Harry Potter and food

Harry Potter is done.

I'm not really sad, in truth, I feel sort of relieved. I don't like waiting for authors to publish the next book in a series. One of the other guys I'm reading likes taking at least two years to get the next book out because he spends too much time going to conventions and crap.

Anyway. I won't say anything about the book, so don't worry. I'm happy it's over. Now I can get back to reading other things, like Umberto Eco or Faulker.

But, before I can do that, I'm going to catch up with this first. Because it's something near and dear to my heart, and I love making it, I'm going to talk about food first.

First of all, I have never had so many different ethnicities to choose from. Everything from Portuguese to Nepalese. It's amazing. I've decided that I really enjoy Indian food. And fish and chips.

However, as I suspected, Mexican food is sorely under-represented here. The first week I got here, I didn't have tons of dinner ideas, so I figured I'd just fix fajitas one Tuesday night since most of the Mexican food I make is super-quick and super-easy. They were such a hit with Julian and Conrad, that it was declared that every Tuesday night should be Mexican night. In the grocery store, Mexican food fixings can be found in the "World Foods" section between Thai food spices and Indian food spices, and it gets about six feet of shelf space spread out over three shelves. You can buy do-it-yourself nacho kits, complete with instructions! And everything is Old El Paso brand. Auntie-Claus, if you read this, I desperately need Sadie's!!! Even the spicy salsa here is bland and too heavy on tomato paste.

And while one might think that you could make a fortune by opening a legitimate Mexican food restaurant, you'd never be able to serve anything truly spicy and manage to be successful. Oddly enough, one of the mini-grocery stores carries Tabasco, so I bought some to pep things up this week. As I shook some out onto my burrito, Julian made this terrible strangling gasping noise as though he had started to choke on something. Turns out it was just shock at how much Tabasco I put on my food. Conrad had a friend spending the night, so the two boys had a competition to see who could put more drops on their food. The competition stopped after two drops. Drops. Not tablespoons, not teaspoons, drops. This inability to handle spicy food is a bit confusing when you take into account the popularity of Thai and Indian foods. The curries from both groups can be painfully spicy, and I've had Thai food that sends me running for milk and TUMS. Somehow it just doesn't get translated over to Mexican food. Oh well. So long as I can get the necessary ingredients to make it for myself, I'm not too worried about the lack of El Toritos here.

I am happy to report that the burgers here are pretty much on par with the burgers back home. But then again, it's pretty hard to screw up a hamburger. I will say that I have found that I prefer English chips to American French Fries. I'm tempted to stop into a McDonald's to see if the fries are the same, but who wants to go to McDonalds when you can get fish and chips?

Speaking of fast food joints, I've seen Domino's, Pizza Hut, KFC, and McDonald's. Oh, and Subway. But why the hell you'd pay for Subway when you can walk into any grocery store or go to a Pret a Manger and get THE best readymade sandwich you've ever had in your life for half the price is quite beyond me. Without a doubt, the sandwiches are incredible.

Starbucks was worse than it is in the states. And the guy looked at me blankly when I asked for a venti coffee. I then asked for a large drip coffee. Still got a blank stare. Asked for a filter coffee. Still with the blank stare. I finally resorted to pointed and mouthing "coffee", which actually worked, but then he discovered that there wasn't any ready. Are you kidding? You mean I actually managed to walk into a Starbucks that didn't have any plain black coffee ready to go? Not only that, but the kid didn't even know they didn't have any ready. Unbelievable. And the coffee was crap. But I knew that was going to be the case, I was just a touch homesick that day and thought that chicory-heavy coffee would be just the remedy. Oops. Safe to say, I won't be going back any time soon. Besides, I have since discovered that Caffe Nero makes a fantastic Americano.

Rats. I'm tired and it's late. Tutoring has been going well, and I am very happy that the weekend is very nearly here. I may try and get out this weekend and see some more sights, or at least take an actual day off and get out of the house.

At any rate, time for bed now. Hasta luego!