Caving in

Well, we did it. After months of resisting the daily barrage of leaflets through our door and insisting that we could do it better ourselves, we caved in and got INDIAN TAKEAWAY. Yes, you read correctly. We opted to get foil containers of ‘curry’ instead of using some of our own spices and culinary skills and making our own spicy delights.

Almost every day, we get takeaway menus dropped through our mailbox. They seem to be getting fancier and glossier as more Indian restaurants vie for the same customers. These menus have provided us with some good laughs (‘motor panner’ and ‘doet coke’ for instance), and my suspicion that I could make good money as a menu proof-reader. Nevertheless, a quick glance and the menus reach a quick end in the recycle bin.

Today, however, we decided to sample from one of Surbiton’s finest. We are spoiled for choice, with 4 Indian restaurants on our high street alone, and several more just around the corner. We went with the second oldest Indian restaurant in Surbiton, assuming that longevity in this fickle market meant quality.

This particular restaurant seems to cover all the bases, with food from all the major regions of India. This is usually cause for suspicion on my part – I imagine a kitchen with large bottles of ‘curry sauce’ labelled with a particular region of India, and a chef who glops a spoonful of any given sauce onto chicken, fish, lamb, or vegetables. Suspicions aside, we ordered a Mangalorean fish curry, an eggplant dish with a mysterious name, saag paneer (spinach and paneer), and a lamb biryani. The additional British quirk is that biryani always come with a complimentary order of vegetable curry. This seems strange to me, since biryani usually is so flavourful on its own that I can’t see the need for a curry to accompany it.

I am pleased to say that the food was great, particularly the fish curry, which tasted authentically South Indian to me, although it could have been spicier. As you can see, the food didn’t all look the same, wasn’t that greasy, and everything didn’t taste the same either! Never fear, we’ll still be cooking, but at least now we have an alternative to Village Pizza on days that we really don’t feel like slaving over a hot stove.

Other people’s shopping

One of the things I like most about going grocery shopping (admittedly, there aren’t many of them) is finding a shopping cart, a shopping trolley, as they’re known on Greenwich Mean Time. The particular chain of supermarkets we choose to frequent (let’s call it chain “W”) very conveniently has little clipboards on its carts to which you can attach your shopping list. I find reading through discarded shopping lists a curiously voyeuristic form of entertainment. Glancing through people’s scribbled lists seems somehow a little more personal than sneaking a peek at your fellow shoppers’ chosen items at the checkout. More than their food habits, you can tell whether they were in a rush when they wrote the list, what their choice of scrap paper is, whether they prefer pen, pencil or felt tip, whether they’re the kind of person who crosses off items as they grab them off the shelf, and other interesting insights into their shopping strategies. I have thus resorted to conducting an unofficial poll of other people’s shopping by stealing their discarded shopping lists. I get a mischieveous sense of glee when I spot a cart that has someone’s scrawny piece of paper with their list of scribbles on it. I quickly claim the cart and discreetly put the list in my pocket.

Most of the lists are short, with fewer than ten items on them. That in itself is strange, because ten items can easily fit in a basket, which enables you to use the faster checkouts. Convenience items predominate the lists; milk, bread, eggs and cheese feature prominently. Starches are the dominant food group, particularly pasta, potatoes and rice. Some people encouragingly make lunch for their kids to take to school (“bananas, apples, peanut butter x 2, childrens yog+yog drinks, choc dig./jaffas”), but then sadly disappoint by feeding them rather questionable items at home (“spag. shapes, Bessie Mash x 2, waffles”). Most of the lists are such that you can hardly make a decent recipe out of them, even though you could make it lots of times (“mince lamb/beef, tin toms x 8 [times 8?!?], chick pea x 4, green lentils x 2″ sounds like a lot of stew to me). Others have rather unmentionable items (“decaf, quorn, marg.”). One person wanted to buy a sofa, but then must have thought better of it and decided to buy soda instead. People buy “bog roll” or “loo roll”, but not “toilet paper”. And it’s good to know that people still like an element of surprise in their grocery shopping (“A little something for you”). Some parents have shopping budgets for their kids (“£6 for Freddy, £10 for Theo” – I’m curious to know what Freddy and Theo bought themselves with their allowance. I hope it was something worthwhile, because otherwise all they had to look forward to was garlic, chillis and kidney beans). A torn off bit of notepad paper appears to be the writing material of choice, although a few people use yellow stickies. But my personal favourite is a list written on paper in the shape of a curvaceous womanly figure in a pink flowery party dress from Lady Jayne Ltd.

I’ve often thought of leaving behind a list of my own (“pig intestines, eye of newt, raven’s claw”), although when I bother writing them, they’re invariably in some form of electronic gadget. But with the festive season fast approaching, I might be tempted to leave one with the most important list of all (“…. and a partridge in a pear tree”).

Things I’d rather do…

…than write my thesis.

1. Bake muffins…it seems that British people have been deluded by Starbucks and other similar chains into believing that ‘American muffins’ are sweet, calorific, cake-like concoctions with lots of chocolate and gooey, jammy fillings. When I first took banana muffins (authentic, Canadian-style ones) to work, my colleagues were incredibly enthusiastic. One person even offered to pay me to bake her muffins every week. It’s so much more exciting than writing a thesis…

2. Clean…anything, really. The bathroom, the living room, the kitchen. Even my previous intense dislike for dusting has disappeared during my recent thesis-writing adventures. As my friend Jill said, writing a thesis can make cleaning your bathroom with a toothbrush seem more appealing. So true…

3. Cook…as the ‘What’s Cooking’ link will illustrate, we’ve been creating lots of culinary delights in our kitchen. Okay, so we’re a little more obsessed with cooking (and photographing what we cook) than some, but if the options are to write or cook, well…the choice is clear.

4. Talk to my plants…having no outside garden, and limited window-sills means that I’m beginning to experiment with what I can grow indoors. Our two original orchids have become three after I re-potted them, and they need careful tending. A mysterious accident with a very old money plant (from C’s grandfather) meant we had to carefully re-pot it. All that shock naturally means it needs extra attention. Or so I like to tell myself…

5. Grow chilies…we picked up seeds for Serrano chilies at a Mexican restaurant recently (check it out at http://www.wahaca.co.uk/) and planted them. We now have 8 seedlings, which need extra attention in this cloudy climate. This means watching them regularly, turning the pot so they don’t lean too much into the sun, counting how many new plants we have every day, and checking periodically through the day for new sprouts. We eagerly await the day when we can harvest our bountiful crop of spicy goodness…

This list grows daily. So does my list of ailments that seem to afflict PhD students. With two of my fellow sufferers, I will be writing an important scientific article on the physical and psychological hazards of doing a PhD. Stay tuned for more details. Maybe if my research doesn’t get published, this will.

Who are the people on your train?

(With apologies to Sesame Street)…

Who are the people on your commuter train?

Oh, who are the people on your commuter train?

Who are the people on your commuter train?

The people that you meet each day?

Okay, ‘meet’ might be a stretch. You rarely meet people on the train. You observe people as they endure the daily commute.

There’s the pre-10am crowd, dressed in suits, carrying laptops, and all but 2% wearing long, black overcoats. Taking a train before 10am means giving up any sense of personal space. Literally nose-to-armpit with no room to manoeuvre.

The far more entertaining crowd stumbles onto the last few trains at Waterloo, some time between 11 and 11:30pm. Miss the last train home and you’re faced with a 2 1/2 hour bus ride home, IF there even is a bus to your home. Many people in the late-night crowd wouldn’t pass a breathalyser test if they had to take one. While you will get a seat on the late-night train, you’re likely to be assaulted by the smell of Burger King. There’s probably other fast food too, but it seems Burger King odours overpower all others. (Note – there’s no McDonald’s in Waterloo, which is why there’s no McSmell).

I was never quite sure about the late-night, drunken, french-fry eating crowd, but I’ve come to realize that they provide great entertainment. Take for example the couple behind our seats a few weeks ago.

Take one slightly intoxicated computer geek with his nose buried in a tech magazine of some sort (I couldn’t quite read the title as I looked through the crack between our seats) with a bag from, where else, Burger King.  Add a more intoxicated girl (definitely couldn’t see her face through the seat crack) who collapses into the seat next to Computer Geek. She is on the phone, relating the trying events of her evening, culminating with a sorrowful account of how she hadn’t eaten since lunch time and was literally about to collapse of starvation. Is Drunk Girl a bit of Drama Queen? Hard to say…. In comes Computer Geek, displaying a sort of chivalry and gallantry rarely seen these days. He offers Drunk Girl his Bacon Double Cheeseburger. She protests, he insists, she claims to feel guilty depriving him of his food, he responds by suggesting she needs it more than he does. And so it goes…and Drunk Girl eats the burger, eternally grateful, relaying the story to Friend on Phone the whole time. Computer Geek and Drunk Girl strike up a friendly conversation, culminating in an invitation from Drunk Girl to her Singles-Only Valentine’s Day dinner the next night. They exchange phone numbers, she tells Computer Geek that he really SHOULD take her up on the offer (after all, she says, he has nothing better to do, right?). It’s poetic…literally. She tells him that in 2008, Valentine’s Day was supposed to be great (and was everything but great), but this year, 2009, Valentine’s Day will be just fine. Using this logic, Computer Geek really should come to the party (says Drunk Girl).

We were tempted to follow them home (one of us certain that they’d go home together, the other a bit more sceptical), but Computer Geek got on a bus, and Drunk Girl went in the other direction. Did he text her, as he promised? Did he go to Balham for the party? We’ll never know. But the beauty of the late-night train is that there are always conversations like this on which we can eavesdrop.

An Extreme Weather Event…

…or How London Came To A Grinding Halt.

Step 1: Forecast heavy snow for two days. Watch as some people act like the armageddon is coming. Watch as others treat it like another erroneous forecast from the Met Office. They are famous, after all, for issuing forecasts like ‘Bright and sunny with some cloud and some rain. Generally fine.’

Step 2: Witness large clumps of snow falling from the sky. The ground is lightly covered with white flecks. Canadians call this a mere dusting and get on with things. Britons say, ‘Wow, it’s really coming down hard!’ They walk around with heavy parkas and umbrellas. Umbrellas?!

Step 3: Wake up, look outside, and see snow everywhere. About 10cm of it. It’s eerily silent. Turn on the radio or the TV. All you hear about is the snow. There is no other news. Major roads like the M25 are backed up for 7 miles or more. Schools across the nation are shut. Trains cease to operate. London buses – yes, those large, red, double-decker things – are no longer running. The London Underground suspends most of its trains. My first question…isn’t the Underground, well, UNDER the ground? Turns out that it’s also partially ABOVE ground. If falling leaves can cause delays on the Underground, imagine what snow can do. And here’s just how much snow fell in this great city:

Outside our front door

Step 4: Turn on your computer and receive a flurry of emails from the university telling people to go home, or not to come in at all. Libraries are closed. Cafeterias across campus are closed because no groceries were delivered. The M25 is still backed up. London has become a ghost-town.

Step 5: Laugh, I mean, really LAUGH, when the BBC weather woman says that with the wind chill, the temperature in London will be a BITTERLY COLD -5C!!  Yes, that’s right. It was bitterly cold. HA HA HA HA…sorry…

Step 6: Think back to the great snow storm of 1999 in Toronto when they called in the army to help dig themselves out. The rest of Canada laughed and mocked Torontonians. Then again, they did have over 80cm of snow. London had 15cm at the most. This city, however, appears to have few snow plows. And despite the repeated forecast, sanding of roads appears to be a slow process. A BBC radio announcer on Day 2 of the Extreme Weather Event, in response to the wide-spread criticism about London’s lack of preparedness for the snow, says, ‘It is not beyond the wit of man to put grit on the roads.’ Only on the BBC…

Step 7: If there’s snow, then what choice do you have, but to play in it?! Here’s what we did in the London Snow Storm of 2009:

Don’t move your head!

…or ‘The Scary Russian and the Cheap Haircut’…

I recently had a comment about this blog…do you do anything besides eating and cooking?!  Yes, we’re rather fond of both activities.  But sometimes, one needs to attend to the more mundane things in life, like getting a haircut.

I have usually managed to time my hair cuts with visits to Edmonton, thereby saving myself at least $50 (not including the plane ticket home, of course).  This November, I finally agreed that perhaps I should find someone locally to cut my hair.  This is my slow way of admitting that I’m not here JUST for my PhD.  Through a trusted Canadian friend, I found out about a hair academy we shall refer to as T&G.  For a mere £5, you can have the pleasure of a 3-hour hair cut at the hands of a trainee stylist.  T&G run a tight ship, herding groups of 5 to 6 willing ‘models’ up to their training floors, sorted by the kind of hair you have and if you want your hair coloured as well.  Let it be known that this was the first time in my life that I was a ‘model.’  And likely the last…

My lovely trainee, E, assured me that she was a hairdresser in Moscow, so I had nothing to be worried about.  Perhaps her grim expression should have tipped me off.  That, and as a friend said, ‘Have you seen womens’ haircuts in Moscow?!’  Trainees have to tell their instructors exactly what they are planning on doing before they can take a pair of scissors anywhere near your head.  The plan seemed fine until…

E gave me a stern warning, ‘Do not move your head at all when I start cutting.  You must keep very still.  This is VERY IMPORTANT.’  Who’s to argue with a woman with sharp scissors and a hunk of your hair in her hands?  It took E about 90 minutes to trim 1/3 of my hair, with frequent requests to her instructor for help.  I was certain that nothing was really being cut off.  As time wore on, she seemed to become increasingly perturbed.  The force with which she combed my hair straight was enough to move my head off its perfectly aligned centre position.  Then came the warning, ‘Don’t move your head! (Pause).  Please.’  With every tug of my hair, the warnings became louder, ‘I SAID, don’t MOVE YOUR HEAD!’  I wanted to gently remind her that no normal human being can keep their head perfectly still while someone is tugging on their hair for three hours.  But I kept my mouth shut.  She was from Moscow, after all…

Three hours and twenty minutes later, I had slightly shorter hair, styled into a strange curly poof with a middle parting and flattened at the top.  E told me it would look better once I’d washed it.  Indeed…

All said, my hair doesn’t look that bad, and it was only £5.  But whether I’ll return to T&G Academy and put my hair into the hands of another scary Russian remains to be seen…