The reason I haven’t had enough headspace to think about a proper post is that I’ve been dogsitting (Hooray, dogs!) and by extention, housesitting. I decided not to bring my computer over to the house so I could get some reading and knitting done instead of some being distracted by technology. Anyway, the most amusing part of said dogsitting so far was Gabriel, the 9-year-old black lab, half whining, half snarling at the TV during a particularly dreadful toilet paper commercial which employs CG puppies in the roles of normal human beings. He was clearly just as disgusted at the trend as Scott and I. See, dogs really ARE smart. And they know crap when they see it.

Just before I left our flat to take up residence with the dogs, I upgraded my macbook pro, which had still been running OS X Tiger, to Snow Leopard. I also cleaned it up nice and shiny with the cleaning kit I bought at the same time as the upgrade. I haven’t had a chance to really put it all to the test yet, but the whole thing was a result of convincing myself at the last minute that I did NOT yet need a new computer, I just needed to do a little sprucing up.

Freddie Macury has been running well for over 4 years now (eat that, every PC laptop me and every other member of my family has ever owned!) and I think he’s still got some life in him yet. So I’ve decided to hold out as long as possible. That way I’ll get an even better new computer when the time comes. In the meantime, I think it’s also time to change my desktop wallpaper, as it’s been the same for nearly as long as I’ve had the computer (a misty view from Calton Hill). I may get some extra memory to speed it up a bit if I can find it cheap. I think going from 1GB to 2GB will make all the difference I need at the moment.

In other news, Scott and I are going to London this weekend as a result of cheap-as-hell train tickets. We got a nice-ish hotel room, using Christmas money from my grandmas to extend our budget so we could stay somewhere much nicer than we normally would. And I have grand food-related plans for the trip. I also want to go to the V&A, since I’ve never been. Look at all the cool stuff they’ve got on at the moment!

I don’t generally love London, but there are a lot of shops there that are nowhere else (especially for the big-footed), and LOADS of good food going on. Here’s what’s on the list this time around:

Wahaca
Originally, we were going to try the Chipotle that opened in London. But then I read a bunch of reviews from people with Chipotle love stating that A) it’s way overpriced, even for London, and B) it’s not up to Chipotle standard. So then I stumbled across Wahaca, which looks tasty and well-priced.

Barbecoa
We were going to go back to Jamie’s Italian, but I discovered one opened in Glasgow, so it’s close by now. And then I discovered the man opened a meat and fire restaurant and obviously, I have to try it if possible.

Greenwich Market
For some kind of crazy market food.

Meantime Brewery
Beer, of course.

La Fromagerie
Wine and cheese. Go to the website just to watch the cows walk across the screen. Cows!

Bagels in Brick Lane
I have to see if they’re as good as they’re supposed to be.

Vapiano
As always, I can’t resist. I love the place.

And then I thought, quite rightly, ‘you know what would go well with that? KUMARA FRIES!’ But as I am not in New Zealand, sweet potato fries would have to suffice. So I stopped at Tattie Shaws and grabbed some sweet potatoes and sweet chilli dipping sauce ( I can’t make everything myself), then went home and got on with the fry-makin’.

Raison D'Etre and sweet potato fries. I'm pretty sure this is what they're talking about when they say 'just like heaven'.

People, it was the best idea I’ve ever had on a Friday afternoon. And I think I’ll be doing it more often (mind you, with different beer, because I don’t think I’ll be lucky enough to have my Dogfish Head all the time, but no matter). And because Scott decided to go to the pub after work, I will shamelessly admit that I ended up polishing off the whole lot of these fries myself. Something he was none too pleased about. But faced with the other half of a bowl of piping hot, homemade sweet potato fries, I think you’d do the same. Don’t ever make more of these things than you should reasonably be eating, because you will not ‘have leftovers’.

If you do want to make some of your own sweet potato fries, don’t think it’s difficult. You basically slice up a sweet potato into fry-type shapes, toss in some olive oil (and I like to add a ton of black pepper), and bake ‘em in one layer on a cookie sheet at full whack in the oven for about 10 minutes on each side. Adjust to your particular taste for slightly burnt (read: carmelised) outsides, and dip in your preferred stuff before consuming. I use sweet chilli sauce and greek yoghurt (in place of sour cream), because that’s how we had our kumara fries in New Zealand, and it kind of gives you two different taste options.

Saturday, the food goodness continued with a trip to the farmers’ market for lunch. We got some buffalo burgers from Puddledub and scarfed them down standing up. The only way to do it.

When we were back home, I made some bread in the bread machine we acquired from Scott’s parents when they moved to Canada. It’s a great thing to have, but it’s so big that we have to store it in the closet, so I don’t use it as much as I’d like to. However, I had the other half of a bag of malthouse flour, and I had big plans for this bread.

Sunday morning, I woke up and made some EPIC french toast with my homemade bread. Big, fat slices of the stuff topped with proper Canadian maple syrup and the tastiest bacon around (again, from Puddledub). Fresh coffee for Scott (from Italy even!), a cup of tea for me, and orange juice (unfortunately, not fresh from one of those crazy fresh squeezed OJ machines with all the moving bits, but we can’t have everything, can we). I love french toast, half because it’s so good, and half because I’m hopeless at pancakes, but french toast I can DO. I think next time, I need to explore making it with some kind of crazy bread. Maybe with fruit in it. Who knows. But the homemade bread was definitely the right thing to do.

I don’t really have a recipe for french toast. I just watched my dad do it and absorbed. It’s a bunch of eggs, some milk, a little sugar, and, for me at least, more cinnamon than anyone should have the business putting in anything. Dip bread, fry in butter, keep warm in oven, douse with more maple syrup than your mother would say was good for you. And preferably serve with bacon. I’ve also made baked french toast before. With Grand Marnier in it. It’s not quite as good as the basic stuff, but I think I’ll have to try it again sometime soon anyway. Perhaps at a breakfast-for-dinner party.

For lunch, we were at the Foodies Festival in Holyrood Park because we had free tickets. It was sort of lame. And by sort of lame, I mean not nearly enough free samples going on, especially as people who actually had to pay dropped £10 on admission. We did get some good sausages and I replenished my supply of citrus pepper and some other awesome blends from the Organic Blending Company, but that’s about it. We left to go to the pub for a beer so we wouldn’t haemorrhage any more cash.

I used the garlic pepper I bought on some lamb neck fillets for dinner and made potato salad with cumin and lemon, based on a recent recipe on Everybody Likes Sandwiches. We had no greens, so I cut up some apples to go with it all. Simple, tasty end to the kind of food weekend I wish I had more often.

*Cornelius is so good, it got me to join twitter. (Me! Twitter! Unheard of!) Solely to receive beer updates via text. It was so worth it.

Since then:

I’ve been to London where I raided Borough market for the first time, wandered around the city eating raw asparagus all day, went to the Tate and the History museum, and had some good times with friends.

Beer a-plenty.

We went to Germany for a whole week, and I did not send a single postcard, but did drink a lot of beer and eat a lot of giant pretzels and pork products. And also a lot of asparagus. ’tis the season. Pictures on my flickr.

We transformed our boxroom into a respectable (and green) walk-in closet, thus freeing up a lot of space in our flat.

I started Yoga. It’s good stuff.

We’ve seen three movies at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, including Moon, Mary and Max, and Away We Go. I managed to not abduct John Krasinski. I also did not see Sean Connery. All of these movies were really good. Especially Mary and Max and Away We Go. We’ll be seeing The Maiden Heist tomorrow night.

I have designed two websites, both sort of unfinished, but: For Bunny Sake Rabbit Rescue, Zero Hour Theatre

I have also changed the theme of this blog in hopes that not worrying about the design would allow me to worry more about actually using the thing. I’m going to start posting more in this thing. Or at least I’m going to try.

I tend to miss it a lot, and not in the way that I want to go back and live it again, because reading The Great Gatsby often enough (and, you know, living life) will pound into your head that such things aren’t possible. No. I miss it more in the way of remembering how awesome a time I had for four years and then being a bit jealous of myself, and then a little annoyed because maybe I didn’t appreciate it quite as much as I should have at the time. But no one ever does, because if they’re anything like me, they’re having too much fun to notice. As it should be.

May Day, just like Birthday Ball, is a major Washington College holiday. For those of you who have no idea of the traditions of my alma mater (and why should you?), May Day is generally known as a time of naked dancing around the flagpole. Usually at midnight. And usually large quantities of alcohol are involved. But I don’t really associate May Day with nudity alone. (I never did participate in that particular element anyway.) I associate it more with the general happiness that the semester is over, your work is (mostly) done, and it’s time to sit on Middle porch with some beer and some friends and some bullshit. And one year, a makeshift barbecue of Foreman grill proportions. I feel like that’s a particular feeling you don’t get very often in life, and even less so outside of college.

In any case, because I’m at work waiting impatiently for the metaphorical bell to ring so I can get on a train to London for a weekend break, I’m wiling away my time trolling through the WAC website looking at all the stuff I miss about sunny Chestertown. And pining. Maybe not for my college days in particular, but just for that ‘Hey, it’s summer and this beer is good and I’m not really concerned about anything else right now’ feeling. Because it’s a good one.