Joyeux Noel

I wanted to share with you a few UK holiday traditions.  Mulled Wine and Mince Pies, and Crackers and Crowns were present at every Christmas party (and one day in the school cafeteria just for fun) and  Boxing Day was a sight to behold.  I know there are more I am forgetting in this post but I wanted to get it online as Christmas was over a week ago already.  I may come back and sneakily update it with more....


Mulled Wine and Mince Pies

The first of the holiday traditions I was introduced to was mulled wine and mince pies.  You can't have one without the other.  Take the usual wassail, use red wine instead of apple juice, and Bob's your uncle (we're in England now, folks.  Getting alcohol into every tradition is, well, tradition!).  Mince pies are essentially single-serving, double-crust pies filled with a sweet fruit mixture that is made of spices and sugar and served hot from the oven.  The warm wine goes straight to your head and the hot pie goes straight to your heart.  The perfect combination for a cold winter night!  My flatmate has a friend who invited us over and made both of these tasty treats by hand.  These stand out as the best of the best for the entire holiday season (and believe me when I say I had many points of comparison).

Back in the Land of Blogging

Phew.  It's been a while.  In the time since I last posted anything real the following events occurred: Thanksgiving, finals, and Christmas.  That list comes out looking rather short in all honesty.  I am sure there were some nights at the Rocket, garden strolls, days at the British Library, and hours at the cafe that may have also distracted me from blogging.  But I'm back nonetheless.  And I have all kinds of exciting stories and sights to tell/show you respectively.

Firstly, let's just celebrate that I am done with class!!!!  That means more time to wander the city which has been lovely.  Over the course of yesterday and today, Y and I walked six miles or so through the back streets (also known as dark and slightly-intimidating alleyways) and saw some pretty off-the-beaten-path places.  Here are some pics for your viewing pleasure along with a link to the map of our walk if you want to do it yourself.

Stuff on Sunny

Quite possibly my most fashionable niece.

Cafe Fiction

Some people said the house was haunted and I believed them that she had been dead for seven years. So he started looking for her grave and started dancing on his tomb. Then the ground broke open and a cold withered hand grabbed his ankle. He looked down and said "what a lovely hand." They lived happily ever after.

Wikipedia Knows Everything

Bacon

Main article: Bacon mania

Arun Gupta of The Indypendent has pointed out how bacon in particular possesses six ingredient types of umami, which elicits an addictive neurochemical response.^[13] According to Gupta "the chain lards on bacon in particular" give foods a "high flavor profile" creating a "one-of-a-kind product that has no taste substitute."^[14] This led Dr. David Kessler, author ofThe End of Overeating, to note how the standard joke in the restaurant chain industry goes, "When in doubt, throw cheese and bacon on it."^[14]