Hunt of the Haggis

There are no British specialty stores anywhere near Charlottesville, that I can tell, but there are a few in NOVA. When leaving home this weekend I remembered that I had set myself with a mission. I needed to find some haggis.

There is a place called the British Pantry out past the airport, in Aldie. They have British biscuits, chocolate, meat, and other products in one room and a tearoom in the other. I could tell I was at the right place because they had a British-style telephone booth in the front. The other cars parked there had license plates like "UKGIRL" and "CYMRU", my little Scottish flag sticker fit right in.

I bought 1.77 lbs of haggis for $15.71. It will probably not be worth it, but that's okay. It's haggis.

It wasn't too far out of my way, though the roads back there were little two-laners with passing zones and lots of hills. It probably only added about 30-45 minutes to my total drive time. I'm going to try and find someplace closer to Cville that doesn't mark up quite as much. First stop should be the Foods of All Nations just down the street, then we'll see.

Pictures should be coming soon, as well as stories of a third (and final?) Hunt.

Hunt of the Muffin

Last Sunday I decided I really wanted a muffin before church.

I spent about 45 minutes on Google, trying to determine what Charlottesville bakeries/cafes were open on a Sunday, and then finding one open at 10 AM was a tough job indeed. Luckily the church I was going to was downtown, and there are a lot of cafes in that general direction.

The first one was a cafe I'd been wanting to try out anyway, though apparently it moved about two blocks down the street from when I'd last seen it, this past summer.
It was in fact open. That was good.
So I go inside, and I look confused. When I asked the one employee if he had any muffins, he said no, they only get their muffins in on Mondays through Saturdays (wait, they don't bake them themselves? Hmmm, dodgy...) and sometimes leftover ones are half-price, but there are none today.

Employee started picking up the wrapped items on the counter. "But, we have a croissant, some... umm... carrot cake, paninis.... Cupcakes! Those are muffin-shaped!"

Poor boy.


I found my muffins on the third try. They were okay, the cinnamon-swirl one would have been amazing but the outside was a little stale. It definitely satisfied my muffin craving though, and the blueberry was spectacular.

I found a new church that I like a lot better and I think I'll keep going to. It's a bit smaller, of the two narrow sets of pews variety, but I liked the pastor and the atmosphere, so perhaps it's worth the drive downtown every Sunday.

More about Farmers Markets

I see this Scotland blog is rapidly developing into a Farmers' Markets blog. Hmm.

This weekend I went home and went to the Farmers' Market my parents like to go to. It was a bit smaller than the Cville one, but it took up the entire parking lot it was set in so I doubt they could put in any more stalls. This time we correctly identified zucchini, as well as peaches, eggplant, and blueberries. Mmm. A lot of deliciousness was made throughout the day, including a peach and blueberry pie, grilled zucchini, an eggplant cassarole, and blueberry-peach-blackberry-OJ smoothies. The blackberries were wild, picked from unowned bushes around the corner from our house.

Also at the NOVA F.M.:
A miniature-donut machine!

One guy stirred up donut batter, which went into one side of an automatic machine that pushed the little rings through about eight different sections to fry. Last they were pulled up by a conveyor belt and deposited into a plastic bowl, where the second guy scooped into small bags. It was amazing! I wish I could do that thing justice.
For just $2 we got more mini-donuts than we could handle, and were able to decorate with our choice of toppings---powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, rainbow sprinkles, chocolate sauce, maybe something else. I had cinnamon sugar on mine. Mm.

Saturday Morning Farmers' Market

Cville has a Farmer's Market in the Downtown Mall every Saturday morning in season. Despite living here for three years or so, I never went, probably because I didn't like veggies until six months ago. I finally went yesterday, and I really liked it.

Most of the produce stalls were about the same, but besides the vegetable farmers, there were quite a few people selling baked goods, homemade chipotle jellies, or jewelry & crafts. Some local coffee companies were there as well, so most people had a cup of Shenandoah Joe or Mudhouse in their hands as they browsed.
There was also a Barack Obama booth, to sign up for volunteering?, or to receive a free button/bumper sticker with a donation. I didn't expect that from a Farmer's Market, but it is Charlottesville, so I wasn't too surprised.

I was really tempted by some of the cut flowers I saw, I don't know how one goes about growing flowers to sell at weekend markets but they were beautiful!

Anyway. I bought a curried ginger scone on a whim from this nice old man and had it for breakfast this morning. It was delicious, though I added apricot jam to keep it from becoming overpowering. I'll bet his 'sweet' scones are better than the 'savory', maybe if I go again I'll try it.

Sad to say, I think I bought a cucumber when I actually wanted a zucchini. It was labeled corretly, too, I'm just not very good with produce.

Scots in DC

Last weekend I met up with my next-door neighbor from Edinburgh (who is American) and two Scots, who were all visiting DC. It was really nice to see them all, but also amusing to see the flip side of my situation in Edinburgh.

Though the week before was some 10 degrees warmer and much more humid, none of them cared for the DC weather at all. I thought it was pleasant, mid-80's and fairly dry considering the season. Boston and Scotland are both much cooler, though I feel Boston can't be much less humid.

Food. We spent a lot of time finding and eating American food. the BBQ pork sandwiches we had downtown were delicious, as was the Mexican we had for dinner. Apparently they've never had Mexican before! (Although after my experience with the Mexican place is Keswick, I can't blame them...) So I got to explain items like guacamole, enchiladas, and why refried beans look the way they do.
Also: these Scots love IHOP. Amazing!

They were pleasantly surprised to find that I could understand what they were saying without any problem. Most people they talked to in America could hardly understand a word, but it sounded perfectly natural to me, a clean---not cluttered---accent.

One of the Scots disappeared in the afternoon to watch the 'football' (soccer) on TV. Priorities.

Summer in the City

I guess that travel can include Charlottesville. I am not sure. Either way, it's interesting to note what is different since coming back. Many of these things are particular to Cville, the plethora of summer construction, including the physics side parking lot, tearing up the main road through Grounds, and work as always and yet with little progress behind Cabell. I used to park behind Cabell a lot, it actually had spaces... I wonder where all those people got displaced to. The sculptures in the medians are mostly changed, as are certain restaurants/bakeries/cafes. I can't find anything in the grocery stores, but that is a problem wherever you go.

Even the Cville Kroger has a British food section, of two small cases at the end of the Frozen Pizza aisle. Most of the shelves are empty, but they have McVittie's Digestives. I'll be honest, I was tempted. I'll bet Harris Teeter has more, and Foods Of All Nations more still. The cider situation is worse than I thought, but it's nice to know exactly what's in the food I'm buying. Amazing how different packaging can be. As yet the only food I would like but can't find is haggis. No one understands haggis.

I'm slowly adapting to American currency, American prices, and American attitudes. Sometimes my friends tease me for using British phrases, but "half-seven" for 7:30, "queue", and "can't be bothered" will stick for a long time I hope. I know how to drive on the right-hand side of the road, and I'm getting used to looking left-right-left when crossing the street. Life skills, life skills.

Keswick Adventures

We visited the Lake District for two full days: to be honest, three might have been about perfect, I could have used one more day to explore Keswick. Any longer would require a change in locale, and I've heard Lake Windermere is a good place to go on a two-stop tour of the Lakes.

The first thing we went to in the Lakes was the Cumberland Pencil Museum. Wikipedia is probably more informative on this, but in the 1850's or so, graphite was discovered in Cumbria. One particular pencil compant, Derwent, is still in business today and has had a factory in Keswick since the beginning of the Cumbrian Pencil Industry. Next to the factory is a pencil museum, documenting the development of the pencil industry throughout the world and in particular in Keswick, with special attention to the technology of the pencil and its materials. The colored pencil section was really informative about how the color dyes are mixed to create colored graphite pencils.

I learned a lot about pencils.

Unfortunately the information was a little bit outdated. Signs referred to the 1960's as "25 years ago" (phrases like that are never a good idea for a museum display) and Russia as the USSR. But it was pretty cool too, the wood for the pencil is cedar, and comes from "the Great American states of Oregon and California", hah! Clay was originally mixed in with the graphite to help lower production costs and was soon found to help writing quality as well: it is the clay:graphite ratio that determines the hardness of the pencil.

Cool stuff.

Two long walks were accomplished in our two days as well. The first was up Walla Crags, located just south of Keswick, which had an absolutely perfect view of Derwent Water. The second was up Skiddaw, elevation of about 3000 ft or just under 1000 m, and consequently the smaller peaks of Little Man, and 'bump' of Latrigg. Skiddaw is the fourth-highest peak in the Lake District but 'just short of the tallest', though nothing ever told me what the margin of difference actually is. I'm pretty sure that Scotland was visible to the north, though I can't be positive it was actually Scotland I saw, and we could see a lot of the lakes and ridges in all surrounding areas. Climbing up Skiddaw was great, it helped create a sense of the geography and geology of the area, the farming areas, the lakes, the treeless mountains. I'm still not accustomed to such a profound lack of trees.

If anyone is ever planning a visit to Keswick, I highly recommend dining at Bella Roma, which also has excellent desserts, and coffee/drinks at 26. I highly discourage patronising Salsa, a Mexican place. I know, I know, I shouldn't expect good Mexican food in England, but even bad Mexican food usually tastes of something. This was just bland. Unimpressive.

Drinks in Spain

One evening in Spain I ordered a glass of orange juice to go with my dinner. ("Tiene, um, jugo de naranja...?") What arrived was essentially a glass of liquidized orange. It was pulpy, there were seeds in my drink, and it tasted exactly like an orange, nothing added it. On the side of the saucer was a large packet of sugar and a long spoon. Which, of course, I didn't use.

However, that sugar packet provoked me to look around at the other cafe drinks being served, and all of them came with giganto sugar packets as well. I'm not talking about the square-ish shaped ones that hold more sugar than they look, these are the cylindrical ones about four inches long that probably hold enough sugar to sweeten a third-world developing nation.

Most people used their sugar packets, even in the cafes con leche that I found to be sweet to begin with. I take my coffee as black as I can manage, and the orange juice was naturally sweet, so I never used mine. I think it struck the servers as odd.

Physics on TV

A couple of days ago a friend (Physics major) introduced me to the sitcom, "The Big Bang Theory", which is about a few socially inept physicists.

How often can you find physicist main characters?

It's a new show this year, and it's amazing, but at times very true to life.



You know the British cooking show "Two Fat Ladies"?
Well, it's not anymore because one of the Fat Ladies died, I think.
Anyway.
Sometimes I ride a bus route in Edinburgh that takes me by a cafe.
"Two Thin Laddies."

That's brilliant.

Notes on Ireland

-the local grocery chain is called SPAR

-the stereotype of the friendly/jolly Irish farmer seemed to be pretty true. When I was out walking, you could tell the natives from the tourists: the tourists scowled and were silent. The Irish smiled and waved hello

-"How are you?" was the standard greeting

-When in Scotland, people want to know if DC is close to New York.
In Ireland they wanted to know if it's close to Boston.

-When eating dinner in Inis Oirr (I really didn't have enough food to be stranded on this island!) the TV had on a Celtic vs. Rangers football match. (They are both Glasgow teams: the Celtics have mostly Catholic fans, and the Rangers mostly Protestant fans.) Everyone in the pub, all seven of them, were rooting heavily for Celtic.

-There was an interesting mix of Americanisms and Britishisms. They sold sweaters and not jumpers, and we were to form a line not a queue, but I still boiled my water in an electric kettle, followed the ferry timetable, and 'couldn't be bothered' to do things, except maybe if they were 'well good'.

-I had some truly delicious Irish stew. And soda bread, that was pretty popular as well.

-Everyone drank Guinness. Seriously. Everyone. (Okay,maybe except for some older couples who seemed to all drink red wine.) And it was no better coming out of the Irish taps than any other Guinness, that myth is such a lie.

More on foods.

Today I had a revelation.
Potato chips ('crisps' to the British) and fries ('chips') are made exactly the same way, one's just cut thinner than the other.


A lot of things taste different across the ocean.
Take Coke as an example. I decided that maybe the perceived difference in taste was due to being unused to drinking it. Or maybe the smaller can size.
Coke is not imported in Britain, they have bottling centers within the country. And you know what they don't have in Britain? States full of cornfields.
The more I looked, the less I saw 'corn syrup' included in ingredient lists. The only reason we use it is because it's cheap. I'm sure the British use some other sweetener strictly because that's cheaper.

I think you can learn a lot about a country from its food. Food products, ingredients, labelling, marketing.


In the local grocery store, one can purchase Walkers shortbread. I have yet to buy shortbread here but I wonder if the recipe is the same, or if it's an imported product, or if maybe it tastes better. I wonder, too, are these available in Charlottesville? Probably not, except for maybe a 'Foods of All Nations', though for some reason Scotland may not be what they have in mind.
Next time I'm bringing back shortbread of a better brand.

Story from December

I can't remember if I've told this story yet, but my parents didn't seem to recognise it, so I'll tell it again just in case.

The first friend I visited over my Christmas holiday lived outside of Glasgow. One of the first days I was there, my friend was at work and so it might have just been myself and her mother home (I'll call her Mum to make things simpler), and I went into the kitchen to make myself a grilled cheese sandwich.

I ran into a few problems.

First, I told Mum I was going to make myself a grilled cheese. They call them "toasties".

Second, I asked Mum if she had a skillet. "A what?" A small frying pan? "A what?" I rummaged through her pans until I found what I wanted. Mum makes toasties on a sheet in the oven, not on a pan on the stove.

Third, the only bread they had was unsliced. I am not very good at cutting bread evenly. In fact, I'd never really tried until Scotland. Also the bread-cutting knife was not what I expected. The end result: two wedge-shaped chunks of bread with dangly bits where the knife caught the bread at angles.

Fourth, no American cheese. Not that I can blame them, American cheese is not the best, but for grilled cheese. I think I might have used cheddar, and was similarly horrible at slicing even, thin slices.

When it came time to the actual grilling of my sandwich, that was kind of a disaster. The thinner part of the wedgy-bread got burnt while the cheese underneath the thicker part hardly melted. It didn't help that I didn't understand Mum's electric stove. And the margarine was somehow not what I expected it to be, so it didn't quite cook as anticipated.

It was a pretty decent sandwich I suppose, just took a lot more work to make.

shopping

I'm really glad the student elections are over, I was getting really sick of getting harassed on my way out of the dining hall by candidates and their friends.

Shopping carts are called trolleys. You probably knew that.
Most places require a pound deposit to release the trolley from the other trolleys, and you get your pound back when you return the trolley. So a lot of people have pound-shaped tokens they keep on keyrings, because who always remembers to bring a pound coin with them to the grocery store?

Major grocery chains: Sainsburys, Tesco, Waitrose, ASDA. ASDA is owned by Walmart which is a little bit creepy to me. The groceries near to me are extremely small and have limited selection, but if you're willing to make the trek a little further there are some really big stores. Mostly I have rediscovered a love for food shopping, but some things always bother me, for example the fact that no one refrigerates eggs in this country, that's just barbaric. There seem to be a lot of differences in how products are organised, and the relative amounts of foods. Also, the alcohol section is huge, are stores in the US even permitted to sell liquor? (Here, yes, before 10 PM, and after 12.30 on Sundays)


A lot of my classes have finished up their lectures, or are about to, two weeks before the end of term! That's really weird, only nine weeks of lectures? Mentally I'm still used to 16.
It's a month and a half before my first exam!

Fairtrade Fortnight

The Fairtrade Fortnight is a two-week period all throughout the UK to raise awareness about fairtrade products and issues. It started February 25th and extends to March 8, I think. I haven't heard too much about goings-on, the university fairtrade group had a kickoff party featuring food made entirely of fairtrade ingredients. After Mass at the church I go to, there is always fairtrade coffee and tea, and this past Sunday the local MP (Member of Parliament), Nigel Griffiths, came to talk to the parishoners, especially to hear economics/fairtrade concerns.

A few stores have advertised that they have such-and-such fairtrade products, but I think mostly it is a period in which individuals try to put pressure on supermarkets to supply more fairtrade food, and when the local governments vow to support (or renew support for) developing nations.


Also, people actually use the word "fortnight" in everyday speech. "My tutorial meets fortnightly." "I went to Stirling about a fortnight ago." So on. Amazing!

a Tuesday by any other name

Yesterday had many names. Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras.

But Shrove Tuesday? Pancake Day?
The latter two have nothing to do with the former two, apparently it is around now that a farmer's flour might start to go bad... and what do you make when you need to use up your flour but pancakes? And now it's just an excuse to get together with your friends and have breakfast for dinner.

I learned that there aren't really any summer camps in the UK, not overnight camps. I figured they were a fairly universal thing for kids.


Super Tuesday.
During the coffee break in my Atomic & Molecular Physics class yesterday, we had a much more animated discussion about the Super Tuesday primaries than we did about atomic orbitals... I think the lecturer was the only other American there, and though the elections are not something I've heard discussed in dinner table conversation recently, I'm still surprised at how informed most students seem to be about the American elections.
That said, given their knowledge of the candidates, there are still many fine distinctions I need to make clear: the difference between spring primaries and the November elections, that Republican and Democrat primaries are seperate, and that other elections will occur alongside the Presidential one.

Still you must admit it's impressive.

Burns Night

Once upon a time in Scotland there was this guy named Robert Burns. Actually this was around the later half of the 18th century. Robert Burns was a poet, but not just any kind of poet. He mostly wrote his poetry in the Scots dialect, although there are some written in English.

Because no one else was creating literature in Scottish, Burns is seen as the one man who legitimised the dialect, who brought poetry to the average Scot, and is Scotland's national poet.

Some examples of his poems (the really famous ones):
Address to a Haggis
To a Mouse
A Man's A Man For A' That
My Love is a Red, Red Rose
Auld Lang Syne

I especially recommend this site, which has the complete works of Robert Burns:
Robertburns.org

Every year on or about Burns' birthday, January 25, Scotland celebrates Burns Night. This is a time to gather all your Scottish pals together. There are a set of rituals performed, beginning with a performance of "Address to a Haggis" and a few toasts, then a lovely dinner of haggis, neeps, and tatties, with whisky. After the meal, there are more recitations of Burns poems and finally every sings "Auld Lang Syne" together.
The fact that UVA's fight song is to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne" is bothersome.
Also, once upon a time someone told me that "Auld Lang Syne" was Latin for "Happy New Year's".

Little known facts about Robert Burns:
-Abraham Lincoln was an avid fan of Burns' poetry and had much/most/all? of it memorized.
-There is a bust of Robert Burns in the home of Abraham Lincoln today
-There is a statue of Abraham Lincoln in a cemetary somewhere in Edinburgh.
I need to find this statue, maybe around February 12?
No one told me these things!

There is also a link between Burns and the Revolutionary War (known here as The War With America or.. something):
Ode For General Washington's Birthday

-----

Last night Physics Society had a Burns Night, where literally everything was delicious. I had the best haggis, neeps, and tatties I've tasted yet. The host was surprised I'd had haggis before, but I genuinely love it, and it was the first time I've been able to stomach neeps. Extremely good quality whisky, five kinds of dessert (nothing particularly Scottish about them though).
At the beginning no one wanted to perform the Address To A Haggis, so the eight-stanza poem was passed around with one person reading a stanza each. Those eight people were allowed first go at the food.
Theoretically the eight most Scottish people were to read, but I was handed the poem during the passing about. Maybe an American is less offensive to read Robert Burns than an Englishman? All the same I absolutely butchered it.

the things you never knew you never knew

Recently I've been thinking of a lot of things that have since become normal but I realise do strike as very different.
In the UK, there is no such thing as jaywalking. Out walking with a group of Brits, I have on several occasions been asked, "Is it true that in America it's against the law to cross the street when you're not supposed to?"

I guess when you think about, if that's how you've always had it then you don't think about it. But for us, we have rules about when you're not allowed to cross the same way you have the "right of way", or more accurately the "necessity to yield". Still I think most people have the impression that jaywalking is enforced when I have never heard of anyone actually being fined for such an action.

I have on several occasions been asked, "Why does America have so many stop signs?"
Until those moments I forget that a stop sign is a rare sight on British streets. They just know to stop or not to stop, depending. Many intersections that might be governed by stop signs in America are replaced by the roundabout.
I hate roundabouts.

A lot of things are not as refrigerated than at home. Grocery store eggs are typically located near the milk and cheese, but on the opposite side of the aisle where they are not refrigerated. You would not believe how often I see unrefrigerated margarine and milk, for that matter.

I was once asked, "But I thought Americans didn't drink tea?"
I was once told, "Americans don't understand how to make tea." I think that if your standard of tea is so low it requires the universal addition of milk then you can't judge. Not to sound judgmental myself, of course.
The electric kettle is a bit of a strange invention, if you ask me.

I had haggis for the fifth time tonight!
Several times I have heard with surprise, "Wait, you don't have haggis is America?"
Once I was asked if I knew what a baked potato was.
Several times I have been confronted with foods cooked "American style" and they never taste right.
I have learned to stay away from ketchup this side of the ocean.

Sultanas are raisins.

Mmm, sandwich!

Ever since coming to Scotland I've found myself eating foods I never thought I'd eat, or at least not until becoming a little more of an adult than I am. This is either because: A. I am now an adult, or B. When confronted with limited options I actually will eat anything.

The past year's list has included such foods as: peanut butter, copious amounts of tea (I was never a fan), scrambled eggs, tomato (toe-MAH-toe), corguettes (cucumbers), aubergine (eggplant), beans, onion, peppers, haggis, oats, mincemeat, "spaghetti bolognese" (this requires an explanation all of its own), wine sauces, chicken salad sandwiches, vegetable soups, chick peas. Etc.

Most recently I have discovered jam. Never before have I eaten jam, nevermind liked it. Even as of a month ago I wouldn't eat jam. I'm still working on marmalade.

I just ate the best sandwich ever.
-Wholemeal bread (wheat bread: Another term that mystifies the average Brit)
-Peanut butter
-apricot jam
Yes, apricot jam!

End of Exam Week 2

My archaeology exam was this morning. Strangely enough it took place in a dance room, with mirrors around three walls and a ballet barre. Which was alright except: when the sun came in at a certain angle, bounced off the mirror and into my eye, and looking straight ahead to watch oneself think. Ack, unnerving.

Still it went fine and now my winter break can officially begin!

Today and tomorrow, depending on the Scandinavian country, is St. Lucia day. I was treated to two "almost genuine" Lucia biscuits, which were tasty.

Christmas Dinner

Yesterday was exactly two weeks from Christmas. So despite being just a random Tuesday night, we were served Christmas dinner in the dining hall! How exciting is that?

There wasn't much selection, but we were served turkey, with "stuffing" and "sausages", roast potatos, vegetables, etc., as well as cranberry sauce--surprisingly good--and Christmas pudding, which I didn't eat.

On the way out to the tables there was a selection of free wine, which was undoubtedly disgusting so I didn't any, but there were also crackers! A genuine British tradition! Popping the crackers proved to be a distraction all through dinner, and inside each was a crepe paper crown, a joke (mine: "What runs but never walks?" (water) that's not a very good joke...) and a toy.

Best JMC dinner ever!