. You won't see Lizzie gliding a cart down the carpeted aisles - it's the Queen's Grocer by Royal Warrant. It simply means that they're approved to supply goods to the Royal Family.
The lower floor has a selection of meats, cheeses, fruits and vegetables and several rows of assorted goodies.

The sweet potatoes at F&M were the largest ones I have ever seen. (As always, click the photos for a larger view.) I photographed them - leave it to me to haul my Kodak into an upscale grocery store - beside a rather large eggplant, or aubergine, as it is called here.
Then there were the beans. The first ones we saw were called Broadbeans. They were the size of large chiles. The flat beans - top right in the photo - were at least a foot long. Amazing! The rich really are different! They eat gigantic beans!
Below those, we found English peas and the ultra-slim French beans.
Pate was everywhere. I have never warmed to the idea of pate - I'm not a livers kind of gal. Two that caught my eye were a pate of chicken liver, Cointreau and orange, and a Venison terrine of fresh chicken livers, red and white juniper berries and venison. I also saw Boar paste, apparently tasty on toast points. I have to say that it looked simply horrible.
When I get right down to it, I'm a very plain food person. Sauces with reductions, glaces, confits and such are not for me. So I got a bang out of reading the labels.
How about Pickled Hen's Eggs? Five to a glass jar, 4.95 - approximately $2 per egg. They're pickled in malt vinegar, raw sugar, chili flakes, allspice and chiles.
We were fascinated by cubes of sugar made into puzzle pieces. The pieces of white, brown and dark brown sugar looked really fun - but eventually your puzzle is melting into your tea.
How about a tin of Octopus chunks? A can of Haggis?
We did see a few familiar items. Betty Crocker Devil's Food Cake mix sold for 3 pounds, 20 pence - about $6 and you have to make the cake yourself.

I'm saving the best for last - a standard box of Lucky Charms cereal was 8 pounds, 95 pence - about $17. If it were Cap'n Crunch, maybe ... but Lucky Charms??