on hoiday-ish

friday began my 10-day holiday. peter has been off from school for more than two weeks already, so he is already in vacation mode. we celebrated by buying loads of foodie goodies at wing yip. this led to an asian food bender this weekend, beginning with rice stick noodles with tofu skins and green beans for dinner friday. afterwards we drank carlsberg and cleaned house.

we spent saturday getting drizzled on in harrogate. the morning started out warm and clear.. we saw vanessa and john and had a look around the lovely new gallery. afterwards we browsed some of the best charity shops we've seen so far, and i finally purchased a sewing kit at a teeny tiny shop called duttons for buttons. it took us far too long to decide where to eat lunch, but we got to see most of the very pretty village and fancy shops.. we passed a very long line and a glorious window full of cakes at bettys, but ended up eating thai food. our fault for be indecisive. after we said bye to the mackies we headed home and picked up a mini carrot cake at M&S to make up for missing out on the sweets earlier.

for dinner we ate pre-packaed kim chi, bok choy with ginger and garlic, roasted brussel sprouts and rice. it was too much food, but we had to empty out the fridge before we leave town. after stuffing ourselves i used a honey bee bath bomb from lush and drank wine in the tub. afterwards it looked like a big pee bath, but smelled much better.

sunday was spent hemming thrift store dresses and watching lots of tv and anthony bourdain re-runs. we made the a giant veggie-filled dinner of broccoli, bok choy, tofu and brean sprout stir fry with black bean sauce and some deceptively healthy tofu satays.

our train to london leaves in a few hours and i am ready to go. i am most excited to eat mexican food. lets hope it is better than what we ate in howth, ireland..

good friday to easter monday

i've been dreaming of cooking and eating lately. last night i had dreams of egg-in-a-hole and ended up making it for breakfast. earlier this weekend i had dreams of making a bechamel sauce for the first time.. i had been searching through fish pie recipes after we found a deal on fish at tesco. i guess i have food on the brain, but it is only natural after spending a good three days browsing food shops around town with petey. speaking of food.. we've been selectively incorporating english foods into our diet. most notably beans on toast as a lazy dinner, smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches for a weekend breakfast, tea and digestive biscuits as a post-work/pre-dinner snack and lots and lots of cider. actually, we have been drinking much less beer here.. especially peter. it has been red wine and tesco brand cider for the most part. we have also substituted our usual quesadilla/taco habit with fajitas. they are not english, but bell peppers are much cheaper here, and refried bean/corn tortillas are too pricey.

anyhow, since i didn't realize i would have an extened weekend due to the easter holiday until wednesday, we spent the weekend in manchester.. wandering and getting blisters. we tend to do a lot of that. here is the re-cap:

friday we spent the early afternoon in the northern quarter looking through vintage shops. i bought a 5 pound pair of [non-vintage] flats [terrible idea] and we had another fabulous curry lunch at this and that. we had planned to destroy the pizza hut buffet, but due to the holiday it was not on. afterwards we had curry belches all the up to cheetham hill. we tried to visit a very well-reviewed kosher deli/grocery but it was closed, presumably due to the passover holiday as well. instead we bought lots of veggies at the market and took the bus home, as we had managed to walk several more miles than we expected we would be. that evening we made pizza for dinner to make up for earlier.. homemade whole wheat dough was yummy.

saturday started with an almost full-english consisting of beans, toast, veggie sausages and an egg each. we circled city centre a few too many times.. visited the tiny picadilly oxfam shop, looked for sneakers and visted the northern quarter some more. got some sweat deals at tesco, a giant side a salmon at the arndale fish counter and a new baking dish at tk. for dinner petey made salmon with curried yogurt/cucumber sauce [and cous cous].. a recipe from mark bittman's blog, bitten, in the NYT. it was gooood.
on easter sunday we were lazy.. i got caught up on the first season of skins, did laundry and ate more pizza for lunch. we did get out for bit to walk around, as i was sick of watching peter upload files and have nerd chats online. we went down yet some more canals, past the old granada tv studio and around castelfield a bit.. saw cute little ones in easter outfits. we has our first fish pie for dinner. it was yummy. we finished the night with gin & tonics, then a pita pizza before bed.

ehhh, back to work tomorrow. only four days until another very long weekend/holiday. hooray!

stuffs

on friday we regained use of our fridge 10 or so days of using the balcony. the inside is all new and squeaky clean.. i didn't even have to scrub the fish sauce off the condiment shelves. unfortunately the repairmen gouged a wall in our hallway and left a sprinkling of styrofoam confetti outside. oh well, we can now access our milk in the morning without flashing the neighbors.

the weather report didn't look so great on sat., so we took the tram/bus to the trafford centre, the UKs fifth largest mall. while waiting for our connecting bus outside the tram station we witness some very suspicious youths. these three 10-12 yr old boys were wearing tracksuits [of course] and either smoking cigarette butts or snorting something tiny. i don't know much about drugs. i do know they used a dead bush to disguise their antisocial behavior.. it was a very poor shield, but even though i am 25 and outweigh them by at least 50lbs, i pretended it blocked my view in fear they would kick my ass. kids do that here. luckily they were not interested in a confrontation and took off running.. only to get on our bus at the next stop. to be young again..

so the only real reason [besides the crap weather] for going to the trafford centre was to use out 2for1 bar burrito coupon. after eating some mexican-ish deliciousness, we wandered, as usual, around looking at sneakers and admiring the odd decor. there was lots of faux marble columns, giant fountains and windy staircases. i even made petey look at rings, but it didn't spark his interest as i had hoped..

since we had purchased an an all day bus/tram pass, we rode out to east ditsbury where we shopped at our first giant tesco. we found cocanut milk, dryer sheets and a candy bar. on the way back into town we stopped into a korean shop called seoul kimchi. the owner was very nice and we chatted about UM/MSU, as her son studied in Ann Arbor. we picked up some kimchi, squid salad and veggie dumplings. along with rice, it made a giant, spicy korean dinner. we drank wine and burped chile sauce all night.

sometime on saturday - not sure if it was pre or post kimchi - we went to victoria station to get a replacement railcard for petey. there was a westlife concert at the nearby MEN arena.. this meant lots of teenage girls in tutus. i'm not sure what the connection is, but i do know there was a severe lack of pants. lots of boas, glowing bunny ears, high heels and tutus. tons.

sunday we went to wing yip.. giant asian grocery. it was madness. we walked throuh the secret park. we were bums. we made sobas with bok choy and went into a coma.

happenings

this weekend was more normal than any have been since we've arrived. we met with petey's friend from montreal and reverted to drinking a bad combination of cider, beer, wine then liquor. there were chats with lots of international students and the seemingly unavoidable conversation about american politics which people here are more interested in than people back home seem to be. on the way back to manchester from rusholme we ate very messy veggie kabobs and witnessed the after-closing-time fiasco around manchester's city centre. saturday was spent recovering because we are old and have been eating like true mancunians. our fridge has been on the fritz since early last week, so we've been stashing perishables on the balcony and trying not to have leftovers. somehow this lead to us eating lots of oven fries and ice cream.. and cookies.

on saturday night we met some of the acoustics boys at the printworks and saw bank job. it was good.. they wore cute 70s outfits. sunday we listened to polka music - coming from the irish festival - through the patio door. we looked at some interesting furnishings at ilva, peter peed in the bushes, then we took a walk along some canals and explored a bit of canal street, the "gay village." there were cute looking bars and cafes and girls with short hair. we ate leftover bean soup for dinner and i finally watched episode 11 of project runway. when we went to bed we realized they moved the bright developer sing that used to shine into our bedroom window. it was good news.

day tripping: liverpool

yay - we finally made it to liverpool! we took a rickety old train and watched fields of sheep out the windown. first we visited the very heavily-wallpapered walker. we were in early and able to wander without bumping into lots of ladies with lots of strollers full of babies [like we did everywhere]. it was tranquil and smelled yummy. the special exhibit was a large group of artists reconstructing the liverpool city scape to celebrate its "capital of culture" status. they used tiny stencils and airbrushes and it all looked very time consuming and meticulous.


next we saw the tiniest aquarium and some giant pastic bugs at the world museum. then we were hungry and cranky, so had a yummy lunch at the egg cafe. i take full credit because i actually researched the trip while peter spent hours upon hours playing an unnamed MMOPRG. [i do not know or care what that means, i just searched wikipedia and it spit that out.] anyhow, the place was hard to find.. first we had to find the streets, which sounds easy, but in england all streets have 82 names apiece. so, we found the street then climed a few flights of stairs and found a tiny purple door that lead to the cafe.. where we ate veggie food and my most favorite carrot cake with milky tea.

after we were stuffed we headed through the eerily deserted chinatown to the docks and saw lots of artsy goodness at the tate. there were loads of recognizable names and excellent modern british painters... also some strange abstract nonsense like a light-up cheese grater and a really uncomfortable looking wheelchair/sculpture.

it was windy, crowded and frigid out [by manchester standards] so we squeezed through the cavern disctrict to peek at the awesome 'hard days night' beatles hotel. lastly we saw the 'now these days are gone' photo collection at the national conservation center.. lots of photos of ringo back when he looked like balki bartokomous. then we went home. peter fell asleep on the train. we went to aldi and bought cookies. we stashed our food on the balcony like hobos. i made cous cous that looked like mashed potatoes and we ate it with mushroom gravy. and carrots.