I was going to post something more whimsical tonight, a post idea I've had since I started this blog or perhaps before then, but I just realised that it's been over 2 weeks since I last made a post. So this is an update post for those who know me.
I've been here just shy of 1 month and I don't feel like I've accomplished a lot of what needs to get done. I'm no clearer on what I can do to sort out immigration but I do have an appointment to talk to a lawyer about my situation so I can get advice on the best course of action and what my options actually are. I've read a few books for pleasure, as opposed to text books, and watched lots of Futurama, Invader Zim, The Simpsons, The Daily Show and Colbert Report. I have, supposedly, made friends with the dog. I think it's more of a truce, really, because I am undeniably a cat person.
I have plenty of forms to fill out, though some I am waiting to speak to the lawyer about before filling in or submitting, but it's been increasingly difficult to find the motivation. I know how terribly self-defeating it is to procrastinate on these matters but there was a point where I felt every time I made an inquiry about my situation I found out that I was even worse off than I had originally thought. That mindset is another self-defeating behaviour, I do realise, and I finally just decided to give myself last weekend off worrying and fretting to relax before tackling the tasks on Monday. Hence why I have the lawyer appointment tomorrow; because I finally had the energy to find a lawyer and set it up.
I really struggled with eating safe and healthful foods when I was busy finishing up my study at super-speed in NZ so it's been wonderful to have the time and resources to try out recipes I've been wanting to. I was frustrated that I had a cupboard full of spices but was lacking one that I wanted. Then, at future-in-law's behest, I looked again and found that I had everything to make the spice mix that I wanted. So, tonight I made my own 5 spice with freshly ground star anise, fennel seeds, Szechuan peppers, cloves and cinnamon. It smells delicious so I'm looking forward to when I've made enough room in the fridge to make more food. I have been over-doing it just a tad since I'm out-pacing myself with how much I can actually eat. I do have some help with consuming the dishes but future-in-law doesn't want to eat all my safe food and fiancé doesn't like all of it. I am eating a lot of pasta. There's still at least 20 pounds of dry pasta in the pantry (that's about 20 boxes, 8 servings per box) but fiancé is helping me eat it too.
I think I've probably rambled on long enough tonight. I am still alive and, relatively, well. Hopefully my next post will be more entertaining and I'll take my camera out with me tomorrow when we go to North Attleborough (20 minutes away) to see the lawyer. I might catch some squirrels or chipmunks being cute. You never know; they seem to make a habit of it around these parts.
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
State of the Culinary Arts
In my last post I mentioned that I've been cooking more often in the past couple of weeks since my arrival than I had been earlier in the year. Part of the reason for this is that I want to make a lifestyle change to stick to foods that are safe for me and won't make me sick (because of IBS) and another part is the freedom of the comparatively large kitchen that I have at my disposal. For a while now I've been wanting to make a post about shopping, cooking and eating in the US because I've noticed a fair amount of differences between those habits here and in NZ. Some of these points may have to do with income levels, State differences and family habits/culture but this is my experience.
Firstly, shopping in the US is interesting. Even in the normal everyday supermarket I can get Soy Cream Cheese - which is incredibly delicious and safe for me! There are more flavours of soy ice cream than I'm used to (cookies and cream included) and in our local grocery store there is a Dunkin' Donuts. I've actually found, to my surprise, that I can eat the type of donuts that Honey Dew Donuts and Dunkin' Donuts sell. I've also found that strawberry frosted donuts with sprinkles are so good that I want to eat too many of them. These stores are everywhere and they have drive through windows. Oh, that's another thing; there are drive through windows for pretty much everything. In Wellington, the capital of NZ, there were 2 stores with drive through windows in the central Wellington and close suburbs. They were both US franchise fast food restaurants. Here you have all the fast food places with drive through windows, a café has one, the pharmacies have them, there are drive-through ATMs and you can get little electronic boxes that attach to your windscreen to automatically pay at toll booths. It seems, in the USA, all you have to do is drive through.
Back to the supermarkets now. I have never seen so many frozen dinners in one place at one time! There are at least 4 aisles of vertical freezers with vegetables, pre-cooked meats, ready made dinners, ice cream, waffles, donuts, gluten free foods and etcetera in our local grocery store. About a half of one of those freezers is filled with microwave meals. There is another freezer for seafood, though it's a bit smaller, and most of the back wall of the store is refrigeration for meat, dairy, perishable soy and, yet again, more mircowave dinners that don't need to be stored frozen. Compare this to my local supermarkets; the larger of which usually had 2 freezers for vegetables, pre-cooked meat and instant foods. The instant foods took up about a quarter to a third of 1 freezer. These freezers were also much smaller; they were the type you look into from above. And it's not that this area is more populated; Franklin has a population of 31,635 as of the 2010 US Census and Wellington City has a population of 192,800 (and those are just those that live in the city, not those that live in the greater Wellington region, many people commute into the city for work for other activities). The reason for the difference is, in my humble opinion, that there are more supermarkets in Wellington city than there are in Franklin. A lot of Franklin is spread out and you can't walk or bus anywhere without first getting a ride to a footpath that goes somewhere other than around the block or to a bus station. Downtown Franklin doesn't contain a supermarket (they're too big here for one to fit) and they tend to be in big malls with a dozen other stores.
Secondly, I wanted to tackle the topic of fast food and restaurant meals. The US has something of a reputation, at least in NZ, of creating a habit of large portion sizes. While it's true that you can get a giant drink from a fast food restaurant; it actually seems that most franchises give portions around the same size as those of US food chains in NZ. Now, non-fast food restaurants are another story. When I went to a steak and seafood place nearby they gave giant portions. Future-in-law said that the reason for this is that if a restaurant serves normal, moderate sized portions that people would give themselves at home they are suddenly assumed to be stingy and they would get a bad reputation. He said that many people, himself included, take half the meal home to have the next day or at another time. There are people who eat the whole meal then and there but I think every country has people who over-indulge at least some of the time.
And lastly, the adventure of this family's kitchen. I have to tangent back to the super market for a moment here to explain a detail I missed earlier. There seems to be, on almost all items that I went to buy, a constant discount deal on buying in bulk. For example, if you buy 10 bottles of iced tea you can get them all for $10. I'm used to seeing 2 for $5, and there are a few of those deals too, but I've never seen a bulk deal for 10 of an item in an NZ supermarket. In fact, from what I recall, most NZ supermarkets actually restricted the number of an item shoppers could purchase and it was usually maximum of 12. Perhaps the enticement of a discount for buying in bulk can be partly to blame for the state of the kitchen in this house. There is, as I put it to fiancé the other day: "More of everything you could ever need or use before it expires" in this kitchen. There are two large closets which are used as pantries and they're completely full of cans, packets, boxes and cartons of food. There's half a shelf of plastic re-sealable storage bags, tin foil, wax paper and parchment baking paper. There is an entire, albeit small, shelf dedicated to pre-made frosting, muffin and cake mixes. There is an entire very large shelf covered in herbs and spices in jars and zip-lock bags. It's great to have so much to work with but the problem is that I don't know I have all these things unless I manage to hunt them out through the 3 rows of cans on one shelf or the stacked trays of spice jars.
When I asked fiancé if he had ever heard of the fad of eating your way to a bare cupboard; he said that he had not. I'm not in the least part surprised by this. I would love to do this with this household's kitchen but I foresee some issues. One is that fiancé, due to a physical condition causing heightened senses, is a very fussy eater. There are foods in the cupboard that he used to eat but now won't. Another is that I can't eat a lot of what is in the cupboards because of my own health issues. Perhaps, if we can find no one at home who will consume them, some of the cans will have to be donated. We'll see what happens, and if I can get anyone to co-operate with me, as time goes on.
Firstly, shopping in the US is interesting. Even in the normal everyday supermarket I can get Soy Cream Cheese - which is incredibly delicious and safe for me! There are more flavours of soy ice cream than I'm used to (cookies and cream included) and in our local grocery store there is a Dunkin' Donuts. I've actually found, to my surprise, that I can eat the type of donuts that Honey Dew Donuts and Dunkin' Donuts sell. I've also found that strawberry frosted donuts with sprinkles are so good that I want to eat too many of them. These stores are everywhere and they have drive through windows. Oh, that's another thing; there are drive through windows for pretty much everything. In Wellington, the capital of NZ, there were 2 stores with drive through windows in the central Wellington and close suburbs. They were both US franchise fast food restaurants. Here you have all the fast food places with drive through windows, a café has one, the pharmacies have them, there are drive-through ATMs and you can get little electronic boxes that attach to your windscreen to automatically pay at toll booths. It seems, in the USA, all you have to do is drive through.
Back to the supermarkets now. I have never seen so many frozen dinners in one place at one time! There are at least 4 aisles of vertical freezers with vegetables, pre-cooked meats, ready made dinners, ice cream, waffles, donuts, gluten free foods and etcetera in our local grocery store. About a half of one of those freezers is filled with microwave meals. There is another freezer for seafood, though it's a bit smaller, and most of the back wall of the store is refrigeration for meat, dairy, perishable soy and, yet again, more mircowave dinners that don't need to be stored frozen. Compare this to my local supermarkets; the larger of which usually had 2 freezers for vegetables, pre-cooked meat and instant foods. The instant foods took up about a quarter to a third of 1 freezer. These freezers were also much smaller; they were the type you look into from above. And it's not that this area is more populated; Franklin has a population of 31,635 as of the 2010 US Census and Wellington City has a population of 192,800 (and those are just those that live in the city, not those that live in the greater Wellington region, many people commute into the city for work for other activities). The reason for the difference is, in my humble opinion, that there are more supermarkets in Wellington city than there are in Franklin. A lot of Franklin is spread out and you can't walk or bus anywhere without first getting a ride to a footpath that goes somewhere other than around the block or to a bus station. Downtown Franklin doesn't contain a supermarket (they're too big here for one to fit) and they tend to be in big malls with a dozen other stores.
Secondly, I wanted to tackle the topic of fast food and restaurant meals. The US has something of a reputation, at least in NZ, of creating a habit of large portion sizes. While it's true that you can get a giant drink from a fast food restaurant; it actually seems that most franchises give portions around the same size as those of US food chains in NZ. Now, non-fast food restaurants are another story. When I went to a steak and seafood place nearby they gave giant portions. Future-in-law said that the reason for this is that if a restaurant serves normal, moderate sized portions that people would give themselves at home they are suddenly assumed to be stingy and they would get a bad reputation. He said that many people, himself included, take half the meal home to have the next day or at another time. There are people who eat the whole meal then and there but I think every country has people who over-indulge at least some of the time.
And lastly, the adventure of this family's kitchen. I have to tangent back to the super market for a moment here to explain a detail I missed earlier. There seems to be, on almost all items that I went to buy, a constant discount deal on buying in bulk. For example, if you buy 10 bottles of iced tea you can get them all for $10. I'm used to seeing 2 for $5, and there are a few of those deals too, but I've never seen a bulk deal for 10 of an item in an NZ supermarket. In fact, from what I recall, most NZ supermarkets actually restricted the number of an item shoppers could purchase and it was usually maximum of 12. Perhaps the enticement of a discount for buying in bulk can be partly to blame for the state of the kitchen in this house. There is, as I put it to fiancé the other day: "More of everything you could ever need or use before it expires" in this kitchen. There are two large closets which are used as pantries and they're completely full of cans, packets, boxes and cartons of food. There's half a shelf of plastic re-sealable storage bags, tin foil, wax paper and parchment baking paper. There is an entire, albeit small, shelf dedicated to pre-made frosting, muffin and cake mixes. There is an entire very large shelf covered in herbs and spices in jars and zip-lock bags. It's great to have so much to work with but the problem is that I don't know I have all these things unless I manage to hunt them out through the 3 rows of cans on one shelf or the stacked trays of spice jars.
When I asked fiancé if he had ever heard of the fad of eating your way to a bare cupboard; he said that he had not. I'm not in the least part surprised by this. I would love to do this with this household's kitchen but I foresee some issues. One is that fiancé, due to a physical condition causing heightened senses, is a very fussy eater. There are foods in the cupboard that he used to eat but now won't. Another is that I can't eat a lot of what is in the cupboards because of my own health issues. Perhaps, if we can find no one at home who will consume them, some of the cans will have to be donated. We'll see what happens, and if I can get anyone to co-operate with me, as time goes on.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
End of Week 1
Well, it's past midnight so I've officially been in the US of A for an entire week. I feel like I've accomplished very little but I do know now a lot more of what I cannot do, in terms of immigration rules and visas, so I just have to figure out what I can do to get things sorted. I've spoken to US Citizen and Immigration Services, the Auckland US Consulate and the National Visa Center. From all this I have concluded that: I need some legal advice.
In less bureaucratic news, I started painting the kitchen wall today. Part of the aforementioned wall had to be removed to access the plumbing so that old copper pipes could be replaced by new, longer-lasting, plastic pipes. Actually, technically speaking, I didn't do any painting today. I was busy wiping the extra plaster off the parts that didn't need plastering and then sanding the rest down smooth. It's not a huge area to deal with but I foolishly didn't cover my head and got fine dust all over my hair and face. It was almost comical to look in the bathroom mirror and see horizontal lines of white powder running down from the bridge of my nose. I guess dark circles are good for something and that something happens to be catching dust. Who would have thought it? The reason that I was roped into this house repair project is that, the other day when future-in-law was helping us move the things we weren't allowed to move from our room without him and mounting the TV on the wall (and I'm still not sure about having a TV in a bedroom but this will basically be like our 1 room flat which is a sanctuary away from the antiques), I accidentally confessed that my father was a house painter when future-in-law asked me if I could paint. I don't really mind doing it, he is doing a lot for me and fiancé, but sanding is one of those menial tasks which is unlikely to be enjoyed by many. I am certainly not a huge fan of it myself.
The room that we're staying in is on the way to being, but isn't quite yet, habitable. We have an annoying situation where suitcases full of clothes, and other bags, are taking up space so there's little room to move around. But, frustratingly, we can't unpack until we have somewhere to put all these belongings. One of the set of drawers that we would like to use for this room are next door in what used to be fiancé's bedroom but has become the tenth storage room (1. attic 2. basement 3. garage 4. first storage locker 5. second storage locker 6. front room 7. TV room 8. dining room 9. future-in-law's office room). To remove the draws we would have to clear a path because the floor is covered in boxes and piles of stuff and things, remove all the ornaments, lamps and etcetera from the top of the drawers, empty and remove the draws or just carry them with their contents next door and then move the frame out and somehow fit it through the door to our room which has the doorway partially obstructed by an overflowing bookshelf (which is not ours nor are its contents). Fiancé thinks it's impossible or, at the very least, close enough to impossible for him not to want to bother. I tend to agree with him. The lesson of the day seems to be; make do with what you have. And make do we shall.
It hasn't been all bureaucrats and moving boxes, though. Fiancé and I did get to the movies the other day to see Rise of The Planet of the Apes. I enjoyed it but I probably wouldn't pay to see it twice. I've also been cooking a lot more than I have in the last several months. Tonight I made couscous with dried fruit and pistachio nuts. I found it delicious but fiancé was not so enthused. He decided he would like it better with brown sugar and apple sauce - which can easily be arranged - but this does mean that I have to finish his portion. Woe unto me. It's calling me now so I'd best deal to it.
In less bureaucratic news, I started painting the kitchen wall today. Part of the aforementioned wall had to be removed to access the plumbing so that old copper pipes could be replaced by new, longer-lasting, plastic pipes. Actually, technically speaking, I didn't do any painting today. I was busy wiping the extra plaster off the parts that didn't need plastering and then sanding the rest down smooth. It's not a huge area to deal with but I foolishly didn't cover my head and got fine dust all over my hair and face. It was almost comical to look in the bathroom mirror and see horizontal lines of white powder running down from the bridge of my nose. I guess dark circles are good for something and that something happens to be catching dust. Who would have thought it? The reason that I was roped into this house repair project is that, the other day when future-in-law was helping us move the things we weren't allowed to move from our room without him and mounting the TV on the wall (and I'm still not sure about having a TV in a bedroom but this will basically be like our 1 room flat which is a sanctuary away from the antiques), I accidentally confessed that my father was a house painter when future-in-law asked me if I could paint. I don't really mind doing it, he is doing a lot for me and fiancé, but sanding is one of those menial tasks which is unlikely to be enjoyed by many. I am certainly not a huge fan of it myself.
The room that we're staying in is on the way to being, but isn't quite yet, habitable. We have an annoying situation where suitcases full of clothes, and other bags, are taking up space so there's little room to move around. But, frustratingly, we can't unpack until we have somewhere to put all these belongings. One of the set of drawers that we would like to use for this room are next door in what used to be fiancé's bedroom but has become the tenth storage room (1. attic 2. basement 3. garage 4. first storage locker 5. second storage locker 6. front room 7. TV room 8. dining room 9. future-in-law's office room). To remove the draws we would have to clear a path because the floor is covered in boxes and piles of stuff and things, remove all the ornaments, lamps and etcetera from the top of the drawers, empty and remove the draws or just carry them with their contents next door and then move the frame out and somehow fit it through the door to our room which has the doorway partially obstructed by an overflowing bookshelf (which is not ours nor are its contents). Fiancé thinks it's impossible or, at the very least, close enough to impossible for him not to want to bother. I tend to agree with him. The lesson of the day seems to be; make do with what you have. And make do we shall.
It hasn't been all bureaucrats and moving boxes, though. Fiancé and I did get to the movies the other day to see Rise of The Planet of the Apes. I enjoyed it but I probably wouldn't pay to see it twice. I've also been cooking a lot more than I have in the last several months. Tonight I made couscous with dried fruit and pistachio nuts. I found it delicious but fiancé was not so enthused. He decided he would like it better with brown sugar and apple sauce - which can easily be arranged - but this does mean that I have to finish his portion. Woe unto me. It's calling me now so I'd best deal to it.
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