Explaining Londoners

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/magazine/explaining-londoners.html

I mostly have no idea what they are talking about.

The Menu

Walk into most restaurants and whether they are upscale or a hole in the wall, you are likely to find this on the menu:

Starters:
- Mushrooms with Stilton cream on rye toast
-Potted smoked mackerel
- Pork belly - or another nasty sounding meat

Mains:
- Beer battered fish and chips with mushy peas.
- Some kind of roast meat and gravy with potatoes, turnips and carrots and Yorkshire pudding (not a pudding, but something resembling a deflated popover)
- Some part of a lamb with mint sauce
- A pie: Pieces of meat or fish with various "veg" baked in a pastry
-Bangers and mash (sausages)

At a "fancy" place they'll tell you where the animals lived - "West Country beef", "Trealy Farm British meat platter" or "Gloucester Old Spot sausages". They like to tell you that any meat or produce you are eating is British.

Sides:
- Chips (AKA fries)
- Creamed leaks
- Cauliflower and cheese
- "Veg" - usually peas, carrots, corn and maybe chopped up broccoli

Kids:
-Beans on toast
-Chicken or fish fingers with chips
-Bangers and mash

Pudding (dessert):
- Something with rhubarb
- Sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream (YUM!)

Breakfast/Brunch:
Always 2 sunny side up eggs, baked beans, white toast, baked tomato, cooked mushrooms, sausages, bacon and black pudding (huh?!).

6 Months

I've been here for half a year. Six more months and I'll be a regular Londoner. But right now I still can't understand half of what people say to me.

Another Salesman

Another salesman knocked on my door. When I opened it he asked if I wanted any horse manure. I'm not making this up.

Toad in the Hole

Yum yum. This was Simon's dinner the other night. Toad in the Hole consists of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter. This is a frozen vegetarian version. I've seen this on a lot of menus but never tried it.

Here's a better looking version.

Burns Night

Looks like I may be going to a Burns Night soon. From what I can tell, this is where you read poetry from some poet named Robert Burns who lived in the 1700's, eat Haggis (which Burns wrote a poem about), drink whiskey and do traditional dances.

Poet Dude

Burns Supper

Plans Are Being Hatched

Florida here I come

Thai Withdrawal

It's been almost half a year since I've had decent Thai or Mexican food. I'm almost over my withdrawal symptoms. The first 2 months were the hardest. I still occasionally try to order or make Thai or Mexican, but it is always very disappointing.

I was excited to see these Thai "pots" in the grocery store. Microwaved it up. It was pretty nasty stuff – a sort of ginger Indian-like curry with water chestnuts, yellow split peas and soybeans inside, plus the rice all mixed in with it. Simon didn't mind it, but I'm ready to buy a ticket to Thailand.