Random Happenings

A couple weeks ago I decided to take another stab at cooking using a recipe from my Harry Potter Cookbook! This time around was MUCH more successful than the last. No, really! It was! I decided to stick with a food I have cooked on numerous occasions and was always a hit among my roommates in college. PANCAKES!! There was a slight twist on these that made them better than any pancake recipe I've ever used. Lemons. I LOVEEEE lemons but why would I ever think to add them in to pancake mix? I sure am glad that the author of this "unofficial" Harry Potter cookbook thought to! The recipe was your basic pancake recipe with flour, sugar, eggs but also with grated lemon zest and a small amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice. The batter tasted wonderful and the pancakes even better than that! Anyone who wants the recipe just let me know, I'll email it to you. Mariel was a great assistant and laughed at me as I continued to eat about 3 pancakes worth of batter. You'll understand when I make them for you. Anyways, I can't wait to continue trying new recipes from this cookbook! I think it will be easier when I am back in America because often times I struggle to find some of the ingredients in the store here. If you look hard enough you can usually find everything but my patience is limited in the grocery store and my attention span even shorter than that and I usually find myself distracted by things I can throw in the microwave or oven instead of making myself, especially since I get bored cooking for myself sometimes.

After long days spent in the library and reading for hours in whatever coffee shop I find comfortable that day (okay fine, 99% of the time it's a Starbucks. But I rotate between several of them! Not my fault they just seem to get me.) I am still trying to have fun and relax. The other evening my friend Chris invited me to the filming of a pilot episode of a new comedy show that will be launching here in a few months time. It was called Old Farts and Upstarts featuring Jo Brand. Or something along those lines. Basically it had 3 quite famous UK comedians who were a big deal "back in the day" hence their team name: Old Farts. The other team was made up of 3 up and coming comedians in the UK and all have been in television shows or on their own comedy tours. It was a lot of fun and although I didn't always understand all the British jokes or humor I still laughed for a good two hours and it felt good since the last two weeks of rain and gloom have left me feeling pretty down. Here is a picture of the set they used. I'm not sure we were supposed to even take pictures of this so I didn't feel quite nervy enough to pull out my camera during filming. It was so cool though to see how a real television show is filmed! Sometimes they would have us redo certain parts and make sure we were still clapping or laughing and they even filmed 3 different endings to the show so they would have options. And halfway through the makeup team came out to fix up the comedians faces as the studio was unbelievably hot and we, the audience, was sitting in the bleachers without lights on us. I can't imagine how hot they were on stage!

As for this last picture...well I just like what the bus had to say. I'm not exactly sure how advertising on buses works here in the UK but it seems that as long as you pay for it you can post whatever you like on the side of a bus! Elections for mayor were today and so the past few weeks have been very intensely political and even the buses had ads for candidates which I can't imagine happening in the states. I suppose I could be wrong about that because I don't live in a city where I often see buses BUT I like that this one and a few others I saw that day made such a statement. It's true! Some people are gay. GET OVER IT!

Well, that is basically all that is going on, just a quick little update on my life. 

Love from London,

Kristin