The Quest for the Holy Grail (a.k.a. ‘Where to Find a Decent Kebab’)

On Sunday, Ian and I embarked upon a search for a kebab. Not just any old, meat-on-a-skewer, cooked-on-a-grill kebab, but a full blown doner-in-a-pita-bread. It may come as a shock to you that the US (at least Texas and New Mexico) is massively lacking in late night kebab shops, which are so beautifully common in England. No cheesy chips, definitely no chips in gravy, and NO DONER KEBABS. (I know we all wake up after a night out and instantly regret that we even looked at a doner, let alone consumed one without any help and enjoyed it, but they are a late-night necessity and one that Dallas is lacking.)

America seems like the type of place where the calorie-filled, greasy doner meat would feel right at home; this is after all the home of the Big Mac, KFC, and also the location where, two years ago, I tried deep-fried butter (it was surprisingly good – don’t judge me). A large doner contains almost your entire daily recommended allowance of calories in just one meal, but sometimes, it’s the only thing that will do the trick.

Ian has lived in the US for nearly ten years now, and has been very sad about the lack of kebabs. Every time he came to visit us in St Albans, we’d always take him for a kebab - sometimes because we were nice and we knew he liked them, other times perhaps we were trying to use them as persuasive tools to make him move back to the UK. But anyway, when I moved to Dallas, it became our quest to find somewhere that provided at least a decent substitute. And find one, we did.

However, the place was about 14 miles from home, so we had a bit of a drive ahead of us. (Yes, we drove 14 miles for a kebab. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again – don’t judge me). On our way, we went to the British Emporium, a shop in North-West Dallas which sells British things like Twining’s tea, Cadbury’s chocolate, and real gravy (ahh, Bisto). Obviously I was like a kid in a candy shop; they had dairy milk! And wine gums! And things I didn’t even realise I missed, like Monster Munch and Branston pickle! I was very excitable, and skipped around the shop for a while, picking up jars and packets, exclaiming things like, ‘ooh, Marmite’, or ‘look! Chocolate digestives!’ and ‘oh my god, Shreddies!!’  I think I provided a lot of entertainment to the other customers.

Who knew a packet of polos would bring me such joy?

We left with a car full of goodies, from baked beans to Heinz cream of tomato soup, and headed off for kebabs. I’m not sure quite what I was expecting but the place was actually a Greek restaurant – I suppose I’d been imagining a dirty chip shop type place. But there it was on the menu, ‘gyros – meat sliced off our vertical broiler.’ (Broil means grill in America. Incidentally, grill often means fry. Grilled cheese is made in a frying pan, grilled burgers are made in a frying pan. America likes calories.) The kebab came as more of an actual meal, on a plate, with sides. Both of us were a bit bemused about using cutlery to eat it. Ian gave up in the end, said it didn’t feel right using a knife and fork on food that was invented to be eaten with fingers. But it was tasty! (The picture may not do it justice, but it was, I promise.) We even gave baby Jack some pita bread so he didn’t feel left out. We left feeling satisfied with our discovery, but the quest will continue, as 14 miles really is too far to travel for a kebab, even if it’s tasty. We’re going to try again soon at another place that’s a bit closer to home, but that didn’t open on Sunday.

Today, to continue my back-to-Britain experiences of the weekend, I started my day with a cup of tea and a hot cross bun :)

Oh, and on an irrelevant but amusing note, look at the name of this bridge! (In America, esp the south, Gaylord is an old family name, and has loads of things named in the family’s honour. But to me, an immature 22 year old, it’s just funny!)

General Life Update

Today it is 24˚C in Dallas and I am composing this, in my head, as I sit on the office balcony sunbathing. It’s a hard life, right? We don’t have patio furniture yet so I’m sitting on stone tiles which may as well be made from lava the amount they have burnt through my jeans. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had third degree burns on my rear-end right now!

Rooftop sunbathing/ass-burning location

I haven’t written in a little while as was waiting for something awe inspiring to be worth writing about. Two and a half weeks later, I have come to realize it’s up to me to make my fairly average life worth reading, awe or no awe. So here comes a brief update of my last few weeks, uneventful maybe, but as you all love me, read on anyway.

I guess I’ll work my way backwards. On Saturday I went to a black tie event at the Dallas Museum of Art. Having never been to a black tie event before, I had to 1) realize what was actually appropriate for a black tie do and 2) go shopping for an outfit as the aforementioned appropriateness was not fulfilled by anything in my short-skirted wardrobe (apparently mid-thigh length cocktail dresses are a no-no, who’d have thought it?!) I was actually very glad I chose classy over leggy as when I got to the event, the few people in short skirts stood out like sore thumbs, and the added tendency of theirs to not move from within five feet of the bar gave them a wide berth. *smug* It was a really fun night. There was exclusive entry into the museum’s latest exhibition, a live band, food, not to mention an open bar! I didn’t have a hangover the next day which probably means I didn’t make the most of the free booze but all in all, a winner.

Had a meeting on Friday for a charity event I’m going to help out with. It’s called Food for Thought, and I’m involved in the silent auction committee. The event is a celebrity chef charity event whose proceeds benefit Big Thought, one of the nation’s leading nonprofits focused on building partnerships that allow all children access to quality learning opportunities. www.bigthought.org  A silent auction, for those of you that don’t know, is when you bid for items  on a list next to the item at the event, rather than announcing out loud to the guy with the hammer who says ‘going, going, gone!’ To the Friends fans out there, think of the episode when Joey accidentally buys a boat. That’s a silent auction. My role is to basically ring up perfect strangers and ask them to donate things in the name of charity. I’ve also been put up for auction myself, which is a bit weird. I offered my accent as the thing to bid for, as the Americans go mad for it, and also I don’t believe in prostitution. (It’s a joke mum, I would have just been waitressing at someone’s dinner party or something.) The event is in September and is black-tie optional. I’m def opting in now I have the outfit!

Other than that, it’s been a normal two weeks. Dinner and/or drinks with various friends, a couple of nights out, babysitting my new favourite person ever (baby Jack). Still loving Dallas, still not missing English weather, and best of all, Josh booked his flights to come see me! Am determined to out-tan him. This may be difficult with my casper-like skin versus having relatives from Ghana but I’m going to try!!

Baby jack <3

Rant

When I first started my new job here in Dallas, everyone I work with thought I was about 19. In fact, it took until perhaps my fifth week for someone to ask how old I was, and that was only because we went for Happy Hour after work and they wondered if I was old enough to legally drink! It turns out that I’m not even the youngest person in our company. But I get it, I look young.

However, it’s one thing to be ID’d wherever you go, but for people (doormen, bouncers, barmaids etc) to actually utter surprise out loud when I hand over my driver’s license is a bit much. ‘Oh wow, you are actually old enough to come in!’ Yes I am, so lower your eyebrows, step aside and point me towards the bar please. I went out for dinner and drinks for a friend’s birthday this summer in London, and of the ten or so people I was with, I was the only one stopped at the door and asked for ID (and then again at the bar, I might add).

People say, ‘you’ll appreciate that when you’re older’ which is really neither here nor there. I don’t like looking like a 17 year old now. I don’t care about what may happen when I’m 40 and get mistaken for 35. Right now I am nearly 23 and look like I’m young enough to still be in school. People mistake me for someone applying for university, not someone who’s been there, done that, got the t-shirt and, wait for it, the degree! When I worked in Hamleys over the summer, I was asked by so many people if I was working there to save up for uni that I was tempted to add ‘BA Hons’ to my name badge.

I’ve had a bit of trouble with my ID since being in the US. The first time was when I was in Albuquerque. I went for lunch with Josh and Gaby, another Brit we met out there, and ordered a Corona. The waiter asked for my (fake) ID which I’d had made to say 1988, instead of ’89, so I could pretend to be 21 and buy alcohol (the more I read over this blog, the more I sound like I have a drinking problem). So I handed over my license and he asked where the date of birth was. I pointed it out and said, ‘12^th May 1989…. ERR… No sorry, I mean 1988.’ He smiled and handed it back, no problem. Woohoo! What made it even funnier was that Josh handed over his real license, which said November ’87, and the guy took it away for his manger to verify for legitimacy! Hehehe.

When I went to Tennessee with my friend Emma, I was again using my fake ID. The doorman of the first bar we tried to get into took one look at my license and said, ‘You can’t come in. There’s no such thing as an international driving permit.’

‘Of course there is,’ I responded. ‘You’re holding one in your hand.’ (Lesson: cheekiness will get you nowhere)

He told me to step away from the door, and that he would not cause me any trouble as long as I didn’t try to get back into his bar. Feeling a bit worried that our adventurous weekend in Nashville was going to turn into a sober disaster, we tried the next bar. The man on the door took my ID and looked at it for a time. I’m standing there thinking, ‘ohmygod ohmygod, please don’t know it’s fake, please don’t turn me away,’ when he hands it back and says, ‘nice picture. Have a good night’ and lets us in. *HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF*

Last week, I ordered a beer (seriously mum, I promise I am not an alcoholic) and like always, was asked for ID. The waitress was confused by its foreignness and took it to her manager. I was then told it would not be accepted and that company policy was only to accept US government approved identification. I was a bit pissed off because 1) I’d been there before and not had a problem, and nowhere else had seen it as a problem before either; and 2) how ridiculous is that rule? What if I was on holiday, and wasn’t planning on getting a Texas driving license soon? What are foreigners who want a beer supposed to do? If that was the case everywhere in the country then America would have a lot less tourism, let me tell you. Anyway, I asked if next time I should bring my passport instead.

‘Yes, that would be fine’ she replied.

‘It’s a British passport’ I added.

‘Oh... No, that won’t be ok.’

Seriously?! A passport is a document, issued by a national government, which certifies, for the purpose of international travel, the identity and nationality of its holder. Passports are the most widely accepted form of identification anywhere in the world. It has been officially authorized by my government to recognize and accept me as a citizen of the UK, and some waitress in a wing bar is telling me it’s not good enough? No, this is not OK! I calmly told her that a passport allowed me to enter her country, and therefore has been approved by her precious government, so technically is US government certified.

Yeah, maybe I do look like a teenager. But I got my beer. Win.

Hockey

On Sunday I went to a Dallas Stars NHL (National Hockey League) game with Ian and his friend Ross (and Ross’ baby Liam too, if we’re getting technical about the guest list). I’d never been to a hockey game before, I guess Albuquerque either doesn’t have a team or I was never aware of one if it does. (OK I just googled ‘NHL New Mexico’ and it came up with a list of National Historic Landmarks so I think that pretty much confirms the lack of ice hockey in NM!) So anyway, I’d never been to a hockey game, and in fact my only knowledge of ice hockey comes from watching Mighty Ducks when I was younger, so I was very excited for a new experience. And I really enjoyed myself!

Granted, some of my excitement stemmed not so much from the sport, but from the fact that we watched the game from a private box, which belongs to Ross’ company. That was pretty cool. We got to go through the Platinum entrance, we were in our own room, we had comfy seats and weren’t just one of the crowd – we made our own crowd! We got a great view of the rink (?) - not sure if that’s correct NHL terminology but let’s go with it – and were about mid-level height so could see enough of the game without relying heavily on the big screens.

I think one of the reasons I enjoyed the game so much is that it’s much more fast-paced than most sports. American football is slow to the point of watching paint dry (yes maybe you did just run the length of the field, but why are you now stopping for a ten minute coffee break while some random men run out onto the pitch with a tape measure?); baseball - yawnsville; golf – even worse; real football is definitely more fast paced than the Yank version but the pitch is so huge that it still feels slow, as most of the action takes place in the middle and no-one cares about that part, just get inside the damn box and score already. It may just be that I have a very short attention span but hockey suited me very nicely. The rink (still unsure about this) was small enough that everything that happened seems to be full of action and excitement; the game isn’t separated in two but in threes, so you have two opportunities to get the beers in, between periods (official hockey vocab – they couldn’t exactly call it a game of three halves could they?!); and the scoring system was simple enough for my small brain i.e. one goal equals one point. This may sound like a stupid point to some people but in American football, basketball, rugby etc, there are all kinds of ways to score a differing amount of points depending on your techniques. I like it simple.

The arena where we saw the game is also a basketball court for the Dallas Mavericks. It switches between basketball court and ice hockey rink and apparently takes 8 hours to go from one to the other.

The Stars unfortunately lost 4-2 to the LA Kings but I think I’ve found a sport I actually enjoy watching!

Hate That I Love You

No this isn’t a bare-all relationship blog. At least not about my relationship with Josh. No, this about the other love in my life: FOOD. And oh my, am I an addict.

I don’t really hate that I love food. It’s actually a passion of mine (yes, eating can be considered a passion, and not just of the fat and lonely!)  I love to cook, I love reading recipe books, I appreciate good food and I have a (very) healthy appetite. The thing I do hate is how much I’ve been craving ‘bad’ food since I’ve been in the States.

‘Bad’ food, by which I mean something that is deep-fried, very salty, contain little to no nutrients and most often smothered in cheese, is addictive. It must be. I genuinely can’t remember craving crap food when I lived in England. The last time I had a burger or chips (fries to my American audience!) was probably in November after a night out. Sober Alice + fast food is very uncommon. It’s not a snobbery thing, I love KFC and McDonalds as much as anyone. I just don’t need it, I don’t crave it, and therefore rarely had it. I like cooking so convenience food is not as appealing as something I can prepare at home myself, with all the tasty ingredients I chose at the shop.

Or so I thought.

I can count on two hands (maybe with a few toes to count on too) how many times I have cooked since I’ve been out here. Eating out, even just grabbing a takeaway on your way home, is a way of life here. Dallas has the most restaurants per capita than any other US city, with a large number of these restaurants being Mexican. And here was my downfall. I love Mexican food, and it is soooo bad for you! (The stuff I like is anyway) Tortilla chips and salsa; chicken chimichangas (deep fried burritos); enchiladas covered in sour cream sauce – it’s dangerous! Even one of their most famous dishes just sounds unhealthy from its name – refried beans, because frying once just wasn’t enough.

I made the mistake of sampling some of the lunch menus of restaurants close to where I work, most being Mexican. Now every single day all I want for lunch is something that comes wrapped in a tortilla, and preferably has a generous dollop of guacamole on top. I crave unhealthy food, I want to melt cheese on everything, or put down my fork and use chips as my spoon.

Every Tuesday night, I go for hot wings and fried pickles (literally slices of gherkin, covered in batter and deep fried) – delicious but so so bad for you. I eat out about five times a week, and let me tell you, I have not once chosen the salad option on the lunch menu. I have even started putting sugar in my coffee for God’s sake!

I can understand why there is a weight problem in America. Portion sizes in restaurants are huge as a way to make customers feel they are getting value for money. And a lot of the time, it tastes so good that you keep eating way past the point of necessity, hence the massive daily calorie intake consumed nationwide!

One saving grace is that my apartment building has a gym for residents. Looks like I’m going to have to become a regular!

Lost in mistranslation

Sometimes, having an accent can cause as much incomprehension as speaking another language altogether. In 1997, my grandfather married a woman from the States. One of the first times she came over to visit us in England, my brother was about four. When she said something to him, he stared up at her and said, ‘you don’t speak English, do you?’ This is an extreme example, as well as an amusing anecdote, but from the way certain Americans respond to the way I talk, you would think I was speaking another language to them.

In restaurants, you have to give your name if you order takeout, so they can call you when it’s ready. My name has only once been spelled correctly on my receipt. Most often I get called Alex, which I guess is understandable. Once it said ‘Alexx’, which is just bizarre, and I’ve even had ‘Allis’ which is not a name (I even checked online to make sure). That guy definitely had not read his Lewis Carroll. I met a man yesterday, a friend of my godfather’s, and every time he spoke to me, he confirmed my name, ‘Alice, right?’ as if he was unsure he’d understood me the first five times.

Speaking of takeout, I would never normally adopt such an Americanism in so short an amount of time, but it was deemed necessary after I have been completely misunderstood using any other way to describe it to a server. I recently called a restaurant to order some food which we were going to pick up on our way to someone’s house. The girl on the phone asked if we wanted delivery, and I said, ‘No thanks, it’s for a collection’. 

‘A what?!’ she asked. 

‘A collection,’ I replied, thinking she hadn’t heard me. 

‘Umm, what’s that?’ By this stage I am amused/bemused. 

‘Collection. As in, we will collect it.’

She put me on hold.

When she came back on the line, she asked me if we wanted delivery or takeout. I briefly considered saying collection again, but resigned to not harassing the poor girl any longer, and replied, ‘takeout’. She then asked my name. And got it wrong.

Another word which cannot seem to be understood is water. Yes, I do have an English accent, but I would still like to think that when I speak our shared language, you’d overcome the pronunciation and just get what I’m saying. I have to pronounce water with a ‘d’, as in ‘wah-der’, because pronouncing it with a ‘t’ in the middle is apparently just too perplexing!

Those who have an iPhone 4S will most likely know of the wonder that is Siri. If you haven’t heard of her, let me briefly explain: if you have the latest iPhone, you can talk to it, and ‘Siri’ will do as commanded. For example, press the button and say, ‘Siri, send Mum a text saying “Let’s skype later”’ and she will text my mum saying just that. Sounds wonderful, right? Absolutely, BUT only if you have the right accent. When I first got the phone, I asked Siri, ‘what is the best phone?’ because she is known to respond with answers such as, ‘I think you’ve already answered that question’, and ‘wait… there are other phones?!’ Well, when I asked her, she thought I said what’s the best fay, then what’s the best five, then what's the best face. I am not sure whether it is because my iPhone was bought in America, and therefore Siri has a different ‘accent chip’ than when you buy an iPhone in England, but the goddamn woman does not understand me!

In conclusion, being a Brit in America can sometimes be a trial. You'd think that since we speak the same language, being understood would not be much to ask. I guess that's what they mean by culture shock!

Slightly off the topic but here is a link to some funny mistranslations on foreign signs. Very entertaining!

My favourites include:

On the menu of a Polish hotel:

Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion. Sounds delicious.

From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo:

When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor. Too funny!

Two signs from a Majorcan shop entrance:

• English well talking.
• Here speeching American. Sounds about right.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1vPTPR/www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/foreign-signs.html/

Welcome to the Gun Show

On Sunday, Ian and I bought two tickets to the Gun Show. And let me tell you, there wasn't a bicep in sight....

This may seem a little crazy to you, and honestly, I had no idea what to expect from what is essentially a market dedicated to weaponry, but as my good friend Gabrielle Smith would say, when in Rome!

Ian has lived in Texas for the past five years, but had never been to one of these either, so us two curious Brits drove over to Fort Worth, about 30 miles from Dallas, to come face to face with a bunch of people who chose to spend the first day of the new year perusing 1200 stalls of guns. (I appreciate that this is how Ian and I also spent the first day of the new year, but we were definitely the only ones there who weren't keen to find a bargain amongst the stands). I honestly could not believe the scale of the place. Not only was this room full of guns, knives, paraphernalia (we genuinely saw someone selling hand grenades), it was heaving with people.

I'm still actually a little bit at a loss for words. There was so much crazy stuff going on in that hall. There were stalls recruiting people for the NRA (National Rifle Association) with a sign saying: '10 Reasons to Join the NRA - #1 Barack Obama'. (Kids can join for only $15); there was knife sharpening - ("you need 7 good knives to have a complete set"); there were women advertising their special handbags as 'gun purses - the perfect way to stay safe and look good'; there was even a man selling books on how to make your own disposable silencers. Disposable home-made silencers. I mean, can you imagine walking around a place where there are enough weapons to arm roughly 25,000 people, and when you look at your neighbours, you can be certain that 95% of them would know exactly how to use them.

There were a lot of self defence stalls too, selling everything from rape alarms to tazers. There were a few things I found a bit amusing on one particular stall:

Walking weights with pepper spray. So now you can exercise and defend yourself at the same time! Or there was the mace that dyed your attacker's face blue so that it would make him easily distinguishable to the police (that is actually quite clever).

Guns are not just for men. You can make carrying a large rifle around more feminine if you store it in one of these:

And they didn't stop at selling guns as weapons. There were all sorts of gun-related accessories that you could buy, to show other people how much of a fan you are of the right to bear arms. How about a crucifix necklace, but to make it that bit more special, the cross is made from bullets. We love Jesus... and shooting things.

I know, I know, we chose to go there. And really, what else did I expect from a place that sells guns to be? I guess my point, if I have one at all, is how scary it is that guns are everyday objects here. People were there with their kids, it was a family day out. Can you imagine: "Well kids, tomorrow is Sunday, where shall we go after church? The zoo? A museum? Oh wait, the gun show is in town!" 

As we left, with me especially in a mild state of shock, we walked past a load of motorbikes parked outside. One in particular caught my eye:

Thank you Mr. Hells Angel for bringing a smile to my face and lowering my raised eyebrows to their normal position. That is the best Christmas decorated bike I've ever seen. (It's also the only Christmas decorated bike I've ever seen, but that is beside the point.)

I may be living in Texas now, but I think I've had my fair share of the Wild West side of things for a while.