I like food

Alright, I confess: part of the reason why I was excited to come to Europe was because I was happy to finally eat some of this FOOD that everyone is always going on about. "Everything tastes so much better in Europe!" they say, though perhaps it needs little salt (from what I heard). Chocolate is better, bread is better, cheese is better... Well I'm here to say-- the rumors are true.

I've eaten very well while I've been in Europe, and in part, I mean that as healthily as I do tastily. My eating habits have been conducive to our rigorous walking which has, in fact, encouraged the loss of some extra baggage around my middle, a fact I'm in no way complaining about. Happily, this means I've been able to eat some pretty heavy meals too, and once again,

I'm not complaining.

Let's go over my food history for the last few weeks.

I guess I should begin by mentioning the bagel I ate at JFK airport during our layover on the way to England in the first place. Anyone who knows me well knows that I rather live for bagels, particularly ones from New York, to the point that my mother brings them back for me as presents when she visits. Though I would have preferred a salt bagel with shmear, I settled for an Everything bagel because you can't go wrong with more, more, more, right? Bottom line: New York bagles > bagels from anywhere else. I was pleased.

As can be expected in England, I've had my fair share of pasties. I was wary at first because they came SO highly recommended by returning members of the group that I was like, "...I'm no conformist." But listen, the price is certainly right, and they're rather "traditional" to boot, and we all know how traditionalist I can be, if not conformist. I think my favorite pasty experience was in our first week, when we found a teeny little place on the way back from the British musuem-- cornish pasty, chips, and peas. The most satisfying was also our first week at Covent Gardens, sitting on the side of the road all in a row. But curiously, the most tasty was just yesterday on Fleet Street, rather cold, from a package, and shared with Anna. I wonder what it would have tasted like all piping hot?


We went down to the National Theater once, and I was filled with hate for the women sitting upwind, chain smoking like chimneys. Naturally it made me crave ice cream, which we finally found up the river. It cost way too much, but luckily, it was delicious, and it had a piece of Cadbury chocolate stuck into it. Nothing changed my life more, however, than the gelato Chris recommended the night we missed The Dark Knight premiere. Amaretto has never tasted more divine, to the point where I'll probably never order it again in the States. Okay that's not true, but it's a very pretty, nostalgic thought.

Wagamama was a very London experience, our group all separated in a very warm, very large cafeteria-style place. To be honest, it was a little bit like glorified Raman-- perhaps the way Raman is supposed to be prepared, because the package likes to offer more filling ways to prepare such a happy 14-cent meal. Don't you worry, though, this was no 14-cent meal in honor of Anna's birthday. We took a nice break from the Tower of London to eat there because obviously there's no better way to celebrate the preservation of your head connected to the rest of your body like Japanese noodles.

The most potentially romantic, but actually violent, meal was shared at Regents Park the night we saw Twelfth Night. Many of us brown-bagged it, others got various overpriced sandwiches from Tesco and Pret and the like, and we all settled down in a corner of the park, right near a fountain, to enjoy the evening before an outdoor play. It turned a little bit ugly when we started playing Silent Football, though, when our shoulders were all beat upon by our neighbors in an attempt to catch the attention of King Joe the Pantless or whatever the heck we were supposed to call him.

I snogged a little while in London, at a delicious place appropriately called Snog. Lest you think my snogging was of the making out sort, it was actually a natural frozen yogurt shop. Like Provo's Pudding on the Rice, I kind of felt like I was inside my iPod the whole time we were there, but the yogurt was YUMMY!!! and it's the only place I found anything in London for free-- little pins that said clever things like "Snog with friends" and "Less talk, more snogging." You bet I took advantage of those.

France introduced a number of delicacies that aren't so much delicate as much as they are very typically French. I basically just ate bread and cheese while I was there. Breakfast consisted of a basket of bread, with various soft cheeses to spread on top. While everyone at buffet style at Flunch, I ate bread and cheese. All I ate for dinner our first night was a croissant and some other flakey pastry that I still don't know the name of. My very expensive lunch at the Louvre was basically a gourmet bagette. If I could keep French bread fresh longer, I would have brought some home with me. And though it wasn't glamorous, one of my favorite memories of French bread was shared with Jaclyn, breaking and sharing it on the Eurostar train on the way back to London.

Chocolate in Paris is good. I brought a lot home. Duh. I would have had Parisian quiche, but the girl didn't know what a Visa card was, muchless if she could accept one.

Crepes are also everything they're cracked up to be in Europe, especially when they're filled with cheese and from a place that celebrities endorse, and shared with a big group of people as passionate about crepes as you are.

I know I've brought it up before, but I have to admit to the superiority of an American classic-- McDonalds-- in Europe. Suppsedly Burger King is even better, but I don't know about that. I mean I had to draw the line SOMEWHERE when it came to eating American food. Seriously, that cheeseburger I had in Paris was the most delicious thing ever, and even though it didn't end up agreeing with me too well in Stratford, I most enjoyed my Shakespearean fries. And somehow it made it even better to share such lame McDonalds trips with other fine people who knew exactly how lame it was for us to eat cheeseburgers in Paris and Stratford-Upon-Avon, aka two of the most quinticentially "European" places of all time. Viva USA.

Pub food turned out to be quite good, if not expectedly overpriced. I celebrated Chris's birthday by eating a plate of chips. That's all. Just chips. I shared a surprisingly delicious plate of nachos with Annie in Stratford at a place called the Beefeater Restaurant, and some stuffed pasta with Anna on our last night in London up in the Marylebone area. I couldn't let my English experience be complete without a sampling of fish and chips (ever traditional), and even though I don't love fish, you can fry cardboard and it would taste pretty good to me. Mashed peas, maybe not my favorite, but I'm glad I didn't refuse the adventure.

And to begin my Scotland experience, I spent the evening at a very little, moderately priced Thai restaurant, because that's obviously what you do when you're in Edinburgh-- eat Thai food. In truth, it was delicious massaman curry I've had since the last time I had it, only this massaman was even BETTER because it was really spicy. I think maybe I still like Bangkok Grill better because it usually means I'm eating Thai food with Katie, Madison, my family, or other people I love a lot.

Now that I think about it, I like people better than I like food. And I especially love the people with whom I eat food. If only I could transplant them all to Europe to eat with me.