The GirlAlive Blog

The Tea-mostat!

I have a coffee flask that’s a bit like this, but the top part tapers in and is very narrow:

It holds a liter of coffee, or tea. The problem is that you can’t put tea bags into the flask because the hole in the top is too small, and if they sink you can never get them out. So I thought about it for a while and came up with many ideas involving filters and clamps and all kinds of things. In the end, I settled on this:

This is a hemostatic forceps, or hemostat. It looks like scissors, but it is actually a clampy thing used to clamp blood vessels during surgery. My plan is to clamp the teabags in the hemostat and then drop it in the flask, with the finger hole bits at the top stopping it from dropping all the way in. Then the tea can steep and I can easily remove and dispose of the teabags. Brilliant, no?

I don’t actually have the hemostat yet (I ordered one on eBay) so I’ll update and let you know if it doesn’t work. If it does work, I call my invention the tea-mostat.

The 50 Things to Eat Before You Die

The British version of the food network made a special about the 50 top things to eat before you die. It was based on polls of the British public, and then there was commentary from British tv chefs. I learned one main thing from this special. The British don’t know squat about American food.

One of the chosen foods was “Barbeque”. I have to believe that that was voted in there by Americans living in Britain and British people who have been to America and who know what that word means. The “chef” commentators sadly had no clue what they were talking about. They went on and on about how they hate barbeque because it’s just good food burned outdoors. And every piece of food they showed was not barbequed, it was grilled. It was all charred over high heat. Which is not barbeque.

I’m not from the south. I’m from Minnesota, which is not a state with a long barbeque history. And even I know that real barbeque is cooked at a low temperature for a long time, more like hot smoking than grilling. If you don’t know what barbeque is, you have no right to say that you don’t want to eat it.

This isn’t the first time the British have shown that they have no clue about American food. I’ve seen countless tv chefs here making hamburgers that they describe as “American” burgers, and then filling them with breadcrumbs and eggs and all manner of crap and fillers. That’s not a real American hamburger. That’s a meatloaf. The only British cookbook I’ve ever seen that had a proper and authentic American hamburger recipe was a book by Delia Smith. In an American hamburger, the only ingredients should be beef, salt and pepper.

So I get hate mail from the British because I have come to the UK and tried the food and genuinely not enjoyed some of it. And these same people will criticize American food based on third-hand accounts of what American food is like, based on tv chefs who don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m very disappointed in the tv chefs of the UK. And I’m so glad they’ve started showing American food shows here. Maybe some of those chefs will watch a few and learn something before they start talking about American food.

A look back on British food.

Brett suggested that for my whole “tell me what to write thing“, I should do a brief review, five years on, of the foods on my British Food site. Okay. Sounds like an idea to me.

First of all, there is always the question about whether there are foods I have tried but not reviewed. Oh my, yes. I don’t have a camera with me all the time and I don’t always have a notepad to take notes about what I think about food. In short, I’m not cut out to be a full time food blogger. So first, I’ll give a few short reviews of foods I can think of off the top of my head that I’ve eaten and never got around to reviewing on the site. I may do full reviews later, but for now this’ll have to do.

Eton Mess: Tasty. All kinds of tasty.

Pavlova: Just as tasty as Eton Mess. My husband likes toffee pavlovas, but I prefer berries or fruit. Fantastic summer dessert.

Tikka Masala: It is always billed as “Indian” food, but it was invented in Glasgow. I love most Indian food, including Tikka Masala, Korma, Jalfrezi, naan bread, and everything else. You can buy a jar of decent ready-made curry sauce for about £1, and then combine it with rice or cous cous and a can of chickpeas and some veggies for a really good and really cheap vegetarian dinner. It’s usually eaten with chicken (or turkey) but I can’t afford much meat lately, so chickpeas are great too.

Doner kebab: Again, tasty. It’s very similar to the gyros sold in the US, but I think is more Turkish than Greek. The main difference is the sauce. Instead of the creamy cucumber sauces you get in the US, doner kebabs are usually served with a hot sauce reminiscent of buffalo wing sauce.

Anyway, on to the review of the stuff I’ve already reviewed.

Irn Bru: I’ve had a few bottles of Irn Bru over the years. It’s a nice change from standard cola for a caffeine hit. Generally, I go for the diet when possible, which is just as good as the regular, in my opinion.

Oatcakes: I have them now and then with cheese. They’re especially good with aged Scottish cheddar.

Scotch Eggs: I hate to admit that I eat scotch eggs. I don’t eat them often, but now and then I have one. They’re an easy quick lunch when I decide that I don’t care if I die young.

Toad In the Hole: I think I might have made this dish once or twice since the review. It’s tasty. I came up with a great Americanized variation on it a few months ago. I substituted cornbread batter for the Yorkshire pudding batter and hot dogs for the sausages, and it made a tasty sort of corndog loaf.

Mushy Peas: I still eat mushy peas sometimes. They’re good with fish and a healthy dose of vinegar.

Scotch Dumpling: Haven’t touched one since the review.

Jaffa Cakes: They have released all kinds of Jaffa Cake variations in the last couple of years. I’ve tried lemon, lime, raspberry, and blackcurrent. I still like the original orange best.

Christmas Pudding: Haven’t had one since the review. I have had some mince pies, which I guess I should review at some point.

Selkirk Bannock: Not eaten since the review.

Lucozade: When I gave up sugary beverages, I gave up Lucozade, even though I only had maybe 3 bottles of it before then. Last time I had any was when it was used as a measured amount of sugar for a blood glucose test. I think that might have been one of the reasons I gave up sugary beverages.

British hot dogs: No. Never again. They’re an abomination. My husband sometimes buys some hot dogs in a jar, which are squishier than I prefer, but they’re still much better than the cans.

Pickled Onions: I have a pickled onion now and then. They’re pretty good sliced on tuna or cheese sandwiches.

Spotted Dick: I eat a lot of spotted dick. (Done giggling now?) It’s one of those things I don’t eat all the time, but I have to buy it everytime someone from the US comes for a visit. They will not leave my house without trying spotted dick.

Custard: One of my favorite go-to desserts. You can buy little cups of custard, like pudding cups. Easy, cheap and tasty. The low fat versions are good too.

Haggis: Nope. No more haggis for me. I eat a lot of vegetarian haggis. It’s actually very good. But the regular haggis with the festival of organ meat just isn’t my thing.

Smarties: Haven’t eaten these much. I guess I just think there are chocolate options here that are far more interesting.

Lemon Curd: I think I’ve had this on toast once or twice. I should use it more. Maybe on meringues to make mini-pavlovas or something. I have had it as a coating on cheesecake, which is good.

Chocolate Spread: I like chocolate spread. It is great stuff. Yet I still don’t eat it much. I’m a fan of peanut butter, so that is always my first choice.

Bubble and Squeak: Still a good side dish, but I don’t opt for it often. It’s kind of a lot of work.

Flapjacks: I’ve had a lot of Flapjacks, and tons that were better than the test ones. The ones they sell at Julian Graves are fantastic.

Jelly: Nothing against jelly, but we’ve mostly had the pre-made cups of it with fruit because our fridge is too small to fit a big bowl of anything. I seriously miss American refrigerators.

Jamaica Ginger Cake: Had some last night. Drowning in rum sauce. It was good. But there was a lot of rum sauce.

Cornish Pasties: Had some of these a couple days ago for lunch. They’re tasty, but I’ve probably only had them maybe twice since the original test.

Sticky Toffee Pudding: If it’s available and I can afford it, I will eat sticky toffee pudding. I’ve even chosen it over chocolate. It’s amazing stuff.

Yorkshire Pudding: I don’t eat these much, simply because of the fat content, but they are tasty. Yorkshire puddings were a particular favorite of my cousin Raeanne when she visited last year.

Scotch Pies: Can’t honestly remember if I’ve had these since the test. Probably not. I think mostly because there are so many other pies with better crusts here. Like pork pies and cornish pasties.

Branston Pickle: Still one of my favorite things to have on a cheese sandwich.

Marmite: An abomination (unto Nuggan). Satan’s poop. Not suitable for human consumption. And I still don’t care how much you love Marmite. Tell me all about how much you love it, and I will silently judge you. There is something wrong with people who think that Marmite is food.

Piccallili: Don’t think I’ve had any since the test. I probably should. I think I tested it on the same day as Marmite, and so it scarred me against it. Someone served it on The Great British Menu the other day and it looked really good.

Crumpets: One of my favorite easy breakfasts. My favorites are either to have crumpets with peanut butter or melted cheese.

Cranachan: I don’t think I’ve made this since the test. At least not properly. But it is still a fantastic dessert. I would almost prefer it non-alcoholic though.

Meat Pie (in a can): Haven’t had it again, and probably never will.

Weetabix: I’ve had Weetabix a few times, as well as the oat version Oatabix. I found that as much as I wasn’t a fan of Weetabix with milk, it is really good with yogurt. Especially fruit flavored yogurt.

Black Pudding: The cafe here in town serves a full breakfast for about £3, and it includes black pudding. Which I don’t like. I always shove it onto my husband’s plate. It still just tastes like a blood clot to me.

Pork Pies: One of my favorite snack/lunch/picnic kind of things. It’s like Spam in a crust. What’s not to like?

Digestive Biscuits: Not my favorite cookie, but not bad. I recently found some chocolate chip digestive biscuits, and they’re really good. Lower fat and higher fiber than a standard chocolate chip cookie, but full of chocolate chip tastiness. I’ve had a lot of the digestives with a chocolate coating on one side, but I still prefer the chocolate chip ones because they don’t get melty chocolate on your fingers.

So there you go. A look back at all the foods I reviewed, four or five years later. Most of it doesn’t seem nearly so foreign to me anymore. I’d have to say that the number one thing I love about British food is the fact that you can get so much of it that is local. There are so many more small farms and so much more variation than there is in the US. And the British are so proud of their produce and they do their best to produce food that is of the highest quality, not just the largest quantity. I love buying a pack of strawberries, a pork shoulder, and a package of cookies and seeing that it was all produced in Scotland.

What do I miss in British food? I miss high quality Mexican food. I miss Dairy Queen. I miss root beer. But overall, I love British food, and most days I don’t even think about the stuff I’m missing. They have the basic ingredients here to produce food that is familiar to me, now that I’m used to working with the local ingredients.

Following Orders 1: A new food review.

Okay, so a couple people demanded a new food review. I have done one, over on my British Food site. I reviewed beans on toast, which I think is a very British thing. I don’t entirely understand beans on toast, but I have eaten it.

Anyway, that’s the first task done. Time for you to come up with more ideas for me. Do you want me to draw something specific? Do you need completely unprofessional advice about something? Do you wish you knew more about the digestive tract of a guinea pig? And don’t bother demanding more food reviews. I’m not doing that two times in a row.

A thing of beauty

I know I’ve talked before about Twiglets and how they are made of Satan’s poop (also known as Marmite). Additionally, there has been a fake feud going on between Justin Bieber and Conan O’Brien, which has been hilarious. Like, I normally would hate a teenybopper Canadian like Bieber, but he is actually kind of funny (his music is cheesy pop crap, but he seems like a nice kid). So this video made me all kinds of happy.

Asian Supermarket

There are two major Asian supermarkets in Edinburgh, and they’re both on Leith Walk, and one of them is okay and the other one is awesome. Last Saturday my husband and I went to the awesome one to do some shopping. I saw things and learned things and it was fun.

Oddly, the best place to get a lot of American food is the Asian market. The shop we were in was primarily Chinese, with all the other Asian countries tossed in. I was looking for interesting snack foods and some cooking ingredients. I’ve been hanging out at The Tasty Island blog a lot and drooling over all the awesome Hawaiian food, so I really wanted to make some Spam musubi.

As a small aside, when I got married, I spent part of my honeymoon at the Spam museum in Austin, MN. It’s totally awesome.

Anyway, I bought ingredients for musubi and snack foods. My cousin Erin recommended red bean mochi, so I located some and tried them when I got home. The flavor was okay, but the texture was a problem.

Then there was my favorite part of the store, the beverage case. They have root beer and pearl milk tea and aloe juice and all kinds of crazy Asian beverages. And did I mention root beer? I picked out a few interesting drinks to try at home.

I also got peanut butter crackers and saltines. They have saltines at the Asian store! And also chips that taste just like Fritos. I found out that the reason I can get my favorite American foods at the Asian market is because of the Philippines. Filipinos make saltines and peanut butter crackers and all kinds of great stuff.

It was a pretty good day, even though the bus ride sucked kind of a lot. Last night I made Spam musubi for dinner and it was one of the tastiest things ever. Husband doesn’t like nori much, so I’ll use less next time. But the flavor of rice, Spam and furikake all together is amazing. Hawaiians are geniuses.

I had a big argument with a family member this week because he thinks I never say anything about how I’m really feeling and I’m never honest about myself on this blog. I’m going to answer him directly and in more detail later, but let me just give the simple explanation of “Duh.” I don’t know half the people who read this blog, I once lost a job because I was too honest here, and I’m unemployed and don’t want the first impression that a potential employer has of me to be “neurotic depressive”. So no, I don’t pour out my guts here. If you want to see all of that, it’s on Facebook, but I won’t friend you if I don’t know you, and I won’t friend you if I work with you. Twitter is kind of my in-between where I’m a little more honest than here, but without as much detail as Facebook.

Oh, and also I totally love my new layout here. The old one was too classy and too pretty. It clashed with the lowbrow humor and always seemed a bit wrong. I hope you all like the new look too.

Alana