Six Years in the Making

On July 30^th Josh and I celebrated our six-year wedding anniversary by traveling to Whitstable, a fishing and harbor town in Southeast England. Rearing for oysters, we stumbled into a lovely open-air restaurant along the sea and ordered one of everything on the menu. While we waited for our plates of oysters, crab and lobster, Josh asked, “If someone told you on our wedding day that six years later we’d be here, would you’ve believed it?”

NO! Six years ago I was a 24-year old Jersey girl who had never so much as been on a plane before. How would I have ever guessed I’d go from lifelong East Coaster to life as a Londoner? Oddly enough, I think it was two days after our wedding that I finally joined the 21^st Century and got myself on my very first flight… an 11-hour journey to a paradise also know as Hawaii. I honestly believe it was that plane ride that set into motion a series of events that eventually lead to our departure from the “world as we knew it” to one of adventure, challenges and new experiences.

I remember waiting in the airport that day, not knowing how I was going to react when I boarded the plane. Was I going to chicken out, cry, grab onto the stewardess’s shoulders and beg her to “let me out of this tin can”? But right before our flight was called, “Danger Zone” (the Top Gun theme song) blared from the speakers and I felt a surge of adrenaline course through my landlocked veins. I was not only ready to fly, I wanted to pilot that flight! Forget Tom, there was a new Croes in town!

After that trip, we eventually went back to our everyday lives in Clifton, NJ, and back to our jobs and commutes. And while life may have gone back to normal, looking back I can now see that, together, we slowly began evolving into something new. Over the next few years we started new careers and took more planes to exotic places. We went skydiving and parasailing, wind surfing and rock climbing (indoors, but it still counts). We moved from Clifton to Hoboken (NJ) to Chelsea to the East Village (NYC) and ultimately to London.

So the answer again is no, that girl six years ago would not have guessed she’d end up on the other side of the world—blogging about it to her 15 loyal followers. Though on some level, I can see that we’ve been moving in this direction for some time now—I’d say about six years to be exact. And I can also say from my heart there’s no one I’d rather be moving with then my husband, Josh! Happy Anniversary!

Thanksgiving in London

Living outside of your comfort zone is one thing, but living outside of your comfort zone on Thanksgiving is quite another. I woke up bright and early and although I didn’t have to work, Josh did. To me, working on Thanksgiving is sacrilegious and I was personally glad to have the day off.

I figured it was only right to do something to celebrate while I waited for the evening’s dinner plans—at a French restaurant—but I didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought about watching the parade on the computer, but then remembered that while it was 9am in England it was only 4am in NY. The clowns may have been rising, but they definitely weren’t shining. So after posting a “Happy Thanksgiving” message on Facebook and snooping around to see what everyone back home was up to, I went about my usual business.

Even though I know Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated here, I sort of hoped I’d come across some type of acknowledgement for the day, like a turkey decal in a shop window or a Black Friday sale advert. Alas, there were none. In fact, I had to explain Black Friday to a co-worker and she looked at me like I was a heathen. In hindsight, driving to Walmart at midnight and clawing your way through throngs of people for half-priced electronics doesn’t make for the most heartfelt Thanksgiving story.

Flashing back to a few weeks before Thanksgiving, I’d invited another American couple over for a traditional turkey dinner the weekend after the holiday, as I figured our five-course French tasting menu wasn’t exactly authentic. My plan seemed completely doable and just plain necessary.  You can take the girl out of America, but you can’t take the America out of the girl. While Thanksgiving Day may have been anti-climactic, the thought of Saturday’s dinner plans lifted my spirits.

I started the process by researching recipes and interrogating family and friends on their tried-and-true cooking tricks. Though I graduated from culinary school, the Natural Gourmet focuses on health-supportive food that also happens to be primarily vegan. No roasted turkeys or sausage stuffing, and certainly no metric system.

After watching countless episodes of Barefoot Contessa and talking to Thanksgiving pros, I knew exactly how to cook a six-pound turkey at 350 degrees Fahrenheit—but what did that mean to a Londoner? It meant that I had to do more math this past week than I’ve ever had to do in my life. My preparations felt more like homework than cooking. If a turkey weighs 2.7 kilograms and it should cook for 20 minutes per pound at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, how long does it need to cook in a Celsius oven and at what temperature? After many equations and matrices, I learned that the turkey had to cook for approximately two hours at 176.66 (repeating) degrees Celsius. Impressed?

The process went on as such and my head swirled with gram and kilogram and milliliter conversions. You’d think I was mastering the Theory of Relativity with the pages of notes I was working with. Fractions and decimal points kept me up at night and worries of salmonella poisoning sent chills down my spine. Yes, it’s safe to say I was sufficiently and excessively stressed. But it was Thanksgiving and without a parade or Black Friday sales, the least I could do was serve a properly cooked turkey.

Cheese Platter

Despite two weeks’ worth of over analyzing and agonizing, dinner turned out as I’d hoped—fun, festive and full of food and wine. I’ll admit there were blunders, burns and tears along the way. I can tell you that I have blisters on my knuckles from my tiny oven and I had a near meltdown when the grocery delivery service sent me frozen broccoli instead of fresh broccoli. Not to mention that the farm I purchased my turkey from called me the day before to change my order (including the size and type of turkey), which meant I had to redo my entire cooking chart in the 11^th hour. But all mishaps aside, I’m happy to report that by 7:15pm on Saturday evening four friends sat down to a feast of food that served as a little reminder of home. It may not have been perfect, but it finally felt like Thanksgiving.

Apps - forgot to take pics after this point!

This year, I am thankful for the opportunity to live in London. I am thankful for wonderful friends and family. I am thankful for those of you who helped me plan my dinner and those of you who cheered me on along the way. I am thankful for Cindy, Greg and Josh for being my Thanksgiving Day guinea pigs. I am thankful for my blog readers (become a follower by clicking the “Follow” link at the bottom of the page). And for the first time, I am thankful for my former math teachers, who inadvertently prepared me for my first Thanksgiving abroad. I never thought I’d say this, but they were right. You do use math in your everyday life and you won’t always have access to a calculator. Who knew?

Week in Review

1. The Internet goes down for a record-breaking 10 days

2. Josh fixes the Broadband problem numerous engineers couldn’t with his patented “unplug-replug” strategy

3. Order is restored to the Croes household and Josh is dubbed, the Earl of the Internet

4. Wednesday night’s Brisket Disaster leads to the remarkable discovery that the smoke alarms are indeed working

      5. The Water Poet is officially declared Neighborhood Bar of the Year (Commencement Ceremony scheduled for next Sunday afternoon)

      6. Bikram yoga becomes the workout of choice, as we experience the healing powers of heat exhaustion

      7. Sky TV surrenders to Jet domination and finally shows a game, whereupon we bear witness to an  incredible 4^th-quarter win against the Texans 

     

      8. Promotion for Nikki’s Natural Gourmet article continues—please visit: http://naturalgourmetinstitute.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/guess-who’s-popping-up-for-dinner-natural-gourmet-graduate-alice-bamford-is-cooking-up-locally-sourced-meals-for-london-insiders/ 

     

      9. In global news, Kate Middleton and Prince William, or “Wilkat”, announce their royal engagement after a nine-year courtship

     

     10.  Nikki vows to spend the next six months procuring an invite to the wedding… all other plans are currently on hold

Life as a Londoner

It’s so easy to talk about writing a blog. “Oh, sure” I said, “the minute I get to London I’m going to start a blog and upload pictures and take lots of video footage. I’m also going to watch less TV, so I’ll have more time to volunteer and finally learn Spanish.” I figured if I’m going to start over in a new country, I might as well do it right. But in real life (or my life) that kind of thing never actually happens. It’s always the same story. I manage to get caught up in errands and activities and never seem to have enough time for anything I resolved to do. Well, I think I never have any free time, but what that really means is I’ve spent most of my afternoon watching Judge Judy reruns on the BBC, leaving no time for creative productivity.

Fortunately, I’m blessed to say that I have some amazing friends and family that didn’t let me weasel out of this one. So to those of you who believe in me, encourage me and offer your undying support, I want to say thank you. I also want to say hello to my readers (if there are any of you) and let you know that if you happen to be a book publisher, movie producer or talent scout, I would entertain the idea of turning my blog into a bestselling novel, blockbuster movie or situation comedy. Until then, on with the story…

I don’t think it’s possible to go into detail on everything that’s happened during our first two weeks in London. Besides, most of you have seen my Facebook updates and know all about the transit strike, the little mouse we found and our Sunday-funday trip to IKEA. What you don’t know, is that in terms of being the perfect tourists, I’d say we’ve rivaled the Griswalds. Here’s a list of what we can now cross off our Fromer’s list: Museum of London, Tate Modern, Buckingham Palace, Borough Market, Spitafields Market, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London Bridge and Picadilly and Oxford Circus. When we weren’t busy running through the Clipboard of Fun, we tried to fit in as real Londoners with a little help from some new friends. One particular invitation came from a fellow Natural Gourmet student, who had us over for a pop-up dinner in Fulham. Similar to the Friday Night Dinners we had at school, she presented a group of 16 guests with a locally-sourced three-course meal. (If you live in London or went to the NGI, become a friend of Alice’s catering company, Love a Locavore.) We also partied on a houseboat in the West End, watched “American” football in Sports Café on Haymarket Street and hung out at Madame Jojo’s in Soho.

It was a whirlwind two weeks and for a fleeting moment I wondered how it was humanly possible do so much in such a sort period of time. Then I remembered… we had a week off of work. Just when life was starting to feel like a long vacation – or better yet, retirement – it was back to the grind. Josh is working in the London office of his company and I’m doing some freelance work. But I’ll save those details for the next blog.