Don’t forget the brolly!

Perhaps it’s lack of inspiration that’s driving me to write about the weather, or perhaps I’m just taking up a much-beloved English pastime. Your average Englishman does relish the opportunity to discuss and have a laugh over the local weather. Or maybe it’s just that unpredictable weather patterns over the past three weeks have left their mark on my psyche. But I now officially confirm the cliche that English weather is unpredictable, and that it’s always a good idea to carry your umbrella. In the words of the locals: “This is England.” And yes, those words have been uttered in my presence.

If the past few weeks are an accurate reflection, it is not unusual in the course of the day to alternate between bright sunny blue skies and three minutes of heavy rain every hour or two for a continuous 24-hour period. A rain storm will often approach rather suddenly and then just as suddenly end, leaving fluffy white cumulous clouds and a particularly English blue in its wake. Jason and I have found ourselves lying down for a brief nap on a rainy afternoon, when the clouds looked as if they’d set in to stay a few hours, only to reemerge thirty minutes later to sunshine and happily twittering birds.

When my sister came to visit last week, I wasn’t quite sure what to recommend in terms of dress. English forecasters are notoriously oblique. A typical weather forecast might read: “Sunny spells with occasional heavy showers.” Eh? And just to hedge their bets: “Clear skies interrupted by the odd spot of rain.” One needn’t bother with percentages or anything more specific. You just count on clear skies, pack the brolly and duck inside when a five-minute hail storm arrives. As indeed it did just an hour before I was moved to compose this post.

Lately, we’ve been alternating between gorgeous clear days at comfortable 60-degree temperatures and frigid days with sleet or heavy snow. Indeed we awakened on Easter morning to a snow-covered garden, though of course by the afternoon, the snow had melted and the sun was out. My sister probably didn’t expect to see London blanketed in snow the first week of April, but she had the privilege of seeing it this past Sunday nonetheless. And I must say, it was beautiful to see London’s streets covered in snow, and the air felt clean and crisp afterwards.

I find myself regularly emailing Jason at the archives with a weather status update, especially before lunch, so that he knows whether to hurry home to beat the impending hail storm or to stay put until the rain stops. His reading room has very small windows that don’t allow much chance for a peek outside. Now back home, staying put until the rain ends might result in a long day or overnight stay at the library or archives, but in England, a lengthy rainstorm is quite rare. So even if the forecasts do occasionally sound as noncommittal as a fortune cookie, they ring true for the most part.

Yesterday I watched an approaching storm with some fascination. It looked to be a powerful storm. It was a windy day, and the dark clouds encroached on the blue skies over Kew at an amazingly quick pace. I caught sight of a magpie sitting in the top branches of a tall tree behind the rail tracks. He balanced gracefully on the swaying branch, flicking his blue-accented tail feathers, seemingly unperturbed by the intensifying winds and the lightning cracking behind him. I was captivated by the beauty of the scene, though I thought he’d put himself in a bit of a precarious position. Magpies are the bullies of the London bird kingdom, but one has to admire their boldness and tenacity. He didn’t budge from his teetering perch until the hail set in, and then he flew for cover. Unfortunately on this particular day, my email warning Jason to come home for lunch right away to avoid the storm was received a bit late. He left to walk home just as the hail storm began and trudged home with the protection of our rather pathetic, broken umbrella (a casualty of a previous storm). He arrived fairly soaked. Luckily, I had some tea brewing, and by the time lunch ended, he walked back under blue English skies.

Well, I just saw a gray squirrel run by carrying a slice of bread the size of his entire body in his mouth. He hopped onto our garden shed and then tried to leap onto the lower branch of the tree next to it. Things looked a little dicey for him as he tottered on the branch for a moment, but he seems to have caught his balance and moved along. He probably has no idea what season it is and just keeps storing up for the winter. A magpie just flew by with a branch in his beak. I think I’ll just watch the creatures and the clouds for awhile before preparing dinner. I should probably email Jason to tell him to come home from the archives. It looks like it might rain.

-HDE

Fox on a Hot Tin Roof

OK, it wasn’t really a hot tin roof. It was a warm asphalt shingle roof, perfect for napping on a cool but sunny Sunday afternoon. Yes, we caught one of our local red foxes wandering around the back garden and were then surprised (and I must say, delighted) to see her hop onto a statue, then the fence and onto the roof of the shed. 

 She soon settled in for a snooze, her ears occasionally perking at the sounds of birds or the woman in the next door garden. She did lift her head to observe a couple of fat pigeons who wandered into the garden unwittingly. But after a week of running about in the cold, rain and snow (and I spotted her a couple of times, looking wet and pathetic), she seemed content to lie in the sun.  

 As we’ve noted previously, a family of foxes lives behind our garden. These are urban-savvy foxes, who wander along the tracks of the Underground, occasionally dodging into the bushes for cover. Today, our napping fox seemed unphased by the planes flying to Heathrow overhead or by the regular passing of the Underground. This is a scene you’d encounter only in London.

Our fox friend rested for a little over an hour and then climbed down off the shed and wandered west along the tracks. We’ll likely see her and her companion wander by again in the morning while we’re having our cornflakes. We’re becoming quite fond of our local foxes.

 -HDE

A Day at the Cecil Homeplace

We made a trip Easter Monday to Hatfield House, a place of great significance in Tudor history, since it has been home to the Cecil family for 400 years. The most famous of the Cecils is William Cecil, who served as Queen Elizabeth I’s chief minister and was granted the hereditary title Lord Burghley as a reward for being such a capable and loyal advisor.  He was arguably the second-most important political figure in England during the second half of the sixteenth century. We were invited to visit the house by an old friend of J’s from his days studying at St. Andrews, and when we arrived, we discovered that she had assembled a group of friends including an art historian of decorative woodwork, an artist, a horticulturalist and an IT consultant (ok, so perhaps he doesn’t seem the obvious choice, but he was still good company).

Hatfield House is about a thirty-minute train ride outside of London in some pretty countryside. The oldest palace on the estate was the childhood home of Henry VIII’s children Mary, Elizabeth and Edward. Elizabeth was confined to Hatfield during Mary’s turbulent reign, and according to historical legend, was informed of Mary’s death and of her accession to the throne beneath an oak tree on the property (which sadly died a few years ago). The most prominent building on the property is the palace completed in 1611 by Robert Cecil, the son of William Cecil (or Lord Burghley). Robert Cecil was conferred with the title 1st Earl of Salisbury and made an exchange with James I to gain the rights to Hatfield. Unfortunately, he demolished three-quarters of the old palace to build a more lavish home and temporarily used the Banqueting Hall of the old palace as a stable.

The descendants of the Cecil family still live at Hatfield House. They treat it as a living house with layers of history rather than as a museum, so the arrangement of the rooms and the art displayed are apt to change from time to time. The rooms are filled with framed portraits of many generations of Cecils and the current owners (who are especially fond of being photographed with their dogs and a favorite family hog). But the palace is tastefully and respectfully maintained, and the family’s art collection (particularly the collection of paintings) is incredible. Incidentally, Sir John Francis Amherst Cecil married Cornelia Vanderbilt in the early 20th century, joining two prominent families, and moved to the Biltmore Estate at Asheville, NC.

From the outside, Hatfield House is stately,cold and unadorned, but its interior is sumptuous and lavish with intricately carved staircases, plaster ceilings covered in gold leaf, marble floors and mantles, and colorful tapestries. The most interesting rooms in the house were the were the Marble Hall, the King’s Drawing Room and the Library. The Marble Hall, at the entry of the house, has remained much as Robert Cecil designed it in 1607, and its remarkable black and white marble floor, 17th-century Brussels tapestries and elaborate ceiling make it a visually exciting introduction to Hatfield. It also holds the famous Rainbow portrait of Elizabeth I, named for the Latin motto painted next to Elizabeth, celebrating the peace she brought to England (translated: No rainbow without the sun).

The King’s Drawing room features many paintings set against tapestries. It was named for a life-size statute which King James I presented as a gift when he visited Hatfield in 1611. This gift likely would have made quite an impression. Imagine the response: “Oh bother! I guess we’ll need to display it prominently somewhere.” And indeed, it stands on the mantle at the center of the room (perhaps James suggested it himself). The famous Ermine portrait of Elizabeth also hangs in this room. Notice the lovely ermine on Elizabeth’s sleeve. Jason assured me that it wasn’t the favored pet at court but a symbol of the purity of the queen. 

In the library, we admired the close to ten thousand books stacked from ceiling to floor, many of them dating from the sixteenth century. From here, we also caught a glimpse of the west gardens and of Old Hatfield Palace. Some heavy snow flurries outside made the room rather atmospheric.

After a hearty English lunch of roast chicken and a couple of unrecognizable items (perhaps one was mash), we wandered into the gardens for a nice view of the old red brick palace (built in the late fifteenth-century) where Elizabeth spent her childhood. The Banqueting Hall, where she called her first Council meeting, is all that remains of the old palace. The brickwork was simply beautiful. The deep red hue of the old palace against the green of the surrounding gardens added a nice bit of color on a wintry day,  and I thought it much better suited to the setting than the larger palace. Apparently, now it’s sometimes rented out for wedding receptions (if only we’d known!).

We finished the day with some tea and conversation and returned to London by train.

Check back for pictures soon!

-HDE

Happy Easter!

To all our friends and loved ones we can’t be with today, the traditional Easter greeting.

Christ is risen!

Happy Easter everyone!

JEE

$20,000 Lemon-Blueberry Cupcakes

By request, here’s the recipe I mentioned in my earlier post. To give credit where its due, I should say that this recipe was developed by Gloria Bradley from Illinois, who did indeed win a grand prize worth $20,000 from Cooking Light. I’ll let you judge whether a simple cupcake merited such a prize.

Cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour, divided
10 tbsp granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 large egg
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk (or if feeling utterly indulgent, go with the full-fat version, mmm, but then show some restraint!)
1/2 cup 2% milk
1 tsp grated lemon rind
3/4 cup fresh blueberries

Frosting:
1/4 cup (2 oz.) reduced fat (not fat free) cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp butter, softened
1 tsp grated lemon rind
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour plus 1 tbsp flour, granulated sugar, and next three ingredients in large bowl. Keep aside 1 tbsp flour.
3. Combine melted butter and egg in another large bowl; stir with whisk.  Add buttermilk, milk and 1 tsp rind to butter mixture and stir with whisk.
4. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.
5. Toss blueberries with 1 tbsp of reserved flour (this keeps them from breaking in the batter). Fold blueberries into batter. Spoon batter into 12 prepared muffin cups.
6. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. 
7. For frosting, place cream cheese and next four ingredients in a bowl and beat with mixer on medium speed just until blended. Gradually add in powdered sugar. Stir in juice. Spread frosting evenly over cooled cupcakes and garnish with blueberries. It’s best to store them, covered, in the refrigerator.

Enjoy! 

 -HDE

The English Library

I recently had a funny little experience that reminded me of some of the pleasures of living in England. I went to one of the local academic libraries looking for a version of John Stow’s Chronicles, an extremely popular early modern English text that was reissued and updated by Stow and others for decades in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. I had an inexact reference I was trying to track down (and am still trying to track down) and this library had a copy of the 1631 edition – a good enough place to start. So I went through the usual rigmarole of trying to track this book down (Dewey apparently didn’t make it across the Atlantic) and finally pulled a non-descript book off the shelf and cracked it open.

Much to my surprise, I found it was a copy from 1631, not a modern copy of the 1631 edition! It had just been rebound in a modern binding and was sitting there in gothic black type, complete with early modern graffiti and marginalia as well. Not too often you happen to pluck a 377 year-old book from the shelves back home!

JEE

Finding Domestic Bliss in London

Life has been good for us here, and I’m sure you’ve all been wondering how we’ve managed to create a situation of domestic bliss out of a humble flat of around 140 square feet and a limited budget (which felt quite insulted by the current exchange rate). Those of you who are raising children or who have already raised children may be snickering derisively to yourselves. Regardless, I thought I’d share some of the things we’ve learned.

First, let’s talk about laundry. When we arrived here, we were pleased to find a little combo washer/dryer in our kitchen. I’ve never seen a machine of this size that claims to both wash and dry your clothes (this is not the only occasion when a Brit would feel compelled to sigh and pat me on the head with condescending affection), and I admit that I was optimistic. It even had an “eco-sense” button. I’m still not exactly sure what it does, but it sure feels like I’m doing some good when I push it. The next two weeks involved a series of experiments and fruitless investigations in an effort to get the dryer actually to work. When we brought this situation to the attention of our landlady, she figuratively shrugged and said it’d always worked before. No doubt.

Luckily, in Europe, they prefer to heat their homes with radiators (we hear the boiler in our bathroom click on and off continually), and I have learned to put the three radiators in our flat to good use as surrogate dryers. Even if our jeans do feel like cardboard (and purportedly J’s boxers too) when you first put them on, I still feel that we have made the most of a challenging situation. Of course, the size of the machine, and the space limitations of our radiators mean that laundry has to be done in very small loads on a regular, rotating basis. We’ve learned to get the absolute most wear possible out of our clothes, which in a sense, is a very good thing. One side-note: if you’ve never experienced the house-shaking power of the spin-cycle on a European washer, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Cooking and baking in the UK can be very satisfying, but some patience is required. J and I find ourselves commenting, “Wow, we just had a great meal for under ten pounds. We’d have paid at least fifty pounds for that at a restaurant.” This little game hasn’t gotten old yet. Since the flat we initially were planning to move into had only a 2-unit hob (British for stove) and a microwave, we were thrilled to be able to change to one with a full oven (albeit small), a 4-unit hob and a slightly roomier mini-fridge. The mini aspect of the fridge and the lack of a car mean that I shop regularly (probably every other day), but that’s ok because it’s a short walk, and it means we keep a lot of fresh produce around. Kew Village, with its shops and wholefood markets, makes the errands really pleasant. Since you pack your own groceries, I have also taken pride in becoming a speed-packer who makes the financial transaction with one hand while simultaneously packing up the milk and eggs with the other. I even finally have the local coinage down. I think my slowness in seeking out a twenty- or ten-pence was a cause of some mild embarrassment for J a time or two, who takes his mastery of the currency for granted.

To their credit, the British are committed to buying locally (and often organically) grown and raised produce and meats, and we feel good about the quality of what we’re eating. We’ve never seen more beautiful eggs. They also have a weakness for buying fairtrade products from third-world farmers, one which is exploited to advantage by stores across London, which are sure to stock their shelves with imported products marked fairtrade.  Although I find it a bit contradictory to sell fairtrade green onions air-freighted from Kenya next to locally grown fennel, I realize that the “buy local” and fairtrade movements are motivated by different concerns. And, well, “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” to misuse Emerson. Anyway, I admit that it makes me feel better about our consuming, whether or not it is indeed benefiting third world farmers. I do hope that it is.

As an American, I’ve grown accustomed to very well-stocked supermarkets (arguably over-stocked). But there have been a few amusing occasions when it required trips to three or four different markets to track down ingredients like buttermilk (doesn’t that just sound English? I was perplexed) or dill, not to mention chipotles or corn tortillas (which J craves from time to time).

Back to cooking. Our hob units and oven have a tendency to ignore the heat settings. If you want to bring a pot to a boil and then decrease it to a nice, comfortable simmer, you must content yourself with a rolling boil for a good twenty minutes before getting to that perfect simmer. This caused us a few unpleasant surprises at first. The oven can be a bit finicky as well, and I don’t want to discuss what happened during my attempt to bake my mom’s renowned coffee cake. But we’ve adjusted to the whims of the appliances. Cooking and eating well together is something that we value as a couple, and we’ve enjoyed some wonderful meals. One of the advantages of living on an island is the ready availability of good fish at good prices. We’ve taken to eating fish two or more times a week. I usually also try to bake something once a week. I did have success with some lemon-scented blueberry cupcakes with cream cheese icing. The lemon and blueberry combination works really well, and the buttermilk makes them moist and delicious. The woman who developed the recipe was awarded 20,000 dollars by Cooking Light, so if that’s not a recommendation, I don’t know what is.

If you are interested in the recipe, let me know, and I can send or post it. I wish I also had a photo of J eating his cupcake. Yes, they were that good.

Anyway, thanks for reading this long, rambling post. My advanced writing professor in college would have described its tone as irritatingly affected. I hope you didn’t find it so. To sum up, I should say that we live well, find humor in the few slight inconveniences and are very thankful for this adventure.

-HDE

Short product review: iTunes movies

One of the things we miss in London is easy access to movies. At home we generally watch a movie or two a week, so we feel the lack of a decent TV and DVD player, although there are certainly worse fates. As a result we’ve been reading more and taking more walks, although it still gets dark early this far north. A much healthier life, but we do still miss sitting down and watching a movie together.

It is far too expensive to actually go to the movies here – at 10 GBP per ticket that would be a $40 investment – so no thanks, mate. Instead we have turned to watching DVDs on our laptops, which isn’t a bad alternative. Unfortunately, there is no movie rental store anywhere in the vicinity, and we are hesitant to sign up for the local version of Netflix, which we might do anyway once we get desperate enough. We brought some DVDs, but not nearly enough to last us the entire trip (or even through March). So when iTunes began trumpeting its new movie rental service, I was intrigued.

I have mixed feelings about iTunes and the iPod. It is a brilliant piece of machinery, and has done much to revolutionize my school and study experience. With the right headphones and my iPod, I can study anywhere, even though I usually prefer crypt-like silence. In the end, I can study more and be less distracted while I do it, which has been beneficial in grad school. But despite the fact that I use them almost daily, iPod & iTunes are more of a love-hate thing for me. What I don’t like are the restrictions iTunes puts on how you use your music, and proprietary formats really turn me off.  If I buy something, and I’m not abusing copyright laws, I don’t like the company telling me how to use my purchase.

But here we are in London, who knows how far from the nearest DVD rental place, and iTunes is offering us the opportunity to watch any movie we want. We took the bait. The download was easy enough, and fast with the connection we have - under 30 minutes for the whole movie. What sticks in the craw is the price: $3.99 for a 24 hour rental. Once you have downloaded the movie, you have 30 days to watch it, but once you touch it you only have 24 hours until it expires. I’m not really sure who the intended audience is at this price level. $4.oo for a one off rental isn’t great, at least not for anyone who has access to Netflix or a traditional brick and mortar store.  So unless you don’t have access to Netflix or a rental store, or have a really long trip coming up, I’m not sure why you would pop for it. 

The other rub: sound quality. I’m hardly an audiophile, but sound is important to me (perhaps because I’m already losing my hearing). The sound quality on the movie we rented, 3:10 to Yuma, was execrable. There was a number of times we had to stop and back up to pick up a bit of dialogue we missed, and the whole audioscape had a washed out, tinny sound to it that did nothing for the movie experience. It would’ve been OK with headphones, which is probably what the vast majority of people do, but for two people sitting in front of the laptop, it was worse than usual. We get significantly better sound with a DVD in the DVD player. In the end, I’d say don’t bother with the new movie rental service on iTunes, unless you have a long journey ahead of you and don’t trust the in-flight movies or like the scenery. The price isn’t a deal breaker, but it’s not so good that we aren’t still thinking about getting a Netflix account while we are here.

JEE

Old Friends

One of the joys of living in a huge international city is the people you get to see. Not just the various local exotics either. “Old Smoke” is one of those places where you can pretty much count on knowing someone there. Whether it is a friend of a friend, friends passing through or friends living locally, there is often someone around, and the last two weekends I’ve been particularly lucky to catch up with a couple of old college friends. I had been in touch with a good friend and former roommate, Sam, who is living and going to school here in London. We had traded emails awhile back about getting together on this side of the pond. It hadn’t yet happened when two weekends ago I received an email out of the blue from another old friend and roomate from college, Wilson. Wilson was swinging through town for an extended weekend to visit a friend for his birthday, and had gotten in touch with Sam, who in turn got in touch with me.  So Holly and I met up with Wilson and Sam two weeks ago in a pub near Tower Bridge. The place was packed with the local punters watching a rugby match, and with England beating up on France, the mood was quite jovial. So we were able to hang out for a couple hours with Sam, Wilson and his friend Eric, and it was great to catch up with some old brothers that I had not seen for years. While much has obviously changed over the last ten years (yikes) it was still a lot of fun to hang out and shoot the breeze with those two.

Wilson was only here for the weekend and moved on, but we were able to spend some more time with Sam and his wife, Elaine, at a housewarming party they had last weekend. Both the food and the company were awesome. As with anyone hosting a party, we didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with Sam or Elaine, but Sam is in an international program, and virtually everyone we met was from a different country. We had a great time spending time with people from Switzerland, Denmark, Greece, Cyprus, Australia, the UK and the States. Nothing like a backyard grillout, 4,000 miles from home!

JEE

A Chorizo Rhapsody

It didn’t begin as a quest for chorizo, but it did end with thirty-feet queue for a chorizo sandwich. On Saturday morning, we decided to make a visit to Borough Market, which has been a thriving market (London’s oldest) since the Middle Ages, perhaps even earlier than that, since it’s located near London Bridge. But this trip wasn’t about history really. It was about food. London’s best organic produce and gourmet markets can be found at Borough Market on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, as long as you’re not intimidated by the crowds. The market is not London’s best-kept secret, so shoulder to shoulder pedestrian traffic and walking at a careful shuffle, dodging food-laden baskets, are the norm on a late Saturday morning.

We decided to earn the day’s indulgences with a brisk walk along the south bank of the Thames. So we started at the south bank, near the London Aquarium and County Hall, and walked towards Southwark, where Borough Market is located. Along the way, we passed an outdoor book market, the Tate Modern (now housed in a mid-twentieth-century power station), the Millenium Bridge, the rebuilt Globe Theatre and the site of the Clink Prison. We could view St. Paul’s Cathedral across the Thames in the distance.

We reached Southwark Cathedral to find its yard crowded with visitors of the market eating treats picked up from Borough vendors. Jason commented that the market had grown since he’d visited several years before. Markets and vendors have pushed out beyond the Victorian wrought-iron shed in which the heart of the market is housed.

I’ll resist giving you a play by play of our adventures in the market, but our tour of Turkish olives is worth special mention. The owner of the stall immediately noticed our awe and bewilderment when confronted with about twenty varietals of Turkish olives. “Are you confused?” he asked, and when we admitted with a laugh that we were, he responded wryly, “Well, it would be quite a bit easier if there were only one kind to choose from, I imagine.” Quite. He proceeded to pepper us (a bit impatiently) with questions about our olive preferences. “Well, high or low oil content? Fleshy or firm? Salty or lemony?” To his credit, he encouraged us to try half a dozen types of olives and seemed genuinely pleased to do so and sent us away feeling excited about our selection of Turkish olives. Now we just needed some bread and cheese (and chorizo) to enhance the experience.

We picked up some Welsh cheese, organic bread from a man sporting a “Bread not Bombs” t-shirt, some organic crispy bacon that we hope will taste less like Canadian bacon, and finally made it to a stall selling specialty Basque sausages. “For eating or cooking?” inquired the vendor. Without hesitation, Jason answered, “For eating” and was handed half of a three-feet-long cured piece of chorizo sausage. Nearby we caught a whiff of chorizo on the grill and found our way to the end of the winding queue for chorizo sandwiches.

A picture may convey better than description the great satisfaction that this chorizo sandwich brought Jason:

 

We’re already planning our next trip to Borough Market, though we may try to go on Friday or early Saturday morning to avoid the crowds.

HDE