Quiet Cambridge Christmas

The streets of Cambridge were devoid of cars and bicycles from Christmas Eve through Boxing Day, 26 Dec. M* and I spent the 2 1/2 days baking (gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and gluten-free version of Grandma Welling's butter cookies), attending midnight mass at Our Lady of English Martyrs Church (a Gothic revival church built in the 1880s that gives the impression of having more seating than in actuality-arriving 40 minutes before the service afforded us standing room and the pleasure of being bumped by the constant stream of new arrivals-good thing for a nice priest, a well-trained choir, an impressive (but sometimes a bit too dark) organ, and mass interspersed with familiar Christmas songs ('Silent Night, Holy Night', 'O Come all ye Faithful', 'God rest ye Merry Gentlemen,' and 'Hark the Herald angels sing')), cooking (roast chicken; a Mexican breakfast including homemade Mexican black beans; cock-a-leekie soup; lentil soup; a Christmas dinner of salad, ham, mashed potatoes, carrots, brussel sprouts), eating (everything we cooked!), walking (around the deserted streets of Cambridge), sleeping (until 9, 10 or 11am as sunrise is not until 8am and then no streams of sunlight to wake you) and watching movies (double feature of 007 (first Bond movie that either of us had seen in theatre, and it didn't disappoint) and Borat (I only watched about a half of the movie as my face was buried in M*'s shoulder due to the gut-wrenching uncomfortableness of the comedy)) at the Arts Picturehouse (a theatre with a broad selection of ever-changing movies and a fully stocked bar).

M* and I had wanted to start a Christmas tradition; we decided gaming on Christmas would work. I rarely want to game one-on-one with M* because he's too competitive for my liking. However, by the time we finished cooking and cleaning it was late, and we ended up snuggled under our duvet watching a few episodes of season two of the BBC comedy (or is it terror?) series "League of Gentlemen" capped off with a classic "Strangers With Candy" episode, Feather in the Storm. Not sure if this is going to become our Christmas tradition.

Here are some pictures from our Christmas Day walk.
Kings College, me hanging from a tree in front of Kings College (my head is not that conical--it's the hat--really it is), a lone punt on the Cam in front of Trinity College, ducks taking advantage of quiescent punts

Welcome Tristan Oliver Kraemer

M* and I became uncle and aunt on 23 December. M*'s sister Hallie and her husband Ralf are now parents of a healthy baby boy-Tristan Oliver Kraemer. We're anxiously awaiting photos!

28 Dec--Here are a few pictures!

11 Dec 2006

The river is quiet. The leaves have fallen.

Overheard

*"I don't think you can ever know enough languages."-young college boy walking through the market square with a friend. Reminded me of something my friend James once asked me: "If you could have any superpower, what would it be?" I answered something obvious like the power of flight. His choice was the universal translator-the power to understand and speak all languages. I still think it's one of the best super powers out there (yet to be discovered).

*A woman asking to go ahead of two other people in line at Staples. Granted she had only one item, but the other people only had two or three. The people actually let her. I just don't see that happening in the States-at least not in LA.

Things I Like: Grammar Girl Podcast

Short podcasts to fill in the (many) gaps in my grammar education delivered with silly examples: "Where's the snail race at?"-showing misuse of preposition when there is no direct object. Check out her web site or sign-up at iTunes.

Topics include
Is it OK to end a sentence with a preposition?
"Among" versus "between" and "toward" versus "towards."
Have you used a redundant acronym lately?
Is it OK to end a sentence with a preposition?

Good Mexican Food in London

Went down to London last week as M* had another meeting and our friend Andy was in town from DC. I took a later train than M* and walked from Liverpool Station through Shoreditch (stopped at a cool shop, EllaDoran, on Chesire Street) down over the Tower Bridge to the Design Museum London (saw a piece of work by artist Philip Worthington that reminded me of my friend Tyler's media installations, which he's creating during his graduate work at UCLA) and, finally, back over to meet M* by the London Eye. Since it was getting dark, we skipped the London Eye and walked over to Victoria Station and grabbed a drink while we waited for Andy to finish up work (Andy was a good sport to try Mexican food in England-his exact words, "I am a bit skeptical...though I don't ever tire of Mexican food!").

There is not an established history of Mexican cuisine here-one can barely locate corn tortillas and then it's usually hard, Old El Paso taco shells. Since M* and I have been craving Mexican food, I thought that maybe I'd learn to make tortillas, and I found the Mexican restaurant Taqueria online while Googling "tortilla presses UK." The restaurant has an online store, Cool Chile Co, that sells spice mixes, dried chilis, tortilla presses and more. The menu-with the al pastor, mole poblano, poblanas-resembled that of our favorite Mexico City style Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles-Loteria Grill at the Farmer's Market.

The three of us were not disappointed. We each had four tacos (al pastor was my favorite), beans, rice and mango sorbet for dessert. I also bought Achiote paste, smoky hot powder, dried epazote and tomatillo salsa. The only surprise was the expense-$90 for M* and me! I don't think it's possible to spend that much if you order the entire Loteria menu. We decided not to worry about the bill, as our bellies, mouths and taste buds were entirely satiated. Now back in Cambridge, I'd happily pay $45 for such quality Mexican food.


photos (top to bottom): Tower of London; view of Tower Bridge, Thames and Swiss Re Building from the Design Museum London; Design Museum Tank; shelving designed by Viable at the Design Mart at DML; Big Ben and Houses of Parliament (both at 3:15pm)

First Christmas Mistletoe

3,500 Files and Counting

Just spent four hours sorting through the 3,500 image files that I recovered from my directory-less external hard drive. It was a fun, although slightly mind-numbing and carpal-tunnel inducing, experience-the unexpected trip down memory lane. The images are in fine shape, but were in a bizarre order and had uninformative names like J1067x1600-00827.jpg. Odd how I'd be looking at photos from our trip to Belize in 2005 or Halloween 2003 and a photo like this would pop-up in the middle (click on the photo for a better look).

Amy, Amy Everywhere

I look like a lot of women. People always tell me that I look like someone they know or they think that they know me from somewhere. My brother-in-law sent me a photo about three years ago; it was of a woman getting on or off a bus in the 1960s. He was going through the photos for work, and he said he asked himself, "What is Amy doing on this bus- in the 1960s?"

Last week Matt was reading the NY Times online and there was a thumbnail image from a movie. He said, "There's Amy on the NY Times." I looked over, and I did a double-take. There are photos from a few years ago where I'm wearing an orange top where the resemblance is strong. What do you think?









Paz Vega in 10 Items or Less











KCRW Angel Party 2002- Jess, me and Catherine

First Christmas Stocking

Although there is little incentive to go all out for Christmas, as anything we buy will most likely stay here and the cost is prohibitively high, I thought we should be a little festive on our first Christmas together as a married couple. Christmas lights are bought and on their way to being hung. I also couldn't resist this fun, colorful and sweet stocking that I saw at EllaDoran last week in London.

Amalgamation of Smells

M* was browning bacon for a corn chowder recipe while my fragrant apple cinnamon cake baked in the oven below. Smell of cinnamon and apples-yummy. Aroma of cooking bacon-mmmm. An amalgamation of the three-unusual. I will say that savory won out in the end; as soon as the apple cinnamon cake was done, a chicken rubbed with fresh rosemary, garlic, pepper and thyme and stuffed with more rosemary and onions went in the oven.





(M* making corn chowder. Luckily he finds cooking an enjoyable way to spend a study break.)

Roman Holiday

We're leaving in six days!

Club Fabric--Friday, 12 Jan, 2007

Got our tickets--yeahhhhhhhhhhh!

Event: FabricLive

ANNIE MAC PRESENTS: Mylo (DJ Set), ANNIE MAC (Radio 1), Calvin Harris (LIVE), Rachel Barton, Tom Boy, PROTOTYPE: Grooverider, DJ Hype, Bryan G, Bailey, Blame, MCs: Fun, FIve ALive & Justyce, SOUL:UTION: Marcus Intalex, Doc Scott, Martyn, MC DRS

A New Tornado Alley?

No, London is not Kansas, but a tornado did touch down there today. Freaky--especially as we were just in LDN yesterday, less than two miles from where it touched down. Click here for more info.

Things I Like: Organic Vegetable Delivery

Since mid-November we have been receiving weekly organic vegetable deliveries from the Cambridge Organic Food Company. For £9.50 we get potatoes, carrots, onions and mushrooms every week. Then we also get a mixture of other veggies, which changes each week. These pieces and fillers, as they are called, have consisted of fennel, chard, leeks, butternut squash, zucchini, sweet potatoes, turnips, parsnips, cucumbers and garlic. We even got a free 1/2 dozen eggs. The price is fair, but the quality is high and the deliver is convenient. Plus, I probably would not have bought fennel root (I didn't even know what it was when it arrived--I had to email them and attach a photo), parsnips, turnips or the squash. Aren't the veggies pretty?

(the little one is the fennel that I thought was a type of celery root)

Things I Don't Like: Small Bags Of Chocolate Chips

I just don't get it. The largest bag of chocolate chips that I've been able to find at the supermarket is 3.5 ounces. A bag of chips in the US is at least 12 and normally 14 ounces. Why go through all the trouble of baking for only 20 cookies? I just might have to special order from the Chocolate Trading Company. $16 for 36 ounces - but I'm desperate.

Things I Like: Google Calculator

Just go to Google search and enter conversion you'd like to have. I use this all the time in the UK to find the metric equivalent of imperial/ US units, especially for recipes and temperature.

Here's more info from Google and one of my examples showing the ever falling US Dollar to British Pound exchange Rate:

The US Dollar Ain't What It Used To Be

Ouch! From the NY Times article on 30 Nov:
"the pound climbed to $1.9661 in afternoon New York trading from $1.9462 late Wednesday in New York, marking its strongest showing against the dollar since September 1992, before Britain crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism."

Is it so wrong to pray for another crash? I'd take a mini one.