Some Clean Up and A Small Jig

Ooo, Flowers, Tourists, and Sun!

Sooo, I've gotten a handful of questions in great repition. I thought I'd answer them here. I know that you were just dying to see that I'm covered in flour and the flowers in Bath.

Yum, Flour.

Q: What happened with your bread.
A: I spent most of last week covered in flour. No really, the photo about doesn't do the flour coverage justice. My first attempt at sourdough starter went from one cup flour, one cup water to sponge in 36 hours. As for the bread, the first loaf burned on the outside and suffered extreme doughyness on the inside. It was inedible. The second loaf came up lovely, if a bit heavy.

Second Attempt at Sourdough Loaf.

I know you're just dying to comment. And then I killed the starter by washing the bowl. That's right: I picked up the starter bowl and tossed it into the dishwater. I don't think there is any way to save starter from detergents. The second attempt at starter is currently becoming a sponge. At least, I hope it is becoming a sponge. If not, I'll have to go buy bread tomorrow. That would defeat the whole point. I suspect that I'm going to be going through a lot of flour in the coming weeks.

Q: Did you really have an outhouse?
A: Yes, two in fact. I was terrible at having an outhouse. Wait, I was terrible at my first outhouse. Saving a bit of dosh by living without running water in a dry cabin in Alaska seemed like a good idea. Besides I really really wanted to prove that I could do it. The week we moved in breakup (the great melt that happens in June in Alaska) occurred, and it became clear that the outhouse hole hadn't been dug properly, I'd moved into a bog, and that my landlord was creepy. I spent most of the ensuing seven months using a honey bucket (five gallon bucket in the house) and 'flushing' that down the outhouse. My second outhouse experience was pretty fabulous (Thanks, Jennifer). Of course the local mama moose really liked the extra foliage that grows around outhouses, and she often wasn't going to let me near it. Luckily it was Alaska and I had already become a dab hand at squatting in the woods. Phew.

Q: I grew up with an outhouse and their were various creepy crawlies I couldn't stand. How did you cope?
A: I would not have coped at all any place that has snakes, spiders bigger than the palm of hand, or wasn't frozen 9 or so months a year. I do often miss my outhouse and its large expanse of wilderness. I hate cleaning the toilet, and I hate having to wait my turn. The English don't like it when you use their gardens as 'the necessary.'

Q: Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to replace your shower head rather than descaling it? 

A: It might be easier except that I don't have a car. It's a twenty-minute bus ride followed by a twenty-minute walk to the nearest place that sells shower heads. I'd have to do this approximately once a month. It's actually less time consuming to descale the shower head and more environmentally friendly. I broke our last shower head when I dropped it from a great height. The cheapest new one was 9 quid. At the time that would have been 18 dollars. Even the heavy duty chemical descaler costs about 1.50 per descale. Vinegar is of course much cheaper than that.  It is a job I hate, and if I could convince people that I live in a dry cabin and need to shower at their houses, I would.


Q: What's the weather like there right now?
A: It's unseasonably warm or cold. It's probably raining and windy or muggy with no precipitation or it's blowing a gale. I suggest putting on a pair of trousers, a short-sleeve t-shirt, a long sleeved t-shirt, and a jacket. Put a skirt in your handbag (or if you prefer carrier bag). Subtract clothing as necessary. Add clothing as necessary. I'm not being sarcastic. I really do this. I works rather well. 

Q: Do you celebrate July 4 there?
A: I do. Some of the English celebrate with me. They bring me gifts, usually flowers. They call it the day they finally got rid of those obnoxious Puritans. Some people find it very offensive that I continue to celebrate. Most people just want an invite to the bbq.

Tomorrow is mixer tap day. Warm water out of a tap. Who knew? I'm still debating whether or not to approach that whole religion thing. I'm trying to be brave.

Thanks so much to The Jason Show and Finger Rolls and Folding Chairs for kindly linking to me. These are both blogs I enjoy, and I hope you'll go visit them. Someone else has linked me, or shared me, or shouted about me, but I haven't been able to figure out who. Let me know if it was you, please, and I'll link you up.

PS: I'm not sure comments are working for everyone. Will you please e-mail me if you're having problems, americaninbath@gmail.com? 

Brightly Colored Veg: Learning to Live with Five a Day

When I was growing up, my mother made cucumber and carrot sticks, she broke off cauliflower and broccoli florets, and she cut stars into the tops of radishes before throwing the lot into old margarine tubs and covering with them with water. Mom would place these on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, allowing my sister and I to graze our ways through the day.

It isn't a terribly practical plan here. My butter containers would fit just about two carrots. Refrigerators are small, and unlike the US, freezers tend to be on the bottom. I've tried over the years to emulate my mother, but vegetables tended to get eaten before they made it to the tubs or forgotten all together. Here I share the the refrigerator with my housemate, and she'll be the first to tell you that I forget about the food I cannot see when first glancing below the counter and into the fridge. Food was rarely wasted, just eaten well into the floppy but edible stage.

I'm terrible about making complete meals for one. I plan them, buy the food stuffs, then eat the ingredients one by one. This usually results in a lot of uncooked pasta and rice. It isn't that I don't have the time, but that I generally eat when I reach the point of starving or when I'm trying to sit down to write. I generally cook when someone might thank me for doing so. The question is one of degree. While I am happier when I am fed, I am happier still when I have fed someone else.

Years ago I stopped getting hungry. Until the point at which my eyes rang the migraine alarm bells or I simply fell over, my body gave me no reminders to eat. I wouldn't have eaten at all at University had the other women in my hall not knocked on my door and asked me when I was going to dinner, to breakfast. Mostly, I forgot lunch until after the dining hall had closed because there was no one to remind me to put food into my stomach between classes and work. When I tried to explain, men and women alike envied me my stick figure.
I still rarely get hungry; though, I have lost the stick figure.

Friends will tell you that I am never so grateful as when someone feeds me a meal they have cooked. They'll say that I eat ravenously. They may even say that they have heard me utter the words: I'm hungry. My friends are reasonably smart people. They know what I mean is that I want to break bread in their company. They know that I have likely forgotten to stop for a moment for lunch. They know I have looked toward my own kitchen and figured I'd go and make something soon. Soon is rather like the rest of the future; it rarely arrives when we most expect it to.

The night before we buried my grandmother, my sister made a roast for my brother-in-law, my father, my stepmother, and I. We ate slowly, taking our time over the thick slices of pork.  We didn't talk about what the next morning would bring; though, my father slowly articulated our families life in that far off place we call a long time ago. For one short moment, we forgot the forks in our hands, the dishes to be done, the years in between that make the distances between us so necessary. There in the rental house, I sat with my father and one of my sisters, and we ate a home cooked meal as a family--something that hasn't happened in sixteen whispering years.

I am trying to learn to eat food cooked for one. It has become, rather suddenly, a necessity. After that dinner in Denver, we sent my sister and her husband on a date. My stepmother began to do the washing up, and Dad prepared for bed. I opened my laptop, typed my password, and discovered that the job that made up the bulk of my income no longer existed. Nor did the job of anyone else who was working from outside of the state in which the university's buildings sit.

And I am lucky. I have a second job with good people who are throwing as many hours as they can afford in my direction. I have friends who have been out of work for two years, who at thirty-three are living with their parents who themselves cannot afford to retire. I have friends who have been told to go back to university to retrain, despite their PhDs and decades worth of student loan debt. I have friends who dole out calories to their children, skimping on their own, in hopes that children who feel hungry are still well enough fed. But I also know how thin the line between underemployed and unemployed is. I know that the electric bill is going to be much higher than the amount the housemate and I toss into the savings account each month. I know that I may or may not have enough hours next month to make up the difference. I know that what I write as melancholy is really fear. So while I search for another job that may well be forthcoming, I'm buying what's left at the end of the day at the veg stall to avoid paying rent with the emergency plane ticket. And I am grateful that it is, for now, more than enough.

My Bologna Has A First Name: It's T-U-R-K-E-Y

Early last week, Mrs. AmericanEnglandStyle sent me a text saying that she'd discovered bologna in the aisles of her local grocery store. I didn't believe her. Mrs. AmericanEnglandStyle has been in the country for almost a decade. I've got five years behind me, and between my American-expat friends, we've probably spent a century at our local grocer's. Collectively, we've spent many hours sampling food we've never heard of and buying new-to-us foods. I simply did not believe Mrs. AmericanEnglandStyle. I thought perhaps that she'd forgotten exactly what bologna tastes like.

So when I went to visit Mrs. AmericanEnglandStyle she produced the above packet. Remind me to never ever again doubt her word. I have never liked bologna (although my sisters maybe inclined toward correcting that statement). As it turns out, I still don't like bologna. And Turkey Ham is, let me assure you,tastes like bologna. And it has the texture of wafer sliced, well, bologna. Suffice it to say, I may sing the Oscar Mayer Bologna song, but I wont be eating it any time soon.

I will however be eating many yummy things when I'm at home. Take note my sisters, I need some food.

1. Mexican Food (Colorado version)
2. Tostitos, Fritos, and corn nuts, Doritos--You can get Doritos here. They're good, but not the same.
3. jalapenos--the fresh variety.
4. Life Cereal
5. Clam Chowder
6.bbq beef
7. A steak that is actually rare.
8. Corn bread.
9. Wintergreen lifesavers.
10. Root beer
11. Bratwurst (by which I mean the American version)
12. Grilled corn on the cob
13. Corn on the cob.
14. Watermelon (you can get it here, but yuck)
15. Meatloaf.
16. Pancakes, maple syrup, bacon and american breakfast sausage.
17. EasyCheese. (I suspect I will think this is gross after one squeeze, but yum)
18. French Toast (I can get and make this here. I just don't want to call it eggy-bread).
19.Lox and Bagels.
20. A reuben sandwhich.
21. BlueCheese dressing.
24. An American Style salad.
25. Something deep fried with Ranch dressing.
26. Fried Chicken.
27. Sloppy Joes
28. Grilled Cheese (Yes it is different than cheese on toast.
29. A BLT wish crispy bacon. (I know I say streaky bacon is the same, but it isn't).
30. Waffle for breakfast.
31. A sausage and green olive pizza.
32. Sopaipillas



I'll think of more before I get there, I'm sure.

Biscuits and Biscuits and Scones

We all know about the confusion. When American's say chips, they mean crisps. When Americans say fries, they mean crisps. When the English say American chips, they mean fast food french fries. When the English say American biscuits, they mean cookies.

When Americans say biscuits, they mean the above. American Biscuits are very similar to scones in that they're easy to make, flaky, and often circular. However, American Biscuits are savory where scones are sweet. American biscuits are poor food, where scones require a bigger pocket book.  American biscuits are meant to fill out a meal, where scones are meant to be eaten between meals. Most imporatantly, adding dried fruit to American biscuits is a most disgusting idea, while they're a perfectly acceptable addition to biscuits.

The major difference between the two is the use of creme and eggs in scones, giving them a richer taste and a heavier texture. While I love my scones a little too much, I've been craving American food an awful lot lately.

I've spent the last year telling you all how little I miss from home. But I bought a plane ticket a few weeks ago, and I'll be visiting the States and my family for two weeks this spring. It's been four years since I've been back to the US and just as long since I've seen my family. This event more than anything else in the last five years has led to a generalized desire for the things I cannot have. Later this week, I'll tell you what all I intend to eat while I wander around the streets of America.

More than one child in the West Country is still missing. Among them is James Bubear. It is becoming more and more difficult to keep his name in the news. If you would please, click on the badge above and list your support for his family on the Find James Bubear Facebook page. James is a first year student at my Alma Mater. His family and friends are desperate to bring him home.

Things I Miss From Home--Tootsie Rolls

After five years in England, it is reasonably rare that I crave anything that I can't get my hands on here. The problem did present itself more frequently in 2010 than it did in 2009. Since I can now speak to my family via video conference, I can also see things I had completely forgotten. Still, I can usually find or make the things that I see. Sun tea in my sister's glass--check. Cornbread--almost check. Jalapenos--close to check. Half-and-half--check.

I did spend most of last year looking at a giant box of Tootsie Rolls on the shelves behind my father's head. Each week, he'd offer to send me some. Each week, I told him not to bother. Sweets (candy) are heavy and therefore expensive to send. Besides, in between phone calls, I would completely forget about them. This Christmas, Dad and his wife sent me a whole box. There are only a few left. I'm pretty sure I have to share them.

The Price of Milk

I am inclined to tell you that I wish I had done better research into the cost of living here before leaving Alaska. I looked at all the obvious indicators before I agreed to pursue the remainder of my education here. A flat would cost me quite a lot more, but said flat would have running water and a nearby bus stop. So if I subtracted the cost of petrol (car gas), insurance, and wear and tear on the Mitsubishi, the cost seemed to even out. The cost of heating would go down, but the cost of water would go up. Even with the two-to-one exchange rate in 2005, it looked to me like my life was about to become significantly cheaper.

I had not counted on the cost of food. Nor had I counted on finding that I could no longer subsist on the cheap canned food that had gotten me through my first year in Alaska. The exchange rate is now 1.6 to 1. The cost of a milk in England is also much easier to come by.

Type in 'milk' into any of these sites to see what the major grocery stores are charging. There are 3.7 liters in an US gallon or 6.6 pints in an US gallon.

Waitrose--www.waitrose.com
Sainsbury's--www.sainsburys.com
Asda (Walmart)--www.asda.com
Tesco--www.tesco.com

If you want to see what your average weekly shop might be in your city you can use the tools at www.mysupermarket.co.uk

Today the average price of milk seems to be about 84 pence per litre, 3 pound a gallon, 5 dollars a gallon.

I'm glad I hadn't been able to do the maths (math) when I began my journey to England. I think I would have been to terrified to come here.