Sweets Like Chocolate

I won't be changing my name in Ike in a hurry.

A few weeks ago, I went to Safeway and found bars of Cadbury's chocolate on sale. Imagine my delight. Actually, I'm not sure you can. That isn't to say that I think you have a limited imagination, but this was excessive and involved much finger wiggling, cheesy grins and surprised and excited shrieks. In public.

I got them home and even managed to unpack everything before ripping the sweet nectar open in a half crazed frenzy. My saliva was primed and even though it looked wrong, the packet was purple, so it must be Cadbury's, right? If I had taken the time and stopped to smell it, I would have known it was wrong but belly rumbling, mind full of greed, I bit into the most disgusting brown substance I have ever tasted...ever. Then, I read the packet.

I feel utterly betrayed. It is of course, Hershey's chocolate wrapped in Cadbury's packaging!! How could they do that? Hershey's have bought the licence, but clearly the purple colour package, the logo and the royal approval (or whatever it is) is where it ends. I'm too upset to write any more, you will have to insert your own bile here.

And Even Without the Tablecloth...

Thanksgiving is my new best day, but that may be the wine talking. We are stuffed to the rafters, have forgone the pumpkin pie for the time being and Mike and Dan have settled in for the night watching the cartoons of their youth on You Tube.

The sweet potato concoction was met with much applause. I liked the sweet potato bit but remain unconvinced about the marshmallows on top however the mixture of sweet and savoury on the plate worked well together. Lucky I guess as there are so many leftovers.

Anyway, I have games to play and wine to drink, for tomorrow, we will need our energy for 'Black Friday'. Despite the sinister name, it is the biggest sale of the year and despite the lack of funds, it would be rude to miss it. They are turning on the Christmas tree lights at Macy's too, which may prove to be too much excitment in the one day but I will try to pace myself. The festive season has officially begun. Then there is 'Cyber Monday' ( I know, it's crazy) which is for the people too lazy to move, or incapable I guess, to have their own sales online. Happy Thanksgiving!

Marshmallows, Yams and Yellow Toe

I'm all for another excuse for eating, drinking and playing games and an authorised day off (although strictly speaking, every day is a day off for me at the moment, so I'll call it an extra day I get to spend with Mike). We have both felt a bit lukewarm towards Thanksgiving up to now viewing it as nothing more than a nice break but nothing special, not like Christmas or anything.

Then, something changed. I can't pinpoint what it was exactly, but Google (my muse it seems) had a lot to do with it. Dan changed his plans and asked whether he could come here instead of spending the day with his landlady's friends, and together with the change in supermarket food, constant emails asking whether I would be ready for Thanksgiving i.e had I got my autumnal coloured tablecloth? (only it didn't mention Autumn of course and there wasn't the all important extra 'u' included) a sense of occasion fell upon me. I did some research to find out what exactly what this was all about and what I was meant to cook. Thanksgiving is all about spending time with your family and giving thanks for all that has happened in the year before, mimicking the first meal of the Pilgrim Fathers. Or something like that anyway, Wikipedia explains it better. I'm not so good at facts.

Before, I was just going to roast a chicken and crack open a bottle of wine as a cosy meal for two. Now there are three of us and we could do that any old day in Britain. So, when in Rome and all that, I have decided, with some persuasion from Mima to go all out and cook up my version of Thanksgiving. I found with my chicken and veg plans I was missing the fundamental thanksgiving ingredient, sugar.

This is the menu I finally came up with. I'm not sure whether it will win many prizes for authenticity and you will have to wait for the next thrilling installment to see how it all tasted. If I haven't blogged in a week's time, please assume that we are in hospital.

Chicken ( I make no apology, I don't really like turkey and it seems that they only sell them in our local supermarket in trolley sized portions)

Homemade cranberry sauce ( one of the things I love about the US is the fact that you can only buy fruit and veg in the correct season and the range that you get over here is of a higher quality and much broader. I cook according to what is cheap and therefore in season. I'm not sure that I have ever seen fresh cranberries on sale in the UK, and certainly not for about £1)

Cornbread stuffing with cranberries and walnuts ( I had a whole bag of cranberries to use. At least we shouldn't get any urinary tract infections)

Cabbage and Walnuts (sort of that recipe. Yeah OK, walnuts were cheap too!)

Roast tatties (I can't remember the last time I had one, I'm salivating just thinking about it)

Yams with Marshmallows (I'm dubious frankly, but Nigella said it would be OK and I trust her..)

Pumpkin Pie (if we can fit it all in)

Lots of wine and ridiculous made up games plus karaoke (probably)

One day I will write a straight list without somehow having to justify the individual items.

I realise that I am only cooking for only 3 people but it means I will only have to cook once this weekend and we can live on leftovers. Unless of course it all proves to be so disgusting that we compost the lot...

By the way, the little toe on my right foot has turned yellow and I am not sure how. I don't think it is part of any Thanksgiving tradition, and only time will tell if it will become one. It could be fun!

In the Eye of the Beholder

As requested...

Just in case you are worried for next time, I have a whole bag full of terrible facial poses and bad hair days. Sigh.

Behind the Spangly Curtain: Cheered up by a Cute Nose

We discovered the best shop in the world recently. Mike actually blogged about this himself (too many bloggers in the house) but although the facts are the same, our approaches differ wildly. He gave it one paragraph in a post about other stuff:

Pika Pika is a shop in Japan Town that consists almost solely of 7 large, Japanese photobooths. Though that does them an injustice. They have automatically rotating backgrounds that drop in and out behind you, some spangly, some lurid pink or pea green. You can photograph 10 different poses and then customise the prints with near infinite variety of insane additions (gerbils, stars, microphones and santa hats). This includes touching up, so Blues edited my thinning wig with luxurious Bob-Downe-in-dark-brown lusciousness. They print almost instantly, once you can tear yourself away from the editing screens. And they're stickers. Stickers?! Genius.

It is a good post. Here is my version.

We discovered the best shop in the world recently. It's in Japantown and is a shop full of nothing but 7 big photo booths. The walls are adorned with photos of smiling people looking as if they have been vandalised by several nursery schools worth of toddlers, half crazed with e numbers, and let loose with crayons.

We visited it on a week day and the place was packed, mainly with teenagers spending their pocket money and I have to say that if I had the pleasure of living here when I was growing up, I too would have frittered away my money here, rather than wasting it all on drugs and booze.

We wandered around the shops seeking some inspriration, utterly baffled by how to use the machines which have their instructions in Japanese. We passed by an old fashioned coat and hat stand which had a sign that simply said 'props'. It was tempting but we were too busy stepping inside machines hoping that Japanese would be easy to master in seconds, and stepping out again to watch how the youngsters were doing it. There were giggles and looks of total incomprehension and nothing in between. We were almost too shy to get help, but Mike (my hero, swoon, etc etc....) bit the bullet as he is so much braver than me and asked the shop man. He explained it all patiently to us (and complimented me on my bag so obviously he is my new best friend) and was just generally lovely despite being asked a million different things by hormone raged teens and two rigid and ever so proper Brits.

We entered the giant machine, fed it some of this fake money we use over here and pressed the buttons we had been advised to press and then pulled a variety of ugly and stupid faces as the machine randomly adjusted the background curtains and happily snapped away. When it was finished with us, we entered a second curtain clad wing of the machine. The lovely shop man actually saw us and came over to explain this section as well and embarrassingly, with my tongue stuck out in extreme concentration and possibly a little drool, I had already started to decorate the pictures with random Japanese wording, pictures of cats, sunflowers, hearts, glitter, cake, Santa hats, bubbles - you name it, we threw it on. I was able to cover the parts of my face I especially don't like with stars. I even enlarged our eyes and gave us better hairstyles with one of the pictures. We worked quickly side by side, a special kind of happy in the air, laughing at the latest creations we had made and discovering yet more options we could use.

Then when we were finished we received more instructions we could never hope to understand and we jabbed wildly at the screen as it started a countdown which automatically induces panic. You have to choose 6 of your favourite to be big and the rest will be little and even though you have been told this already by a lovely man who likes your bag, you make all the wrong choices and start to sweat a bit and you are glad you are sitting behind a curtain so no one can see you, and wish that you weren't the oldest people in the shop, or British, or anything else that makes you stand out so very much.

Then it's all over. We came out from under the curtain and tried to work out where our photos would come out praying that we got their first.

My toes were tingling in excitement and joyous anticipation. The photos came out practically straight away with none of the dryer business you get from back home. They were dry and perfect and a colourful mess of face and santa hats. As Mike mentioned, they are also stickers. Stickers! All for $7. The best fun in the world and you get to take home stickers with your face on?? Perfection itself.

Next time, we will be using the props....