Pancakes

America, WAKE UP and heat up that frying pan, for today is Pancake day!

As is tradition in the UK, the day before Lent starts (Shrove tuesday, fat-tuesday, mardi-gras, or whatever you wish to call it), we make a point of using up all the butter, eggs, etc that are all banned during this period of fasting, and what better way to use all these up than by making pancakes. Well, if you are going to do this properly like me, then I don't simply use up any left-overs, I go out and buy more ingredients, lots more ingredients to be exact. And then I cook.

Now listen up, Pancakes in the UK are somewhat different from the US variety...

US pancakes are exactly what it the describes itself to be, a cake in a pan, thick and fluffy.

UK pancakes would be better described as a paper thin sheet of batter, cooked for no more than a few seconds each side; it is not thick and definitely not fluffy. Basically, a french crepe or a thinner version of a flour tortilla.

Sounds tasty doesn't it. That's because they are.

The beauty of these pancakes is in their versatility. They can be made sweet or savory depending on taste, ice-cream, salsa, chicken, roast veg, take your pick. And if you are still hungry after all that, then your next pancake is only about a minute away.

As for me, I get very excited about Pancake day. I will eat it which ever way you prepare it: hot, cold, sweet, savory, flat, rolled. I'm easy.

Tonight, we are going to a friends house for a Pancake party. Plenty of fillings are on offer apparently. I must admit though, all this talk of Pancakes has my sweet tooth come to the fore and therefore I cannot wait to sample the delights of a Pancake filled with a healthy helping of Ben & Jerry's ice cream! Mmmmmmmmm! Pancakes!

Many people (myself included) think that Pancake day should be a national holiday; for some reason the powers that be disagree!!

Incidentally, this time last year, when Danielle and myself had just started dating, she refused my offer of Pancakes on Pancake day as she failed to understand its significance. Wow, that was almost a dealbreaker for me...! After much explaining about Pancakes Danielle came round to the idea (albeit about a week later), lucky for us otherwise our relationship might have turned out little crepe.

More info about Pancakes can be found here

AC

Pub lunches

One big cultural difference is the pub lunch. In America you say you want to go for a pub lunch, most people would think "Awesome greasy bar food". You would get served such things as hamburgers, french fries, onion rings, and chicken wings. Some bars have great food. But in England most serve a Sunday roast, which could be a roast turkey, beef, pork, or lamb. This is served with a Yorkshire pudding, veggies (carrots, broccli,) Roasted potatoes and gravy.

This past Sunday Arthur and I went to a Pub Lunch with several friend (there were 10 of us in total). We ventured out to the country to a Pub called Dick Hudsons

This was a very cute pub with little saying all over the place.

There are no strangers at Dick Hudsons... only friends who are yet to meet.

Niall enjoying a beer and Sunday roast.

Everyone digging in to there meal.

Then after a great meal, most of us enjoyed a dessert. I even got Arthur to share a dessert with me... Warm Chocolate Brownie with Ice cream... YUMMY!



Then upon leaving the boys thought it would be fun to start a snow ball fight... Which is always a great time


Last here is a few pic of a snowy Yorkshire country on our drive back to Leeds.

People sledding down the hill in the snow.

The new pad

Arthur and I moved officially moved in together on Feb 1st. And have spent the past week making the new place a home. This would include our trip to Ikea yesterday… in which we spent over two hours walking through the store. Our house was already furnished with all Ikea furniture. So we purchased a few things to make the place feel more like home and to make it more organized.

The first picture is our new place 22 Norman Mount. It is a back to back terrace.



We live on a very steep hill, and I have to parallel park, which I am not a fan. It was my only draw back for the house. On the positive side, it was the most reasonable in price for what the house was. In other houses we saw it seems the owner would upgrade the kitchen, but then only put in a tiny fridge with an ice-box for a freezer.


As you can see our kitchen is nice, but doesn’t have much space, which is typical for UK houses. We do have a full fridge and freezer.




From the kitchen you can walk down in to our basement / cellar. Right now this just a big empty room, where we are going to store our luggage and bikes.



The laundry room is also down here… through the doorway.

If you go back up stair to the main floor then through the kitchen you enter the living room.



This is where we added the area rug, throws, pillows, DVD bookcase, wine rack, but most importantly our Colorado poster and Colorado Map.











Then you go upstairs to the first floor, we have our master bedroom and bathroom on this floor. We still need to get pictures for this room, and getting one more end table but it is almost complete.


Then there is our lime green bathroom… it is very bright, but helps wake me up in the morning.

On the top floor or second floor we have the office and second bedroom.

We are getting a duvet for this room, but have purchased pillows for the bed.



The view from upstairs is great, but hard to tell because of the snow....

That is the new pad. Hope you enjoyed the tour… oh and please come visit!