I love cake.

More than anything in the world, really (with one glaring exception). I am obsessed with it, in a way that few people will understand. Occasionally, I will rifle through old pictures, and find photos of cakes I made long ago. I remember them fondly, like old lovers.

I long for them in the middle of the night. When I daydream, my thoughts fall to them. And I must make a conscious decision, every time I am at the grocery store, to buy groceries and not an entire sheet cake or three.

Recently, a friend of mine got married, and I started dancing around in anticipation of the cake, and other numerous goodies that were on the dessert table. And after standing an excruciating few minutes in line (DEAR GOD THE HUMANITY) I was finally able to get to the front, where I might have piled an obscene number of sweets onto my plate.

Later, I sat amongst my friends, frosting smudged across my lips, drool dripping from my mouth, and slowly slipped into a mild diabetic coma. It was glorious.

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The other day we were hanging out with some friends – some American, some not, and we realized that none of us were really sure what countries are included in the phrase “United Kingdom”. Nor did we know what’s a part of “Great Britain.” England, we pretty much figured out (they’re those wussy guys who tried to tax us, right?).

The point is, along with which colors indicates positive and negative charges on a pair of jumper cables, these are things that we all should probably know, but don’t (For the record, red is positive and black is negative). I figured it was best to set the record straight (for myself and others) before we actually head out Glasgow and London next week. So while our British reader (Hi, Will!) sits back and cringes, the rest of you should pay attention, because we might all learn something. (more…)

Branding is everything.

Whenever anyone disputes this point, my husband brings up Altria. They saw a jump in investors when they stopped calling themselves Philip Morris. Altria sounds new and youthful. Philip Morris sounds like a hacking cough.

So while I was impressed with some of the copywriting I saw in the U.K., as well as the food, their cuisine needs a bit of rebrand. Let’s take a look a few examples from our lovely day in Brighton …

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Pickled Eggs

Ewwww .... and also, ewwwww.

This might be the one instance in the history of time where “devil” is a preferable word to “pickle”. Even “brined eggs” might have been preferred here. But “pickled eggs”? No no no. Combining two things you find in most people’s refrigerators, and then NOT REFRIGERATING THEM is a very bad idea. With a better name they might be … ah, hell. Who am I kidding? The name doesn’t matter at this point. Just don’t eat these unless you want Botulism. (more…)

For the most part, I get the English. I really do. I know that we’re “two countries separated by a common langauge” (or something equally obnoixous and clever), but for the most part, I understand and am pretty familiar with English culture. My mom spent her childhood split between the U.K and Italy, and my aunt is married to an Englishman, and I’ve got English cousins and the like. They make tea roughly 5 times a day, they consume a disproportional amount of potatoes, and they influenced my vocabulary as a young child to the point of me saying weird things, like callings bangs a “fringe”, sweaters “jumpers”, and referring to a car’s blinker as an “indicator”. That last one is something that, for whatever reason, I’ve been unable to kick.

Oh, and growing up my brother forced me to watch hours upon hours of old Doctor Who episodes with him every rainy weekend we had. I cannot even begin to articulate how boring that sort of thing is for anyone, much less a nine-year-old girl. Seriously, he owes me. Big time. 

Because of my bro, I not only know what this is, but was able to make a crack about how I could escape from it by running up a flight of stairs.

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