Showing posts with label Shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shopping. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
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...
Sunday, May 16, 2010
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:
- 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).
- 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).
- 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.
- 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)
Cookies:
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Hangers: An Ikea Story
When I first arrived here last week, I discovered that I badly needed two things:
I sorted it all out - it was easy to get to Ikea from work, since it's on the same subway line as my office. Getting home was a bit tricker because I would have a lot of things, and didn't want to backtrack. A bit of quick research determined that I could take a bus to either the London Overground, a commuter railroad that stops by my house, or further along to a later station on the tube's Central Line, which also stops where I live.
Getting to Ikea was easy, and I had dinner at the restaurant (priced higher than I thought), followed by some easy shopping. Except that they were out of the 49p/5 plastic hangers. After all that! Oh well, I got the wooden ones instead.
Arms laden with bags full of hangers, bathroom organizers, storage boxes and tableware, I left Ikea to get to my bus. However, as I was confused about precisely which way to go (I did not yet have my new phone, which I had been hoping would negate the need for a map book), I stopped at the first bus stop, and determined my location. I also discovered that although there was not a direct bus from that stop to the Central Line, there was one to the Overground, which would save me a five minute walk. Besides, I was interested to see the Overground, as I wasn't quite sure how to classify it. So, when the bus arrived, I hope on.
Big mistake.
The bus immediately turned down an alleyway. "Fine," I thought, "it's going a back route." And indeed it did. It went around and along and down every little dead-end alleyway in the neighborhood. Finally, it emerged onto the main road, 50 yards down from where we had started, and turned back from whence we had come. It not only was going the back way, but it was going the long way too. It looped all the way around. London has long loopy roads, so consider an arc shaped like a bridge - I wanted to go down the left side of the semicircle and then southwest - the bus went off the top of the semicircle, came back, then went down the right side, then meandered it's way all the way to the station. The entire ride, which would have gotten me past the overground station and to the tube station in about 15 minutes took more than an hour.
Finally, I got to the overground, swiped in, and lugged all of my stuff to the proper platform (the furthest away) before hearing an announcement that there were no more trains going to my destination (south, on a particular branch). Well, whatever. I hopped on the first train going south on another branch, and got off the first stop.
Fortunately, the London transport system is very good at posting bus maps everywhere, so I was able to find a bus stop a long block away that would take me home. Turns out that it was a very good bus stop (the bus home came every 5-10 minutes, even at that time of night).
Being a Friday night there were a few people in a compromised state sitting on the bench, comparing buses (they were making no sense). As the bus pulled up, a lady said to me, rolling her eyes, "the things you hear on a Friday night." I responded, "yes, indeed." "Ugh, an American..."****
Anyway, it took me a couple of hours to get home, and although I was exhausted, I figure that the only way to really learn a city is to get lost in it, as long as you can find your way home.
****Ok, so she didn't say that, but she didn't respond, and it would have been much funnier if she had.
- A very large glass for water at work, because the water machines self-dispense 2 oz cups, unless you have a bottle to select the "500ml bottle fill" option.
- Clothes hangers.
I sorted it all out - it was easy to get to Ikea from work, since it's on the same subway line as my office. Getting home was a bit tricker because I would have a lot of things, and didn't want to backtrack. A bit of quick research determined that I could take a bus to either the London Overground, a commuter railroad that stops by my house, or further along to a later station on the tube's Central Line, which also stops where I live.
Getting to Ikea was easy, and I had dinner at the restaurant (priced higher than I thought), followed by some easy shopping. Except that they were out of the 49p/5 plastic hangers. After all that! Oh well, I got the wooden ones instead.
Arms laden with bags full of hangers, bathroom organizers, storage boxes and tableware, I left Ikea to get to my bus. However, as I was confused about precisely which way to go (I did not yet have my new phone, which I had been hoping would negate the need for a map book), I stopped at the first bus stop, and determined my location. I also discovered that although there was not a direct bus from that stop to the Central Line, there was one to the Overground, which would save me a five minute walk. Besides, I was interested to see the Overground, as I wasn't quite sure how to classify it. So, when the bus arrived, I hope on.
Big mistake.
The bus immediately turned down an alleyway. "Fine," I thought, "it's going a back route." And indeed it did. It went around and along and down every little dead-end alleyway in the neighborhood. Finally, it emerged onto the main road, 50 yards down from where we had started, and turned back from whence we had come. It not only was going the back way, but it was going the long way too. It looped all the way around. London has long loopy roads, so consider an arc shaped like a bridge - I wanted to go down the left side of the semicircle and then southwest - the bus went off the top of the semicircle, came back, then went down the right side, then meandered it's way all the way to the station. The entire ride, which would have gotten me past the overground station and to the tube station in about 15 minutes took more than an hour.
Finally, I got to the overground, swiped in, and lugged all of my stuff to the proper platform (the furthest away) before hearing an announcement that there were no more trains going to my destination (south, on a particular branch). Well, whatever. I hopped on the first train going south on another branch, and got off the first stop.
Fortunately, the London transport system is very good at posting bus maps everywhere, so I was able to find a bus stop a long block away that would take me home. Turns out that it was a very good bus stop (the bus home came every 5-10 minutes, even at that time of night).
Being a Friday night there were a few people in a compromised state sitting on the bench, comparing buses (they were making no sense). As the bus pulled up, a lady said to me, rolling her eyes, "the things you hear on a Friday night." I responded, "yes, indeed." "Ugh, an American..."****
Anyway, it took me a couple of hours to get home, and although I was exhausted, I figure that the only way to really learn a city is to get lost in it, as long as you can find your way home.
****Ok, so she didn't say that, but she didn't respond, and it would have been much funnier if she had.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Supermarkets, or Of Square Bread and Warm Eggs
Today I wandered across the street from the office for my first relaxed grocery shopping experience in the United Kingdom. Though I have been to the supermarket multiple times since arriving, I have always been brutally hungry and thus in a rush to purchase any food whatsoever, and have had no chance to actually browse the aisles. This time however, I was getting lunch, and I was not yet at a critical hunger point. My goal was simple: peanut butter and lemon curd sandwich. First stop - bread. I figured there would be no difficulty here, but I was wrong, and in a most ghastly way.
All the bread was square.
I think you know what I mean. Like Wonder Bread. Ick. I set about looking for a rounded-top, high quality loaf, and saw the cheap store brand (85p). Nice. Now a look at the square bread... 1.45. Huh? I think that in America we've come to associate the squareness of bread with cheapness (or, you could say, Wonderfulness), and so the less square, the more expensive. Hence why the square bread at the grocery is $1.00, but the Arnold's and Pepperidge Farms loafs are $3.99 or $4.99. Well, so what? I'm attracted to the cheap bread. This is good. 85p it is.
I set off around the corner to find the lemon curd (I didn't want to steal my roommates for heretical peanut butter and lemon curd sandwiches), and took a quick glance on my left. There they were... eggs. And not just normal eggs... warm eggs. Little packets of delicious salmonella, sitting right there on the shelf. As Ashley so duly noted in her comments to my first England post, I'm not so sure I will be eating many eggs, or at least raw ones (so much for cookie dough!).
Anyway, I finally reached the lemon curd (and peanut butter). To my dismay, there were only two brands of lemon curd, and neither one was Wilkins & Sons, my favored british brand. Strangely, there were only 3 varities of Wilkins & Sons jams (5 at another store I went to later) compared to about 12 in my New York City grocery store. Very bizarre. No matter, the English know how to make the stuff, so I went for another one.
As for peanut butter... ugh. There were only two brands. One had no sugar. If I wanted dry nut paste I would eat linseed, so no thanks. The second one was a bit dodgy (new word!), but I had no choice. Upon examination at my desk, it was found to be dry, and a bit grainy (e.g. not so creamy as one would hope). I will now be on a quest for Skippy!
Interestingly (to me) I didn't need to sign up for a club card, I could just grab a temporary one and sign up later (it gets both discounts and points for later use).
All the bread was square.
I think you know what I mean. Like Wonder Bread. Ick. I set about looking for a rounded-top, high quality loaf, and saw the cheap store brand (85p). Nice. Now a look at the square bread... 1.45. Huh? I think that in America we've come to associate the squareness of bread with cheapness (or, you could say, Wonderfulness), and so the less square, the more expensive. Hence why the square bread at the grocery is $1.00, but the Arnold's and Pepperidge Farms loafs are $3.99 or $4.99. Well, so what? I'm attracted to the cheap bread. This is good. 85p it is.
I set off around the corner to find the lemon curd (I didn't want to steal my roommates for heretical peanut butter and lemon curd sandwiches), and took a quick glance on my left. There they were... eggs. And not just normal eggs... warm eggs. Little packets of delicious salmonella, sitting right there on the shelf. As Ashley so duly noted in her comments to my first England post, I'm not so sure I will be eating many eggs, or at least raw ones (so much for cookie dough!).
Anyway, I finally reached the lemon curd (and peanut butter). To my dismay, there were only two brands of lemon curd, and neither one was Wilkins & Sons, my favored british brand. Strangely, there were only 3 varities of Wilkins & Sons jams (5 at another store I went to later) compared to about 12 in my New York City grocery store. Very bizarre. No matter, the English know how to make the stuff, so I went for another one.
As for peanut butter... ugh. There were only two brands. One had no sugar. If I wanted dry nut paste I would eat linseed, so no thanks. The second one was a bit dodgy (new word!), but I had no choice. Upon examination at my desk, it was found to be dry, and a bit grainy (e.g. not so creamy as one would hope). I will now be on a quest for Skippy!
Interestingly (to me) I didn't need to sign up for a club card, I could just grab a temporary one and sign up later (it gets both discounts and points for later use).
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