Am quite ashamed to admit that I forgot where my husband was this week! That has never happened before. In my defense, he's been taking more than the usual amount of business trips and so far, never at a time when I could tag along - worse luck for me. Most of his trips have been to Italy and while I have been there many times, I love going there so I've been quite peeved that he happened to "mention" going on this next trip after I already had committed to various things. Ah well, next time.
So last week he was in Italy. My husband is quite the pizza connoisseur. Thus, we have pizza in every single country we have ever visited. Sometimes this has been to our delight and sometimes this has been to our dismay. But we must maintain his reputation for trying pizzas everywhere, no matter how far from Italy or how far from any kind of mainstream food sources. And he always calls me on his business trips when I am not along for the ride so he called me on Tuesday night and one of the first things he said was "I'm maintaining my reputation". I knew right away that he was referring to the pizza reputation but I responded with "You've already had pizza in Italy so you didn't have to do it again!". OMG. He's not in Italy this week. He's in India!! I knew this, I really, really did but we've been so busy trying to have our belated Christmas and then getting him back from Italy last Thursday and ready to go to India on Monday that it just slipped out of my mouth. Boy, was he amused.
We have been in India before and tried the pizza there so he actually didn't need to have pizza again but we do love it and that's one reason we always try it. So he didn't mind trying it again.
Anyway, his pizza reputation is intact, my geography reputation - if I ever had one - is shattered. And I must remember to keep my "I" countries in order and which week goes with which "I" country.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
3 Day Anti-Climatic Christmas
We held off on having our Christmas holiday and gift giving this year as we waited for our daughter to be able to come and join us. As she works in Africa on a rotational basis, she was due to come to see us on Jan 15 so our plans were to have Christmas the weekend of the 18Th and 19Th, not quite a month after the real deal. Presents were all bought and ready, but we were going to wait to decorate until that weekend.
Part of this reasoning was due to her cat. Yes, how silly to plan things around a cat but her cat and our two cats are all family members too and it is fun to watch their reactions to different things. Her cat has never had a Christmas tree. As he is incredibly smart and curious and oddly clumsy, we figured he'd just go nuts over the Christmas tree and fully expected him to climb into it and bat things off of it and just generally do mayhem, which we planned to control by keeping doors closed if necessary and watching carefully - with the camera of course.
So our daughter arrives on time. As luck would have it, my husband was out of town on a business trip and got back late on Thursday night so we had planned to put up the tree on Thursday but couldn't. Friday night, everyone was just too tired by the time the usual shopping had been done and hubby home for work and all. Finally Saturday, we managed to pull everything out of the attic/loft and get the tree put up in the living room.
All the cats were milling around it didn't take long for our two cats to go "oh yea, we remember this - not much going on that is for us" and they promptly went somewhere warm and went to sleep. My daughter's cat was interested in the proceedings. He wandered underneath the tree a couple of times, stretched up into it once and then sat down beside it to watch and see what was happening. As we expected a great deal of interest, we took care to only pull out the ornaments that were not breakable and the few breakable ones we got out, we put closer to the top of the tree to protect them.
The entire time we are decorating, her cat is just sitting and watching. With so little reaction, we even finally put a few breakable glass ornaments on the bottom and nada, nothing. Then we pulled out the tinsel garland. Surely he will take interest in this because he loves tinsel and loves to eat it! But as we are winding it around the tree, he is not even watching now, preferring to look out in the garden as there are squirrels out there.
The tree is decorated and the lights are on and the cats are totally ignoring the entire thing. How anti-climatic! We had expected a much bigger response, a much bigger interest, a lot more laughs and yelling and shouting and such but he was just not interested. Presents go under the tree and the most he does is walk around them and take a sniff here and there. Wow, did we ever call this one wrong.
Too late for actual opening of presents so we waited until around noon the next day to open our presents. All cats were present and the best thing, they thought, were a few empty boxes. Again, no interest in the tree or the ornaments or the tinsel. But it was a very nice Christmas for us, present wise and companion wise and we had a good time.
Next day, Monday, my husband is off on another business trip so I take all the ornaments off the tree and pack away everything for next year. no cats even bother to come watch this dismantling of our 3 day Christmas. No batting of the ornaments, no climbing the tree, no fighting the tinsel, no eating the papers, nothing. My daughter's cat is very smart and clever though. Could he be waiting for next year because the others told him it usually lasts much longer and he can do a lot more damage then? who knows.
Part of this reasoning was due to her cat. Yes, how silly to plan things around a cat but her cat and our two cats are all family members too and it is fun to watch their reactions to different things. Her cat has never had a Christmas tree. As he is incredibly smart and curious and oddly clumsy, we figured he'd just go nuts over the Christmas tree and fully expected him to climb into it and bat things off of it and just generally do mayhem, which we planned to control by keeping doors closed if necessary and watching carefully - with the camera of course.
So our daughter arrives on time. As luck would have it, my husband was out of town on a business trip and got back late on Thursday night so we had planned to put up the tree on Thursday but couldn't. Friday night, everyone was just too tired by the time the usual shopping had been done and hubby home for work and all. Finally Saturday, we managed to pull everything out of the attic/loft and get the tree put up in the living room.
All the cats were milling around it didn't take long for our two cats to go "oh yea, we remember this - not much going on that is for us" and they promptly went somewhere warm and went to sleep. My daughter's cat was interested in the proceedings. He wandered underneath the tree a couple of times, stretched up into it once and then sat down beside it to watch and see what was happening. As we expected a great deal of interest, we took care to only pull out the ornaments that were not breakable and the few breakable ones we got out, we put closer to the top of the tree to protect them.
The entire time we are decorating, her cat is just sitting and watching. With so little reaction, we even finally put a few breakable glass ornaments on the bottom and nada, nothing. Then we pulled out the tinsel garland. Surely he will take interest in this because he loves tinsel and loves to eat it! But as we are winding it around the tree, he is not even watching now, preferring to look out in the garden as there are squirrels out there.
The tree is decorated and the lights are on and the cats are totally ignoring the entire thing. How anti-climatic! We had expected a much bigger response, a much bigger interest, a lot more laughs and yelling and shouting and such but he was just not interested. Presents go under the tree and the most he does is walk around them and take a sniff here and there. Wow, did we ever call this one wrong.
Too late for actual opening of presents so we waited until around noon the next day to open our presents. All cats were present and the best thing, they thought, were a few empty boxes. Again, no interest in the tree or the ornaments or the tinsel. But it was a very nice Christmas for us, present wise and companion wise and we had a good time.
Next day, Monday, my husband is off on another business trip so I take all the ornaments off the tree and pack away everything for next year. no cats even bother to come watch this dismantling of our 3 day Christmas. No batting of the ornaments, no climbing the tree, no fighting the tinsel, no eating the papers, nothing. My daughter's cat is very smart and clever though. Could he be waiting for next year because the others told him it usually lasts much longer and he can do a lot more damage then? who knows.
Monday, January 20, 2014
The Agony of Being Mangosteen-less
We lived in Singapore way back in the mid-90's. At that time, we were bold and adventurous (and I believe we still are in MOST categories) so we tried most every type of food that came our way. My hubby and I both learned to love a lot of the "exotic" fruits of Southeast Asia which includes but is not limited to: lychees, rambutans, star fruit, dragon fruit, mangosteens, passion fruit and others. And in the true spirit of adventure and culture immersion, we tried everything, including jackfruit and durian. Didn't really like jackfruit much but durian - OMG. For those in the know, durian smells like the back end of a weeks old dead dog thrown into a never-cleaned overflowing outhouse. It is so bad that it is banned from subways and buses in Singapore. Walk into any market and you can tell if they stock durian or not. Yep, that bad and yet we still gave it a go because oddly enough, it is loved by many in Southeast Asia and they swear by it's sweet taste. We tried the durian ice cream and the durian creme puffs (on different days as it took awhile to work up our courage again). Held our noses, held our breath and nope, nothing worked to kill the stench that flows into the back of the mouth and made us gag so durian is definitely a thing we will never eat again, probably.
However, we did like and love a good many of the other fruits. My absolute favorite is the mangosteen which is a small ball of hard purple (and it is also banned in some hotels because it will stain their towels). You push on it until it breaks open and inside is some lovely, tasty white flesh - sometimes with some seeds and sometimes not. I learned that I can easily eat a dozen of these things at a single setting. Love, love, love mangosteens. So it was with great disappointment that I learned it is incredibly hard to find mangosteens in most countries outside of Asia. I guess that it does not travel well.
Fast forward past several years without mangosteens then our first year here, my first visit to Borough Market and I discovered one fruit and vegetable stall that had mangosteens in stock. OMG again! Hallelujah! Yippee! I cleaned them out of their entire stock that first day. Oops, OMG a third time. Yikes. the price is somewhat way, way, way, way higher than anywhere when you can buy them closer to the source. OUCH. I think I paid 3 or 4 pounds each! But I love them so much that I didn't care. And very sad to say, I didn't share either. By the time my husband got home that day, the mangosteens were just a happy tummy memory.
Luckily I don't live in London and don't get to go to Borough Market that often or our grocery budget would be way out of hand, but every time I do, I have found the mangosteens again and bought all I could carry or all I had money to get. Then one day I discovered that you could also get mangosteens at some of the markets in Chinatown, close to Leicester Square. Much cheaper but also much less in quality. Sometimes a mangosteen is sold past it's prime and the white flesh inside is brown and yucky and almost every mangosteen I bought in Chinatown was either in this condition or very close to it. So no longer do I consider Chinatown to be a place to find good mangosteens - back to Borough Market whenever I can.
Last Thursday, my daughter and I headed to London as she still had a few Christmas presents to buy (yes, we just had Christmas as she didn't get here until this week) and I headed to Borough Market to my fruit and veggie stall to get my fix of mangosteens. I walked through, walked through again, went through a bit faster looking desperately all around me and then went very slowly through checking bin by bin and no mangosteens!!! Surely I've just missed them and they have moved them somewhere else. There was the dragon fruit, the star fruit, the lychees, and other good exotic fruit but I was not seeing my purple passion! I went up to the clerk and asked and he informed me that they had sold out of mangosteens the day before. Oh No. I had based my entire trip and my day on getting to Borough and getting those little purple balls of glory. Someone else has decided to hoard mangosteens. Some evil person got there before me and stole my wonderful fruit. Some nasty, evil, devious, evil and triply evil person took them all. I was bereft, crestfallen, depressed, glum, and sad. Yes, mangosteens are that good.
No plans to go into London for probably the next month or so. drat it all. I will go again though and if they are out again, I may have to try Chinatown again and if they are bad again, I may have to fly to Singapore, just for mangosteens. Some say that the durian is the king of fruit but I think it is the lowly, lovely mangosteen. And please stay away from Borough Market if you plan to try them. get some in Chinatown again, or better yet, don't get any. Leave them for me, a true enthusiast and affection-ado of the mangosteen.
However, we did like and love a good many of the other fruits. My absolute favorite is the mangosteen which is a small ball of hard purple (and it is also banned in some hotels because it will stain their towels). You push on it until it breaks open and inside is some lovely, tasty white flesh - sometimes with some seeds and sometimes not. I learned that I can easily eat a dozen of these things at a single setting. Love, love, love mangosteens. So it was with great disappointment that I learned it is incredibly hard to find mangosteens in most countries outside of Asia. I guess that it does not travel well.
Fast forward past several years without mangosteens then our first year here, my first visit to Borough Market and I discovered one fruit and vegetable stall that had mangosteens in stock. OMG again! Hallelujah! Yippee! I cleaned them out of their entire stock that first day. Oops, OMG a third time. Yikes. the price is somewhat way, way, way, way higher than anywhere when you can buy them closer to the source. OUCH. I think I paid 3 or 4 pounds each! But I love them so much that I didn't care. And very sad to say, I didn't share either. By the time my husband got home that day, the mangosteens were just a happy tummy memory.
Luckily I don't live in London and don't get to go to Borough Market that often or our grocery budget would be way out of hand, but every time I do, I have found the mangosteens again and bought all I could carry or all I had money to get. Then one day I discovered that you could also get mangosteens at some of the markets in Chinatown, close to Leicester Square. Much cheaper but also much less in quality. Sometimes a mangosteen is sold past it's prime and the white flesh inside is brown and yucky and almost every mangosteen I bought in Chinatown was either in this condition or very close to it. So no longer do I consider Chinatown to be a place to find good mangosteens - back to Borough Market whenever I can.
Last Thursday, my daughter and I headed to London as she still had a few Christmas presents to buy (yes, we just had Christmas as she didn't get here until this week) and I headed to Borough Market to my fruit and veggie stall to get my fix of mangosteens. I walked through, walked through again, went through a bit faster looking desperately all around me and then went very slowly through checking bin by bin and no mangosteens!!! Surely I've just missed them and they have moved them somewhere else. There was the dragon fruit, the star fruit, the lychees, and other good exotic fruit but I was not seeing my purple passion! I went up to the clerk and asked and he informed me that they had sold out of mangosteens the day before. Oh No. I had based my entire trip and my day on getting to Borough and getting those little purple balls of glory. Someone else has decided to hoard mangosteens. Some evil person got there before me and stole my wonderful fruit. Some nasty, evil, devious, evil and triply evil person took them all. I was bereft, crestfallen, depressed, glum, and sad. Yes, mangosteens are that good.
No plans to go into London for probably the next month or so. drat it all. I will go again though and if they are out again, I may have to try Chinatown again and if they are bad again, I may have to fly to Singapore, just for mangosteens. Some say that the durian is the king of fruit but I think it is the lowly, lovely mangosteen. And please stay away from Borough Market if you plan to try them. get some in Chinatown again, or better yet, don't get any. Leave them for me, a true enthusiast and affection-ado of the mangosteen.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Death to My Janome
I am a quilter which happened strictly by chance when my husbands second overseas assignment in Okpo, Korea put me there at the same time as an avid quilter. Unbeknownst to me, her mission, I think, was to turn everyone she met into a quilter. As I was not busy with school aged children, I feel into her web and she invited me to learn to quilt and I did. I still have that first quilt which still functions as a nice warm bed cover but also is pretty rugged and raw in quality. But that was the start and now, around 50 or more quilts later, I am a quilter.
I quilt by what I call the "Law of Three" In every three quilts I do, one is absolutely great and I'm proud to show it to anyone. One is OK, humdrum but acceptable, quite nice but only from a distance kind of quilt. And quilt number three is just crap. Usually because I get really tired of messing with quilt number three and just finish it up as fast as possible so usually the quilting isn't as nice on it and the binding is really ugly or bad but it still works in the dead of winter to keep us warm and looks good from a further distance. I don't intentionally work this way, it just comes out this way, no matter what I do, it seems. So now I accept it and go with it. and embrace all my quilts and love them, even the ugly and crap ones. We have so many that I joke we'll always be warm, even in a nuclear winter, but we may but crushed under the weight of all my quilts!
Anyway, I have two machines. One is my first quilting machine, a very nice Elna. I took it to the states with me a couple of years ago to leave with my daughter as I figured I would be going to visit her once a year or more often and during that time, I would be wanting to do some quilting as I would stock up on supplies and fabric and patterns when there. My machine was with her less than 6 months when she got a new assignment and closed up shop, put all her things into storage, including my Elna, and started rotational assignments out of Africa. The good news is she gets to come and visit me more often. The bad news is my backup sewing machine is in storage with no idea when I will see it again.
I bought my Janome at a quilt show probably 8-10 years ago. I love it as it does everything but tap dance for me. I'll be the first to admit that I don't use it to it's full capacity but it has made many a delicious lovely quilt for me (even with the Law of Three). Sometimes I get really busy doing other things here in England and it sits for awhile and then I go back to it and bang out several quilts in a row and everyone is happy.
This last time, I let it sit a bit too long and made a really beginner error that has cost me the life of my machine! I killed it! I went back to get a quilt done for a present, a little small thing with applique but needed zigzagging around the applique figures. I forgot to change my plate on the machine - that part where the needle goes into the machine to pick up the bottom thread. I had the straight stitch plate on the machine and needed to change to the plate where the needle could find it's way into the machine by being in other positions rather than dead center. After breaking three needles, I figured it out. Of course, each time I broke a needle, the machine would "stopped for safety reasons". I would change the needle, curse a bit or a lot, and try again.
Finally, after the third needle breaking and a lot more cursing, I figured out what was wrong and started changing out the plate and cursing at myself that I had made such a stupid mistake. I turned off the machine while I was doing this. When I turned on the machine, a new error was showing in the message panel and I had to look up this error because I had never seen it. Basically it said "I've died now, you idiot, because of your stupidity, and now you must take me to a service center to fix me!!!!"
Oh My! Who knew my machine was so expressive. Found a lovely Janome service center about an hour away from my house and my husband and I hauled in my machine along with the transformer because it is a U.S. machine with a U.S. plug. I have had that machine with me in Korea and used it on a transformer for over three years without a problem and have had it here in England for over two years with the transformer without a problem.
Unfortunately, the service center first suspected I was just a total idiot and had plugged my machine into British current and a surge had killed it. when I explained that wasn't the case, the owner delved a bit further and came back with "there have been 4 upgrades to this machine since you bought it and it is no longer supported by Janome so there are no parts available". OH, as good as the kiss of death! Booooo Hooooo Hooooo. There is nothing left for me to do except go pick it up and store it away until we go back to the states and try to find parts there. poor machine. But my quilting days are not done. I will find some sort of replacement to continue to quilt here in England. I'm sure we need more quilts and it is my duty as the quilt maker to have warm quilts available for all members of my family, be they two footed or four footed!
I quilt by what I call the "Law of Three" In every three quilts I do, one is absolutely great and I'm proud to show it to anyone. One is OK, humdrum but acceptable, quite nice but only from a distance kind of quilt. And quilt number three is just crap. Usually because I get really tired of messing with quilt number three and just finish it up as fast as possible so usually the quilting isn't as nice on it and the binding is really ugly or bad but it still works in the dead of winter to keep us warm and looks good from a further distance. I don't intentionally work this way, it just comes out this way, no matter what I do, it seems. So now I accept it and go with it. and embrace all my quilts and love them, even the ugly and crap ones. We have so many that I joke we'll always be warm, even in a nuclear winter, but we may but crushed under the weight of all my quilts!
Anyway, I have two machines. One is my first quilting machine, a very nice Elna. I took it to the states with me a couple of years ago to leave with my daughter as I figured I would be going to visit her once a year or more often and during that time, I would be wanting to do some quilting as I would stock up on supplies and fabric and patterns when there. My machine was with her less than 6 months when she got a new assignment and closed up shop, put all her things into storage, including my Elna, and started rotational assignments out of Africa. The good news is she gets to come and visit me more often. The bad news is my backup sewing machine is in storage with no idea when I will see it again.
I bought my Janome at a quilt show probably 8-10 years ago. I love it as it does everything but tap dance for me. I'll be the first to admit that I don't use it to it's full capacity but it has made many a delicious lovely quilt for me (even with the Law of Three). Sometimes I get really busy doing other things here in England and it sits for awhile and then I go back to it and bang out several quilts in a row and everyone is happy.
This last time, I let it sit a bit too long and made a really beginner error that has cost me the life of my machine! I killed it! I went back to get a quilt done for a present, a little small thing with applique but needed zigzagging around the applique figures. I forgot to change my plate on the machine - that part where the needle goes into the machine to pick up the bottom thread. I had the straight stitch plate on the machine and needed to change to the plate where the needle could find it's way into the machine by being in other positions rather than dead center. After breaking three needles, I figured it out. Of course, each time I broke a needle, the machine would "stopped for safety reasons". I would change the needle, curse a bit or a lot, and try again.
Finally, after the third needle breaking and a lot more cursing, I figured out what was wrong and started changing out the plate and cursing at myself that I had made such a stupid mistake. I turned off the machine while I was doing this. When I turned on the machine, a new error was showing in the message panel and I had to look up this error because I had never seen it. Basically it said "I've died now, you idiot, because of your stupidity, and now you must take me to a service center to fix me!!!!"
Oh My! Who knew my machine was so expressive. Found a lovely Janome service center about an hour away from my house and my husband and I hauled in my machine along with the transformer because it is a U.S. machine with a U.S. plug. I have had that machine with me in Korea and used it on a transformer for over three years without a problem and have had it here in England for over two years with the transformer without a problem.
Unfortunately, the service center first suspected I was just a total idiot and had plugged my machine into British current and a surge had killed it. when I explained that wasn't the case, the owner delved a bit further and came back with "there have been 4 upgrades to this machine since you bought it and it is no longer supported by Janome so there are no parts available". OH, as good as the kiss of death! Booooo Hooooo Hooooo. There is nothing left for me to do except go pick it up and store it away until we go back to the states and try to find parts there. poor machine. But my quilting days are not done. I will find some sort of replacement to continue to quilt here in England. I'm sure we need more quilts and it is my duty as the quilt maker to have warm quilts available for all members of my family, be they two footed or four footed!
Monday, January 13, 2014
Learning to Eat British
Certain foods bring up very unhappy childhood memories and certain foods remain a mystery while yet other foods have been tried and rejected as yuck, nasty, ugly, tasteless, yada, yada, yada. So in spite of moving to the "ole home base" (as my ancestors were both English and Welsh), and in spite of England and the United States having many of the same customs, foods, habits, language, etc, there were tons of differences to accept and to which we had to acclimatize and foods were a major category in which we found differences that were unexpected.
I'm still trying to learn the difference between a parsnip, turnip, and a swede (which to me is a person from Sweden, not a root vegetable). I think I've gotten good with the language remembering to ask for "mince" and not "hamburger" and a "salad" is probably something with mayonnaise or "salad creme" rather than a good ole bunch of lettuce and tomatoes and such. But some foods that the Brits seem to love remain on the Yuck factor list for me because of early trauma and because of habits.
Liver and onions served when I was a child was a reason to try and fake illness in order to miss the dinner hour. I hate liver and onions. I have learned that my mother was a horrible cook and things that I hated from her kitchen have actually become quite tasty and loved by me when cooked by someone who knows what they are doing. But liver and onions have not made the transition and are still in the Yuck category. Spinach has actually made the leap as I tried it fresh one day and it was good. We used to get it out of a can and the only way to make it palatable to was cover it with something else, boiled egg, vinegar, anything. Should have tried ketchup but some things my dad thought were unacceptable and spinach and ketchup was one of them.
Two vegetables that remain in the Yuck area are beetroot (known in the states as just beets) and brussel sprouts. I remember my mother making us sit at the table for hours (maybe wasn't that long) until we had finished our canned beets. How wretchedly odd that I once made my own daughter and her best friend sit at my table for hours also to eat their beets because I was sure that it must be good and necessary to eat them once or twice in a lifetime. I don't think we've had them since that episode when she was 5 (she's now 40!)
Brussel sprouts also remain in the "do not eat" category. It was almost as bad an experience as beets in my childhood household. Luckily, the dog liked them so we were usually able to feed him the spouts under the table when mom was in the kitchen and therefore never had the agony of spending hours sitting at the table staring at the hated vegetables like we did the beets. Of course, no one liked being next to the dog later that evening when the sprouts would play havoc with his digestion and he'd give off wind that was as bad as coming from the sewer. Poor pup!
In England, brussel sprouts seem to be a favorite dish and a festive holiday one with tons of brussel sprouts showing up around Christmas and all kinds of recipes for fixing the little evil things. Didn't happen in my house, nope, nada, never gonna eat them. I do remember once when my husband and I bought a plant we thought was a broccoli plant. Watching it grow, it was fascinating and amazing and had a large stalk with cute little sprouts growing up and down it. Once we figured out it was brussel sprouts and not broccoli, we let it grow just because it was interesting and then once it finished, the whole thing went into the bin - no harvesting.
So recently, I signed up for a new service that I had a coupon to try. Called Hello Fresh, they deliver weekly or how ever often you chose, and deliver 3 or 5 or 7 meals (we chose 3) and provide every single ingredient (except olive oil and salt and pepper) and the directions to cook with the said ingredients that are provided. We thought we'd give it a try to see what it was like and to also try some new things. We got our first box last week.
I am eagerly opening the box to see what we will be cooking the next 3 nights and I see at the bottom of the box - BRUSSEL SPROUTS!!! OMG!!! The evil, nasty, yucky vegetable has shown up on my first box. (We had tried Abel and Cole vegetable boxes before where they deliver a box of veggies and fruit each week but it was always too much for us to use up before things went bad and there were always things in there that I had no idea how to cook or what to do with them - the swede, parsnip, etc.)
Our time in England has been wonderful, a time of learning new things, trying new things, travel to new places, eating new foods, making new friends, new, new, new, new. So even with brussel sprouts staring at me from the bottom of the box, I decided we would try the recipe and I could always pick out the sprouts and not eat them. We did make that our last meal out of the three though. Gave me time to work up to the idea of actually eating this hated childhood food.
Last night we made the recipe which was a pork loin with the roasted sprouts. We had a bit of butternut squash (another Brit favorite which we've learned to eat over here) so I cooked it along with the meal just in case. We sat down to eat with our potatoes, sprouts, pork loin, chorizo, and squash. again here, OMG. the sprouts were tasty - crunchy, nice, roasted, a bit cabbage like which since they are of the cabbage family was not surprising, but OMG, I liked them!!!
Oh Mom, Mom, Mom, MOM! why were you so bad in the kitchen! And why did it take me so long to realize you weren't a good cook and be willing to try things I hated as a child. Well, now I have to rethink my cooking here. I am going to have to try beetroot (using the proper British name) and find out what a swede is and how to cook it and learn the difference between parsnip and turnip and what to do with them and I'm sure there are some other veggies and things that I should try and learn to eat - well, - at least try them. How very Brit of me! OH, but I think liver and onions will remain on the NO list! cannot ditch all of my childhood anxieties at one time.
And one last thing. Apparently it is really Brussels sprout! Not brussel sprouts. at least that's what my British dictionary says. gotta learn to speak the lingo too.
I'm still trying to learn the difference between a parsnip, turnip, and a swede (which to me is a person from Sweden, not a root vegetable). I think I've gotten good with the language remembering to ask for "mince" and not "hamburger" and a "salad" is probably something with mayonnaise or "salad creme" rather than a good ole bunch of lettuce and tomatoes and such. But some foods that the Brits seem to love remain on the Yuck factor list for me because of early trauma and because of habits.
Liver and onions served when I was a child was a reason to try and fake illness in order to miss the dinner hour. I hate liver and onions. I have learned that my mother was a horrible cook and things that I hated from her kitchen have actually become quite tasty and loved by me when cooked by someone who knows what they are doing. But liver and onions have not made the transition and are still in the Yuck category. Spinach has actually made the leap as I tried it fresh one day and it was good. We used to get it out of a can and the only way to make it palatable to was cover it with something else, boiled egg, vinegar, anything. Should have tried ketchup but some things my dad thought were unacceptable and spinach and ketchup was one of them.
Two vegetables that remain in the Yuck area are beetroot (known in the states as just beets) and brussel sprouts. I remember my mother making us sit at the table for hours (maybe wasn't that long) until we had finished our canned beets. How wretchedly odd that I once made my own daughter and her best friend sit at my table for hours also to eat their beets because I was sure that it must be good and necessary to eat them once or twice in a lifetime. I don't think we've had them since that episode when she was 5 (she's now 40!)
Brussel sprouts also remain in the "do not eat" category. It was almost as bad an experience as beets in my childhood household. Luckily, the dog liked them so we were usually able to feed him the spouts under the table when mom was in the kitchen and therefore never had the agony of spending hours sitting at the table staring at the hated vegetables like we did the beets. Of course, no one liked being next to the dog later that evening when the sprouts would play havoc with his digestion and he'd give off wind that was as bad as coming from the sewer. Poor pup!
In England, brussel sprouts seem to be a favorite dish and a festive holiday one with tons of brussel sprouts showing up around Christmas and all kinds of recipes for fixing the little evil things. Didn't happen in my house, nope, nada, never gonna eat them. I do remember once when my husband and I bought a plant we thought was a broccoli plant. Watching it grow, it was fascinating and amazing and had a large stalk with cute little sprouts growing up and down it. Once we figured out it was brussel sprouts and not broccoli, we let it grow just because it was interesting and then once it finished, the whole thing went into the bin - no harvesting.
So recently, I signed up for a new service that I had a coupon to try. Called Hello Fresh, they deliver weekly or how ever often you chose, and deliver 3 or 5 or 7 meals (we chose 3) and provide every single ingredient (except olive oil and salt and pepper) and the directions to cook with the said ingredients that are provided. We thought we'd give it a try to see what it was like and to also try some new things. We got our first box last week.
I am eagerly opening the box to see what we will be cooking the next 3 nights and I see at the bottom of the box - BRUSSEL SPROUTS!!! OMG!!! The evil, nasty, yucky vegetable has shown up on my first box. (We had tried Abel and Cole vegetable boxes before where they deliver a box of veggies and fruit each week but it was always too much for us to use up before things went bad and there were always things in there that I had no idea how to cook or what to do with them - the swede, parsnip, etc.)
Our time in England has been wonderful, a time of learning new things, trying new things, travel to new places, eating new foods, making new friends, new, new, new, new. So even with brussel sprouts staring at me from the bottom of the box, I decided we would try the recipe and I could always pick out the sprouts and not eat them. We did make that our last meal out of the three though. Gave me time to work up to the idea of actually eating this hated childhood food.
Last night we made the recipe which was a pork loin with the roasted sprouts. We had a bit of butternut squash (another Brit favorite which we've learned to eat over here) so I cooked it along with the meal just in case. We sat down to eat with our potatoes, sprouts, pork loin, chorizo, and squash. again here, OMG. the sprouts were tasty - crunchy, nice, roasted, a bit cabbage like which since they are of the cabbage family was not surprising, but OMG, I liked them!!!
Oh Mom, Mom, Mom, MOM! why were you so bad in the kitchen! And why did it take me so long to realize you weren't a good cook and be willing to try things I hated as a child. Well, now I have to rethink my cooking here. I am going to have to try beetroot (using the proper British name) and find out what a swede is and how to cook it and learn the difference between parsnip and turnip and what to do with them and I'm sure there are some other veggies and things that I should try and learn to eat - well, - at least try them. How very Brit of me! OH, but I think liver and onions will remain on the NO list! cannot ditch all of my childhood anxieties at one time.
And one last thing. Apparently it is really Brussels sprout! Not brussel sprouts. at least that's what my British dictionary says. gotta learn to speak the lingo too.
Stealth Chopping
Our rental home is lovely. Truly a gem nestled in some trees and overlooking one of the many surrounding golf courses. When you open the front door, you see right through the house to the back garden and the golf course fairway expanse. Sitting in the conservatory or working in the kitchen, you have that gorgeous view. It is probably why we rented this house as other parts of it are less than stellar but we love the place and have been very thankful to live here and have a good landlord as well who is tolerant of my messing around in the garden and hanging many pictures on the walls (yes, I always do that but I always repair the walls when I leave!)
So last year, we noticed that our view was becoming a bit obstructed. There has been growth! Nature happened! Trees get taller, shrubs get bushier, ferns shoot up. Basically, nature is obstructing our view of the golf course. We love looking out there because there are no houses in the way. We see many birds and sometimes deer, and the golfers comprise some of the most interesting wildlife to hit the fairways.
There are about 12 branches that have grown over the years and are right in the middle of our view. I noticed that with the leaves gone, it's not so bad. I have 12 sticks in my view but it is easy to look around them and watch the flora and fauna that parades past our house. But come spring and summer, that is going to change and our view will again be blocked by these twelve rather leafy branches. So I determined that action must be taken.
I am fairly sure that the property upon which these branches sit is part of our house lot. I'd heard this from our neighbors but honestly I'm not totally positive as I have seen the golf course gardeners plow into these small sections of woods when the trees and such seem to be overtaking the greens. We determined that we needed to cut down the offending branches and we have the tools to do so but the timing needed to be right. I think that meant we needed to do it when no golfers would be out and about. Didn't want to disturb someone's putt with the sudden abrasive sound of a mini chain saw. We also determined that we needed to do this now, before the trees started putting out leaves and flowering for spring. I think it's better for them to be pruned in the winter - or at least that was the understanding I had from my gardener.
So we set out to trim our branches. Because of the golfers, we waited until very late in the afternoon to do it, so we wouldn't bother them. And because it's still winter, we ended up trimming them in the dark! By torchlight! It felt very stealthy to me, like we were being sneaky and underhanded to do this but it was still very important to us to do it to get our view back. We had to push our way into the holly bushes - which wasn't pleasant. Finally, we are close enough to barely reach the offending branches if I shoved as hard as I could against the prickly holly and reached as high as I could. I was just able to lop off each of the 12 branches but it wasn't a pretty job. some of them were rather chewed before they dropped. I am thinking this is also why those 12 branches managed to sprout upwards when everything around them was trimmed. They were just too hard to reach.
But we did it! Our view is back. And I am out of the holly with not too many scratches and scraps. I only hope we cut them enough that we don't have to do a repeat performance next winter.
So last year, we noticed that our view was becoming a bit obstructed. There has been growth! Nature happened! Trees get taller, shrubs get bushier, ferns shoot up. Basically, nature is obstructing our view of the golf course. We love looking out there because there are no houses in the way. We see many birds and sometimes deer, and the golfers comprise some of the most interesting wildlife to hit the fairways.
There are about 12 branches that have grown over the years and are right in the middle of our view. I noticed that with the leaves gone, it's not so bad. I have 12 sticks in my view but it is easy to look around them and watch the flora and fauna that parades past our house. But come spring and summer, that is going to change and our view will again be blocked by these twelve rather leafy branches. So I determined that action must be taken.
I am fairly sure that the property upon which these branches sit is part of our house lot. I'd heard this from our neighbors but honestly I'm not totally positive as I have seen the golf course gardeners plow into these small sections of woods when the trees and such seem to be overtaking the greens. We determined that we needed to cut down the offending branches and we have the tools to do so but the timing needed to be right. I think that meant we needed to do it when no golfers would be out and about. Didn't want to disturb someone's putt with the sudden abrasive sound of a mini chain saw. We also determined that we needed to do this now, before the trees started putting out leaves and flowering for spring. I think it's better for them to be pruned in the winter - or at least that was the understanding I had from my gardener.
So we set out to trim our branches. Because of the golfers, we waited until very late in the afternoon to do it, so we wouldn't bother them. And because it's still winter, we ended up trimming them in the dark! By torchlight! It felt very stealthy to me, like we were being sneaky and underhanded to do this but it was still very important to us to do it to get our view back. We had to push our way into the holly bushes - which wasn't pleasant. Finally, we are close enough to barely reach the offending branches if I shoved as hard as I could against the prickly holly and reached as high as I could. I was just able to lop off each of the 12 branches but it wasn't a pretty job. some of them were rather chewed before they dropped. I am thinking this is also why those 12 branches managed to sprout upwards when everything around them was trimmed. They were just too hard to reach.
But we did it! Our view is back. And I am out of the holly with not too many scratches and scraps. I only hope we cut them enough that we don't have to do a repeat performance next winter.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
The Empty Golf Course
We are lucky enough to have a lovely rental property that sits behind the first hole of a golf course. It is quite nice not to have other homes behind us and we have a great view up the fairway for this hole. The only time it is irritating is some mornings when the groundskeepers come riding down to their shack which is also behind the first hole and they are quite noisy as they get out their machines. But for the most part it is peaceful and quiet and great. We see deer cross the fairway sometimes and there's always some magpies and crows flying around down there.
Living here we have come to realize what a strange breed is the golfer and especially the British golfer. It is not a sport that anyone in my family has ever taken up as a hobby or sport or vocation or love. But the golfers that play the course behind us must be the most avid and determined and also frustrated golfers in the world. They are out there every single day. No matter the weather, no matter the date, no matter the time, we see golfers on the course. The only times we have not seen golfers pursuing their passion have been the three times when the course has been covered in snow. And quite frankly, we were a bit surprised that there weren't golfers in the snow. I figured there would be colored golf balls by now so they could be tracked. But snow means no golfers.
Until this week! Surrey has taken some heavy rainfall this week and parts of Surrey have gone swimming involuntarily. Our own garden is a mixture of swamp and muck but at least not underwater like some of my friends. The first day after the big storm that dumped water on Surrey this week, I was home all day and not once did I see a golfer out on the course. I didn't think much about it but then we kept having rain and more rain and more rain and now for three days there have been no golfers. I imagine that it is so wet and muddy that the course has been closed because the golf cleats could probably tear up the grounds pretty badly. There is a sand trap near our first hole and right now, it is a water feature.
So the golf course is empty and I rather miss the golfers. They come in all sizes and shapes and all manner of odd golf clothes and bring everything from golf carts to remote controlled golf bags that roll across the course by themselves. And as we have seen golfers in heavy rains and heavy winds, still out there whacking the ball, I believe that the course has been closed by the owners and that there would be golfers there in spite of all the wet and soggy conditions, were they allowed. Hopefully we'll see some in the next few days.
Living here we have come to realize what a strange breed is the golfer and especially the British golfer. It is not a sport that anyone in my family has ever taken up as a hobby or sport or vocation or love. But the golfers that play the course behind us must be the most avid and determined and also frustrated golfers in the world. They are out there every single day. No matter the weather, no matter the date, no matter the time, we see golfers on the course. The only times we have not seen golfers pursuing their passion have been the three times when the course has been covered in snow. And quite frankly, we were a bit surprised that there weren't golfers in the snow. I figured there would be colored golf balls by now so they could be tracked. But snow means no golfers.
Until this week! Surrey has taken some heavy rainfall this week and parts of Surrey have gone swimming involuntarily. Our own garden is a mixture of swamp and muck but at least not underwater like some of my friends. The first day after the big storm that dumped water on Surrey this week, I was home all day and not once did I see a golfer out on the course. I didn't think much about it but then we kept having rain and more rain and more rain and now for three days there have been no golfers. I imagine that it is so wet and muddy that the course has been closed because the golf cleats could probably tear up the grounds pretty badly. There is a sand trap near our first hole and right now, it is a water feature.
So the golf course is empty and I rather miss the golfers. They come in all sizes and shapes and all manner of odd golf clothes and bring everything from golf carts to remote controlled golf bags that roll across the course by themselves. And as we have seen golfers in heavy rains and heavy winds, still out there whacking the ball, I believe that the course has been closed by the owners and that there would be golfers there in spite of all the wet and soggy conditions, were they allowed. Hopefully we'll see some in the next few days.
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