Tag Archives: food

Kimchi Jigae and Mash

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Having lived in England for the past nine months, I think I’ve become more British-ish in many ways. I drink tea with milk at least 6 times a day, I get irrationally over-annoyed when someone jumps the checkout line at the grocery store, and I’m somehow O.K. with the fact that it’s already May but the weather is more like what would happen if there were a monsoon season in the Arctic. And although my spelling remains devoutedly American, I have changed in one other, major way: taking on a more literal outlook to the world around me.

Here, I’ve found, if you ask for a little bit of wine at the dinner table, the server will literally give you two drops worth of liquid. If you ask for a big portion of fries, they will stare blankly at you until you point at what you mean or say “chips”, after which they will give you a plate full of fries with no room for anything else, such as vegetables or something not fried. And if a British friend asks you what you want to drink at a bar, Continue reading →

Organ Sounds and the Munchies: A Dilemma

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Last week, I found out about an organ recital going on in the chapel at Exeter College starting at 1:10 PM. Given that I had a break from 1 to 2 and that it was on the way to my second class, I decided to stop by, inhale a bit of historic music and hopefully come out of the experience a bit more cultured. But after my initial glee at being able to sit in on an organ recital wore off, I realized that I had left out one crucial factor in my otherwise precise ruminations about whether I should attend the recital or not: that one hour window was also my lunch break.

No problem, the mini-multi-tasker voice inside my head told me, just eat while you’re there. Multi-task!

Logical enough. And so I bought a sandwich, hopped back on my bike and, just outside Exeter College, dismounted and found my way to the 152-year-old chapel.

Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!

 

With my first step inside, I rammed into a wall of gargantuan, all-encompassing sound. And then, along either side of my straight line of vision to the altar, I encountered a disturbing, zombie apocalypse-esque scene: Continue reading →

Out of the Blue – Chronicles from Winter Tour 2011

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Here’s a selection of stories from among the funniest moments of our road trip across England, as well as a few frivolous reflections of an American living (undercover) amongst a bunch of British a cappella singers.

Happy New Year!

Day 1: Let’s not forget about that time at the very wee beginning of tour when, ironically, the British rental car company wouldn’t take the Brit’s driver’s license (i.e. Nick B.’s) but gladly accepted my flimsy, fake ID “issued” by the State of Illinois as proof of driving ability, general maturity, sanity, etc etc. (Just kidding Laurie, it’s a real license.)

Anyway, the blokes at that car rental place clearly think too highly of Americans: although I’ve been driving since I was sixteen, I’ve only manned a manual car twice. Continue reading →

High Tea

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THOUGHTS ON TEA (and learning how to make friends with British people)

British people are obsessed with at least three things: apologizing to anyone and anything they bump into, glowering at you if you jump a queue and drinking tea.

Frankly, I didn’t know anything about high tea before stepping foot into the United Kingdom a few weeks ago. During college, I had always brewed and chugged whatever kind of tea they had left sitting out in the dining hall just to get through a long night of essay writing and procrastination. Given that I had never paid much attention to what kind of tea I was drinking, I didn’t quite get why people here seemed to be obsessed with the concept of afternoon and high teas: to me, the drink was just a more appealing source of caffeine than Red Bull or instant coffee.

To investigate, I dressed up a little nicer than my American standards would normally allow and ventured into the stodgiest, most expensive looking teahouse-type place I could find in London: Fortnum & Mason. The store, started decades before America even won its independence, gives off the posh air of a Neiman Marcus or Saks, but with dark wood and plush carpets in lieu of the brightly lit shiny surfaces that dominate American department stores. Continue reading →