P.S. About Brownies

By the way, though it was expected I would not be able to find candy canes, I was also completely unable to locate peppermints, which I figured could substitute on the topping.  No matter, I think the brownies are probably better without them, but I'm constantly amazed by the random things you can't buy in London...

A May Bank Holiday Weekend

So, this past weekend was a holiday weekend, coinciding with Memorial Day in the US.  In England, it was "Late Spring Bank Holiday" (but interestingly not in Scotland or Northern Ireland... the UK has far less national identity than, say, a Canadian trout, which will be found popping out of the water just to tell you that Shania Twain is a Canadian, don't you know... but I digress; more about that another time).  So, having a three day weekend, I perfected relaxation.  On Saturday, I made myself fluffy pancakes (highly recommended: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fluffy-Pancakes-2/Detail.aspx), went to get two tickets for O.A.R., an amazing band that is popular among college students, and is well-known enough to sell out Madison Square Garden.  I missed them last time they were here because I didn't want to pay an online booking fee and kept forgetting to go to the box office, until they sold out the week before.  As you have probably guessed, they are not nearly so popular here, which has proven to be a problem - all of my friends who know them are busy studying or are away for the weekend, and nobody else knows who they are!  And this band can sell out The Garden!  Anyway, I then met up with some people to see Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and enjoyed it, as atrocious as it was.  I was probably swayed by having played 1.5 of the "Sands of Time" themed video games while my apartment in college was addicted to them.

On Sunday, I went to Islington - which is one of my favorite areas of London because it's not only pretty but the restaurants are actually local and unique instead of the same old bland high street chains (I am not opposed to chains per say, simply bland ones!) - and got coffee and cake with my friend Eunice at Fig & Olive (http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/fig-and-olive-london).  My cheesecake and her gooseberry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooseberry) tart were both delicious, and we enjoyed them through a narrow passageway leading to a quiet park surrounded by victorian townhouses (as are common in nice areas of London... though they are not often public).  We had actually intended to get food at the Islington Market, but we were unable to find it (or get into it), despite seeing a sign.  However, as a result of our wandering, we did walk past Emma Watson, whose phone number I got.  Okay, I didn't get her phone number, but I did get a photo with her:

Okay, so in case you have no sense of humor, that photograph is fake, so I didn't get a photo with her, but I did walk past her a second time after dropping of my friend at the tube.  At which point I said to her, "look, I don't know who you are, or why you're following me, but it's completely inappropriate!"  Except that I didn't, but I did chuckle to myself thinking about it.  I then walked back through the north part of London, through Camden Town (an area with a big market and the box office I had gone to on Saturday) and through Regent's park, which is beautiful, and has a tasty looking sausage hut that reminded me I had yet to eat lunch, and had no cash.  Oops!  So I went back home, and bought corned beef to try to make a corned beef sandwich (preferably on rye with swiss and sauerkraut! oooooh reuben....), but lo and behold, corned beef here is not, I repeat not the same thing that it is in the US.  It's gross.  And it's dry.  And most of it comes in tins.  Like spam. EW.  I will not be buying it again (I bought an untinned kind, don't worry!), though the horseradish and mustard certainly made it more palatable.  There is something similar to corned beef called salt beef that is sold in food halls and at some specialty sandwich shops (normally emblazoned, aptly, with the words "Salt" and "Beef"), which is good, but still not the same. 

On Monday, I went on a quest to make peppermint brownies (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ghirardelli-Peppermint-Brownies/Detail.aspx).  This quest had, in fact, begun months before, when I realized the difficulty of obtaining 100% unsweetened chocolate in London.  So I had Sara bring me some from New York.  Thanks Sara!  Since then, it has appeared in the (regular, but nice) grocery store near me, which is the only place I have seen it (I think), and it comes in a big 180g hunk (as opposed to easily-melted bars) for about $5.50 for 4 oz (compare this to Ghirardelli for $3.50, or Baker's brand for $1.70 in the US).  Anyway, the chocolate problem solved, I thought the rest would be easy.  Alas, it took me three grocery stores to find real peppermint extract (and two to find fake peppermint flavo(u)ring), which left me near Whole Foods, the grace of London.  I was never a big Whole Foods person in New York, since I didn't see the point (I lived near a great normal grocery store) but in London it allows me to get imported things for less than anywhere else (if they are uncommon), which on Monday meant pepper jelly and Peanut Butter & Co. brand Peanut Butter (direct from NYC).  Of course, they also have fresh peanut butter in-store made by grinding peanuts, so perhaps the PB &Co was a poor choice.  Anyway, I finally made it back home and made the mint brownies.  I had to substitute the Ghirardelli-squares-as-icing with after-eight-mints-as-icing which was probably a poor choice given the chewy nature of After Eights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Eight) compared to Ghirardelli squares (which are creamy inside), and definitely made the brownies quite sweet.  But still delicious.  Highly recommended recipe.  Top that off with a delicious dinner of corn (I have it a lot now that it's in season), which is amazing and delicious, and imported (which I suppose isn't so good).  It comes, pathetically, in little plastic sealed packets and the cobs are about half the length of a proper American ear of corn, despite some of it coming from the US (I think we get shipped the dregs).  Oh well, it's still delicious with butter, salt and pepper.  MMMMMmmmmm

Cooking in London

Whenever I decide to bake any food in London (and it's almost always bake, since I don't seem to "cook" much), there is always some ingredient I can't get in the local grocery store.  This seems to happen without fail, such that I always plan my baking for a period when I know I can go ingredient-hunting.  So, for example, when I've wanted to make:

• Chocolate pecan pie (highly recommended recipe, basically just a chocolate pie with pecans - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Pecan-Pie-III/Detail.aspx), I couldn't get Corn Syrup
• Chocolate chip cookies, I couldn't get chocolate chips
• Brownies from scratch, I couldn't get baking chocolate
• Gingerbread cookies (also highly recommended - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Big-Soft-Ginger-Cookies/Detail.aspx - but add more ginger), I couldn't get molasses
• Pumpkin pie, I couldn't get pumpkin
• Bacon, I couldn't get American-style (that is to say not big, and thick and gross) bacon (and honestly, I still haven't made it, but I know where to get it now!)
• Wings (haven't made these yet either, remember, I bake!) I couldn't get Frank's Red Hot.

Frustratingly, these are all things you can get at any American grocery store year round!  And now I've finally learned where to get all of these things in London (though Pumpkin is available only in November).  In case you are ever here and need to bake something, the best places to get these ingredients, in approximate price order:

1. Whole Foods in Kensingon, where there are loads of American imports of packaged foods, including Peanut Butter & Co. peanut butter from NYC and Boylan's soda from NJ, yum! (http://www.boylanbottling.com/) They also have many speciality foods that are hard to find despite being UK made (like chilli jelly for my crackers, cream cheese and pepper jelly snacks), and perhaps some American-style meat cuts, though I haven't looked (and they can't be, or perhaps just aren't, imported from North America).
2. Selfridge's Food Department, where I was able to find Tabasco Pepper Jelly (delicious!) and Marshmallow Fluff (which I don't normally get but was unable to resist) and baking chocolate (I think).
3. Partridges in Sloane Square, where I saw American-Style Oscar Mayer bacon from... Spain.  Whatever, it'll work.  Also there were numerous cereals and Mac & Cheese, which you can't get here.
4. Random little American Food Stores on various side streets (like one near Notting Hill Gate on the way to Shepherd's Bush on the right off of Holland Park Road) that sell outrageously priced sodas and chocolate chip bags.

You can also, now, find chocolate chips in teensy weensy 100g bags at large Tesco supermarkets, but they work out to be about the same as bags in the states are (despite being teensy weensy chocolate chips as well).

Finally, there's the Stateside Candy Co. online (http://www.americansweets.co.uk/), which is the only place I have found my beloved Wheat Thins (but have yet to order them).

I have yet, however, to find a place to buy an electric griddle other than a £50 number from Amazon ($75!!!!).  This despite checking all of the major department stores and specialty kitchen shops I could find.  Apparently, Brits don't like griddling things (the fact that "pancakes" are giant crepe-like things here probably hurts the cause).

So, the main reason I wrote this post was that I made gingerbread cookies today, and you should too.  I've posted the recipe above, and it was fabulous.  I'll let you know about how my attempts to make molasses-brown sugar-balsamic vinegar mustard work out (to copy delicious Fox More Than A Mustard from Vermont - http://www.sugarbushfarm.com/Products.aspx?pn_deptid=157)

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