Doner Kebab. Not the Reindeer.

Mike and I have a new food crush. I think everyone gets them sometimes- you try a new food and love it and then crave it constantly until you have eaten so much of it you have to wait a month before you can even think about it again. Well we are in the early love stage of doner kebab. What is doner kebab you ask?

From Wikipedia: Döner kebab (Turkish: döner kebap or döner kebabı, literally “rotating roast”, often abbreviated as döner, also spelled ‘donair’, ‘donar’, ‘doner’, or sometimes ‘donner’), is a Turkish dish made of lamb meat cooked on a vertical spit and sliced off to order. Two similar dishes are called shawarma in Arabic and gyros in Greek,^[2]kebab in s although ingredients and sauces differ.

There is a place near us that we kept meaning to try but we a little scared. See, wouldn’t you be scared?

One Saturday Mike decided that we needed to try it and went and picked us up some doner kebab for lunch! I was hooked immediately. I went back to get some the other night and took pictures!

The actual thing they slice the meat off of:

They also sell other kinds of kebabs and meat that look intriguing:

Here is my doner kebab when I got it home. You can’t really see the pita but it is there!

Those giant green peppers are one of my favorite parts. I think they are banana peppers but I am not sure.  Along with meat and pita they put peppers, onion, lettuce, tomato and chili sauce on it as well. The best part is Mike and I can both get pitas and fries for under 10 pounds! It is nice to have a food vice that is cheap and not horribly bad for you. I wish we had discovered it sooner!

Nana & Honey > Your Grandparents

Disclaimer: this is my blog not an encyclopedia. I get to say anything I want and if you don’t agree you can get your own blog. I am not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings or get anyone’s underwear in a knot. This is just what I think and in the land of fish and chips and salsa, what I think is right. Now on to today’s post.

My grandparents are better than yours. And yours. And yours. I don’t know who many of you out there reading this are but I know one thing, my grandparents are better than yours. You know that bumper sticker that says “my kid can kick your honor student’s butt” ? Well my Nana can kick your Nana’s butt and still make dinner, and my Honey can kick your…wait, no one else gets to have a Honey, just ME (and Jake and Devon but that’s beside the point).  I don’t know a lot, but I know that I won the grandparent lottery.

I have been playing around with this entry for forever and still can not come up with the proper angle. I have written posts for mother and fathers’ day and those were no less emotional, but I felt they were easier to define. Most people have mothers and fathers and know a great deal about those relationships. But for grandparents’ day? I have a hard time reconciling the nondescript title of grandparents with everything Nana and Honey are to me. I could tell stories for hours but I don’t know how well you would like a billion word blog post. I could tell you of Saturday nights and elevator rides and hours spent playing school, but I feel like there is no way I could convey their importance in a few words. I could tell you about all the things they have done for me but I don’t want it to seem I love them for the perks!

Let me say this. I wish the kind of love that they give me on everyone I know because it is one of the most precious things in my whole life. I hope everyone has someone who will see The Best Little Christmas Pageant as many times as Nana and Honey have willingly endured it. I hope you have someone who will take you to Braum’s for chocolate almond ice cream, run behind your bike when you are learning to ride, hide dollars in their shoes for when you get a good report card,  let you make terrible messes in their kitchen to this day, wear a pink tie to your wedding and travel all the way to London to see you. I hope you have someone who not only loves you despite your faults but doesn’t even see them. I hope you have someone whose presence in your life is nothing but joy. And if you have that, I hope you never have to move 5,000 miles away from them. I hope you never have to give them hugs knowing that you won’t get to give them another one for six months.

Nana and Honey, happy grandparents’ day. I love you more than I could ever put into words and I miss you every single day. I can’t wait to see you soon. Love, Andrea

I am sure all of you have wonderful grandparents and I am in no way trying to insult them. Mine are just better.

Remember When…

…Jake came to visit? He spent a week with us in June. I posted about my adventure/heartfail in trying to pick him up at the airport, but I never posted pictures of his trip. We had a great week! Jake has been our most low maintenance guest  we have had stay with us. He brought one small suitcase, slept 12 hours a day and was happy doing anything as long as we remembered to feed him.

Outside the British History Museum

Trafalgar Square

Chinatown!

Jake trying Vietnamese food!

On the train to Gatwick. We- ok, I- may have overslept and forced us to be up and out the door with his stuff in less than ten minutes, run to catch buses, run frantically through Victoria station trying to get on the Gatwick Express so he wouldn’t miss his flight. But we did fine and he made it! I hope he gets to come back again one day!

Churchill: Asset or Liability?

One of my favorite tourist things that I have done in London is the Churchill Museum and War Rooms. The whole thing was absolutely fascinating. They have preserved the underground areas from which Churchill and his advisers ran the war in Britain. I never thought much about Churchill except to note that many people named their bulldogs Winston. I enjoyed learning more about him in the museum attached to the War Rooms as well. I have also always been interested in WWII though I think that was a byproduct of growing up in my house- any holiday like Memorial Day, Veterans’ Day, or the like was spent watching the WWII movie marathon that some channel was always showing on the couch with my dad.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. I was reading the free paper in the tube when an advertisement caught my eye. There was going to be debate on Churchill’s leadership skills on September 3rd in Westminster with some pretty heavyweight historians. I couldn’t decide so I plugged it into the calendar in my phone and told it to remind me the day before. I got the reminder and we didn’t have any plans and so I got on the internet and bought myself a ticket. I was expecting 75ish people to be there. It was in the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster. I was quite surprised when there were over 1,000 people filling every seat in the hall! The whole thing was fascinating.

The motion up for debate was this: Churchill was more of a liability than an asset to the free world.

There were three for the motion and three against. They were:

Speakers for the motion:

Pat Buchanan: Senior advisor to three US Presidents and two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

Nigel Knight: Political scientist and economist at Churchill College, Cambridge.

Norman Stone: Historian and Professor of International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara.

Speakers against the motion:

Antony Beevor: Historian and author of the bestselling book “Stalingrad”.

Professor Richard Overy: Historian who has written extensively on the Second World War and the Third Reich.

Andrew Roberts: Historian who has spent 20 years researching, writing and broadcasting extensively about both Churchill and the Second World War.

Chair: Joan Bakewell: Journalist and broadcaster.

Each speaker had a chance to speak alternating from one side to the other and then they took questions from the audience. I learned a very important lesson last night. Never insult Churchill in front of a room full of Brits. They are not afraid to yell. Before the debate even began there was a man who stood up and shouted about what a disgrace it was to even entertain this motion. The debate took place anyway. All of the speakers were excellent and since I don’t have a definite opinion either way, I just listened and tried to soak up all of the information. I still don’t have a definite opinion one way or the other but I know that I want to try and learn more. The debate was put on by IntelligenceSquared and they have a whole season of debates on many different topics. I think that it would be a great thing to go to more often!

What are your thoughts on Churchill?

Brighton!

In our quest to see more of England, we headed to Brighton on Sunday with our friends Derek and Leah. Brighton is a large town on the coast that is famous for its beach, piers and and nightlife. We thought going to the beach in August was a good idea. We also thought wearing shorts to the beach was a good idea. We were wrong. We froze. I even brought a sweater and still froze. It was chilly and really windy all day especially closer to the beach.

Cold aside, we had a great time! We walked the shopping area and had a great lunch of freshly caught seafood before heading down to walk along the beach. In true English fashion we would walk the beach a little and stop at a pub, walk a little more and stop at another pub. Lots of things are right on the beach and the pubs with outdoor seating had heat lamps you could sit under and keep warm!

Pictures from the day!

Royal Pavillions

When they say fresh seafood- they mean FRESH seafood. This was Mike’s; mine was filleted.

Overlooking the pier.

Beach pub!

We went to put our legs in the ocean because we can’t help it!

Never seen anything like this and had to share. No, we did not partake.

The next Karate Kid!

Something tells me that the lifeguard is not looking forward to his services being needed.

Beach!

It was a great day and I think I would like to go back during the evening. They have lots and lots of live music venues that looked like fun and it would be nice to see the beach when the sun is out!

Andrea’s Museum Theory

Carole pointed out in the comments of the last post that I do not tend to love museums. This is both true and false. I want to explain to you my museum theory. Here it is:

If you don’t care about something 364 days of the year, you do not have to pretend to care about it the one day a year you are in a museum focused on it.

I am all for going to all kinds of museums and hitting the high spots so that I can learn new things, because I love learning. However, meandering through reading every plaque and listening to every audio guide and doing those awful interactive display things is something I only do at museums of things of which I am really interested. I also don’t think that you should feel guilty if you don’t want to go to a museum that does not interest you at all. Why? Because there are museums about EVERYTHING. How much time have I spent in the British Transportation Museum? None. How much time do I anticipate spending in it before we move home? None. How much guilt do I have over this decision? None. See how easy that is? It is much like my Valentine’s Day theory, which is: if you love someone, you love them every day of the year and doing something special on Valentine’s Day is a great treat, but if you are a total jerk 364 days a year, flowers and chocolates on one day don’t mean anything other than you have a calendar and a guilt complex.

So that is the Andrea (world’s worst sightseer) Museum Theory in a nut shell. I also have to admit that my favorite part of every museum is the gift shop. Period. We are planning on going to the Vatican museum and I am also hoping that they have some kind of ride to take a turn on the Pope-mobile but I won’t get my hopes up.

August Phenomenon and Questions

When I think of August, I think of unbearably hot afternoons, school supply shopping, first days of school and the craziness of the upcoming fall semester hitting with a bang. Those are all US memories though. Here? NOTHING. Europe closes down for August. Schools aren’t back in session yet (don’t be jealous, they didn’t get out for summer until July 22) and everyone is on holiday. In the Expat community, August is a big travel month so there have been almost no activities at the AWC. Many of my friends are traveling home to see family this month. The breakfast bakery that Mike and I like to frequent has been closed on random days. Some small businesses will shut down for weeks at a time. Mike and I walked to a restaurant the other night in the middle of the city near tourist heavy Oxford Circus and saw a sign on the window that they were closed on every Monday in August. Not for inventory, not for deep cleaning- just because. We have always heard never to travel in Italy or France or Spain or other big tourist destinations in August because the only people there are tourists and the people who stay to deal with the tourists. I believe them. I do like the holiday culture over here- people usually get at least 4 weeks vacation and are expected to take it. But it is like living in a different place. The central part of the city is crawling with tourists but the outskirts of the city feel empty. I have never lived in a city that has so many tourists, and while I appreciate the business that tourism brings the economy as a whole I find myself frustrated more often than not when I go into the city lately. In short, I am ready for September. Let’s get this fall started already!

Questions: Mike and I are trying to plan a long weekend in Rome some time this fall. We have no idea what to do, where to go, what to eat or where to stay. If you have been and have some tips, they would be much appreciated. If you have heard of something wonderful to do there, please let us know! Eating pasta and seeing the Colosseum are the only two things on our list right now. Fun as they sound, I think we should try for a few more things! So any suggestions would be lovely.

Taste of Texas

We are always trying to make the food we ate in Texas over here in London. We make taquitos, enchiladas, queso etc. all the time. But it is always just for us or maybe a few people coming over. Mike got an email the other day that his work group was having a luncheon and everyone was supposed to bring food from where they were from- his group is extremely diverse. We talked about some ideas and then forgot about it. Since the lunch is today we were debating yesterday about what he should bring that was good and Texan, but we wanted something that people really couldn’t get here. We decided that lots of our ideas were too messy and cumbersome to walk with to work. I think that some Velveeta Rotel queso would dazzle quite nicely but Mike wasn’t keen on schleping a crock pot all over London. Enchiladas were a possibility but they are quite messy and I think they are best in a Mexican themed dinner not just random international potluck- enchiladas and curry anyone? Yesterday I decided to make biscuits and breakfast sausage for dinner (Thursdays are brinner night at the fish &chips & salsa casa) and Mike said that was perfect and what he wanted to take to the luncheon! Londoners LOVE sausage but all the sausage here is in link form- sausage patties are nonexistent. The only place you can find them is McDonalds breakfast menu and those will do in a pinch, but I love me some Owens and/or Jimmy Dean. I have experimented with making some sausage before and the flavor was good but I used extra lean pork mince and extra lean does not sausage make. I went to the store and bought some unflavored pork sausage meat and that worked much better. So last night I fried up about 3 pounds of homemade breakfast sausage made from Homesick Texan’s awesome recipe: Breakfast Sausage.  Put it in Ziploc containers and put it in the fridge. Here’s one:

Biscuits here are cookies. I think the closest thing to American biscuits are plain scones but they are usually sweeter than I think they should be and just a little off. There is not a Grands can o’ biscuits to be found in the country (if there is please let me know). So we learned to make them ourselves soon after we moved because living for years sans biscuits is not an existence that I care to contemplate. This morning I got up and made a giant batch and sent them in a big bowl covered with a pretty towel!

We also made some gravy to send and I sacrificed some of my Welch’s grape jelly (no grape jelly in London- I don’t understand either). Mike is excited about the lunch and getting to share one of his favorites with his friends and I am excited that I swiped some biscuits for my own breakfast!

Greenwich

People always ask us about our travels and we love talking about them, but lately people have been asking us where all we have seen in England. We usually just look at each other and try and change the subject- let’s talk about Germany! or Spain! Because we really haven’t seen much of England. Mike has been to Stonehenge a few times with other people but that’s about it. So we are going to start trying to take some day trips to see the sights. We decided to start small and headed out to Greenwich on Sunday. We have lived here a year and haven’t stood on the Prime Meridian. For Shame! It was a beautiful day so we packed a picnic lunch and headed to the train station.

There is really a decent bit to do in Greenwich. We went to a market and then headed up the hill to the Royal Observatory. We didn’t go the the National Maritime Museum but I think we will try and get to it one day. The Royal Observatory was more interesting than I thought it would be. There was a ton of history about astronomy, telescopes, and even clocks. Honestly, I appreciated the development of clock because it was really interesting but I looked at some of their big ornate clocks and I feel confident that I’ve seen better. It is one area in which I am quite hard to impress. We couldn’t take pictures in any of the museum rooms. I did stop to get the obligatory Prime Meridian picture:

Confession: that is the Prime Meridian but not the classic picture spot- the line for that was over an hour and I don’t care that much.

After we thoroughly explored the observatory, we headed down the hill between the observatory and the museum for a picnic!

We laid on the blanket and read our books for awhile before heading down to tour the Queen’s House. View from our picnic blanket:

The Queen’s House is beautiful and has a great gallery and we spend a bit of time going through there. It is later in the afternoon and we decide to walk to the river and stop a a little pub to sit and watch the river for a bit (full disclosure: I read- water is water). The Greenwich Market is still open and we meander through the stalls getting some treats and laughing at the things people sell. Then we head back home and crash on the couch completely exhausted. Our first exploring day trip was a definite success!

Pardon our Mess…

…we’re redecorating. I have been messing with the site but I didn’t like the last format- things were too small and weirdly colored. I am playing around so whatever bizarre shape the site is in today, just ignore it. All the entries should be the same. I’ll have a new real post up tonight. Happy Monday!

And if anyone knows a graphic designer/photoshopper who could help me with a better header/banner please let me know!