food « kühlschrank.com

2Jul/100

Oh, Canada Day

LOOK LOOK!

Lord tunderin', the Tim Horton's tent at the Trafalgar Square Canada Day do had doughnuts this year. And a massive queue. And no Ice Capps. Melted or sold out, who knows? After standing in the queue for what must have been around 30 minutes I got to the counter and asked if there was a limit on how many doughnuts you could buy. As there was a limit on the number they had, and everyone was buying one, I was worried there was. Thankfully the lady at the counter said 'heavens no!'. So I got myself a chocolate dip and a Boston cream.

The Boston cream was especially cold, so I figured they must have been shipped in a cooler. I reckon that's the only way they could do it. Even if they were just shipped from one of the few Horton's locations in the UK.

The next culinary delight was a heap of curly fries. They were a bit dear at £5 a servering. The stall was a bit tricksy and didn't post the price for them, just that cheese was £1 extra. The donoughts were crazy cheap at just £1 each.

The best part of the whole thing was this. While standing eating my curly fries there was group next to me doing the same. One of the guys in the group dropped his empty styrofoam container and a girl in the group shouted 'you can't litter, it's Canada Day!'. Fantastic.

Oh and I was the only person in ear shot that cheered when the MCs asked if there was anyone from P.E.I. there. No cheers for any of the territories, shame.

Tagged as: Canada Day, food, Tim Hortons, Trafalgar Square No Comments

31May/101

Milk Done Right

Growing up milk always came in plastic, 1 litre bags. You'd get three bags in a pack and there were always packs that had been ravaged because people wanted to just buy a litre. There was sometimes the option to buy 1 and 2 litre cartons, but the good people wanted their milk in a bag, the way it's meant to be.

It wasn't until I think the 90s that at least P.E.I. had plastic milk jugs. What a novelty. Now I have milk packaging novelty in reverse. Yesterday my housemate and I went off to Sainsburys to pick up some food. Near the dairy section I saw something that literally made me clap and jump up and down. It was milk... in bags! And fancy pitchers! Into the cart they went. I was so excited that some lady even approached me to give me a business card for her eco-packaging business. Oh dear.

Anyhoo, let's have a look at milk bags, UK 21st century style...
Milk bag - check. Fancy pitcher - check. This one not only holds the milk bag, but also punctures it and has a lid. I'm much more used to these sort of old school pitchers. We had a yellow one at our house and my grandparents had an orange one. The bag was left exposed and you had to either cut the bag with scissors or with one of these clip snipper things.

Moving right along with the photo exposé.
The bag is secured into zee jug.

Let the good times pour.

JUGIT!

Tagged as: Canada, food, memories, milk bags 1 Comment

18Feb/102

Keeping Cereal Crunchy Since 1980-something

I had some, let's call them interesting, eating habits in my younger days. I would require my food to be on separate plates and eaten with different cutlery for each plate. I used to eat bacon bits and cake frosting (ok perhaps that one isn't too odd). I even recall once having a taste for drinking milk while eating an orange. One that I still hold on to though (ok I still have a small thing left for keeping food somewhat segregated on the one plate) is how I eat cereal.

The idea of pouring milk on it to turn it into some sort of sloppy, sugary soup never flew with me. Instead I'd have a big bowl of cereal alaong with a tall glass of milk. Spoonful of cereal, big gulp of milk. Repeat and enjoy the taste of cereal and milk without the terrible texture. It's a no brainer really!

You gotta keep 'em separated. At least before they hit your mouth.

I had never met anyone else who ate cereal like this until one day at work I was chomping away on my Honey Comb from the Colonies when a colleague proclaimed he used to eat cereal like that when he was younger. Sadly he gave up on it and eats cereal the 'normal' way now. Pah, he didn't have the will power to keep the practice up. Still it was nice to hear that I'm not the only one.

Tagged as: cereal, eating habits, food 2 Comments

21Nov/090

A Delicious Haul From the Colonies

A Delicious Haul From the Colonies, originally uploaded by avail.

A package from my dad arrived today that was timed just right. A massive box of chocolate including 4 packs of Reese peanut butter cups, 4 Skor bars, 4 Oh Henry bars, 4 Hershey Almond bars, 2 Pal-o-mine bars and 2 Roman Nougat bars. Plus I get to see his new DVD player from some of the packaging he used. Sweet!

Tagged as: chocolate, food, in the post No Comments

21Nov/091

My Twist on Homesick

It's been an odd week for me. It's been on of a slight desire to have some of the familiar, Canadian things and culture. I usually don't miss PEI per se, but just aspects of my old life. That and the odd craving for food that doesn't make it to these British shores. Last week I was working with a company back in PEI who had a poorly Mac server. It was such a breath of fresh air to talk someone so laid back about IT compared to the usually high strung companies here. That triggered a longing for laid back-ness that can be rare here, at least from my experience.

Not everyone, but a lot of people here make themselves so busy to the point where having fun and relaxing are scheduled. Something I always just shook my head at as an "oh those English" thing was people having diaries out of the need to schedule all this stuff and having to refer to it to do anything. This week I find that annoying me more than charming. Where's the room for just spontaneously doing something silly and fun? I'm sure I'll get over it, it's just how my mind is working this week.

The odd thing is that I still love the fast paced nature of London especially. It just wouldn't be the same without the mad dash to catch trains and buses and walking down the street weaving in and out of the human traffic. And it still can bug me how slow people usually move on the pavements in Cambridge, but somehow that all feels different. It's just the general, non-high-strung attitude that I'm missing.

So there we are. It's taken two and half years but I think I'm having my first bit of proper culture shock. It will most likely pass, but not completely. Not until I can get some Honeycomb cereal and blueberry Eggo waffles

Tagged as: Canada, culture, food 1 Comment

What’s all this then?

Kühlschrank.com, established 2003, is the personal site of Andrea Vail. She's a Canadian geek girl currently living in England who enjoys history, Macs, trains and a jolly good dance number in equal amounts.

Why 'kühlschrank'? I just think it's a neat word. When taking German in school, I decided it was my favourite German word and used it as my new domain name. So there we go.