Adventures in cooking.

Jan. 11
I was really smart when I went grocery shopping this time, and only took one of the baskets instead of a shopping cart, and also invested in some Sainsburys heavy-duty bags with good handles. They were out of Sprite and only had Sprite Zero, which was a huge bummer.

So we decided to take the bus back this time instead of walking with all our stuff; the nearest bus stop didn't look like it took us back to campus, but Hilary asked just to be sure and the driver assured us that his bus took us to Queen Mary. So we hop on, he has us pay, and then he starts driving. After a few stops Hilary goes to check and see if we've missed our stop since the area doesn't look familiar. The drivers' response? "I don't know where that is. It's not on my route."

'Scuse me?? You told us it goes to QM. Why did you say yes if it doesn't??

We all pile off, lug our stuff back two bus stops to a tube station, and take the tube to Mile End and get back to school. He made me very angry, though, that was a waste of a pound or so.

I went to the library to print off my Diff Eq problem sheets and Odyssey readings for Grand Tour, and then Vanessa and I discovered two good trips- one's a daytrip through QM to Bath and Cotswolds, the other is an overnight through ISH (the Internation Student House) to Liverpool (including the Beatles Magical Mystery tour) that we're signing up for. I also stopped by the bookstore and got my QM hoodie, and then came back to my room. I got my reading done while I let Caitlin use my computer to try to fix hers, since hers is all virused and messed up; I also did laundry and cooked dinner, which was very productive.

Let's talk about cooking dinner. First off, we have minimal pots and pans. That's okay, I found ways around that- making my peas in the microwave, for instance. Cooking my chicken was difficult, though. As in, I have no idea how the oven works. I got the temperature bit, but the knob to turn it on made no sense... there was a lightbulb, what looked like a jar with a line at the bottom, then a jar with a line at the bottom and the top, and then a jar with stalactites (the rocks that hang from the top). I put on the lightbulb one. Which was apparently wrong, since my chicken remained frozen. So THEN I put on my stalactite setting, which was also wrong, as my chicken started bubbling and smoking and steaming, which made me think that my fire alarm would go off, which would be awful. The alarms are really sensitive, and it's a 200 pound fine if your alarm goes off unnecessarily. Plus just embarrassing. I turned the oven off, and when Vanessa came over this evening we puzzled out what we THINK the right settings are. My chicken ended up cooked enough, so it was okay in the end.

My mashed potatoes were equally fun. Let me grab the container they came in... okay. So for one serving, you mix 30g of the flakes and 150mL of boiling water and fluff with a fork. Ummm. How much is 30g? And 150mL? Plus we have no measuring cups. WTF??? I decided to just boil some water and pour some flakes in a bowl and keep adding water until they looked right. My water wouldn't boil.

Oh, hi stove, I'm glad that you decided to have your dials mislabeled!! That's very helpful.

Yeah so the wrong burner was on. Figured that out, put the water on the burner that was on, it boiled almost instantly, and figured out my mashed potatoes.

This is going to be a ridiculous semester if I have to guesstimate everything, the only thing I don't follow a recipe for is my mint brownies. Maybe I'll buy some measuring cups when I'm out. But then again, I don't want to spend the money. I'll let you know when I've got a system worked out.

Now let's talk about how I got locked out of the laundry room for a good half hour after my clothes were done in the drier, since the cleaning lady apparently needed it absolutely empty to wipe down the table in the corner. I had to go up and down my stairs three times unsuccessfully before she finally had moved the trash can from in front of the door so that I could rescue my stuff before someone came and moved it out of the drier.

On the bright side, Cadbury chocolate in my refridgerator is very yummy. And I have bananas and oranges for breakfast for tomorrow. :-)