The Importance of Free Range Eggs

The advertisers and sign makers in England are having a love affair with the Free-Range Egg.  Every food store, restaurant, and even the snack shacks have signage and advertising touting their use of only free-range eggs.  Seems reasonable enough, and ethically more responsible than eggs from an assembly-line style egg factory, agreed?  So, when we go to the supermarket to buy our eggs, we decide we too will be ethically responsible and we will buy free range eggs, even if they cost more than “cooped up” eggs (feel free to groan at that one).

In the egg aisle in the supermarket, there are at least 10 different brands of eggs and they come is several different quantities.  However, there is one characteristic in which they do not differ – they are ALL free range eggs.  It appears that the only eggs you can buy in England are free range eggs.  This gives us reason to ponder, “Why does everyone advertise that they only use free range eggs, when these eggs are, in fact, the only kind of eggs you can buy?”  Seems that the marketing funds might be better spent promoting other points.  Saying “We only use free range eggs” is kind of like saying “We only serve food on days that end with ‘day’ or on days on which it rains in England.”

To address our concerns over this (and by “our”, we mean “Jon’s”), Jon cornered a group of 5 Brits at a client luncheon and asked them to explain.  After a lively and informative discussion, we have learned that you can buy the other kind of eggs at Tesco, but they are only a few pence cheaper than free range; and purchasing these eggs supports the newer member countries of the EU (which, in most circles in England, is considered bad form).  We also learned that there is no such thing as non-free-range pork – apparently the pigs here are very smart and will always un-cage themselves to roam freely anyway, so the farmers don’t bother trying to cage them.  We don’t make this stuff up, we just report what we learn…

So, the importance of “free range” is somewhat of a non-event here.  Makes you wonder why a restaurant even bothers printing it on the menu.  At any rate, we have personally improved the lives of many chickens in England – of the eggs we have eaten in England, all have been of the free range ilk.  What we are looking for now is that rogue restaurant that puts out the sign saying “We serve only mass production egg farm eggs that are harvested inhumanely (and please try our veal too)”.  That would be noteworthy.

The bottom line is this: In England, free-range eggs are just not all they are cracked up to be.

The Crazies on the 176

When the sun was out last week, I took the 176 (double decker bus) into town, Leister Square to be exact.  I did some shopping and stopped into Chinatown for Dim Sum and Tea.  Tummy full, shopping done, sun fading, I decided to jump back on the 176 and head home.  It is a much longer trip by bus, but it is cheaper and I bring a book to read.

Anyway, Crazy Number One:

Picture this.  A very posh, elderly British woman with matching hat, gloves, etc.  As she was crossing the street to get to the bus stop, I noticed she did a little jig.  Odd, I thought, but maybe she had just tripped and I didn’t perceive it correctly.  No, she did more dancing as she got up to the sidewalk.  She then started talking to herself aloud saying “St. James, no, Hampstead, no, oh dear, I’m lost. It’s ok, it’s ok, I’ll keep smiling.”  At this point I thought about asking her if she needed help, but then she stopped a passerby and pointed to the woman’s leg as though she had a run in her stocking or something of that nature.  Then the older British woman pantomimed shooting herself in the head with a gun.  I realized then, no, she is just plain crazy, impeccably dressed, but crazy.

Crazy Number Two:

A man who had been waiting for the same bus as I boarded with me and we both proceeded to go to the top of the bus.  Upstairs you get a much better view of the city and the journey isn’t as boring.  On our journey back to South London there are many, many churches.  Every time we passed a church he did the sign of the cross………twice.  At one point I thought he missed one and I was tempted to point that out, but as we passed the church he did the sign of the cross again……..twice.

Crazy Number Three:

Getting off the 176 in Sydenham I was hoping that Mr. Religion would stay on board and he did; however another passenger got off right ahead of me.  We’ll call him Mr. Spitter.  He spat every 10 feet or so…….crazy, but made me miss the lower-saliva-level fun of

Crazy Number Four:

At one of the stops, a portly, not at all tall, loony European woman had a very close relationship with one of her plastic bags.  She wasn't petting it or anything weird like that...no, she was just sucking on it.

This all happened on one bus ride, one way.  Never a dull moment on the 176.

The Sun is Out

The Sun is out, must be time for a walk!

As I am writing this it is raining again, but last week the sun was out about 85% of the time. I decided to go for a walk. There is a beautiful park that we discovered when our guest bloggers were here in December, that is only two blocks or so from our flat.

The sign on this tree, says it all. No explanation necessary.

So on to exploring the park. The Daffodils are blooming and I came upon what I think is a huge Heron.

There is a lovely lake and weeping willow tree. It reminded me of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland – a perfect spot to sit, reflect and become a part of your surroundings. There was a young father with his son feeding the pigeons and ducks, lovers walking hand in hand and then another curious sign. If you can’t make it out it says “Danger Deep Water….Danger Thin Ice”…..brought me right back to reality.

This park is huge and some of the history is very interesting. It used to have healing wells and prominent people used to come and bathe here. One such person was King George. Alas, the wells are gone now but it is interesting that that type of thing went on so close to where we now live. Side note: The street we live on, Kelvin Grove, was bombed during WWII. The story goes that the Germans mistook this area for Central London. But I digress, back to the park and more pictures.

As I was making my way back to the top of the hill to walk back to the flat, I came across two teenagers, madly in love, approaching a bench to sit and enjoy the sunshine. Keep in mind that even though the sun was out it was still pretty cold outside. By the time the gal finally sat down, I saw what color thong she had on and all of the tattoos she had just above her butt crack; then she took off her sweater revealing a teeny tiny tank top. Hey, thanks for the memory.

A Visit to Blackheath and Greenwich

In Blackheath, a town in Southeast London, we went into a coffee shop (Costa – our favourite coffee place in England).  We were enjoying our mochas and completing the August 1, 2010 Sunday LA Times crossword (we brought a stack of US crosswords with us and we continue to work our way through them).   Seated next to us was Marion Candido (not Candido anymore, but she didn’t tell us her new last name).  Marion is a pensioner (UK for “retired”) living in Blackheath after having spent 38 years living in Connecticut.  A very interesting woman full of information about the Blackheath area and also very in tune with Americans.  According to Marion, the walkway at the top of the hill in Blackheath is called Shooters Walk because that’s where the hunters used to walk along to shoot foxes and such; and it first appeared in literature in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. And there it was right out the window! 

We also now know where the term “hanger-on” comes from – it is from Blackheath.  On the main knoll at the top of the hill in Blackheath, they frequently executed criminals in the 1300s and 1400s.  These were usually by hanging (as Marion said, “At least for the lucky ones…” – who knows what the unlucky ones endured?).  When a criminal of slighter stature was hung, he typically didn’t weigh enough to die immediately after the hanging began.  To accommodate this, the lightweight criminals would hire townsfolk to hang on (grab the criminal’s ankles just before the hanging and then hang on) to make sure there was enough weight on the rope so they would die quickly.  The folks they hired were called hangers-on because they literally hung on from the criminal’s ankles.

Just over the hill from Blackheath is the town of Greenwich.  We went to Greenwich, prepared to synchronize our watches, and found that it was a very interesting place to visit.  We decided to come back on another day when it is not raining.  When we do, we will take the Thames Express – a ferry boat that runs up the Thames to Central London, dropping you at the pier in Westminster.  Going via the ferry, you see many sites from a vantage point you can get only from the middle of the river.  Should be an interesting ride.

Also in Greenwich, we saw a shop called “The First Shop in The World”, named as such because it sits at Longitude 0 degrees 0 minutes 0.4 seconds and is the closest to exact 0 Longitude.  Definitely makes it the first shop to open every day, if not the first shop in the world.

Greenwich market was full of stalls from local artisans selling their wares.  A very bohemian atmosphere and full of very interesting knick knacks, handmade clothing, art, and sculpture.  It also has a food section with fresh made meals from all around the world.  We did not avail ourselves of the food as we had just eaten at…wait for it…a MEXICAN Restaurant! Officially, it was Tex-Mex, but it was a close as we could get and it was quite good.  Often in England, Mexican food offerings have a bit of an Indian flare to them (we assume because of the spices that are more readily available), but this place tasted much more authentic.  Next trip to Greenwich, we can go straight to the food vendors, especially for the home-made Brazilian Churos filled with dolce de leche – yum!