My wife’s eating habits sometimes disgust me. Now that I have your attention I can tell you it only happens about once or twice a year and it’s when she is eating chicken feet at a Chinese restaurant.
The very thought of eating chicken feet makes me feel very queasy. But Geraldine for some very strange reason likes them and is quite happy to chew away at the sinew. (I’m feeling a little faint just writing about it)
I’m not without my own favourite foods foibles, of course, and I have just recently discovered I can enjoy a version of a much-loved north of England delicacy on this side of the Atlantic.
The black pudding is alive and well in America on the shelves of Hispanic supermarkets and called morcilla. I can’t put into words the ecstasy I felt when I bit into my first morcilla.
Now I know my black puddings as my home town of Bury in Lancashire famous for them. It says so on Wikipedia so it must be true.
In Bury Market you can buy them boiled hot, sliced down the middle. You lather mustard on them and you eat them as you wander around the stalls and shops. That’s not quite as easy as it sounds because usually it’s either pouring down with rain or blowing a gale in Bury.
It’s worth the effort though and should be a “must do” on any tourist’s trip to the north.
The morcilla isn’t an exact replica of the Bury Black Pudding… it is sausage shaped for starters. And it doesn’t have those little chunks of fat that are used to bind the dried blood. Yum.
But they still taste delicious.
BTW Geraldine eats black puddings too. And that’s not disgusting at all.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Why are they attacking Irish pubs?
To coincide with St Patrick’s Day, two of the world’s biggest newspapers published articles attacking, of all places, the Irish pub?
The London Times rolled out grinch, Eamonn Forde, who first of all said St Patrick’s Day made him embarrassed to be Irish.
He then took a swipe at Irish pubs – no not the pubs in Ireland but the Irish-themed pubs that you find anywhere in the world.
“To walk into one of these pubs - and there is not a single pub in Ireland remotely like them - is to walk into an Ireland that only exists in the threadbare imagination of a moribund tourism myth,” he wrote.
I don’t know if this is a coincidence or not but the article bore more than a passing resemblance to one that appeared in the New York Times a few days earlier about Bill Barich, an American writer based in Dublin. (BTW thanks Lou for the heads-up)
Both articles referenced The Quiet Man, which if you have read my profile is one of my favorites, and both managed to get the word craic (Irish for fun) into the copy.
Barich has a book out and the article was about his animosity to what has happened to Irish pubs in Ireland. “The pubs he finds are either lifeless ‘museum pieces,’ corporate sports bars with TV screens or shameless fakes hawking manufactured nostalgia.”
Both Forde and Barich are of course entitled to their opinions. But why is it that whenever people find ways to enjoy themselves ie by having a glass of Guinness in a pub, there are always people who can stir up pompous indignation to belittle the majority. And worst of all they are given a voice in the biggest newspapers in the world.
For all of us who like a shamrock etched in our stout stand up and be counted. Sláinte Mhath.
The London Times rolled out grinch, Eamonn Forde, who first of all said St Patrick’s Day made him embarrassed to be Irish.
He then took a swipe at Irish pubs – no not the pubs in Ireland but the Irish-themed pubs that you find anywhere in the world.
“To walk into one of these pubs - and there is not a single pub in Ireland remotely like them - is to walk into an Ireland that only exists in the threadbare imagination of a moribund tourism myth,” he wrote.
I don’t know if this is a coincidence or not but the article bore more than a passing resemblance to one that appeared in the New York Times a few days earlier about Bill Barich, an American writer based in Dublin. (BTW thanks Lou for the heads-up)
Both articles referenced The Quiet Man, which if you have read my profile is one of my favorites, and both managed to get the word craic (Irish for fun) into the copy.
Barich has a book out and the article was about his animosity to what has happened to Irish pubs in Ireland. “The pubs he finds are either lifeless ‘museum pieces,’ corporate sports bars with TV screens or shameless fakes hawking manufactured nostalgia.”
Both Forde and Barich are of course entitled to their opinions. But why is it that whenever people find ways to enjoy themselves ie by having a glass of Guinness in a pub, there are always people who can stir up pompous indignation to belittle the majority. And worst of all they are given a voice in the biggest newspapers in the world.
For all of us who like a shamrock etched in our stout stand up and be counted. Sláinte Mhath.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
A True Tale of Quality (Street) Healthcare
Let me tell you how a tin of Quality Street landed me in a London hospital. Well it was a few years ago when I was in a Waitrose supermarket looking to buy some chocolates for the kids. I bent down to pick up a large tin from the bottom shelf and all of a sudden I felt faint and couldn’t breathe.
To cut a long story short I was whisked into hospital by an ambulance and spent four or five days there while they re-regulated my heart beat. I told the nurses I now lived in America and that I would have to pay for the treatment.
A while later I received the bill and opened it with trepidation. You can imagine my surprise when I saw the amount was less than 1,000 pounds for the whole stay.
Over the years I had had my dealings with US healthcare and that kind of money doesn’t pay for a single night’s stay in a hospital. It might not even pay for emergency room treatment if you have perhaps a broken bone.
The main reason healthcare is so expensive in the US is the administrative cost. While administration costs low single figures in “single payer” nationalized systems such as the UK, Canada and France they are north of 30% in the US.
One of the few job growth areas at the moment is healthcare billing.
Many Americans voted for Obama because they believed he would move the country, where 48+ million don’t have any health care, to a single payer system. Now though his Administration is backing away from that campaign promise.
However proponents – including thousands and thousands of doctors and nurses - have vowed not to give up and say they are building critical mass in favor of that solution. Private health care companies are held in such low regard in America they may just make Obama change his mind.
By the way the staff at Waitrose gave me that tin of Quality Street. How sweet is that?
To cut a long story short I was whisked into hospital by an ambulance and spent four or five days there while they re-regulated my heart beat. I told the nurses I now lived in America and that I would have to pay for the treatment.
A while later I received the bill and opened it with trepidation. You can imagine my surprise when I saw the amount was less than 1,000 pounds for the whole stay.
Over the years I had had my dealings with US healthcare and that kind of money doesn’t pay for a single night’s stay in a hospital. It might not even pay for emergency room treatment if you have perhaps a broken bone.
The main reason healthcare is so expensive in the US is the administrative cost. While administration costs low single figures in “single payer” nationalized systems such as the UK, Canada and France they are north of 30% in the US.
One of the few job growth areas at the moment is healthcare billing.
Many Americans voted for Obama because they believed he would move the country, where 48+ million don’t have any health care, to a single payer system. Now though his Administration is backing away from that campaign promise.
However proponents – including thousands and thousands of doctors and nurses - have vowed not to give up and say they are building critical mass in favor of that solution. Private health care companies are held in such low regard in America they may just make Obama change his mind.
By the way the staff at Waitrose gave me that tin of Quality Street. How sweet is that?
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
British pubs closing: I'll drink to that
So five pubs are closing down each day in Britain, according to the BBC. And Prince Charles is now trying to help to stop the closures.
Well call me a hypocrite if you like but since I left those shores I have decided the whole pub experience is over-rated.
While I lived there I spent hour and hour, day after day, week after (well you get the picture) in the pub because as we all know it is a social centre and a convenient gathering point.
But when I returned on my numerous visits to England I found going to pubs very frustrating.
First and foremost if you go at a busy time it is almost impossible for a non-regular to buy a drink. It didn’t matter if I was visiting my brother near Manchester or my friends in London there were times when I literally could not get served as the bar and I had to hand over my money to the “regular” who had invited me there because he could attract the barman’s attention.
Nothing like that happens in the US. The people behind the bar for the most part figure out who is next and the drinks roll. The other big difference is that most bars have waitresses so there is no need for an unruly mob waving money at the barman. Usually the waitress keys in an order on a computer-like terminal and the drinks are poured in the order they are received. How civilized is that.
The other aspect of pub life that came to irritate me was the realization of how unfriendly they are. I went to the same pub in north London for years and didn’t speak to anyone outside my close circle of friends.
Walk into a country pub that is slightly off the beaten track and all conversation stops among the locals.
Again compare that with the American experience. If you take a seat at a bar you are giving off a signal that you are open to conversation. If you want to keep yourself to yourself sit at a table and wait for the waitress.
It seems the reason the pubs are closing is that people stopped going when smoking was banned. Add that to the economic slowdown and so it’s cans of beer in front of the TV.
Well call me a hypocrite if you like but since I left those shores I have decided the whole pub experience is over-rated.
While I lived there I spent hour and hour, day after day, week after (well you get the picture) in the pub because as we all know it is a social centre and a convenient gathering point.
But when I returned on my numerous visits to England I found going to pubs very frustrating.
First and foremost if you go at a busy time it is almost impossible for a non-regular to buy a drink. It didn’t matter if I was visiting my brother near Manchester or my friends in London there were times when I literally could not get served as the bar and I had to hand over my money to the “regular” who had invited me there because he could attract the barman’s attention.
Nothing like that happens in the US. The people behind the bar for the most part figure out who is next and the drinks roll. The other big difference is that most bars have waitresses so there is no need for an unruly mob waving money at the barman. Usually the waitress keys in an order on a computer-like terminal and the drinks are poured in the order they are received. How civilized is that.
The other aspect of pub life that came to irritate me was the realization of how unfriendly they are. I went to the same pub in north London for years and didn’t speak to anyone outside my close circle of friends.
Walk into a country pub that is slightly off the beaten track and all conversation stops among the locals.
Again compare that with the American experience. If you take a seat at a bar you are giving off a signal that you are open to conversation. If you want to keep yourself to yourself sit at a table and wait for the waitress.
It seems the reason the pubs are closing is that people stopped going when smoking was banned. Add that to the economic slowdown and so it’s cans of beer in front of the TV.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Gordon Brown visits; most others stay home
So Gordon Brown made it to the US this week but his fellow countrymen and women are nowadays giving the place the cold shoulder.
In the glory days of $2 to One Pound more than one million Brits flew to Florida each year.
Most of them made their way to the various designer outlet malls in Orlando to shop til they dropped. Premium Outlets was always teeming with Brits no matter what time of year. Just why aren’t those brats in school? I often asked myself.
I didn’t have to hear the people speak to know they were British … the clue was that all the men and boys were wearing football shirts. Why, I wondered, in a place were smart shirts from the likes of Ralph Lauren and Lacoste are cheaper than a bottle of plonk, are all the men wearing huge adverts for Samsung or AIG?
I never asked anyone the question though just in case they were real football hooligans and I was treated to a knuckle sandwich.
While Gordon was in Washington I was at the outlets and the British invasion is truly over with the Pound now buying you less than $1.40.
There was hardly a Premiership shirt in sight and the place was overrun by Europeans. If you eavesdropped you could hear visitors from France, Italy, Germany and Scandinavia raving over the prices. There was even an announcement over the mall’s information system in French. Sacre bleu.
Oh and none of the Europeans at the outlet mall were wearing football shirts. How weird is that?
In the glory days of $2 to One Pound more than one million Brits flew to Florida each year.
Most of them made their way to the various designer outlet malls in Orlando to shop til they dropped. Premium Outlets was always teeming with Brits no matter what time of year. Just why aren’t those brats in school? I often asked myself.
I didn’t have to hear the people speak to know they were British … the clue was that all the men and boys were wearing football shirts. Why, I wondered, in a place were smart shirts from the likes of Ralph Lauren and Lacoste are cheaper than a bottle of plonk, are all the men wearing huge adverts for Samsung or AIG?
I never asked anyone the question though just in case they were real football hooligans and I was treated to a knuckle sandwich.
While Gordon was in Washington I was at the outlets and the British invasion is truly over with the Pound now buying you less than $1.40.
There was hardly a Premiership shirt in sight and the place was overrun by Europeans. If you eavesdropped you could hear visitors from France, Italy, Germany and Scandinavia raving over the prices. There was even an announcement over the mall’s information system in French. Sacre bleu.
Oh and none of the Europeans at the outlet mall were wearing football shirts. How weird is that?
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