A Milestone, 40 Years in the Making

There are many milestones in life...first tooth, walking, graduations, marriage, children. Today, my dad celebrates a major milestone in his life. He is retiring. At 5pm, he will close a chapter in his life that has been open for 40 years. That's right...he's been the "telephone man" for 40 years now.

Dad, I am so happy for you. You have worked hard your entire life, not just the past 40 years. I look forward to seeing what projects you will take on and how your hobbies will flourish. So, get the hammer polished and practice your aim at the alarm clock. Monday morning is your new beginning...the best is yet to come.

SUCCESS

Well, I have to say that my first big solo Thanksgiving was a success! Despite a few logistical setbacks...late start and roasting pan that didn't fit in Charlie's oven...we pulled it off and everything tasted very good. In fact, I even got some recipe requests, the biggest compliment a cook can receive!

A small correction...Charlie's friends are Norwegian, not Swedish. I was most worried that they wouldn't care for the dishes since the Norwegian diet is so completely different, but they lived in the US, Houston actually, for about 3 years, so it wasn't completely out there for them.

I will post a photo of the turkey as soon as I get one. Somehow my camera got left in my purse all evening and we failed to get any pictures. Charlie is sending some along though, so I'll get them uploaded when I can.

How was your Thanksgiving? Are you out of leftovers yet?

The Big Day is Here!

Well, I've been cooking for hours and tomorrow is the big day. I sincerely hope everything turns out with all the different ingredients I've had to use. It should be interesting. Most everything I've tasted has been quite on par even without the molasses and Cheez Whiz. Now it's midnight, my feet hurt, and I'm tired. Guess I should get rested for before the craziness begins.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I just want to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving today. I hope you enjoy time with your family and friends and take a respite from your busy lives.

I invite you to post a "thankful thought" in the comments section and keep visiting to reflect on everything we have to be thankful for.

Talkin' Turkey

Since we won't make it home for Thanksgiving, Edgar and I are teaming up with Charlie's family and some of her Swedish friends (who knew Thanksgiving could be so international!) for a feast like none other...well, except for maybe my mom's. I can't promise dressing as flavorful or turkey quite as moist as my mom's, but I'm certainly going to try. Since Edgar and Shawn have to work on Thursday, we will be celebrating on Saturday. Today I headed to the grocery store for the big shopping trip. This is my experience of shopping for a holiday not celebrated in England...

I was super organized with a printed list, created in Excel, and categorized by supermarket sections. I was worried about not being able to find a few items, namely the cornbread and biscuits for the dressing. I had cornmeal imported a few months ago via a friend and Gatwick airport. Biscuits...this one is a little tricky since, over here, biscuits are cookies. Sure enough, no biscuits to be found. They just don't eat them here. I guess the closest thing may be a scone, but I didn't want to chance an experiment on my first big Thanksgiving dinner. So after a panicked flip through my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook, I found a recipe. Guess they'll be homemade! So far, so good.

Next challenge...molasses for the baked beans. Over here, they eat baked beans all the time. They are a staple for the "Traditional English Breakfast". But these aren't baked beans as we think of them, they are just good ole pork and beans. Heinz just changes the label to say "Baked Beans" instead of "Pork & Beans". In fact, the pork & bean selection is as big as the soup selection, no joke! A nice worker in the frozen food section helped me locate the frozen broccoli for the broccoli-rice casserole (another story) and I told him he would make me really happy if he could find some molasses for me. He said, "Oh yes, we don't have molasses here, we haven't had molasses since 1953, when we couldn't get the "black treacle"". I don't know why they couldn't get black treacle in 1953, since it is made in the UK. Nonetheless, he assured me that black treacle is very similar to molasses (apparently, molasses is just a fancy name for black treacle), and he gave me a personal escort to its location...what a guy! I told him if the baked beans don't turn out, I will look for him next time I am in the store.

Last obstacle is Cheese Whiz for the broccoli-rice casserole. I'm not a big fan of Cheese Whiz, but it tastes really yummy in this casserole. Over here, you are hard pressed to find cheese that isn't the real thing. They take their cheese very seriously and to produce something not made from some animal's milk and call it cheese would just be blasphemy. I am substituting Emmental cheese instead, so we'll see how it turns out.

In addition to these dishes, we are having all the traditional trimmings-cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc. I am getting a bit nervous, but I figure after 30 years of watching, it's time to do some doing. I'll let you know how it goes!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Amidst the cold and rain, Charlie and I walked Richmond Park this morning. All 7 miles of it. And good thing Charlie is from Sweden, where the winters are long and harsh, or else I would have no one to coax me out of my warm and cozy home. It's one of my favorite things to do here because there is always something new to see. The deer are always a hit and right now the leaves are changing, so everything is gold and red...so beautiful. As we were rounding our final corner for the home stretch, a beautiful rainbow just appeared out of nowhere. As I looked closer, I could actually see the end of the rainbow, right there in the trees about 50 feet in front of me.
I guess I can cross that one off my life list!

I didn't see a pot of gold or a box of Lucky Charms, but I did find Lucky Charms in Selfridge's on Oxford Street last weekend...for $14 a box!

The Fire in London

Some of you may be seeing the reports of a fire in East London. As far as I have heard it's an abandoned warehouse that was set to be demolished in the next few months to make room for the 2012 Olympic campus. It's in east London near Edgar's office in Canary Wharf...well not really near, but in the far vicinity...so I'm sure he'll give me the full report when he gets home. Thanks to everyone for your emails and concern.

Familiar Faces, Familiar Food

We had our first visitors from Gatesville this weekend! OK, so they didn't actually come here to visit us nor did they come to our flat, but they were in London and we met up with them...that counts, right? Edwin and DeDe Powell are here in London catching all the big sites and we finally connected with the world travellers at a little cafe behind Harrod's. With it being their first trip to London, Edgar and I were fully prepared to give them the low down on the tube and the who/what/why to visit, but we quickly found out that these guys needed no help at all. They are pros at public transportation and they already had their itinerary lined up. It was so nice to see some familiar faces and they promised they would be our ambassadors for London. Thanks, Edwin and DeDe, for taking the time to see us. It really meant the world to me.

Today, Edgar and I traveled back to Oxford Street to get into the holiday spirit. I was very excited to see all the window displays in the big department stores of Debenham's and Selfridge's. They were Ok, but not quite what I was expecting from a city as large as London.

I am very homesick for BBQ and Mexican food and with my hopes shattered on finding any true Mexican food here, I thought I would give the BBQ a try. I had heard from a friend that I could find "real" BBQ in a place called Bodean's, near Oxford Street. We didn't need a map. Our noses found it about a block away. It was on par with any BBQ I've had in Texas and to top it off, they keep the TV's on the North American Sports Network, so we even got to watch college football! I had a tear in my eye and a smile on my face as we made our way to Selfridge's to sample Christmas chocolates. What a great weekend!

In Da Club

Charlie invited me to join a Book Club a few months ago. I missed the first meeting because I was in Greece...thankfully they all understood and didn't kick me out. So last night was the second meeting and I finally got to join in on the fun and meet up with 5 glamorous women to eat good food, drink wine, talk...and, oh yeah, discuss the book. Charlie chose the book and hosted. It was very appropriate that she chose Astrid & Veronika by Swedish author Linda Olsson. Much of the book is set in Sweden so not only is it a beautiful story of friendship, but we also got to learn about some of Swedish Charlie's culture. It all just made me want to pick berries in the forest and dance around the Maypole.

The next "meeting" will be at the end of January, which means I will have a great book to keep me occupied on those long plane rides to and from TEXAS!

Deer in Richmond Park

I love Richmond Park. About a 10 minute walk from our flat, it's 2500 acres of nature with miles and miles of walking/jogging, biking, and horse riding trails. The perimeter is approximately 7 miles, which makes for a nice little exercise outing. The fact that it is hilly makes it a perfect place to cycle and world class cyclists do come out here to practice. One of the main attractions of the park is the fact that it holds the Queen's deer...all 650 of them...although they have just begun the culling season, so some of them won't be with us for much longer. Everytime we go to the park, I say I'm going to take some photos of these amazing creatures, but I keep forgetting my camera. Well, today was the day. The sun was shining and the air was brisk...we put on our shoes and started deer hunting. Sorry to Bill, John, Greg, and James...they don't open the cull season to the public.