Expat in the Land of Marmite

A New Year of Lunches and More Talk About British Food

2012-01-21T12:49:00.005Z

WEDNESDAY LAST YEAR: I love the surrealism of daily life. I'm sitting in the Winter Garden on this cold wet day, nibbling a sesame seed bagel with smoked salmon, Quark, and sliced red onion accompanied by a couple of chunks of pomegranate while listening to the grey-haired and Santa-hat-sporting octet known as Sheffield Accordions play French cafe music and Christmas carols while I read about

Why Do People Travel with Blinders On?

2011-11-23T10:54:00.004Z

TUESDAY: Today's sandwich is another cheese treat. I was out duck hunting this weekend -- searching for stencilled ducks on the fronts of cask ale pubs, that is. And in the countertop fridge at the Fat Cat in Kelham Island, along with the usual pork pies made with Kelham Island Bitter, there was a lone package of cheese made with Kelham Island Pale Rider from the Staffordshire Cheese Company.

Scalene Triangles, Pet Vacs, Semis, and the Hollywood Bowl

2011-11-09T10:09:00.003Z

FRIDAY: This week has featured some nice sandwiches, most notably the leftover basa (aka Vietnamese river cobbler) fillet and Philadelphia cream cheese with sun-dried tomatoes. Because I just picked up some nice French cheese from this season's global market for next week's pique-niques, I decided today to have some more of the excellent Wensleydale before it goes bad. My bread is a big crusty

Living in the Po-Mo Cloud

2011-10-15T12:40:00.010+01:00

FRIDAY: Lunch after a round of table tennis is a very thin sandwich with Gorgonzola and sun-roasted tomatoes. All of my sandwiches are very thin at the moment because of stomach problems. It's the stress of Po-Mo life, I think: the failing economy, the lack of challenging work, and gradually learning that living globally without constant headaches is apparently only for the rich. Somehow I have

My Trader Joe's Joy, and the Disappointment of So-Called Tortilla Chips

2011-09-28T10:52:00.002+01:00

FRIDAY: It's been over a week since I've written anything at lunch because I've been engrossed in a book. And strangely enough for me, it's a novel. I don't normally read novels, as I've never got over my post-university craving to constantly learn from my reading, not that it's made me any wiser. But to keep myself grounded I allow some fiction every now and then, as long as it's good quality

Olfactory Highs and Lows and the Travesty of Sweet Pizza

2011-09-12T11:28:00.002+01:00

MONDAY: I can't believe how gorgeously delicious my lunch is today. I've got a houmus and cream cheese sandwich with chopped spring onion and chopped red pepper -- nothing unusual for me, except that the houmus is made with black-eyed beans instead of chickpeas and flavoured with basil. It's unbelievably good. And the cream cheese is proper Philadelphia. I suppose houmus is like pesto, in that

Inland Seasides, Seagulls, and the Japanese Invasion

2011-08-13T11:33:00.004+01:00

TUESDAY: Once again it's Friday of my current 2-day work schedule, and I'm eating a sandwich with extra mature cheddar and gorgeously creamy avocado, seasoned with the obligatory cumin and New Mexico chilli powder. After a short period of warm humid weather we're suddenly having a preview of autumn, and I'm back to wearing long sleeves and socks. This is why I'm particularly amused by the

Reading, Writing, and Visas for Clones

2011-08-03T12:42:00.003+01:00

WEDNESDAY: What a week. I've spent the morning talking to pub owners and writing an article while making a lasagne, and here I am in the Winter Garden before work trying to prep for yet another job interview. Once again it's my current job, only just a little bit better. I realise it's pointless making notes about what I obviously do in my job every day, especially while eating such a tasty

Junk Food Horror and National Obesity

2011-07-07T11:28:00.002+01:00

FRIDAY: It's not that I have anything against the University cleaners -- in fact I quite like them and always say hello. But because they have decided to start taking their group break at the same time I have my lunch break, I have moved from the normally quiet Staff Room across the library and into the din of the café. Because I'm trying to absorb an especially demanding section of my book on

Bus Failure and Symmetry Amidst a Month of Sandwiches

2011-06-16T15:34:00.004+01:00

THURSDAY: Lunch on this sparsely staffed day is a refreshing sandwich starring Saint Paulin cheese from Normandy, bought at a magnificent cheese shop in Chesterfield, with basil pesto, sun-dried tomato, and chopped pointy red pepper on a whole wheat bakery breadcake. Ooh-la-la buon delicioso! FRIDAY: Running, running, being paid for running, running...and on this physically active day, running to

A Week of Mobile Phone Rage

2011-05-12T15:46:00.000+01:00

WEDNESDAY: Lunch is my regional American version of a prawn sandwich, with the prawns mixed with a small spoonful of mayonnaise, a squeeze of tomato purée, a dollop of grated horseradish, a few drops of Tabasco sauce, some fresh thyme, and a few drops of lemon juice, all in a wheat breadcake with some mixed leaf. It's like the British expats I stayed with once in New Orleans. It's a bit of Fat

The Increasing Velocity of Time and Stumbling Over History

2011-04-16T10:17:00.003+01:00

WEDNESDAY: I know I keep going on about my lunches, but I've been distracted from the main purpose of my blog because I've been completely absorbed during my lunch half-hour in a book. It's A Popular History of Sheffield by J. Edward Vickers. It's not because of the writing style, especially Mr Vickers' irritating habit of ending all of his interesting facts with exclamation points! And as the

Viewing Cheese Differently

2011-03-16T10:24:00.007Z

THURSDAY: Lunch is haloumi with a thin smear of pesto-topped houmus, with spring onion, sun-dried tomatoes, and fresh basil on a white breadcake. This is the mirror image of my houmus sandwich with a few slivers of haloumi, as with my small appetite one or the other main ingredient has to star. Having equal amounts of haloumi and houmus just sounds like too much.Fruit is like a blazing sunset,

Proper Recycling Containers and Improper Sushi

2011-02-28T14:07:00.001Z

FRIDAY: Lunch on this stimulatingly creative Friday is a bit exciting: smoky Cheddar with a sliced pepperoncini pepper, two sliced green olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and fresh coriander leaf. And it's muy bueno! If it could have been in a proper corn tortilla and heated instead of in a white breadcake it would be even better. But it is a nice juicy chewy savoury smoky picante surprise. Fruit is a

The Rules of Ish

2011-02-21T10:31:00.002Z

WEDNESDAY: I'm eating another eclectic sandwich I have been looking forward to all morning: smoked Cheddar with Waitrose smoky aubergine dip on a Co-Op sunflower seed roll with spring onion, chopped red pepper, chopped green olives, and fresh coriander leaf. It's the UN all in one sandwich, and it's very smoky. It's a wonderfully smoky United Nations, like the UN building on fire. Delicious!

On Being an Expat in a Facebook World

2011-02-06T13:23:00.001Z

WEDNESDAY: Lunch today is some gorgeous Waitrose houmus with toasted pine nuts and whole chick peas with Primula, spring onion, and red pepper on a fresh wheat breadcake. This is my first work lunch this week, as I was off for two days with a bit of an achy chest and a wonderfully sexy but irritatingly scratching hoarse voice. I can finally speak again, as the hoarse has gone out to pasture.This

Vat v. Sales Tax and the Myth of Genealogy

2011-01-19T10:52:00.002Z

MONDAY: Lunch on this dull damp start of the work week is goat cheese with sun-dried tomatoes, chopped red pepper and spring onion, black pepper, cayenne, and basil leaves on a bakery-fresh white breadcake. Fruit is mango and apple slices and red and white grapes. It's a bright spot in an otherwise monotonous day.THURSDAY: Lunch on another dull damp day, with my job exactly the same as yesterday

The Rare White Christmas in the UK

2010-12-28T11:28:00.005Z

FRIDAY 2 WEEKS AGO: It's much warmer today than it has been, meaning I don't feel inclined to wrap my scarf three times (or thrice, as the Brits say) around my neck or prance about like a hyperactive goat in order to keep from turning to ice while waiting for the bus. It's still cold, of course, and the nearby park is still a snowy wonderland and cars are still abandoned on the main road. But it

Palm Trees In The Snow and Other Surrealities

2010-12-08T10:55:00.002Z

THURSDAY: I'm eating my lunch while I'm working today. As the snow is over a foot high outside, I am part of the university library's "skeleton staff", one of the handful who could make the long trek from home. I considered not coming, but as one of my huskies needed to return a library book, I hitched up the dogs and sledged my way through the tundra and the drifts, avoiding the drifters along

Inundations of Food and Drink

2010-11-20T14:39:00.004Z

TUESDAY: It's a cheesy week. Yesterday's lunch in the midst of chaos was Stilton and hot papaya chutney, and today it's Maasdam with stone ground mustard with real ale (in the mustard, not poured over the sandwich) with red pepper and spring onion, and my fruit consists of strawberries and slices of clementine and pear. It's a miracle I managed to slip away for my lunch break, as two of us have

The Vanishing Twist-Tie and Rhyming Cheese

2010-11-14T14:37:00.002Z

MONDAY: While the rain, wind, and cold rage outside, I'm sitting in a very quiet and empty staff room eating a sandwich with avocado, Pyrenees cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes on a past-its-best rustic cheese roll. It's a chewy but pleasant combination.THURSDAY: The rain continues, the students are rioting over tuition fee increases, and the First buses to Walkley are getting more random every day.

American Things I Still Do After 11 Years In Britain

2010-10-30T15:02:00.003+01:00

WEDNESDAY: Because it's very cold outside, and the Winter Garden has suddenly become overpopulated with children's school groups -- not to mention the usual lunchtime congregations of office workers and OAPs -- I've been eating my lunch this week on the only inside benches available: the ones in the Millennium Galleries lobby. Yesterday I ate my haloumi sandwich inches away from the greeting

Power Fairies, Pigeons, and Nicknames

2010-10-17T13:25:00.002+01:00

TUESDAY: Lunch today is eaten with cold hands because autumn has arrived. Yes, fall has fallen with a huge bang. It's October and I'm wearing three layers and boots. Somehow my blue brie sandwich seems inappropriate. I can't explain why; perhaps it's the realisation that those rich orange October sunsets will be cheering me up very soon.Any cheering up is most welcome, as life is bitter at the

Job Interview Hoops, The Price of Food and Clothes, Wide Streets, and Palm Trees

2010-10-09T15:23:00.003+01:00

FRIDAY: Lunch is being wolfed down in the staff room today because I'm ravenous. I've spent the past two hours going through yet another job interview. It's not that the job is that complicated: it's pretty much what I do now as Library Scum, only with slightly better pay. But the labours one has to endure are just getting absurd.If I'd been interviewed for this same job four years ago, I could

American Cell Phones, American Voice Mail, and the Phasing Out of Money

2010-09-25T12:41:00.002+01:00

WEDNESDAY: No, I haven't died, and I haven't fallen down the stairs again or been run over by another bus. I've just been away on a rare holiday. I considered keeping up on my blog while I was away, reporting on my non-sandwich lunches consumed thousands of miles away from Sheffield while being inspired by holiday-type subjects. But most of my holiday was spent in Internet-free zones.Where on