Bacon Martini

Our dinner this evening was another work of art. This involved pork tenderloin marinated in pineapple juice, garlic and chili pepper. Apricots roasted with honey and orange juice. This was served over chestnut mash consisting of a mix of half potatoes, half roasted chestnuts mashed with butter and a dollop of sour cream. I think this is my new favorite way to prepare potatoes. The chestnuts add a sweet and nutty flavor and keeping them coarsely chopped also add nice texture. The dish was then garnished with a bit of bacon candied with dark brown sugar.

After which, we capped our night off with some mighty attractive and tasty apple and candied bacon martinis that Mark made:

Twist on a Tradition

Growing up we would always have pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day. Generally this involved kielbasa and pork chops, mashed potatoes and the kraut. This year, I put a twist on that tradition of pork and cabbage. I made bramley apple pork sausages sauteed with caramelized onions and butter, all served over colcannon, which is mashed potatoes with cabbage in it. Although, while caramelizing the onions in the butter, the fantastic aroma filling the kitchen, all it made me really want to have is pierogies. I think I know what we’re having this weekend!

Happy New Years! (Eve)

It’s the last day of the year already?  Well, here we are, 25 months into this adventure and it’s the end of 2008.

I know I’ve already reflected a bit on this already, but the year has flown by and has been as normal as it can be living abroad.  It’s been a year of settling into a routine for both of us working and living in England.   Mark commented recently, that it’s not camping anymore, we really live here.  This was after one of those moments where I look at him, and sounding genuinely surprised and in disbelief exclaim, “You know.  We live in England!” like it’s this brand new realization of someone who just walked off a plane.

There have been losses and gains this past year.  We lost our sweet Greenbean, which was difficult.  I miss my Bean and think of her everyday.  Her photos are everywhere, on my desktop background, in a locket around my neck and by my bedside.  She was our family.  She had a fantastic life, was well loved, and was so awesome she has turned two people into cat people.  In April, I gained a sister-in-law as my younger brother married a delightful woman.  Two of my cousins had babies this year and one also is newly married.  Our extended family is growing in leaps and bounds.

This has been a year of increased visitors, a pattern I imagine will ramp up in the coming third year of our residence here.  My parents and another brother visited in March, the first time trips abroad for all of them.  Friends visited us in May, September and October.  We made a second trip to Turkey for a holiday, which, I’m really digging the whole vacationing with friends idea.

So what will 2009 bring?  We’ll be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary.  Living abroad for a third year.  Where will we travel?  Who will visit us?  What will our jobs bring? How much more will our family and circle of friends grow?  2008 was a good year, 2009 is shaping up to be spectuclar already and we’re still a few hours away from it beginning!

Happy Boxing Day!

This has been a strange holiday for us this year, no doubt. It is weird not being home and surrounded by family. However, we ended up really enjoying ourselves with just each other for company. It helps that we are each others favorite people to be around. But, I’m sure the novelty of being abroad has a lot to do with it too.

We had a lovely Christmas Eve lounging in new jammies, exchanging our gifts and watching UK television show holiday specials (”Gavin and Stacey” and “Have I Got News For You”). Yesterday we went into London for an “Orphan’s Christmas” hosted by fellow Ex-pat friends for those of us not making the trip back across the pond. We enjoyed a fantastic ham dinner, the company and conversation; and even a bit of family time as our friends have a baby. The streets of London were strangely quiet as we drove in and out. Late in the evening we watched the new Doctor Who and Wallace and Gromit, also out for the holidays. Our US shows we watch go on hiatus in December, it’s nice to have something new to watch snuggled up on the couch.

I hope everyone had a holiday as enjoyable and stress free as ours! It’s back to snuggling under a blanket for me, happy Boxing Day!

How Many People Have Seen This?

There I am, in a still photograph, in a promotional video about the numbers of specimens and the science done in the museum. It’s in the main lobby and runs every few minutes. I honestly don’t know when I was photographed for this. The only time I was in front of a camera was with a film crew putting together a “pilot video” trying to pitch an idea of documentary for the BBC showing what goes on behind the scenes in the museum and associated weird jobs. This must be from then. I was pinning and pointing beetles for the segment. I think this was about a year ago too. And, no, I haven’t heard any news about the proposed documentary since.

Today’s Menu

This was the meal waiting for me when I arrived home from work tonight:

Pan fried breast of pheasant served on poached pear.
With two sauces: a shallot, vanilla, and white wine, cream sauce,
and red wine and honey reduction.
Served with roast chestnut mashed potatoes, and garnished with fried baby leeks.

I am one lucky woman to have a husband so inspired to cook!

Making Snow, Making Snow, Making Snow!

I’m missing seeing some snow for the holidays, so I’m making some of my own using the Snow Days site.  I admit it is a little addicting.  It’s also making me want to make paper snow flakes for in our windows as we have no holiday decorations up. Maybe some snow flakes and white fairy lights… five days to Xmas, it’s not too late to decorate right?

Also, happy Solstice! Today is the shortest day of the year, tomorrow begins progress to more sunlight each day, tomorrow will be a whole four seconds longer! When it’s dark out, I feel compelled to hunker down in my pajamas and relax for the night. It’s a little paralyzing on weekends where I like to sleep in until noon, leaving just a few precious hours of daylight. I can’t imagine living any farther north. I think I would end up hibernating!

NHM at Christmas

The Natural History Museum during the holidays is all decked out and looking lovely. I particularly love the fairy lights that are wrapped around the branches of the enormous Plane trees. Out front, there has been the Christmas Fayre and the ice rink set up since November (the other morning there was a Dalek on the ice!). I love working in this building. This is the view I walk by every evening leaving work. I haven’t been feeling terribly festive this year, but when I see this, I can’t help but smile and fill with warm holiday thoughts.

We are staying in the UK for the holidays this year and it really doesn’t feel like Christmas. We have been all Bah Humbugs. Since we went home the past two years, we don’t have many decorations to put up. So we haven’t decorated. The big thing though, that my brain is having a hard time processing: no snow. I look around and it really looks and feels like spring in Pittsburgh.

Me and My Smart Car

This doesn’t really need any comment or caption. I love having my own car now and we are both really enjoying zipping and buzzing around in this tiny capsule of a vehicle.

A Touch of the Pink

It’s been a while since I’ve listened to any. Who can blame me for getting tired of it, living for so long in a city with more classic rock stations than any other genre. Where you can’t blink without hearing them. Where I grew up surrounded by their sound and lyrics. My tastes in the music I listen to wax and wane over time and vary by mood. But, I have found lately that listening to Pink Floyd makes for an excellent sound track for commuting into, through and out of London.

Balmy England

We’re watching the Steelers game and I’m reminded again how much I love winter in England.  It’s a home game, today’s high they mention? The HIGH!  -4°C!! A high of 23°F, I don’t miss having regular weather like that. Nope. Not. At. All. It feels downright balmy here with our high temps in the forties.

A Walk in Marlow Woods

Lately, our walks have become shorter and shorter.  Mostly because something like this happens.  We walk in about a quarter of a mile or so and find a large oak tree, we decide to climb said tree, take lots of silly photos, then find the tree swing and take more silly photos.  An hour passes and we realize we’re cold and hungry and walk the quarter mile or so back to the car. Maybe I need to make a “tree” tag for when this sort of thing happens.

Two Years

Two years! TWO! It’s our second anniversary of living abroad today. Wasn’t it just yesterday we were piling out of that giant rental car loaded down with luggage? It seems easy now, even after all the planning and paperwork, were we making the right decision? I wouldn’t change anything.

It’s almost hard to believe that we could have been heading home for good soon. The time has honestly flown by. Each year has had a distinctly different flavor.  Our first year was all about travel, how many days were we on the road? 140?  160?  I’ll have to look up the exact number, but it was A LOT.  Year two has been all about settling into a routine of living and working in England.  I never expected to find a job in my field, or work at all for that matter, so it’s been its own adventure commuting into London everyday.

There are so many adventures yet to be had. I wonder what flavor of life this third year will have.  Here’s to the start of year THREE!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Like so many Ex-pats, Mark and I celebrated our Turkey day the Saturday following  the actual holiday, as we were both working Thursday.  My parent’s asked me, “so when do they [the British] have their Thanksgiving?  Canada has one, what about over there?” to which I had to reply that this in not an English nor European phenomenon.  Which this also makes finding key ingredients a little tricky, not impossible, but it’s not like the grocery stores back home that are abundantly stocked with sweet potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin for pies.

We roasted a chicken, as our small oven and refrigerator can not accommodate a turkey.  We had actually celebrated last Saturday too.  It is so easy to roast a small chicken.  Brined and stuffed simply with quartered shallots and cloves of smoked garlic, it comes out moist and flavorful in just over an hour and the juices from this concoction makes for perfectly seasoned and flavored gravy.

It is also surprisingly easy to scale down all the wonderful sides that we would normally make in industrial quantities when hosting our families.  Only mashing four potatoes instead of 5 lbs.  Candied two sweet potatoes instead of a huge casserole full.  A small serving of the last of my supply of Stove Top stuffing (hush, it’s tradition in my family to have this in addition to home made stuffing on the table and I honestly prefer this to stuffing from in the bird).  The batch of cranberry sauce I made was the normal portion, but I love home made cranberry sauce.   And of course a huge pile of sweet corn.  When cooking for our families, we would have several other options of veg, but for just the two of us, corn is all we need.   I have also outdone even myself and made the absolutely perfect pumpkin pie two weeks in a row.  This all just enough for the main meal and the requisite left overs the next day.  There is also enough meat left over for making chicken salad and the carcass is used to make stock for soup (currently simmering and filling our house with the most amazing aroma!).

I prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas by leaps and bounds.  It’s not a religious holiday and it doesn’t involve presents.  There is no pretense.  It’s all about the food (fall harvest) and family and enjoying each other’s company and reflecting on what you can be thankful for.  We’re both safe, healthy, have a roof over our heads, live comfortably and are loved by our family, friends and each other.  Even though we are far from home and our families, we carry out this tradition abroad and are with them in spirit.  For all of this I am truely thankful.

Orchids Love England

Who knew?  Orchids love the English climate.  I have always had a soft spot for orchids.  Occasionally bringing one home adding to my large managerie of house plants.  I would diligently mist it while it sat in a window with filtered light.  Inevitably, the long lived blooms would wither and fade, I would prune back the dried flower stalk and patiently care for the plant waiting for it to rebloom.  Only to manage to have killed it in due course.

I don’t know why I didn’t write about this several months ago when it happened.  But.  For the first time in my  life of caring for house plants (it’s an addiction really), I have had an orchid rebloom.  And reblooming without doing anything special either!  This orchid is sitting in a south facing window getting direct sunlight.  It’s on a window sill directly above a radiator.  It’s gone a couple weeks without it’s regular watering while we traveled.  Yet, it is thriving!  All I can figure is, despite the direct sun and baking over the heat, it is just that humid here to provide the perfect microclimate on my window sill for orchids.

That being said, since we now know we are going to be living here another year, I have been inspired by this success.   Rather ambitiously, I have gone out (and Mark has picked up another) and purchased a number of additional orchids.  (p.s. an aside on how awesome it is that I have my own car now and can pop out for some orchid shopping).  It’s a veritable tropical paradise on that window sill.  I expect there to be more, as I would like to have a spectrum of color and varieties.  (if it were sunny I would take a photo of all the blooms, but that will have to wait, it’s 1pm and dark and gloomy out).

Insomnia

(Test post from my iPhone with a new app)

Two weeks away is just enough time to completely reset one’s body clock. And the five hour time difference is particularly annoying. I’m plagued with insomnia. I need to be up in four hours. Having just watched “Fight Club” for the hundreth time, I’m reminded of the quote, “insomnia, you’re never quite fully asleep and you’re never fully awake either.” or something like that. I’m Deb’s very tired brain and body, why am I not asleep?

It is teh awesome

After work I hopped on a fast train to Reading to meet Mark to go pick up my new-to-me Smart Car. Two years without a car and I’m pretty excited! We get there, take care of the paperwork and other sundry business. A few tutorial laps around the neighborhood as a passenger followed by some laps as the driver later, I was ready to hit the road. We equipped my car the with sat nav and Mark followed me out. I had one moment in my first big round-about where I became a little flustered, missed my exit and needed to go around again. But that’s the beauty of the round about.

Once on the highway, I could almost hear Mark yelling, “go faster!” If only he could hear me retorting, “I’m giving her all I got Scotty!” as the motorway had a slight incline to it. I didn’t have any problems with the semi-automatic up shifting, it felt completely natural despite not being a manual car driver. I was also much more comfortable following Mark than leading. I quickly got into the flow of traffic once up to speed and was passing and keeping up with him. It drives great. It feels great. I even think it sounds great.

In short: this car is the awesomest car that ever awesomed.

We head to the states tomorrow for a couple of weeks, so I’ll have to patiently (or not so patiently) wait to have my fun when we return.

NHM During Half Term

This is a sight I won’t see at home. It’s half term in the U.K. and that brings people and their families into the city in incredible numbers. It’s days like this when you can’t deny that the Natural History Museum gets up to 15,000 visitors in a single day (free admission too). There is literally wall to wall throngs of people. Everywhere. Every corner. I hesitate to leave the department on days like this, just getting to the loo or making it out for lunch is a harrowing obstacle course. It will be this packed all this week and possibly next week, as it seems schools stagger their half term breaks. My friend and I seemingly had the Carnegie to ourselves in April visiting the newly remodeled dinosaur hall.

An interesting connection to the museum back home: taking center stage in the main hall greeting every visitor to the museum is a cast of the Diplodocus carnegii skeleton whose original is housed in the Carnegie. The BM has it’s own Dippy.

The cast was given as a gift by Andrew Carnegie, after meeting with King Edward VII who was fascinated by the fossil animal. Carnegie arranged for a cast to be created at his own expense, at a cost of £2000, copying the original. The pieces were sent to London in 36 crates. The new exhibit was unveiled in May 1905. It created a bit of a stir as the original skeleton had yet to be articulated and mounted back home. Nicknamed “Dippy,” the news of the new exhibit spread. Carnegie eventually paid to have additional copies made for display in most major European capitals, making Dippy the most-seen dinosaur skeleton in the world.

England: Smart Car!

Two years without a car and now this will be mine on Thursday! I always said that I couldn’t imagine driving in any other car over here, with these roads that are so narrow.  I love love love Smart Cars, now I get to put this one in my pocket and take it home to drive:

Mark wants to find a “My other car is a Lotus” bumper sticker. Expect to see a photo series involving our dueling tiny blue cars.

England: One More Year!

Well, I suppose it’s officially official now. We are staying in England for another year. Mark’s original contract was for two years and those two years are just about up. That time has flown by! A blip! Now, after months of promises and waiting for contract negotiations, coming up with an offer we could live with, it finally happened. One more year.

Honestly, we were getting a bit frustrated and just mere weeks ago we were uttering the words to ourselves, “maybe it is time to go home.” Mentally, we were starting to prepare ourselves for what lies ahead at home. We have plans, big plans, that we have been dreaming about for years. Hell, we picked up and lived abroad for two years, anything is possible, it’s just a matter of acting on it and doing things sooner rather than later.

Our minds are switching gears again, knowing now that we are staying. We have plans, big plans, places to go, people to see. We went ahead and actually bought a coffee maker, something we had been putting off for two years because, well, it is silly really, we were only going to be here so briefly, the French press was fine to tide us over.

As for me, I am now able to remain and finish my own contract with my job at the museum and I’ll get to see the “big move” into the new Darwin Center. I am actually going to be part of the new exhibit in the public offer. I’m working with a film team to create a video about insect preparation. (This will go along side two other videos by other people on slide preparation and plant mounting outside one of the many windows looking into “the cocoon” where people will be working). I’m excited to be a part of the staff that’s going to be captured in snippets and snapshots for the world to see what goes on behind those doors. And I’m excited that I’ll be there to witness its start.

One more year. Yeah, we can do that, we can do that standing on our heads.

(the photo above is one of the first we took after moving here in 2006, our long December shadows on nearly the shortest day of the year)

GeoBear

I am helping a friend’s 10 year old daughter with a class project, their GeoBear project. Basically, it’s like the gnome from Amelie, only a little stuffed bear. The bear will feature in a series of photos and I’ll be sending post cards to the class room. In theory, I think I am supposed to send the bear along to someone else who may be traveling further. However, we travel a lot, and if the bear sticks with us, he’ll be getting around.

This past weekend while a couple of friends of ours were visiting from the U.S., the GeoBear got off to a good start on its world traveling adventure. We were in Cheddar where we taste tested cheddar cheese made in Cheddar and matured in caves there. We had an amazing fun caving adventure. Climbed Cheddar Gorge. Had a fly-by of Stonehenge. Not to mention a day around London, hitting the highlights of Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Parliament, boat trip on the Thames, tour of the Tower of London, and seeing the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum (whew!)

It’s only the beginning for this bear, keep an eye on the photo stream for further adventures and travels!

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

I had the most convoluted commute in to work this morning. Starting in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. I hopped into a taxi with an incredibly chatty driver, with whom I was having an in depth conversation about how quickly the Dutch language changes, seemingly on a weekly basis. Spelling changes overnight, grammar is completely revised and half the words are being anglicized. The immediate example being the Dutch word for airport, luchthaven, is now just simply, airport. Kids these days don’t even know the word luchthaven apparently. He went on to explain how kids these days can’t read written Dutch from just thirty or forty years ago. It’s just that different. English is the second national language of the Netherlands. It’s a small enough country to not have the cultural heft that identifies with strict language identity and pride like that of France or Germany.

From there I was on to the tiny and charming Rotterdam Luchthaven, only eight gates, two for international flights. It was one of the most pleasant airport experiences I’ve ever had, given how much we’ve traveled, that is saying a lot. Latte in hand, I settled in for a bit of people watching, even though there were only a handful of people there. Once on the plane after a brief delay I was sat in my window seat on the little dual prop plane. Even on this short fifty minute flight, the passengers were taken care of, complete with little cheese and tomato pita sandwiches and squares of chocolate with the coffee and tea service.

I landed at London City Airport on the east side of London (after circling the city half a dozen times and flying so low over Canary Wharf I felt I could reach out and touch the buildings). Right out of the terminal are the platforms for the Docklands Light Railway trains. My usual rail/travel card covered the transit on this train, although at no point did I need to pull it out until my final destination. From Canning Town station on the Jubilee tube line, transferring to either Circle or District Line at Westminster and on to South Kensington. I guess I could add “feets” to my list of transport for the day as well, for the walk up and into the museum

Netherlands: Amsterdam, Artis

Mark is working today so I’m up to my old tricks and entertaining myself in the city for the day. I had all these grand designs for visiting places, including the Troppenmuseum (the Tropical Museum), the Hortus (the botanical gardens) and possibly making it to Artis, the zoo. Since there wasn’t a deluge pouring from the sky, I thought I would start with the out of doors attraction and headed straight for Artis.

The walk was fabulous. Chilly, but at least sunny. It was nice to see the canals by daylight. Amsterdam is a city of concentric half circles of canals with radiating branches throughout. A watery spider web outlined with cobbled roads and impossibly narrow and slanting buildings. Every single road had a bicycle lane, I have never seen so my bicyclists, or bicycles, period. The city caters to and is designed for bikes. Crossing intersections, it’s not the motorists to look out for, it’s the people on bikes who will run into you.

I ended up spending my entire day there. It is not just a zoo. Inside its grounds is the University run Zoological Museum, the Aquarium, a Planetarium and an Insectarium (I kept thinking of the “orphanarium” from Futurama when I saw this!) complete with an enormous butterfly house, I’m talking thousands of butterflies, a photographer’s paradise. With so much on offer, it’s easy to see how I spent so much time here. After seeing some of my photos of butterflies, Mark actually said this is a place he’d like to go (this from a person who does not like museums or zoos). But there was so much else to do, maybe next time. Photos forthcoming, at some point, we are months behind in processing photos.

I found a “New York” bagel shop for lunch and was sat in a window seat with a latte for a session of people watching. I kept seeing the twins of a close friend’s mother, I don’t think they’re Dutch, but the resemblance was uncanny.

Netherlands: Road Trip, Amsterdam

I am sorely disappointed that I did not get a stamp in my passport traveling through the Eurotunnel in to France. Although we did drive through France and Belgium, I don’t think I can legitimately include those countries on my list of those visited. High speed motorway travel doesn’t count. Eight hours after leaving our home in England, we arrived safe and sound in Amsterdam. Wearing ear plugs on long trips on motorways is key. They are an essential piece of kit in the Lotus.

We walked into Amsterdam for a late night dinner at one of the surprisingly abundant Argentinian (and even one Uruguayan) steak houses. Oh the beef was good! It tasted like American beef. Tired from the drive and our long late night walk through the city, full of food, we slept like the dead.

Travel: Netherlands

I’m busy getting ready for a last minute trip to the Netherlands. Mark needs to be in Amsterdam and Rotterdam for work and I’m joining him for a long weekend. We are going to drive out and then I’ll fly back before him. The tiny boot will make for an interesting packing strategy too.