There’s a break out of bird flu here in the UK.
I felt a small panic because I am cooking Thanksgiving dinner on the 24th and my plan had been to buy a fresh turkey. So yesterday in Sainsburry’s when I saw two frozen turkeys, I snagged one.
I have never done Thanksgiving dinner before, so it should be interesting. I have told told my guests if I mess it up that I will order a pizza.
Went to Joey’s, a restaurant across the way from our hotel with Mairead. Bar was full of white, male media ass-hats.
We were seated for dinner. Our waitress thought that because she was pretty she didn’t have to think or be a good waitress. I had a beer from the bar and I asked for a glass of Pinot Noir with the meal.
Each glass of wine had a number associated with it. “Ummm. Can you tell me the number that is?”
Sigh.
“And you want that with the meal?”
“Yes.”
“Not before?”
Sigh.
We order starters and mains. The size of the starter could be a meal itself. The best part was when she brought out our main cources when we were still eating our starters and the plates hadn’t been taken away.
“Gordon Ramsey would not approve of that.” Mairead said, raising her eyebrow.
The food was fussy and bland and over priced.
We did not stay for dessert.
Mairead suggested getting a drink at the wine bar in the hotel, but my stomach felt crampy and I was really tired.
Went to bed at 9.
Five in the morning I woke up not a happy camper. Major cramping. As the morning progressed there were other symptoms. Vomiting and other other stuff that I am sure you could imgaine.
I had an all day training to attend today. I sat there like a zombie.
I think I have a fever now but the rest of the lovely symptoms have gone away.
I can’t wait to get home.
So Joey’s in Bellevue. Crap service and shit food that gives you the shits.
Two years ago I officially moved to London. I glanced at my old posts from this time and I found an entry I posted detailing the things that I imagined that I would miss about America and they have all come to pass.
That said, I have been in America for one week and I am itching to get back. I feel like a freak here and the ultra nice customer service is really weirding me out. I wanna leave this empty king size bed and get back to my tiny full size that I share with a bed hog.
That being said, as I type this, I am enjoying banana cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. While I am certain that CF is in large part responsible for the downfall of Western civilization, I don’t care.
I am working from home today so that I can throw stuff in the slow cooker in a couple of hours as Stuart has asked me to make chili.
My chili is a variation of Fran McCullough’s Bowl of Red in The Low-Carb Cookbook but I add other stuff to it that makes it hurt so good. The problem is I can never really remember my variations so each time it is a little different. It is always good however. I prefer the slow cooker to the stove. It takes longer but it is ultimately much less trouble.
It was a bit of a mistake making my chili for Stuart because he loves it.
I know that sounds strange but he wants me to make it all the time because he loves it and while I like it, it really isn’t any sort of culinary challenge.
But I am making it today for him because it was a special request. It has nothing to do with it being a certain day. . . a milestone that he doesn’t celebrate because he doesn’t like gifts.
Nothing at all to do with him being a year older.
I love you sweetheart.
Stuart and I do our grocery shopping separately. This is because I buy food that needs to be prepared and he buys ready made meals. The English are big on ready-made meals. Ready-mades are a little different from frozen TV dinners as they are in the refrigerated area and sometimes they aspire to look nicer than they actually could ever be. Like frozen TV-dinners they have enough sodium to pay the entire Roman army.
Since we buy different things, even if we are in the store at the same time we will hunt and pay for our basket on our own. I find this easier because I don’t need to argue every time I put something in my basket.
“Thomas! Do you really need that bottle of sun dried tomatoes packed in oil?”
“Yes, Stuart.”
“But it’s four quid! And goat cheese? What the hell do you need goat cheese for?”
“For the chicken breast stuffed with goat cheese and sun dried tomatoes I am making for dinner.”
“Ppttthhhh. Why don’t you just buy a pizza? Oooo! They’re having a sale on Carlsberg. I’ll buy a case and you can buy one too. We’ll just fill the fridge up with beer. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Yesterday we shopped, I got in the queue and he joined me a few minutes later. I bought lamb chops, chicken breast, boneless beef rib roasting joint, cos lettuce, radishes, a cucumber and spinach.
He bought Dr. Pepper, two pizzas, garlic bread and a ready-made Peking duck. (The English are also big on Peking Duck. -It is very nice.)
As she was ringing Stuart’s food up, the checker said in her Caribbean accent, “Someone doesn’t like to cook.”
I giggled.
Walking back, Stuart was offended. “I cook!”
“Sure you do honey.”
“I make pizza all the time.”
“I think, maybe? Umm, sweetie? Cooking implies that you made the crust and the sauce from scratch and you put everything together to make something? But I could be wrong.”
“No. I cook.”
“No, honey. What you do is reheating.”
“I’m not a reheater. You’re always saying I’m something. You said I’m an alcoholic—“
“You are an alcoholic—“
“And now I’m a reheater. You watch tonight I’m going to make Peking Duck.”
“That’s a ready-made.”
“I’m still going to cook it.”
That night he reheated the Peking Duck. It smelled very nice.
“Thomas! Do you want to share the duck I cooked with me?”
It isn’t approved diet food, but this week had been a wash so I said yes. As I was shredding the duck and he was warming the pancakes up in the microwave he said, “See. I can cook.”
“Yes honey. You’re the next Nigel Slater.”
Pinter Pause.
“Who’s that?”
Our friend Matt is leaving for Vietnam for two months soon and since I wasn’t up to go to his leaving do Friday night (I put on my frog pj’s and huddled under a blankie on the sofa watching a 40 year Old Virgin and it was great) I invited him to dinner either this weekend or next week so I could see him.
Through his French accent, I heard that he had plans this weekend but maybe next week and that he would let me know. It turns out that what he actually said through the French accent was yes to dinner Sunday night.
Who knew.
So off to the store yesterday I went.
I’m low-carbing but they aren’t, so I wanted to find something that I could have and that I can give them, which will still leave me left overs for work lunches.
I decided on an old family favourite, something we call Popeye Chicken. It is basically a orangy spicy chicken and spinach fettuccini dish. My thought was that I would eat the chicken and the spinach with a lovely green salad and they would have the fettuccini. Went to the store Saturday afternoon. Got all the stuff.
Sorted.
Last night while I was getting ready to meet Al and his Sis and her boyfriend to watch the Rugby, Stuart came in the bedroom.
“I screwed up.”
“What?”
He had invited a couple over as well that for months I have been saying that we should have over, which normally would be fine. Great actually. They are lovely people. . . Except one of them is a vegetarian. His being a vegetarian would be fine normally too- just not when I have already been to the store and the menu was sorted.
So now my conundrum is: Do I continue on with the dish and keep all meat products and anything cooked with meat out of the fettuccini- and make a onion, spinach mixture sans chicken for him- or do I make something else altogether and just use everything I bought for dinner for myself during the week.
Bloody Vegetarians. He is also French. Isn’t there a law if you are French you can’t be a vegetarian?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Night before the Life in the UK test and I am just sitting down to study now.
I told Stuart that I didn’t want to be bothered, aggravated, annoyed, fucked with, spoken to so he is off drinking with Richard. (I’m not sure what happened to his ‘not drinking for a month’ with me plan. He lasted two days. I teased him about being an alcoholic the other day and he said, “At least I don’t eat 24/7.” He’s lucky the knife I was holding didn’t end up between his eyes. I guess compared to Stu I do eat a huge amount. Lunch AND dinner. Sometimes on the weekends breakfast. CRAZY TALK! I’m happy if he eats a bap with laughing cow cheese and crisps. . . Later he told me he acts like a twat when he drinks because, “I say things that make him kick off.” Yeah. . . that’s what it is. He was very sweet before he left, so it probably isn’t fair of me to mention things he said a few days ago. Oh well.)
So, I open the web site to review their study guide, I open the e-mail from Jen with the study questions she sent me, I crack open the book. I look at my notes that I took when I made the appointment.
She had told me to read Chapter 2-6.
I look at the contents to see what I don’t have to study.
Chapter 1 is: The Making of The United Kingdom
Is a bunch of history stuff. Romans, Normans, 100 years war, War of the Roses, Henry v the Pope, Cromwell, British Empire, etc, etc.
Don’t need that for the test.
Great.
All that shit is what I already know.
The remaining chapters that I don’t need to study according to the woman I spoke to are: Knowing the Law, Sources of Help and Information and Building Better Communities.
Is it just me, but it strikes me as odd that Knowing the Law isn’t on the test. There are subheadings like: The rights and duties of a citizen and human rights not to mention Criminal Courts.
I’ll probably read it anyway. The very least, the next time Stuart tells me I eat all the time and I am compelled to bludgen him to death with a cucumber, I will know and understand the criminal court process.
Stuart and I are off to Cologne for a few days. The reason initially was to go see The Police but we had bought tickets from a evil company. By the time the dust settled and we got the cash back the hotel and flight had already been booked so off to Germany we go!
Will be nice to have a couple of days - just the two of us and we have a friend that lives near there that we are meeting for for dinner tonight so It’s all das gut.
I am really ready to have a whole week in my own bed however. (Ohhhhh poor you. One week in Spain. One week in Seattle. One week in Germany. It is a hard life!)
Okay, okay. I’ll slap myself later. Now I must admit I am thinking of spätzle, bratwurst, sauerkraut und wiener schnitzel. Und Kölsch bier.
I have proof that the end of the world is neigh. Yesterday I went up north to introduce Paulo to the folks at the agency I used to manage. The weather in London was windy, rainy, grey and miserable. Up in Warrington a hop skip and a jump from Liverpool and Manchester the weather was bright blue warm skies.
The world is Topsy-Turvy! What happened to the grim north?
Was a really good meeting- they are all lovely people. Came back on the train to the wind and the rain and the grey and the miserable.
Met up with Al for a drink and we tried to go to the Mexican at the place that Jen reccommended but it was an hour wait so we went to another one up the road on Maiden Lane and had a few margaritas (for me) and mojitos (for al) and then moved on to The Coal Hole and kvetched until closing.
Today the weather is once again a big pile of doo-doo. I am very happy to be working at home huddled on the sofa, although I haven’t eaten yet today and there is no food in the house so I will need to wander out soon since it is nearly 3:30.
Four more days to Spain with Stuart and Ollie. Four days, four days. . .
I made the mistake this morning of plucking Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries off the shelf and opening it to August. I had thought of him because when we were at Claire and Dan’s this weekend I was thumbing through one of his old cookbooks and had said that I would need to get a copy of it and she had graciously given it to me since she had planned to drop it off at a charity shop.
It was a mistake to read the August chapter of the diary because he is going on and on about how lovely and warm the weather is and all of the meals he makes are appropriate to hot weather when today is a bangers and mash day. Rain, rain and more rain. And it’s cold to top it off. Are there really two weeks left of August? I feel like we have landed in a Dr. Who time warp and the date is really November 19th, which is lovely. . . WHEN IT IS NOVEMBER!
Last Wednesday night when we all went out drinking and I consumed all of my alcohol units for the year, I failed to mention that I was wearing wool. A long wool skirt, a long sleeved dress shirt and a wool v-neck jumper. Shoes were long black boots. I was wearing WOOL in August and I wasn’t uncomfortable.
Last weekend the weather was delicious. Warm but not oppressive, lots of big happy sun. When the sun is out in London the world feels like a perfect place. Stuart took me to the zoo because retards love the zoo*. We had read that owl babies had been born so we wanted to see the owl babies.
We got off at Regent’s Park, walked through the park stopping first at a café in the middle for a tasty sausage roll with lots of spicy English mustard. Once we got through the initial queue it didn’t feel too crowded, but there were lots of families. I warned Stuart about this.
“Honey, you know how we are going to the zoo?”
“Yes Thomas?”
“There’s going to be a lot of kids there.”
“Oh no. . .”
I have decided it is not children that I hate, but their parents, but I will save that for another post.
Not long were we there when Stuart said we should bring Emily our niece.
“But then we would be like all the people that you hate.”
“No. It’s different.”
“Because she’s ours?”
“Exactly.”
We weren’t able to see the baby frog mouthed owls (we did see their parents) but didn’t take a picture.
Stuart did however get a great picture of this sleeping barned owl.
We loved that he was balancing on one leg.
The Toucans were lovely as well.
What you can’t see in the picture is how bright blue their eyes are.
The exhibit for the sidewinder annoyed me.
Why is it necessary to show that this snake lives in the southwest of the United States by including a crumbled pack of cigarettes and an empty bottle of Bud?
After a few hours we were zooed out. We still need to see the lions and the bughouse and the gorillas were napping so there will be lots of things to see when we go back with Emily.
As I said, the entire reason I said we went was to see the baby owls which if you read the hyperlink article were only born because of all the rain and crap weather we have been having so I guess I can’t complain too much the weather is wooly. For every season, turn turn turn. . . there is a reason for the crap rubbish weather. Baby owls.
I suppose I am not too grumpy because in addition to crap weather bringing baby owls, in one week, at this moment I will be in Spain. We land in Seville and will be renting a car and winding our way over to Barcelona.
I am dreaming of flamenco, olives and wine. And sun. I am dreaming of sun.
*Rocky Reference. “Take her to the zoo! Retards love the zoo!”
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Not that I think that anyone would be silly enough to steal my ramblings, but in case you may be thinking about it. . . the very act of my writing this means that I own the copyright. Really. Look it up.
So, please don't plagiarize. It just ain't cool. And what I say just isn't that interesting. Trust me. Most of my friends don't even read this.
That being said, I do subscribe to the T.S. Eliot philosophy of "Immature poets borrow, mature poets steal." There is a difference between Stealing and stealing. . . This is not to say that I am mature. If anything. . . I'm rambling aren't I? That's what I do. I ramble. So, yeah. I'll shut up now.
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