On Easter Candy *Updated

So, I'll admit it's been a long time since I've had an Easter basket.  I honestly can't even remember what I did for the last two easters.  I assume I was home or in Chico, or somewhere... yeah, I honestly don't know.  Which is weird, since I normally have an elephants memory for things.  

Anyway, being so far away from home and seriously SURROUNDED by easter candy here (sorry, "sweets"), I decided to treat myself to a little easter basket of my own.  

THUS, this thing of beauty I created.

 Okay, so I didn't have an actual basket, but to be honest, baskets aren't as much of a thing here anyway, so we can pretend I was being culturally accurate.  What ARE big here, you ask?  Well, for those of you who know I'm a Harry Potter fan, and who are Harry Potter fans yourselves, you may remember a twice in the books it mentions easter eggs.  First, in the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, they each get their eggs from Mrs. Weasley and tear into them.  Hermione, however, gets an itty bitty one because Mrs. Weasley thinks Hermione is playing with Harry's heart.  This always confused me when I was younger because all our eggs are relatively small.  I understood though, that Harry's and Ron's were quite large, at least the size of an ostrich egg.  I can't remember now if that's because JKR described the size, or if I just intuitively understood (I vaguely recall Hermione's egg being compared to a chicken's egg, that might be it?).

Anyway, I've been seeing these "eggs" everywhere, but I didn't buy them because they were expensive and seemed excessive.  I finally decided, however, on Saturday night to go for it.  All they had left were Smarties eggs, which were £1.50, so I wasn't TOO disappointed.    I also got the other things in the photo, a Kinder Surprise Egg (crazy about them), and one each of a cadbury's creme egg and caramel egg.

Let's start with the big egg.  It came in a box, like this (for size comparison, see my hand):

Opened it up to see this:

Hoooooly moly, this thing is huge.  And, as suspected, is rattling and filled with some other goody (Smarties, of course).  So I needed to get into it somehow...

Hey, what's that? Smarties, you say?

Well, I don't know what I'd expected, a big huge handful?  Well, I did pay less than two quid for this so, oh well.  I got other things!

Mini eggs!  Aggie, my roommate's girlfriend said they were good, and they cost about 60p, so I figured why not, right?  I thought they'd be like Robbin's Eggs.  You know, the ones that are pretending to be jordan almonds but are actually malted milk balls? (gag)

So tiny!

Ohmygosh so much better than Robbin's Eggs!  Probably my new favourite easter treat.  I fully endorse this product and think we should begin immediate exports to the states.  I have since gone back and bought FOUR more boxes once they were on sale for 30p each.  Yuusss.  Today I went back, and they were almost entirely sold out.  Three boxes left in total.  I guess that goes to show how popular they are.  Meanwhile, there were still pleeeeenty of Malteasters, which ARE malted milk bars.

And now for the Kinder Surprise Egg!  Yay!  I love Kinder Surprise, they're my favourite, semi gross chocolate AND a useless toy? I'm a sucker for these things.  It's probably for the best they cost 85p on a normal day.

Is that supposed to be.... Loki??

Well, that's terrifying.  I may have nightmares tonight.

****UPDATE:  I have just been informed that we do in fact have Cadbury Mini Eggs in the States, and now I feel like my life has been a lie.  My whole life.  A LIE.  That is all.

On Brown Sauce

So someone asked recently what brown sauce was.  (Yes, Morgan, I'm looking at you.)  Well, I have an answer for you, and anyone else who is curious.

This is brown sauce:

That's a new bottle, because my roommates and I have gone through another bottle that size and one smaller bottle since the beginning of the year.  And that is because it is gorgeous.  I mean, seriously, lovely stuff that.

Its sort of like steak sauce, but better.  Its mostly vinegar and clove, and a few other spices and things.  Sweet and tangy, we put it on sausage, cover the plate for bangers and mash, and on cheese toasties and fried bread.  Its pretty much the everything sauce.  Eggs?  Brown sauce.  Bacon? Brown sauce.  Piece of bread you fried in butter on the stovetop until its crispy and salty and delicious? BROWN SAUCE.

Because brown sauce is gorgeous, and it belongs on everything which has pork, cheese, or bread.  Fact of life.

This is a pretty good time to talk about some food I've been eating.

Okay, sure there's the basic bangers and mash.  That's a classic.  We have it pretty much anytime we need a quick meal and someone has an essay due so they can't cook that night.  I won't lie, this was something I was apprehensive about, since neither sausage nor mashed potatoes are really my thing, and the word "bangers" was just not one that sounded particularly appetizing.  A "banger," however is just a sausage cooked on the stovetop, because of the way it pops and splatters.  And it turns out when you put mashed potatoes with brown sauce and sausage I actually quite like them.  Bangers take about twenty minutes on the stovetop and then you just have to boil potatoes for mash, so its pretty mindless, but still filling and tasty.

Cheese on toast is another one I eat a lot.  Its exactly what it sounds like: buttered toast which is then covered in cheese and microwaved until the cheese gets melty.  You eat it, have a heart attack, and then eat more of it.  I have it two or three times a week, minimum.

Then there's beans on toast, again, buttered toast, baked beans, which here are made in a tomato sauce instead of brown sugar.  Different, but still good.  Beans on toast is great for lunch if you're want a snack, but more than cheese on toast.

And then one day a week or so after I moved here, one of my roommates made cheese on toast, and then came in the living room with it covered in beans.  He made beans on cheese on toast.

I'm addicted, its a problem.

In other news, Davis is going to be here in a few hours, so I should probably leave this post here.  I'll try to put something a little more in depth up later.  Keep checking back and make sure you check my Twitter (@travelsofali) for updates on when blogs are coming.  Always feel free to send questions my way on twitter (like, "what is brown sauce and why do you keep talking about bathing in it?") and I'll do my best to answer them.

Until next time, my fearless followers!

A Very British Thanksgiving

So we all remember when my roommate made a comment about how Thanksgiving is a celebration of independence from Britain and I quickly set the record straight, well, I also ended up making a thanksgiving dinner for said roommate, and eight other people of course.

This last thursday a group of new friends arrived at my house and we began cooking.  The turkey was, for all intents and purposes, a group effort.  I had intended to have it in the oven by the time people started arriving but, well, he wasn't keen on thawing as quickly as we would have liked.  Oh yeah, and we named him Rhys.  He was our happy little welsh turkey, sitting in the sink in water and desperately trying to remain frozen.  Nevertheless, a few tried a true methods had him happily slathered in butter, divested of giblets and neck, and cooking merrily in the oven.

At this point, there were just me and a two other American girls working on the dinner (Left: Rose, Right Kerry), and mostly that was chopping and peeling and laughing and drinking wine.  Lea joined us a bit later.  While working, we listened to christmas music, watched Charlie Brown, and talked about the various traditions we have back home.  And of course, we made turkey hands.  You know, where you trace your hand and turn it into a turkey?  Everyone had to do it.  It was required.  As payment for dinner, you had to make a turkey hand.

Once dinner was ready, we all gathered around and took our seats and I had everyone say something they were thankful for, in the spirit of the day.  I think what made me happiest was that I actually recieved completely honest, heartfelt responses.  So often with young people you get answers like, "I'm thankful for jolly bears" or something similar to that.  Only Rob said he was thankful for his shirt, but everyone else said honest, real things they were thankful for, studying here, getting to be at a thanksgiving dinner, having friends, feeling welcomed, that sort of thing.  It was wonderfully honest.

Then we ate.  We had turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, corn, gravy, cranberry sauce (homemade), rolls, stuffing (from inside the bird), vegan stuffing with eggplant (Sasha's girlfriend Lily is essentially vegan, and interestingly that stuffing was one of the biggest hits of the night), carrots sautéed with brown sugar and cinnamon, roasted garlic, green jello salad, and brussels sprouts.  I dont think anything was ignored except maybe the green jello salad (not surprising), although even that a few people tried and said it was decent.  No one had seconds, of course, and there were several, "I'm sorry, but this sh*t is weird."   Here's our spread:

We also had wine and "appeltizer" which is basically sparkling apple juice somewhat in the vein of Martinelli's.

After we ate, when everyone was beginning to fall into turkey coma, we (the americans) got everyone up and we all went for a walk.  Sadly, Jordan, one of my friends, came down sick and couldn't make it.  So we put all together a few takeaway boxes for her and walked them over to Beck House.  Then we walked down to the beach, got our feet soaking wet with freezing ocean water, and traipsed back home for a dessert (or pudding) of peach pie, apple crumble, and chocolate muffins, all of which was amazing.

Then, and this is the really amazing part, we all came together to do the washing up.  Kerry, Rose, and Rob did the dishes, Jeremy, Sasha, and Lea all put things into containers and fit them into the fridge, and Ross helped me remove the remainder of meat from the turkey for later.

In all, I'm calling this one a success.  There's not much more to say than that, so I'll leave it there.

Have some bad photos (more to follow, I'll change the title to read "updated" when I've added them, so check back!)

On Munchies

A quick blog today, just for some photos and little descriptions of some of the food I've been experiencing here.  

So for starters: Hot chocolate and a mini mince pie.  I quite literally went into a little shop- Greggs- to get out of a sudden downpour during my frantic shopping trip a few weeks ago.  I decided I may as well wait it out with something hot to drink, so I got a hot chocolate (having finished a late only an hour or so before, and it being somewhere around half five, as stores were about to start closing).  There was a whole display case, and I asked the woman working what was good.  She suggested the mince pie, and since I wasn't allowed to ask what was in it as per the rule I made before leaving for the UK, I went for it.  It probably helped that it cost 40p.  Oh my gosh, so good.  I am in love.  

Then here is an English version of "chili," which is a bit like spicy bolognese, and is served over white rice.  It isn't bad, but... nothing at all like chili.  We had it with cheese and "soured cream topping."  The fajitas Rob made were better but, alas, I do not have a photo.

And here is an British staple: Apple crumble, served with custard.  This was my second serving.  No words needed, its damn good.

And here we have my milky way experiment.  I was told after freshers fayre that the milky way bars here are different than in the states.  I've avoided trying them for a few weeks, but curiosity got the best of me, so I went ahead and bought one.  Right next to it in the store, however, was something called a "Milky Way Crispy Roll."  In total they came to £1.09.  The bottom bar is the regular milky way, and the top is the crispy roll.  For size comparison, the crispy roll is about the same size as a regular candy bar in the states.  So you can see the thing I was immediately aware of: size.  

I tried the regular milky way first, so I would have a fresh mind.  Here's what it looked like:

Notice any difference? NO CARAMEL.  WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS.  On top of that, it turns out that without the caramel, milky way bars are seriously boring.  So I moved onto the crispy roll bar.

You can sort of see that it is a white sugary filling wrapped in crispy covering, sort of like a pirouette wafer stick, and covered in chocolate.  Let's just say, I may not have regular milky way bars here, but these crispy things are freakishly good.  I move to begin exporting these to the states immediately.  Mind you, while eating them, you can feel cavities forming, since they're basically straight sugar.