more "American" cheese

What's wrong with that Safeway? It's clean and convenient and they bake really good donuts and bagels. The deli and sushi are pretty good. Basic fruits and veggies are OK. I can drive there in 4 minutes, there's always parking, or I can hike through the canyon up there with a backpack.

Diamond Heights. Check it on Google Earth.

the cheeses aren't in a chiller

self contradiction detected :)

They are cold, some a/c trick somehow. And they have already been aged, unrefrigerated, for months or sometimes years.

The packaging keeps molds off. If they were killing people, we'd hear about it. Do the French and Italians keep all their cheeses in chillers?

You don't like bagels? Donuts?

Their Boston Creme filled donut version is excellent. They call it a "Bismarck" for some reason.

When I was a kid in New Orleans, I loved Boston Creme pies, which were called "Congo Pie" down there. Nobody wanted to eat Yankee food.

It's very nice of you to give our English posters a few more inconsequential things to moan about. Cheers them up no end. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I can recall one good meal in the UK. It was a little Italian restaurant in Oxford.

Peking duck with rice in Soho chinese shop in London. Something never to forget.......

In Spain (which is also a cheese producer) we do.

Fat maybe, happy certainly, not insane.

It's great to be able to drive or walk a short way and get food and paper towels and stuff. There's a Walgreens next door for things like drugs and office supplies. And a post office and a vet.

I think modern civilization is pretty cool. Why are you so grumpy and negative? If you dislike supermarkets, don't go there.

IME many cheeses go off fast if not chilled. But if what they do works, ok

Donots are a death sentence. They're even called do-nots to warn you.

Sounds about right :) This is the land of low end food marketed as fancy.

I went there for lunch with a Jewish nanotech VC guy whose wife expected him to keep strict kosher. He took every opportunity to sneak out and eat forbidden meats.

Remember the nanotech fad? AI reminds me of that.

Oxford was very cool, worth the time there even if it was a mild financial negative.

I don't think Safeway kills many of its customers. We would have heard.

What's your complaint about grease and sugar and chocolate?

Die happy.

Good English cooking is amazing--trouble is, they don't seem to do it in England anymore.

Me old Mum used to make many sorts of that stuff--several varieties of meat pies (all delicious except for those containing kidneys), roasts, chops, cakes, biscuits, plus tons of good vegetables and salads.

English sausages are also good, though the Irish and Scots have taken the running there. And then there are the puddings. There's no end of delicious English puddings, and no, they aren't the thickened-milk kind you get over here. The English used to have a national genius for imaginative uses of ginger, sugar, and dried fruit.

Then there's the preserved fruit--brandied peaches, to name just one kind among very many.

Round our shop, we still make a lot of roasts and a fair number of pies, though there aren't as many round the table these days! We also make our own mincemeat and plum pudding for Christmas time, based on family recipes from the mid-19th century.

They've had to be adjusted some--modern raisins (Sultanas especially) make everything taste like tar if you just dump them into the old recipes.

Fancier stuff like game pies, jugged hare, and so on, really needs a gentlemen's club with a good kitchen, but those really don't exist any more.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

And breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are key.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Panko-crusted fried shrimp sliders are wonderful, but you don't like shrimp.

The Big Bird sandwich at the Bar Of America in Truckee is world-class. Chicken breaded with Rice Crispies.

I wonder if WWII rationing killed british food, or if it was always that way.

With France so close, you'd think they might see possibilities.

A couple of years ago I joined the Orthodox Church, having been an atheist for the first 30 years of my life and an Anglican for the next

30, give or take. We have a lot of fast days, nearly half the year, and for most of them we give up meat, fish, eggs, dairy, olive oil, and wine. (Often but not always interpreted to include all kinds of alcohol.)

The Church doesn't demand that we do this, nor does she criticize those who don't. (Lots of folks aren't very strict about it.) Fasting is offered as an opportunity for spiritual growth, for our salvation and the salvation of others.

Proper fasting is accompanied by intensified prayer and almsgiving, and hedged about with warnings about the dangers of doing it wrong, such as falling into pride, condemnation of our brothers who may not be very strict about it, or even just being a pain in the ass when people offer us food. (The saints generally just eat what's put in front of them, with gratitude.)

Failure to fast isn't a sin, only a missed opportunity.

There are a few bits of relief from this arid semi-vista of teetotal veganism, one of which is that shellfish are allowed.

All of which is a very long-winded way of saying that I've recently come round to fried shrimp, but not yet to oysters, scallops, or shrimp in sauce. ;)

Fun.

I wasn't there, but I suspect it was the ridiculously prolonged food rationing--it didn't relax until 1954 and crippled the dairy industry for decades after that--with the officious nannyism that apparently continues to this day. English food of the good old pre-war variety is amazing, as I said.

For good or ill. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Don't forget Scones! Yum.

Ed

<sniiip>

And custard.

But not trifle. Trifle only escapes being a crime against humanity because it’s usually nonlethal, at least in the short term.

Yay!

Two plastic bins, one flour and milk, the other panko and garlic powder and salt and pepper.

Slather shrimp in the white goo, shake in the panko, deep fry, serve on little Hawaiian buns with tater tots and beer.

Trust me on that one.