First-Aid For Your Liver

This past Sunday, we drove over to Cardiff in Wales to go to the IKEA there. I'm afraid to put what I REALLY think about IKEA since I've learned twice now that my blog gets read by more than just family and friends. Damn you, Google.

We were running late getting back from Cardiff and it ran past 5 o'clock. We knew that most of the stores would be closed and we didn't have much - if anything - to make for dinner. The truth of it is that every single store in town is closed by 5, some by 4, and I think one closed at 3. ASDA, Tesco #1, Tesco #2, Morrisons, and Sainsbury's -- all closed. There was one last hope: the über-Shell station. We made the trek back out of town and sure enough, it was open and busy with lots of folks in our same predicament.

It's a petrol station, but so much more! We grabbed a beef roast, some duck eggs (a frequent part of our diet now -- they are firmer and a bit stronger in flavor. The yolks are heavier and creamier) , some veggies, and so on. The über-Shell has everything - including an affordable and diverse beverage selection.

While there, I grabbed a bottle of cider by the name of Black Fox. It's an organic cider, locally made, that appears to go through a longer and more involved process. I liked it a lot, at first. It's not overly sugary like most of the ciders I've tried and has a stronger kick. That was until Rachel mentioned that she thought it tasted like an old band-aid. Once she said that, my brain re-wired and that's all I could taste. You know that strong sorta rubbery smell when you open a band-aid -- well, unfortunately the lingering taste of Black Fox has a striking resemblance to that. Ew. Ew. Ew.

It's Cheeeeee-eeeze!

As I have mentioned, there is no wanting for fine American foods in Hereford. A perfect example is Old Fashioned Foods "Squeeze Cheese" -- Mature Cheddar.... uh... wait a minute? No Easy Cheese? No Cheez Whiz? If I was going to pick a fine shelf stable or sprayable cheese product, I think one of these might make the list. Oh wait, it is made in Wisconsin. Good enough! From the maker's web site:

OLD FASHIONED FOODS IS THE ONLY SQUEEZE CHEESE - THE OTHERS ARE JUST IMITATIONS.

Maybe it's you folks States-side that are getting the raw end of this deal. The best squirtable cheese is exported in yet another American conspiracy. Enjoy your imitations whilst I dine on fine process cheese... wannabees. The only question I have left is whether to enjoy hot... or cold. Cheers!

Basketball Jones and the Pooperazzi

I think some explanation is needed as to how some of these blog photos come about. I keep my cell phone in my pocket and it happens to be quite a decent camera: a Sony Cybershot. It takes perfect blog photos that don't need much touching up or shrinking down. It will hold over 1000 blog-size photos and it's also "Bluetooth enabled" which means I can sit down at my laptop and not even know where my phone is and the pictures copy over to my laptop and are auto-magically ready for blogging. No cables, no worries -- and I can put out a blog in a just a few minutes. With that in mind...

The other day -- the last nice day we had here since its been raining for 6 days -- Boo and I were out in the garden and she was being such a character that I had to take some shots. She was running as fast as her little butt could push her and jumping here and jumping there. Quite the clown, too. She loves to jump on top of our mini Stonehenge, especially if I put the ball up there. The basketball is the only type of ball we have found she can't destroy (yet).

I mentioned a bit back that her new dog food makes her the 'Princess of Piles' and nothing better than a good round of ball playing to work out some issues. She now has a habit of stopping mid-game to take care of business. She will then leave the ball where it sits because its too close to the nasty and wait for me to move it away before she will play again. Boo at her best.
I swear she is smiling in this last picture.

Boo hates the rain, though. Since the 40 days of rain started, she has cut her food consumption back to less than a bowl a day (normally 2+). She knows eating means toilet time and toilet time means going way back in the rainy lawn. She also sleeps under a blanket from the time we get up until the time we go to bed. Just saving her energy for sunnier days, I guess.








Wardrobe courtesy of Uncle Mike. A Boo Productions Blog. Copyright 2008

Salmon and Broccoli Lasagna?

Maybe its better than it sounds. Salmon and Broccoli Lasagna popped up as a recipe in one of the newer features on the blog: Tales from the Hob. Look far bottom right to see an occasionally changing list of English recipes from RecipeZaar.

I'm On Their Radar

A while back I mentioned I had applied for my NIN: my National Insurance Number. This is a step towards accessing national social benefits (and required to work or be self-employed like this guy right here.) Today the Royal Mail delivered a parcel with acknowledgement that I had indeed passed their evaluation. I have been assigned my "number" and have my appointment for getting the bar code on the back of my neck next Monday (kidding).

When The Moon Hits Your Eye

I'll be the first to tell you: I'm a big pizza snob. And the worst part is, my favorite pizza is my own. Maybe its because you can't reliably get a pepperoni, jalapeno, potato, and green olive pizza at your local pie shop but I've invested a lot of time in what I like and, for me at least, I think it has paid off. Just like for Mexican food, I had my concerns about getting good pizza in England. Unfortunately, it appears my concerns were warranted.

We watch American Idol here, too. I'm not a huge fan (but oh my god if I saw Clay...) but the Keeper likes it and I find her interest in the show as good as anything in TV these days. Here, in England, we get the American show one day later. If you don't cheat with Google, you can still be surprised as the 'winners' are announced. (Sidenote: Coke must not pay the bills over here: all of the judge's cups are blurred so I can't make out 'Coke' and no funky Ford commercials -- even though Ford here, I think, gets much more respect than in the States.) Anyway, the point of me even mentioning the Idol is that instead of decent advertising, you get these AWFUL commercials for -- blasphemy -- a pizza over here branded as "Chicago Town Deep Dish". They show mock idol try-outs or performances and then the constestant is so distracted by these nasty looking little tiny nothing nasty (did I say nasty?) pizzas that they get a slack-jawed yokel look on their face and can't stop staring. End of commerical. There are at least 6,000 versions of this commercial.

Saturday, we decided to make our first run at pizzas in our new place. The KitchenAid didn't explode, the yeast bloomed, the cheese melted, the oven gets hot (crazy hot, actually), and we even found a good pepperoni. It all came together and made two pizzas that, we think, could hit #1 one on the UK and US pizza charts.

I, for one, was very happy. It reminded me of home, of growing up (mom taught me respect for the homemade pizza), and of our friends getting together in the REAL city where deep dish rules: CHICAGO! We miss it, fersure, and respect its good food (and variety of it) even more now. Now if I just come up with a recipe for Italian beef...


And now.... enjoy a Chicago Town Deep Dish commercial:

What Equipment Do You Fly?

The Keeper passed me a website worth remembering. SeatGuru is a service (owned by another favorite, TripAdvisor, since 2007) that provides detailed information about any aircraft you might happen to fly on from here to there. The idea is that you can make an informed decision about what flight to purchase that goes beyond saving a few bucks. As the name implies, there is a great deal of information on comparing seats from one aircraft to another. This also helps understand the differences in aircraft configuration between airlines. I know I once got stuck in United "Economy" some time after they introduced "Economy" and "Economy Plus" or whatever their cattle-controlling system was titled. I knew at that point I would never again fly in that Economy section -- I'm not a big person and my knees were stradling my spine. Not cool, United, not cool. SeatGuru would have been a welcome advisor at that point in my frequenting of fliers.

Planes, Trains, And Saloons

Found a smart site for finding your way around the UK using multiple travel resources, including walking, trains, ferries, and buses: Traveline. I'm still clueless as to how to get around this country, especially not having a car yet, so this website provides a lot of information for when I want to meet Rachel for the weekend in -- oh, let say -- Amsterdam. It's quite detailed, given that it allows you to enter your post code for an origination point (post codes cover smaller spaces here and can narrow down an area considerably). In my case, it even told me to get off my ass and walk to the bus station to start my journey. Or at least that was implied.

Shank You Very Much

Dinner last night was lamb shank -- something I hadn't tried before. At 2 quid for the pair, they are a fairly economically choice (beef, on the other hand, seems very expensive here.)

Rubbed the little niblets (these were tiny shanks) down with ground coriander and salt, browned them and then braised them with carrots, onions, fenugreek, and fresh cilantro. Served it up with some plain white rice, and lemon-flavored red lentils, topped with a bit of yogurt and basil. Lamb is much more prominent in the stores and restaurants here so I figured I better get on the mutton-bandwagon. The stronger flavor I expected from lamb wasn't there in these shanks. The meat was juicy and fall off the bone tender with just a couple hours simmering on the stove.


The lamb recipe came from "The Complete Meat Cookbook" by Bruce Aidells and Dennis Kelly. An informative book with lots of explanation of the different cuts from each animal, general guidelines for how to cook each cut, and lots of recipes. Recommended!

Power Tools

Not long ago I mentioned Vayama as another great travel search site. Today I found Mobissimo, and I think it might replace Kayak and Vayama as the first stop of my travel searches. Mobissimo searches Vayama as part of its regular routine, so its at least got that covered. Even better, the Mobissimo OneBox search is the fastest way I have found to search for a flight -- once you understand its very simple methodolgy. At OneBox, you type your entire flight search into one box, no more selecting dates from pop-up calendars. For example: enter "Chicago to London, Sep 26 - Oct 13" and it immediately starts responding with flights. Even better, for exploring vacation ideas, you can do this: "London to Asia, Sep 10 - 20" and the site will return various flights from London to different airports all over Asia. Nice. There are more features to explore beyond these few. All in all, a very clever site. Start with the tutorial, if you are interested.

NOTE: Based on the comment below -- don't skip going to Vayama directly if Mobissimo/Kayak doesn't pull up the flight you are looking for. Vayama doesn't make all of its flights available to the other search engines so you might be missing something! Good information

...or not. The blog has experienced a waffle. Apparently, Mobissimo (but not Kayak? Not sure on that.) does show all Vayama flights.

My Map Is Bigger Than Yours

The other night, we had a dinner with a local couple that we know through Rachel's work. We had some interesting conversation, and one of the things brought up by -- we'll call him Harry -- was that he had just recently viewed a program on the telly in which Americans were surveyed and basically found to be ignorant of geography. Most Americans, Harry claims, would agree that London was in France, among other mistakes. I argued back that even though there might be some truth to that, the USA is so much bigger than most of the European countries, that our states are similar to their countries. And most Americans have a decent idea where each state is and what big cities are in the state. Then I got to thinking, as I do too often, how do the two sides of the pond really compare when you look at the numbers from a common viewpoint?

I took Hereford, and I took Chicago, and found the distances from each of those places to other big cities. In the following list, the first city is about the same distance from Hereford as the second city is from Chicago. These are estimates, but they aren't too far off.

• London, England = Madison, Wisconsin (115 miles)
• Dublin, Ireland = Indianapolis, Indiana (170 miles)
  
• Glasgow, Scotland = Detroit, Michigan (270 miles)
  
• Paris, France = Cleveland, Ohio (310 miles)
  
• Brussels, Belgium = Lexington, Kentucky (320 miles)
  
• Berlin, Germany = New York, New York (680 miles)
  
• Madrid, Spain = Dallas, Texas (800 miles)
  
• Moscow, Russia = Las Vegas, Nevada (1600 miles)
  
• Chicago, Illinois = Hereford, England (3800 miles)
• San Francisco, California = Bucharest, Hungary (5200 miles)
  

You get the idea pretty quickly -- in my head, Chicago to Las Vegas is a quick flight, but here, in my little office at the Lilacs, I feel like Moscow is a million miles away.

Canine Gyratory Antics

There is a significant effort going on in the the UK to save local breweries and the pubs that serve it. One place that has been part of that story in Hereford is the Spinning Dog Brewery and the pub that houses it, The Victory. There have been quite a few changes of ownership and name for pub and brewery over the last 20 years. It looks like, other than the giant cider operation in town, the Spinning Dog may be the last brewery in town.

We haven't had a chance yet to visit the pub -- and we may never based on some recent reviews -- but the brews are available at some of the local stores here. The other night, we tried a pint of Spinning Dog's Organic Oatmeal Stout. Normally, Rachel wouldn't go for a stout so I had most of the bottle gone before she tried it, liked it a lot (it's sweet, she says), and gave me crap for drinking all of it. Bad Kept Man, bad.

Great Green Gobs of Green Greens and Some Fungi, Too

A quick review of our gardening endeavors, from top to bottom:

1. Phase 2 of our garden, the peppers and herbs from seed. Off to a good start. Someone needs to mow the lawn (again! 2-3 times a week for this monster)
2. The watercress. It's like Seymore from that show with the big plant.
3. The fruit from the Netherlands, including black currants, red currants, a bloob bush, a fig tree, and a lemon tree.
4. The established herb garden, with rosemary and curry plant front and center, and the thymes in the background. A stump, too. But that was already there.
   
5. A shot of the wonder-lettuce. We converted full-on lawn to garden and are happy to see we have kicked most of the grass here into submission. The war with slugs is just beginning.
   
6. The fungi farm. We had one of these when I was about 7 years old and I thought it was the coolest thing. I'm reliving my youth. That white stuff wasn't there yesterday!
   

British Mexican

I love Mexican food, both the fake Taco Bell variety and the more hard-core "Oh god I got food poisoning in rural Mexico" variety. This is one thing I thought I would basically need to live without for most of my time in Hereford.

Not so! Even though the one Mexican restaurant over in Worcestershire is open, seriously, 2 and a half hours a day, and probably not worth the trip, the local stores do their best to provide some Mexican flare. A trip to the downtown Tesco (yet another grocery here - we have TWO of these!) provided us with some decent fixings for a Tex-Mexy meal, including the store brand taco kit, Mexicana cheese (tasted like the powder on nacho cheese Doritoes - good enough), red and green chilies of reasonable heat, and good ground beef (aka "mince"). Add to that some iceberg lettuce, fresh tomato, homemade guacamole from some weird kind of avocado with tiny seeds, and a can of Ortega Refried Beans (meh) and we had quite a meal. I wouldn't call it "real" Mexican but it served an important purpose. Tesco also carried dried cascabel, habanero, and ancho chilies (wow) - but they were more pence and more ambitious then last night's meal needed.

I noticed by the way, the only North American beer I see on a regular basis in stores here is Corona. You see an occasionally Michelobe, maybe a Budweiser, and oddly enough, both Fat Tire and Anchor Steam.

Fridge 2.0

Our moving company on the Chicago-side casually mentioned that they worked with a company in the Chicago suburbs that sold European-voltage appliances. We could buy a UK-ready fridge in the USA, avoid paying US sales tax, and ship it with our stuff. Seemed like a good idea. I did some price matching USA vs UK and found that refrigerators here ain't what we used to in the US. They are smaller, come in funny shapes, and they are really expensive. Based on that, we ended up buying a Maytag, a side-by-side fridge with ice and water in the door. Nice.

While the fridge was en route across the Atlantic, we came to the realization that that fridge was gigantic (seriously, nearly double the size of most) by English standards and that we really didn't have a good spot (if any) to put it in the Lilacs. Uh-oh. So then we tried to sell it -- we could sell it for half of what someone would pay here and we would still break even. Even at that price, we couldn't find any takers.

Saturday afternoon, we bit the bullet and decided to bring in the English über-fridge. This meant that the wife and I had to carry the fridge from the garage, then around the house, then get it in the door, and put it in place.

...

...

4 hours later... after we had to take the door off the house (which meant breaking the 60 years of paint off the hinges), then take the door and hinges off the fridge (the manual said to call an qualified engineer if this was required - whatever!), then remove a shelf (same paint issues), and so on and so forth... we slid the fridge into place and turned it on.

It took us about 10 seconds to decide we had made the right decision. The crammed little fridge in the picture was our temporary fridge that we borrowed from Rach's office. I'll give her packing skills credit but it wasn't the most convenient thing (and everything near the tiny icebox froze). And good luck fitting a beer in there.

The bottom picture is the new fridge, at least what I could fit in the picture frame. We made an extra shopping trip today to fill Big Ben (we named our fridge -- I think we miss our friends). We now have ice, cold beer, cold cider, meats, cheeses, salad dressings, pickles... it's beautiful! Now I can get that half a lamb I've been eye-balling over at the butchers.

Went Looking for Snail Tracks, Found James Bond...

Somewhere around Hereford there is supposedly a snail farm at which you can buy fresh and frozen snails for gourmet consumption. Today we went looking for the little snacks in a shell. The Internet references to Credenhill Snail Farm are plentiful but provided only a vague address (often the case with UK addresses, we find) and a phone number that goes to an answering machine. We figured Credenhill (a small village northwest of Hereford) couldn't be too big and this farm (sometimes called the National Snail Farm) should have some sort of sign, right? No such luck. We drove all over and never found the place. But I did notice some wierd signage along a fence with a large green space between it and the road. The sign said something about how this spot was included in some "Secrets and Silence Act of Cocksansuch 1932" and that any sketching, note-taking, photography, etc. was strictly prohibited and punishable by unimaginable tortures and so forth. Odd, I thought.

We gave up on the snail tracking (ha!) and went home, snailless. Later on, I did some more Internet searching for snails and found more ambiguity but also what I think is the reason for the funny signs about secrets. The British SAS, or Special Air Services, Regiment 22 is headquartered in Credenhill. This is a very substantial wing of the special forces here and is responsible for, among other things:

Medium and deep battlespace ISTAR and offensive operations, Counter Revolutionary Warfare (CRW), Counter-Terrorism (CT), close protection and defence diplomacy

I guess Hereford is full of surprises. But I would have rather found the snails.

Tatties For Boo

The EU's requirements for importing dog food are apparently so complicated and constantly changing that there is little hope for a American-based dog food to be sold over here. We couldn't bring Boo's food and we can't buy it here. Our defective pooch, Boo, is allergic to grain, which rules out the food we can find locally in Hereford. We considered just feeding her whatever we're having for dinner but those of you that know Boo, know Boo's gas, too. Maybe bangers and mashed washed down with a pint wouldn't be an ideal meal for her tiny little digestive system.

On top of that, we had been feeding her a very high-protein food -- most dog food doesn't have all that much protein in it and she was used to about 30% protein. We had a nightmare experience switching her to that diet (3 weeks, little sleep, lots of nasty)and we weren't ready to go back to low-protein for fear of the same issues.

I did some research and finally found a German-based manufacturer by the name of Luposan. They make a couple of products for dogs with allergies and we decided to try Luposan Sport, a grain-free, 25% protein food. Even better, we can get it delivered in about a day or two to our door.

So far, so good. The gas is still there but its potentcy seems greatly reduced. Allergies seem reduced (but that's always hard to judge.) And she has beautiful poop. For the dog owners out there, you know what I mean. The only apparent drawback of the food is that Boo is now a one-dog army in that she can "make" five times a day now. Good thing we have a big lawn.

These Pretzels Are Making Me Fursty

Yet another beer. The decision to try this one was based on name alone. Look at the little ferrets staring at the beer cask: it has to be good!

When doing some "research" on this one, I came across information in Wikipedia that explained some confusion I've had at some of the pubs around here. If you ask what they have on draft, they ask you if you want beer or ale (and sometimes cider). I thought ale was just a kind of beer (and I think by US standards, it is) but here I think I am border-line offensive when I group the two into one word.

A "real ale" (a term invented in 1973 by the Campaign for Real Ale -- hmm), like Fursty Ferret, can start just like beer as we know it. But, has these additional restrictions:

"(the beer is) matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide"

In plain English, this means that the yeast that makes all beer ferment isn't removed from the beer and nothing is done to kill the yeast. The live yeast is in the bottle or cask or keg when you open it and when it is served. In theory, this makes the brew more complex since it is maturing right up until it hits your lips. The same fermentation process also keeps the ale fresher. Most beer in the USA is filtered to remove the yeast and then flash pasteurized (heated) to kill the yeast action in the beer.

The second part of the statement above, regarding the use of carbon dioxide, means that almost all beers in the USA would be disqualified from 'real ale' status. Most bars in the US have tanks of pressurized CO2 that push the beer through the tap. To be a real ale, this isn't allowed. Many (if not all) of the pubs here have hand pumps for the real ales. They look like the taps in the US, but the guy behind the bar has to pump the tap to draw the beer from the cask.

A real ale is almost guaranteed to be fresh, since once a cask is opened, it has a life of only a few days before the exposure to oxygen makes it go funky.

Get all that? Good! Now sit back and enjoy some furrific advertising:

Pandora's Boxes

Whew. Our Chicago packers were quite liberal in their use of paper. This picture is one I took after about 2 hours of breaking down boxes and consolidating paper into 'just a few' boxes. That row of 14 large dish boxes in the picture is packed completely full of paper. I'd guess each box weighs 30 to 40 pounds. This is about a 1/3 of the boxes and paper that our stuff was packed into. The moving crew took another third of it when they left. The rest is still upstairs holding our clothes and shoes. And shoes. And shoes. And shoes. And some books. I sure do have a lot of shoes.

BTW - over the top left of the boxes, you can see the Lilac tree from a previous post.

What It Takes to be The Lilacs

The Lilacs finally revealed its namesake. The front gate had a rather plain tree next to it, sprouting out of the top of the hedge. Over the last week it dramatically burst into bloom: lilacs, of course! The fragrance counter-acts the occasionally wind from the nearby chicken farm.

Tintern, Again?

It won't be long before I think this is hilarious. Cheers!

Dead Ringer

FYI -- My USA cell phone is no longer active... email me and I can provide a UK mobile number and Skype number.

Beautiful Pub

The UK has an organization that celebrates beer called simply "Beautiful Beer". We took a break from unpacking tonight and visited a local spot (and there are only a couple in Herefordshire) that has won a Beautiful Beer award. The place was the New Inn and it won a Beautiful Beer Gold Award just this year. From the Beautiful Beer website,

"The Gold Award shows that the pub has passed a rigorous assessment of its beers, from the cellar to the glass."

The New Inn featured a mostly traditional British menu, with steak and ale pie and fish and chips on the menu, as well as a couple of Herefordshire steaks. They also had a "Food Charter" that explains that all of their food, where possible, is locally sourced. For items that cannot be purchased locally, like cocoa, they will only purchase from Fair Trade Suppliers (a first for Herefordshire). A feature I hadn't seen over here was an ever-changing beer menu featuring new beers each month. I had a Batemans XXXB. Good beer: a smooth, refreshing bitter.

For our meal:

Starters:
Mushroom Soup with Crusty Farmhouse Bread (2)
Creamy Garlic Mushrooms on Toasted Farmhouse Bread (2)
Mains:
Steak, Mushroom, and Ale Pie (3)
Cornish Fish and Chips (upgraded to Cajun chips) with Peas(2)

All in all, a good meal worth remembering. I'm sure we'll go back -- especially since we found out we can take Boo as long as we stay in certain areas of the pub and restaurant.

Before and Ever After

We are known among our friends from Chicago for how quickly we go from moving-in to moved-in. Hopefully the Lilacs won't be much different. Here is the situation around 4PM yesterday, followed by the first rooms to be transformed into livable space (around 8PM).

Fit for a King

Bullocks! That was close... the movers have come and gone and to my surprise, all three beds made it up the low-ceiling stairway of the Lilacs. The queen was the toughest fit (keep it clean, mates), to my surprise: it didn't bend as well as the king mattresses.

The crew on this end wasn't quite the caliber of our Chicago team, though, and we have some dings and dents here and there to prove it.

All in all, though, we had very minor damage to our stuff and nothing broken beyond repair.

Other good news: so far no electronics have exploded or otherwise malfunctioned using the drop-down transformers I bought for our silly American TV. The Xbox 360 is fully functional.

Well, that's enough of that. It's the end of a long day and I'm ready to go to sleep in a REAL bed.

Special Delivery

Today is the supposed day. After a month of sleeping on an inflatable bed and rotating the same 5 outfits over and over again, our shipment from Chicago is due to arrive in under 2 hours (9 AM). Then, the real game begins: fitting American furnishings through English doorways. I can't wait!

Take the Metal Back to Tintern

My Iron Maiden blurb has become just another way to bring Tintern Abbey back into the blog. In 1988, Iron Maiden recorded a video for "Can I Play With Madness". The video was shot on-site in non-other than Tintern Abbey. Turn off the volume and you actually get some nice footage of the Abbey without the so-so metal. But I don't remember that pit that led to an other-worldly cavern. Must have missed that on the walk through.

Crisps Deux

Every crisp company over here seems to have its own line of flavors. Tyrrel's has interesting combinations, this one being Worcester (pronounced "woos-tah") Sauce and Sun Dried Tomato. It was tasty!

They also have a seasonal "Game" flavor with "Duck, Orange, and Ginger" and a "Thai Curry and Coriander". Good thing I have a few years to try them all.

English Raspberries

Sometimes it is hard to define the differences between American and British culture. While watching some MTV equivalent, I learned that Iron Maiden had scored a #1 hit in the UK in 1990 with the song "Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter". On the US side, we awarded the same song a "Golden Raspberry" for the "Worst Original Song" in 1989.

You decide, do you side with the Brits or the Americans on this one (keeping in mind it was 1990)?

The Cut of Your Jib

We stopped in today at Heggies, a recommended butcher, on our way to Sainsbury's (one of our local grocery choices.) Very clean, very well presented meats. You see a lot of what you see in the States, but a few things that you wouldn't typically see:

• Lots of Blood Pudding (aka Black Pudding)
  
• Pre-Marinated Chicken Tikka Masala (the most popular food in England, even more so than fish and chips!)
  
• Lamb shanks
• Lamb kidneys
• "Raw" Bacon (uncured, unsmoked)
• Gammon -- appears to be a generic term, in this case its ham or pork steaks.
• Pork Belly
• Duck parts besides the breast
• Herefordshire Beef
• Gloucester Old Spot Pork
  

We bought some pork belly and the closest thing to American bacon we could find (cured and smoked but a wierd cut). We roasted the pork belly, served it with Sainsbury's Organic Watercress, Spinach, and Rocket (wherever an American might expect iceburg lettuce, the Brits have replaced it with rocket -- which is just a different name for arugula) mix, a loaf of crusty bread with roast garlic, some leftover chips (fries), and topped it all with a poached duck egg -- that was Saturday night dinner. I can't complain!

The picture of dinner is courtesy of Rachel, but it cost me.

Now We're Cooking With Pig Fat

In the US, I don't like to shop at WalMart. I am trying to find reasons to justify shopping at ASDA, Walmart's English twin.

Let's add the Pork Belly Crackling Joint to that list.

Oh my, for just 3 pounds and an 1 hour in a hot oven, you get a piece roast pig that is half-meat, half bacon, and all delicious.

Highly recommended.

A Red Neck and Green Thumb

The Lilacs has a budding garden. We have permission from the landlord to do some planting. We converted part of a flower garden to herbs (rosemary, curry plant, sage, thyme, oregano, mint (mojitos!), and parsely. In the back corner of the lawn, I converted lawn to garden and there we have strawberries, 6 kinds of lettuce, one horseradish, 5 tomato plants, and 2 pepper plants. That bare spot is where the Phase 2 peppers are going to go if they ever sprout... In another patch, we have watercress growing strong and fast.


In the picture you see our next phase, the plants and herbs from seed. Here you can see basil and dill coming right along like good little English herbs (pronounce the 'h', please!). Hot peppers and banana peppers haven't sprouted yet... they might be duds!

Rachel let me know yesterday she ordered more stuff for us (us?) to plant. Berries and stuff. We might not want to leave once we get all this growing. And, conditions here seem better for a garden then for us -- lots of rain!

The Ghost of Strongbow

On my first trip to Hereford with Rachel (our house-hunting trip), we passed through Wales on route to Hereford. Near Chepstow, we passed the eerily beautiful Tintern Abbey. The picture in my title block is Tintern Abbey.

Tintern was founded in the year 1136 by Walter de Clare, the then Lord of Chepstow. Tintern was home to the White Monks, a monastic order that followed the 'Charter of Love' and had six guiding principals:

• Obedience
• Poverty
• Chastity
• Silence
• Prayer
• Work

The Abbey prospered for almost 400 years as a quiet monastery that received little historical note. Much of the Abbey was rebuilt with endowments from local lords. In 1349, The Black Death swept Europe and this, combined with the affects of a Welsh uprising, caused labor shortages and financial difficulties for the Abbey.

In 1536, King Henry the VIII took control of the church of England, one of the main reasons was to take over the considerable wealth held by the churches. The valuable lead that held the roof in place was pillaged and sold. Tintern fell into quick ruin as it was looted and its treasures sent away. The pictures above are what is left of the Abbey despite significant restoration projects over the last 100 years. It still stands as one of the best preserved examples of its era.

But what about the ghosts?

It is said that a group of young nobles visited the Abbey in the 17th or 18th century, now in ruins, and dug about the grounds looking for valuables. They did find two skeletons and in celebration, they prepared a great feast amidst the ruins.

As they sat and joked about the monks rising from their graves, a sudden storm surrounded the Abbey with fierce lightning and thunder that shook the hills. The sky grew darker and a heavy mist shrouded the site.

In a doorway, a gleaming light grew and took shape as a knight in full armor. Then, around the knight, the forms of withered monks and abbots came forward. The storm paused and the knight, with visor raised, pointed at the exit to the Abbey. The young nobles scattered in fear and found themselves lost in the mist. The storm resumed and a violent whirlwind tossed the feast beyond the walls of the Abbey.

The men had disturbed the rest of the monks and their protector, Gilbert fitz Gilbert de Clare, the son of Walter de Clare. Gilbert was known as "Strongbow" -- either because he skillfully used an abnormally large and powerful bow or because of his battle tactic of utilizing Welsh bowman against the Irish. Either way, Strongbow's legend was known and his image commanded obedience.

Strongbow is also the name of a mass-produced cider made right here in Hereford and very popular throughout England. Ahh, refreshing!