a couple of good books

I thought Sloman was 'down under'? ;-)

Huckster trying to cash in on the pop-books market, nothing interesting.

Their architecture is like their food- boring.

Do tell me of restaurants where you /can/ get traditional English food. I've only found one, and unfortunately it is 150 miles from me.

BTW, I'm being fussy, but not /too/ fussy about the definition of "traditional English food". Hence I won't worry about stargazey pie or muggety pie - but I would like to see several of jugged hare, pike, brawn, haslet, spoots, well-hung pheasant etc on the menu at the appropriate time of year.

Delicious.

LOL- you answered your own question. The restaurants serving traditional fare are so far and few between because it just doesn't sell.

Actually, where you can get it, it /does/ sell rather well and people go a /long/ way to get it. And, that's because your assertion that it is boring is simply false.

The problem is twofold. Firstly you need to have a solid supply of good ingredients that are properly prepared and properly cooked. Secondly, because it is unfamiliar, most ignorant punters don't try it.

Case in point was the lunch I had 3 hours ago - a whole Dorset crab with chips cooked in duck fat. The person serving checked that I realised I would be given the implements to pull it apart and winkle[1] out the flesh. Apparently about 50% are put off and choose something else.

Actually in Nijmegen in the Netherlands right now, but I'll be heading back down under on Monday evening. And I'm a regular sized person - 5'9" tall - rather than any kind of gnome.

I thought it was hilarious and in a couple of places, profound.

One of his situations reminded me of something that happened to us and will probably happen again. An intellectual property dispute between a tiny company and a giant public corp with an army of agressive top-gun lawyers. The bottom line is that the giant has a whole lot more to lose and will quit threatening fast if the little guys start barking. I wish I'd read his book before I did certain things.

Their world was weird and often sick, but I really enjoyed the book. That world is almost totally gone now.

Have you read any good books lately?

Winks are like celery. You'd starve to death if all you had was an unlimited supply.

The classic San Francisco meal is a cracked Dungennes crab, a loaf of sourdough, and an Anchor Steam beer. One nice crab will feed two of us, maybe with leftovers for crab cakes.

As a tourist in England and Ireland, I thought the food was mostly awful. We did find one wonderful restaurant in an alley in Oxford, Italian food.

Think positive - if you spend too much time snacking in front of the gogglebox, they could be an effective slimming aid. Much like plain popcorn instead of crisps.

Yes, my meal came with excellent sourdough, plus some anchovy mayonnaise. But I stayed with tapwater, so as not to drown out the taste of the food.

Just like in the US, most UK food outlets are for sustenance rather than pleasure. But it is two orders of magnitude better than when I was kid. You have to know where to go.

As a tourist in Palo Alto and SF, I thought the food was, um, unexciting. Typically there was too much salt, and the fruit looked perfect but had little taste.

My hypothesis is that where possible the fruit (e.g. apples, strawberries) is bred to be large and have a long shelf life. I prefer fruit that is small but presumably has just as many flavour "molecules" (i.e. more concentrated) and is just on the point of becoming overripe.

Boston had Legal Seafoods, which was excellent. A giveaway is (was?) that there are outlets in shopping malls, and there is a queue :)

All over the US our reaction when picking up a standard supermarket loaf of bread for the first time, is to find our arm wandering towards the ceiling - because the loaf's density is unexpextedly low. And don't mention US "beer"; Coors is like very diluted vodka, and Budweiser isn't much better. Fortunately microbreweries are catching on.

Like the fruit example, nationwide breweries are concerned with cheap, easily drinkable, shelf stable and bland product.

Anyone who likes more than pisswater in their pint, has plenty of places to go. I frequent a local place that's got something like twenty taps, on one side of the bar alone (and there are many places with even more!). Mostly local and regional, some imported. I don't think they regularly tap anything under 5% (the regular swill is kept bottled in the 'fridge), and there's always a half dozen in the 10% range, with heartiness to match. :)

They also grill a mean burger.

Tim

Yes :(

In the 70s the UK brewing industry tried to persuade punters that keg beer was as good as traditional beer, and that "formicated" pubs (i.e. lots of Formica) were preferable to trad pubs. The canonical example of that "beer" was the very heavily advertised Watneys Red Barrel, which became (and still is) a symbol of corporate strong-arm tatics.

The product was so awful that CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) gained a decent membership, and the brewing industry had to become more subtle.

Last time I was in the US, they were few and far between, and concentrated in the small regions where knowledgeable/demanding people worked.

You've gotta get local fruit, in season. Lots of tasteless stuff comes here from Mexico, all year. Avoid Safeway.

The clam roll or lobster roll at Legal is great. Good chowder too.

If you're rafting or mowing grass or something, Coors or Generic Lite is OK, if it's cold. Sort of flavored water.

There's some dynamite bread here, but not in supermarkets. Supermarket bread is usually underbaked, spongy, so they can leave it on the shelves for days and it won't feel hard.

We buy bread in the village downhill, right out of the oven, often so hot inside that you can't eat it right away.

American food (and beer) have gotten much better in the last decade or so. Well, in some places.

Zeitgeist has, I think, 44 beers on tap, great burger and home fries, great grilled cheese sandwich, not a hint of ambience and the service is surly. Dining is on grungy picnic tables under a freeway.

Free matches.

There are some really amazing burgers here lately. Zuni, Absinthe, Trick Dog.

Spain is the local equivalent.

I hate El Santa strawberries with a vengeance!

Egremont Russets used to be the third most popular apple her, but 2 years ago they became very difficult to find - only Waitrose is reliable.

So last year I planted an Egremont Russet and another of my favourites, Worcester Permain. This year I should get half a dozen off each (would be more, but I removed many to encourage growth).

I'm currently stuffing myself with uncooked runner beans, and peas as well.

But this seems to be turning into uk.rec.gardening!

I have their cookbook, and occasionally make their chowder :)

We have two excellent bakeries nearby, and I've just heard of another; must try it. But parking is a real pain.

When I can't be bothered to go out, I'll make some quite reasonable bread in a machine.

My local Asda/Walmart also has a surprisingly good wholemeal loaf, and they also occasionally stock frozen Keralan parathas.

That was starting in the 90s, in my limited experience. The problem with the US is that it is just so damn /big/ and sparsely populated.

Designing electronics makes a boy hungry. And lots of engineers cook.

We hike, a mere half mile and 250 vertical feet. The bread is half gone by the time we get home. I've given hunks to strangers, too.

Hey, we have a Nepalese restaurant near here.

The flyover burbs tend to have Applebees and IHOP and Olive Garden and Starbucks sorts of industrial food; an endless matrix of franchises. The big port cities (SF, Seattle, New Orleans, New York) nab the good coffee beans off the dock, and ship the rest inland.

Except that the beef for your burger starts in Omaha and works its way across country and you get what's left. ;-)

There are also local farmer's markets around. Not everything is touched by the ILWU.