a note on food.

It is lunch time, yet I sit at my desk willing my stomach to limit the growling noises that threaten to escape. It's not that I don't have a lunch waiting for me. The meatloaf sandwich I made this morning waits patiently along with an apple to my left. It's a late night at the office you see, meetings on various continents being what they are. So I hold off. Dinner won't come until sometime around 8:00pm. Now that I'm thinking about it, I might save the apple until mid-afternoon. I find this is an appropriate time to mention food, both because of my (now) growling stomach and the fact that I've been in England for a full month.

Long, long ago I cynically told KFR the secret to remaining optimistic (or some version of happy) was to foster perpetually low expectations. This isn't exactly how I operate, but sometimes it's necessary to get by. And sometimes it is essential. I find this to be the case with the food in England. Not nice to jump on the bad-British-food bandwagon, but I feel they've more than earned their reputation. I should qualify things a bit. I've had some fantastically bad food from restaurants and some beautiful food from friends' kitchens. I've come to a couple conclusions: first, the joke about Britain taking over the world to find better food is true. Because even some of the pies and pasties I've had, in the British culinary wheelhouse if you will, are not spectacular; second, the British stiff-upper-lip reserve bites them in the ass when it comes to food. People can cook here. The friends with the delicious food exist! The standard for restaurants, however, seems to be rather low. I imagine one friend saying to another when deciding to head into a restaurant, "well, it tasted crap and my dog refused to eat the leftovers, but it's better than the place across the street." It's as if the entire nation is a bad tourist trap where the 5 restaurants in town all have the same menu.

I will spare you the list of specific complaints I have. I will also return to the one pie-shop that is exquisite. That's it for now. The meatloaf sandwich calls.