Smoking is hazardous for your health

I don't think it gets any more clear than this.. way to be blunt!

Southbank Invader

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Leak Street Space Invader

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Kitchen Lingo

What is it? In every trade, there is always lingo used.
In the mortgage business, we would use abbreviations to represent things like:
DU: Desktop underwriter
FNMA- fannie Mae
MI: Mortgage Insurance
HOA: Home Owners Insurance
Mello Roos: unruly additional property taxes that have to be paid in a new development
Secondary Marketing- some person who sits in corporate and decides how much money they want to make on a loan and deciding whether or not they want to give you the rate that your client needs to qualify to get the house.

In the kitchen, there is similar lingo- albeit the lingo differs from country to country.
american slang uses a lot more slang in terms of food that you don't want people to know what it really is.

English kitchens use slightly different lingo.

Instead of " Behind" people say " Backs" or "Chaud". I actually had someone ask me why americans say behind because in English, behind means someone's rear end. "Chaud" means hot in french. What confuses me about "Chaud" is that often times people aren't carrying anything hot at all! To me, saying Chaud when you don't actually have something hot in your hands is like the boy who cried wolf.

Instead of " Yes Chef" people say " Qui" which means yes in french.

Instead of "2 minutes, beef, lamb chicken", people say " 3 minutes going on 2 and a half blah blah blah" and then 30 seconds later they say " 2 minutes going 1 and a half blah blah blah". I often want to ask- what the heck happened to the other 30 seconds?? did they just disappear????

If you are doing something completely wrong, you will be asked in two ways: the first one is " are you F*in alright???" ( which I have learned is different from " You alright??" which is genuinely asking if you are alright). The second one is more like being told you are totally doing something wrong and you better stop now : " Don't try to be an f*in cowyboy" . This one is a direct insult to americans as it implies, that cowboys do whatever they want and don't follow directions.

Garde Manger is " Larder"
and the Vegetable station is called " Garnish"

A few more smatterings of language differences in the kitchen:
Fine Bean: Green Bean
Courgette: Zuchinni
Feve: Lima Bean
Aubergine: Eggplant
Pomme Puree: Mashed potatoes

How work influences life

It's amazing how much work can influence one's life. Being in a the kitchen for that much time- really makes your life the kitchen.
After only 2 weeks of working here in London, I catch myself answering " Qui" and wanting to tell people who are in my way " backs" . It's a weird thing isn't it?

Sunday Fry Up

Ok so today may not be a Sunday, but a few days ago, I had a proper English fry up breakfast or
"Full Breakfast".
Lakh and I went to Blackheath in Lambeth borough. A quaint town full of upper middle class young families and yuppies, Hand Made can be found on the high street.

A quaint little shop with fresh pastries, sausage rolls, artisan breads, cheese and cakes, Hand Made has the feel of a clean, hip, rustic cafe. The staff is friendly, the food comes out quickly, the premises are pretty clean. The big idea is that everything that is served here is very fresh.

Handmade offers other select items like smoked salmon on toast or bacon and egg sandwiches.. But it was sunday! so we ordered the fry up (similar to the one pictured above). Fry ups were first thought to be made popular in the 1920s and 1930s when and American was trying to make bacon more popular to boost his sales.
A fry up usually contains the following: Sunny side up egg, buttered toast, gamon or bacon, sausage links, roasted tomatoes, country style potatoes, mushrooms and sometimes baked beans.
Handmade is fun, relaxing atmosphere and a great place to grab a tasty Sunday fry up.

British Advertising Adjectives

Ok, I'll give you guys a break from Space Invaders today.
The British have a funny way of describing things. In a way, they are too descriptive. Here are just a few examples from our refrigerator.
*disclaimer. I was told that ASDA is owned by Walmart. Seeing that Tescos, Waitrose and the Mark & Spencer were all shut, I didn't really have a choice. I won't do it again. I promise.
as opposed to "fake" mayonnaise... and the bottle is soft plastic, obviously a squeeze bottle. How else would you get the mayo out???

Juicy bits???? what about country style or with pulp... Juicy bits just sounds bit wrong...
Very large.. what ever happened to just the XL sign on the left hand side of the box? I also like the fact that they highlight the fact that the eggs are from "British Farms" and the chickens are " Free to roam in the fresh air during the day".

Brick Lane Space Invader #3

This one is across from the restaurant the root master- which is in an old school double decker bus.

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Brick Lane Space Invader

You can see that something has been ripped down between the statue and space invaders. It was another piece by the artist who does close ups of people's faces like the one in yesterday's post. The statues all use to have heads and legs as well....

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Brick lane

Also known as "Banglatown", brick lane is located in the Borough of Tower of Hamlets. The initial market first started in the 17th century as a place to buy produce. The Sunday Market also comes from this time. Nowadays, The Sunday Market is comprised of anyone- mostly students trying to sell off their belongings for some money. There are some pockets like the one off of this street (picture below- notice the writing in Bengali) which house independent artists selling their work.

Bricklane is also prolofic grounds for graffiti artists. This picture houses 2 different artists- the statue graffiti artists and this other artists who does close up of people's faces.

There are also numerous multicultural food stalls, and this great pizza place that has no plates and serves pizzas (with rocket or arugula) on big wooden squares. Everyone sits around huge rustic wooden tables on cardboard boxes.

Bricklane is also home to 93 East a bar that was the birthplace for the popularity of Tabla music and The Vibe Bar. It is also home to the Old Truman Brewery which has now been converted into a gallery and one can find very avant garde art there.

It's also home to a few space invaders!


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Shoreditch High Street and Curtain Road Space Invader

This one was huge! very prominent.
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Shoreditch

Shoreditch is in the Borough of Hackney located just east of the central london. Shoreditch is bordered by Old Street and Brick Lane. A previously very poor area of London, it is now one of the most expensive and hippest places to live. Bricklane had and still has a very high Bangledshi population.Evidently, its the curry mecca of London. Its also where you can be guaranteed to eat some curry that will keep you running to the pot in pain for the next few days. I found it interesting that the street names were written in more than one language.

Shoreditch became a haven for the creative- artists due to the cheap rent that it provided. Yuppies followed the artists and now shoreditch is one of the most fashionable places to live. On Friday and Saturday nights, you can find the streets stuffed with drunken british people dressed in really odd clothing which will find its way to america and be quite fashionable in about 3 years.
Shoreditch is also a prolific ground for graffitti artists. Besides the regular offenders, here are some more pieces that I enjoyed.



To better understand the last piece of art and the statement it is trying to make, Here is what the artist is taking a piss out of. The Oyster card is a travel card that enables you to travel on all transport systems within London. Its magentized so you simply need to touch it on a sensor to register it.


It took me 1 hour to go down two streets! Shoreditch will easily need 5-6 more visits!!