End of an era

The New York Times is reporting on the biggest retail closure in England since, well, I don't know if there has been a bigger bankruptcy than Woolworths. I posted earlier in the year about how much of my home was outfitted courtesy of Woolies and my relocation budget, and, I felt much like some of the people interviewed for the article: Woolies has everything you need - and don't know you need - cheap, and is always there when you do need it. I got hangers, soup bowls, a bill/paper/file folder organizer thing-y, a spoon rest, kitchen rags, a coat rack, orange juicer... and I probably spent no more than £20 on it all. But Woolies was a nightmare, a complete and utter disaster of a store. If I wasn't tripping over little old ladies with their shopping trolleys, I was avoiding 12 year old school kids flirting by the bulk candy. I'm sad to see it go, because when I need a new drying rack for clothes or more hangers, I'm going to have to trek up to IKEA or take my chances at a pound store - neither option being particularly enjoyable. The Woolies in my neighborhood is slated to become a Waitrose, which will be nice for gourmet treats, but nothing compares to a cheap homegood that serves a negligible purpose but makes you feel like you really found a bargain.

What was I thinking?

It is the Friday before Christmas, mid-day, and I'm just about done - stick a fork in me. My clients are all gone for the holidays and after a presentation this afternoon, I'll really have nothing to do. So why am I sticking around until Christmas Eve?! My Christmas shopping is done, I've gained my Christmas weight thanks to beer and treats, and my office is completely devoid of life. I think there are about 10 of us left until the bitter end. So what possessed me to schedule my flight back to the US for CHRISTMAS EVE?

Seriously, I wonder about my sanity.

Nigella does Christmas

It is Christmas in London, in case you haven't heard. Even if you've managed to avoid the throngs of shoppers and tourists, the twinkly lights, and ALL OF THE MULLED WINE IN PUBS (wheeee!), you cannot miss that it is Christmas because Nigella is presenting her Christmas kitchen every night on BBC2. And I, personally, love it. I love Nigella, her recipes, her sophisticated cooking utensils, and the fact that she is a full-figured woman who loves to eat and has good hair. Plus, hi, I'd like to look like her when I'm of a certain age.

The Brits, however, don't like Nigella. There was a mean drinking game published in a column in the Guardian on Tuesday after Monday's episode, apparently because Nigella's Christmas cooking show has apparently jumped the shark, in American parlance. The Irishman humphed to himself while Nigella made a drunken Christmas brunch in Tuesday's installment, and I'm fearful as to what will happen during tonight's show!

Frankly, I don't get it. I hear that people think she is over-the-top, completely fake, pretending to be a common person when she's really married to a really rich guy. But you know what? I don't care. I LIKE that she makes her cooking show about excess at the holidays, and presents it like a narrative, and champions over-eating during the holidays, and uses big flowery statements to describe what she's creating. I LIKE hearing that the cranberries she adds to her mince mixture will glisten like garnets. That's the POINT of Christmas - sentiment, cheer, and good food, all overdone to the max.

Maybe I'm just American, bred to enjoy spectacle and over-the-top-ness, but so be it. You'll find me curled up on my couch (with tea with milk and a Dairy Milk advent calendar chocolate) every night for the rest of the week, watching Nigella's Christmas Kitchen, and LOVING IT.

Gordon Ramsay, the service in your pub sucked.

Kat and DK are here. WOOT! We had lots of plans for their visit of 8 days, not the least of which was to eat at one of Gordon Ramsay's pubs - The Warrington.

We had reservations for 9pm in the dining room of the pub in Maida Vale. We were all really impressed when we got there, as it was a very elaborately decorated Victorian pub. We were about an hour early for our reservation, so we stayed downstairs for a drink or two before we went upstairs to the dining room. The only thing that would have made the place better was a fire in the fireplace... such a cold night, it would have been perfect! And, while we were there, we saw Mary Portas of GRAZIA and Mary Queen of Shops fame - a celebrity siting!

At 9, we went upstairs and were informed that our table wasn't ready - the diners had finished and were paying the bill, but the hostess couldn't hurry them out. So with a bit of a huff we went back downstairs to the cold bar to wait. About 15 minutes later the hostess came to get us, and we were seated. To be honest, the menu was great and the food (when we got it) was amazing. But the service just went downhill - and it hadn't started out well. Our water glasses weren't refilled, we sat with dirty dishes for what felt like ages, and one of our party had his food come out 10 minutes after everyone else's. By the time we got the dessert menus, we thought we actually would order a third course - but the waitstaff never came over to take our orders, so we just asked for the bill.

I've never asked for the discretionary 12.5% service charge to be removed from a bill, but I did that night. I felt bad for the waiter who actually brought us the bill because he was the only one of the staff who actually seemed to be on the ball and waiting on customers. But I can't just give somebody money who didn't do anything to make our meal better. I also felt bad for Kat and DK - they love Gordon Ramsay and were thrilled to eat food he attached his name to. But he probably should have also made sure to approve the service at the dining room too.

Return to NYC = Twilight Zone

Last week I had a whirlwind business trip to New York for three days. It was absolutely surreal. After a full day of meetings in Amsterdam on Tuesday, I boarded my first British Airways flight to JFK on Wednesday morning. 8+ hours later, I was in New York and in a car stuck in traffic on Park Avenue as tourists choked the sidewalks getting ready for the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. How truly bizarre!

The rest of the week was a whirlwind: dinner with Laura, Jon, and Jeff; reunion with former co-workers; lunch at EAST with Mom and Dad; Belmont Lounge with Dave, Fern (!!!), Rietje, Sam, and Allison; meetings; drinks at the Modern; home. Phew.

Being in New York was really nice, actually: I haven't been away long enough for it to be completely alien. Things still have changed, though - what is this $7.00 for 8 rides Metrocard option? What is going on with the calories on menus? At the same time, though, even as I walked familiar avenues and visited old haunts, it's clear that New York isn't my city anymore. It always will be - I'll always have New York - but London is quickly becoming home. By Friday, I wanted to be in MY bed, in MY apartment, in MY neighborhood. And that was disconcerting unto itself.

Plus, visiting my old office in New York made me really notice the difference between that office and London's office of the same company. I belong to both, and feel at home in both, but can only work for one. While washing dishes the other day it occurred to me that this sentiment is the reality of an expat - feeling at home everywhere, but not having one place to call home. As once moves around the world, one assimilates to each place, picks up a bit and leaves a bit behind.

So what is home? I've been thinking lately that home is where you choose to be - whether it be where you are at the moment, or the place you eventually end up. So far, I'm happy where I've landed, but I really don't think this is it... and I'm excited by that prospect of what lies around the next turn.

London at Christmas

London is all dressed up for Christmas. Check out some pictures of its finery here!

Monkey: Journey to the West

Friday night, the Irishman took me on a secret date. He listened to all the hints I dropped about wanting to see Monkey: Journey to the West, a Chinese opera realized and designed by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz fame, so escorted me to the O2 in Greenwich for a performance.

The show was amazing. It was equal parts opera, acrobat, martial art, video, and installation. The mixture of art forms was really innovative and exciting, and it was the kind of show you didn't want to end.

The story of Monkey is a Chinese folktale about a cheeky monkey who redeems himself by escorting a young pilgrim on a voyage to the holy land after angering the gods. He and a few other pilgrims encounter challenges and characters along the way. When they reach their destination, they achieve enlightenment and are made into gods themselves.

My favorite part of the show was the costumes: a horse character wore a bobbling rump with a saddle and tail, an undersea creature had layers of colored fabric swishing around, and warriors wore sweeping capes over boots and leggings.

Even the venue was designed, with a Chinese theme; situated in a circus tent next to the O2 center, the entryway had red lanterns hanging from the support beams and drawings of the characters hanging on the wall. There was a bar and restaurant, and you could get foot and back massages while you waited for the show to start.

The only thing that was disappointing was the O2 itself. The O2 is a big convention center that was built for the millenium, and subsequently made into a shopping and entertainment venue. Inside there is pretty much any store you'd want, tons of restaurants, and even a ski slope. But the thing is, it's designed to look like a street outside, with brick walkways and street lamps. The whole thing is disconcerting, but it was worth the trip through the weird twilight-zone of a shopping center to get to see Monkey.

Transatlantic Thanksgiving

Brits don't understand Thanksgiving. Of all the American holidays, they're not quite sure what to do with it - it's sort of like English Christmas, with a turkey and the trimmings, but it's also sort of an anti-English holiday (hi, the Pilgrims were celebrating surviving after ESCAPING from England).

So, since I'm not going home for Thanksgiving, and I've been cooking a potluck Thanksgiving dinner every year since my senior year of college, I decided to introduce some of Brits in my life to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I billed it not as a gourmet Thanksgiving (no turducken with shittake mushroom stuffing) but as a "taste of America" - all of the standard dishes that one might not actually like, but are at every Thanksgiving meal. Last night was the Transatlantic Thanksgiving for 15 people in my narrow apartment, and featured the following menu:
- turkey
- stuffing (2 kinds, homemade apple-walnut, made by Ashley, and StoveTop, imported on the day of by visitors Mel & Dave)
- French's French-fried onion green bean casserole
- sweet potato and marshmallow casserole
- mashed potatoes
- cauliflower
- cranberries
- gravy
- 3 kinds of pies made by Ashley (pumpkin, pecan, apple)
- pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

After seeing frozen turkeys at Sainsburys for £49.99, I decided to take a chance and inquire at the butcher I pass every day on my way to work. I asked for a 15lb bird, and the nice butcher promised to get me a fresh "7+ kg" turkey delivered on the day of my dinner party. So yesterday morning I biked down the road and picked up my 6.82kg bird at 10am, and paid only £32.86! The bird made the journey back home safely in my bike basket, and went straight into the roasting pan for trimming and cooking. There I discovered that my turkey was so fresh that it still had little feathers on the legs!

It was a real pleasure to make a turkey that I wasn't worried about being not-quite-defrosted, or frantically searching for the giblets frozen to the inside of the bird's cavity and cutting myself while trying to pry them out. The bird was so fresh, you really tell the difference between a fresh and frozen turkey. At about 14lbs, it was a big bird and there was some serious concern that it might not fit in our very English tiny oven. But it did fit, and came out wonderful.

The sides went well also; there were only slight difficulties with converting Fahrenheit to Celsius and cups to grams. Everything miraculously done on time, and ready for the wine-bearing guests. Fifteen of us crammed into the rearranged lounge and hilarity ensued as normally dignified English people shoved mouthfuls of food in their mouths with as much gusto as Americans; it seems like turkey and stuffing incites gorging no matter what continent one's on.

The desserts also created an uproar as pie eating contests (1 of each!) gave a lot of people sugar highs. When people couldn't eat a morsel more, the party decamped to a bar across the street to finish the night. All in all, the way a Thanksgiving should be (minus the American football) and big balloons; pictures, of course, are here.

Sloane visited and we played with Photobooth.

Clearly, we were drinking a large amount of wine.

Lates at the Tates

Many Fridays, the Tates - Tate Britain, Tate Modern - are open late for bright young things to enjoy the art and libations. This is not a new concept, as most of the New York museums do the same, and the V&A has themed Fridays once a month that usually are based on their special exhibits.

I checked out the Tate Britain's Friday night a few weeks ago, and was super impressed. The museum had a really great mixture of art and lifestyle on display, in a bunch of media. There was a film shown on a huge screen at the end of the main gallery; photographs were projected on a marble wall in a central hallway, there were at least 3 cash bars, and tons of places to rest and chat. My favorite part, though, was a DJ booth and light show set up in a 19th century British painting gallery (cash bar too, of course). The juxtaposition of romantic landscapes and society women with hard beats and rotating lights, plus the scenesters striking poses to see and be seen, was one of the most memorable things I've seen in London to-date. I stayed for a few hours (and drinks), and will definitely go back.