Brrrrr.....

Ric and I leave tonight for Bologna. We're spending New Year's Eve there, although we don't land until 10:30pm. No big party plans, but we're hoping to find a nice little cafe or restaurant where we can enjoy some Italian wine while welcoming in the New Year.

The weather forecast looks pretty intimidating... the BBC is calling for heavy snow tomorrow, with the highs in the 20's!!!! Oh my.

After a couple days of trying to stay warm in Bologna (by eating as much as possible and sticking strictly to red wine), we head to Florence for a night before going home. I'm so glad that we've been able to visit a couple times since moving to London... While a lot has changed since we lived there 8 (!!!) years ago, like no more Sketchy Bar, it still feels like a home away from home and it's always such a great feeling to go back. This time I'm especially excited about dinner at Trattoria dei Quattro Leoni. A great restaurant that we found out about on our last trip but only had time to eat lunch there.

It's hard to believe that 2008 is already over, but what a year. Full of new countries, weddings, babies, new work challenges, new friends, lots of visitors, a little homesickness, and great food. We are so lucky to have such good friends and family in our lives, and we wish you all a wonderful New Year. Have fun and be safe!

Can't believe Christmas has already come and gone...

I hope everyone had a very merry holiday, with lots of family, food and laughter. We certainly did. Especially the food part (see proof below). As some of you know, London pretty much shuts down starting Christmas Eve, so there isn't much else to do other than relax, read a book or two, eat, visit the pub, and watch movies. We did all of those thing in abundance with the company of the Bremer's from Raleigh who flew over to celebrate with us. Here's a quick recap:

Movies watched: 3 (Holiday and Love Actually... of course... then Ric and I saw Australia yesterday at the new movie theater in Belsize Park. Highly recommend!)

Pubs visited: 4 (The Flask in Hampstead, The Flask in Highgate, Holly Bush, Spaniard's Inn)

Books read: at least 3 (I finally finished The Tipping Point, yay!!)

Meals eaten: too many to count, but they include Christmas Eve dinner at Boxwood Cafe (one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants), Christmas breakfast (traditional grits casserole) and dinner (beef roast) at home, and Boxing Day dinner at the Holly Bush

Christmas fairs visited: 1 (in Hyde Park... appropriately called the Winter Wonderland)

Here are a few pictures from the week as well...

The London tube has a sense of humor!



Ric and I had lunch at a pub in Mayfair on Tuesday and I wanted to start singing "One of these things is not like the other..." There were 40+ people and I was the only female!



The beautiful Mandarin Oriental hotel



Enjoying the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park





The traditional Christmas Day stroll through the Heath to Spaniard's Inn











And Christmas Dinner, cooked perfectly (although it took about an hour longer than planned)



Beef roast, sweet potato casserole, roasted root vegetables (very British), and green beans... with Butterscotch Blondies for dessert. Yum!

Misc pics

Happy Sunday everyone. Have a few miscellaneous snapshots that we wanted to share ... We hope you're all getting ready for a wonderful Christmas. Hard to believe it's right around the corner.

Here's a little Christmas band that popped up on Flask Walk:



This is one of the best types of bistros we could possibly imagine... what goes together better than Polish food and Mexican?



And in case you were curious, here are the daily specials:



It's Christmas at 4 Lutton Terrace:




And it's hard to see, but here are a couple shots of the fake snow that was showered on us at a Christmas party on Friday night in St. James'

Christmas funny

An advertising agency here in the UK put together a brilliant video that includes a sock puppet monkey getting increasingly inebriated while giving a spoof holiday toast. You really can't miss this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkHwhz-3yJg

Rwanda

Ric and I are obviously following this situation closely and the only thing we know for sure is that it's complicated, like almost everything in Africa. Wanted to share an informative article from the New York Times in case anyone else is interested in reading more about what's happening:

Rwanda Stirs Deadline Brew of Troubles in Congo
By Jefferey Gettleman
December 3, 2008

KIGALI, Rwanda — There is a general rule in Africa, if not across the world: Behind any rebellion with legs is usually a meddling neighbor. And whether the rebellion in eastern Congo explodes into another full-fledged war, and drags a large chunk of central Africa with it, seems likely to depend on the involvement of Rwanda, Congo’s tiny but disproportionately mighty neighbor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/world/africa/04congo.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rss

Fun websites

I was scanning through TIME Magazine's list of top 50 websites and came across a few that looked particularly interesting:

FreeRice.com - quizzes your vocabulary and donates 20 grains of rice to the UN's world food program for every answer you get right!

ProFootballTalk.com - for the football lovers out there... a combination of breaking news, rumors, and funny opinions

Afrigadget.com - great site that chronicles innovation and new inventions coming out of Africa

Someecards.com - always my favorite site for hilarious (although typically off-color) eCards

Omiru.com - a cool fashion/style site that I had never seen before

SeriousEats.com - a blog and community for "serious food lovers"... this site has recipes, travel food articles, and great food pictures (my personal favorite)



And here's the whole list if you have more time to browse! http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/0,28757,1809858,00.html

Turkey Watch 2008 - the aftermath

I think this speaks for itself:

Turkey watch 2008 - episode 4

We're all too tired from the tryptophan to write much, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I will say, that after much worrying and dreams of lumpiness, the gravy was fantastic...

This Thanksgiving, we're thankful for...

...the puppy cam. Seriously, who doesn't enjoy watching puppies?

Turkey watch 2008 - episode 3

Most importantly, when cooking a turkey, you must visit the local pub for a beer break. If this step is not followed, the turkey will not taste as juicy.

Turkey watch 2008 - episode 2

After the soak, we took Mr. Turkey out and patted him dry. Matthew took care of that and did quite a thorough job (inside and out as you'll see from the picture below). Then I cooked up a little stuffing - with sausage, celery, onion, and butter - and put a good amount inside, leaving the rest for dry stuffing. After rubbing butter all over the skin, sprinkling with salt and pepper, and rubbing with a little Thyme (Matthew's idea), we officially started the cooking process. Only 4 hours now until we have a golden delicious Thanksgiving meal.

Turkey watch 2008

All the way across the pond in Hampstead - where the Americans are out and about, buying wine, pies, stuffing, and looking for turkeys high and low - we're smack in the middle of Turkey Watch 2008. After lots of coaching from moms and grandmothers, we've taken the first (kind of weird) step of pulling out all the little remaining feathers from the bird (there were lots) and soaking it in a salt bath. Ma-Maw said that when she was growing up on the farm her mom used to light newspaper on fire and singe off the feathers, but I think that might be against the Hampstead fire code, so we just pulled them out one by one. As you can see below, Mr. Turkey is now quite comfortable in a cool bath of salty water. Stay tuned for more exciting developments from Turkey Watch - 2008.

Dublin

I really love Dublin. Everyone there was so friendly, it's a great size (easy to find your way around, manageable), we had really good food, and it was of course very festive and Christmasy! All in all, a great weekend...

Matthew and I did a "Hop On Hop Off" bus tour the first day and saw all of the major sites. We then went back to the Guinness Brewery (as you'll see from about half of the photos below), were treated to dinner that night by a friend from London (who's part owner in a restaurant in Dublin), then did a mini pub tour to get a feel for Irish pubs. They were really, really crowded, but fun. Heard Irish music in one, sampled Guiness (which supposedly tastes different depending on what pub you're in) and even chatted with a few Irish people. Then on Sunday we just wandered around... feeling like we already knew the whole city. We saw Trinity College and its amazing library. In it, there's a book called The Book of Kells which was thought to have been written in 800AD. Talk about old. It was pretty amazing.

Thanks to Matthew for encouraging me to come up with him for the weekend, we had a great time!

St. Catherine's church



Museum



Busy streets



Street stalls... a really old law says that these vendors don't have to pay taxes. The licenses for the stalls get passed down through fmailies, so the people selling at these stands can trace their linage back hundreds of years based on the license.



Art from the local college



St. Patrick's Cathedral - under renovation and closed for the day due to graduation ceremonies



Where the magic happens



The electric plant that supplies power to the brewery - yes, they provide their own power in case the national energy grid goes down, Guinness will still be brewed





In the Tasting Lab where you can try Guinness that's not available outside. We had a "medium strength" version





The perfect pour takes 2 minutes exactly



It really does taste better here! From the bar at the top of the brewery








It was packed!



Great 360 degree view of Dublin



Trinity College





Festive lights on Grafton Street