Posted Jan 26, 2009 in England.
Having left England in 2001, one of the foods I miss is the venerable sausage roll. When I worked in London, my local shopping center had a bakery that sold five, freshly-baked sausage rolls for just £1. I doubt they are still as cheap as that, but they sure tasted good. Yesterday, I had a go at making some for myself:
They turned out reasonably well; however, they were handicapped by the sausage meat, which is a little spicier than I would like. British sausage meat is quite mild, but it is devilishly hard to get that sort of stuff in the US, unless you make it yourself. Nevertheless, they were quite delicious. I plan to experiment with varying the filling.
Permanent link
View or add comments (5)
Posted Dec 30, 2008 in Events, Family, Personal, Politics, Religion, Sport.
For the first time in ages, we had a fake Christmas tree. We bought a pretty, pre-lit tree from a garden center in New Jersey that always has lots of Christmassy stuff to look at. At 7½ feet, it fits perfectly in our little apartment. It is the kind that has little pine cones, berries and subtle “frosting” to give it that slightly-snowed-on look. Very nice.
Christmas has been a little overshadowed by world events this year. Iraq and Afghanistan conflict continues, and this has spilled over into bombings in Mumbai and violence in Gaza. As usual, all the wars are related to religious intolerance centered around the Middle East. Meanwhile thousands of people are dying of cholera as mad Mugabe clings to power in Zimbabwe, which has become a serious candidate for an enforced regime change.
On the plus side, following a series of fortunate results the Philadelphia Eagles managed to make the NFL Playoffs by thrashing the hated Dallas Cowboys. I feel sorry for the Detroit Lions, though - they set a new standard of defeat by losing all 16 of their games.
Permanent link
View or add comments (2)
Posted Dec 01, 2008 in Events, Miscellaneous, Politics.
Over the last year, a large part of my life has been devoted to Wikipedia. I've been a regular Wikipedian since the summer of 2005; as a fan of all flavors of Battlestar Galactica, I began editing (and creating) pages associated with the new version created by Star Trek alumnus Ronald D. Moore. Since then, I have spent much of my time monitoring recent changes for harmful edits, paying particular attention to articles that get a lot of vandalism, such as the article on atheism. Recently, however, my focus has been on articles associated with the recent presidential election.
I have no vote in United States elections, being a British citizen, but certainly I have been interested in the outcome. In the early stages of the election, I was hoping that Joe Biden would come out on top. As the primary season progressed, it became apparent that the man to watch was Barack Obama. I knew nothing about the man, so I looked him up on Wikipedia (like you do). I was disappointed to find that the article was under seige by (mostly racist) vandals, so I quickly became a regular editor. During the late 2007 and the bulk of 2008, I have been patrolling many articles associated with Obama; reverting vandalism and monitoring edits for neutrality and verifiability. This quickly became an enormous task, with my editing contributions spiking from 50-odd edits per month to well in excess of 400 - most of which were frenetic discussions on article discussion pages.
I was pleased with the result of what became an historic election, not because I believe the best man one (although I do think that), but because I know that visitors using Wikipedia to look up information about the candidates will have been presented with high-quality articles, properly sourced and verified, that would help them to make informed decisions about which candidate to vote for. The Obama-related articles were as accurate as possible - largely free of the blatant attempts by misguided Republicans, conservative ideologues and racists to use them as a means to misinform and spread fear and lies. Although I continue to monitor these, the noise level has significantly dropped since the election. I am back to doing less than a hundred edits per month, and I have altered (and shortened) my watchlist to focus on other things a bit more.
Permanent link
View or add comments (1)
Posted Nov 17, 2008 in Events, Family, Personal.
I know. I haven't blogged for ages, and I feel bad about it. An awful lot has been happening over the last few months, and it has been hard to even think about articulating it. Things are beginning to settle down now, so I'm going to make an effort to catch you up with what has been going on.
The biggest news of the summer is that my wife and I sold our house at the end of September. The place went to a lovely young couple looking to start a family, so we are delighted that it has gone to good people who will appreciate the big rooms and garden, friendly neighborhood and safe environment it had to offer. We know they will be very happy there.
We are now living in an apartment in Malvern, Pennsylvania. It's about 30 minutes from our old place, but much closer to where my wife works, making commuting easier for her. The area is very pretty, and there is excellent shopping in nearby Exton, Downingtown and King of Prussia. Although it is small, the apartment is big enough for the two of us to feel comfortable. We decided to move here to save money for a downpayment on a new home in a couple of years, but those plans may change depending on our circumstances - I'll talk more about that in a later blog entry.
Permanent link
View or add comments (3)
Posted Sep 27, 2008 in England, Events, Family.
I sometimes buy British goods from various providers in the United States (and some in the UK), and I have already started to receive notification emails from a few of them that say they are ready to take orders for Christmas goodies. I almost always get things like mince pies and Christmas pudding (although the latter is now available from some stores in the US), but what I really like is Christmas cake.
The perfect Christmas cake is quite hard to come by. There are many different kinds, but my favorite type must have the following qualities:
- Rich and fruity
- Dark and moist
- Thickly-covered in marzipan
- Fully-iced with sharply-peaked, tooth-destroying Royal icing
Shop-bought Christmas cakes are usually poor. The cake is usually pretty good (especially the expensive, luxury items) but they always suffer from stingy marzipan and soft icing. The finest examples of the species are made months in advance, lovingly cared-for with regular injections of alcohol during the two or three months before Christmas, when they are given their marzipan and icing shrouds and decorated.
For many people, Christmas is all about Jesus. For me, it is all about food - and Christmas cake is my gold, frankincense and myrrh all rolled into one.
Permanent link
View comments (8)
