So when the UK sleeps, we know you other MNers are out there part II

[tadjennyp]

I was looking for thumbwitch's recipe for that cake and found the old thread has disappeared so Linzer and I thought we'd resurrect it!

Have done seasonal variation but am not feeling at all festive because of bloody oven situation. Would rather like to cry, actually. :(

Thumb - it's so frustrating when you are on the other side of the world and with the time difference and everything...

I did have a little smile at your last post though. I imagine you coming down the stairs in your Christmas gown, stamping your feet in anger...

Hopefully your dad will be able to help out. Sorry I can't help with the cake baking - I don't bother here, I hate having the oven on, it just heats the kitchen up even more.

Linzer - snap, MN is so bloody distracting. I really want to finish the first draft of my novel before we leave and had set aside yesterday to really plough on with it. I managed a measly half a chapter. Trouble is I have also just joined Twitter in a sad bid to be Down With the Kids and so have yet another distraction!

Kickass - I have lost where you are, are you back in the UK? And where were you? I HATE jet lag - although it's not so bad when you all have it the same. When I first got pregnant with dd1 I met up with my (now) dh in the UK. He had flown in from Jamaica, me from Thailand where I had been helping out post-Tsunami. They are literally on the other side of the world from each other. Here we were, all excited with a baby on the way, hadn't seen each other for three weeks and when one was awake the other wanted to sleep and vice versa. Nightmare!

kickass - sorry for appearing to ignore you - I x-posted with you and didn't see your posts . Have looked at the Neff but no go, I'm afraid - the problem is the hole is only 57cm wide and there aren't many ovens that fit into that hole. Height is not an issue - it's the width. :(

thumb - there WILL be one that fits, honest. i can't remember what size our gap was, but we were really limited, and ended up finding something. it's a pita, but can be resolved

stranded - we went to the uk for a week, now back in the US, desperately trying to get everything ready for christmas - first lot of carpet due to be fitted in fri.

we have snow!! dd is so happy

I hope you get your oven woes sorted out really soon. I can't help on the baking front as I am rubbish. Also trying to cut down on MN as I seem to spend a lot of time on here! It is relaxing, but I need to get lots of other stuff done too!

I would probably have been in bed an hour ago if I hadn't let myself get so distracted by MN. I think I should go soon anyway; I only have one page left to translate, but have a sore throat and feel like I might be getting a cold. I always end up catching a cold if I don't get enough sleep, and my body obviously can't cope with me going to bed at midnight two nights in a row!

How many more chapters do you have to write, stranded? I really need to set myself deadlines, otherwise I'm a dreadful procrastinator.

How much snow have you had, kickass? We had 4 or 5 inches today, so I spent quite a bit of the afternoon shovelling it all off the path. DD1 and DD2 walked home from school in the snow (school finishes at 12.45pm, it's a 20 minute walk and they were home at 1.45pm - I was just about to go out and start looking for them!) and I think the novelty may be starting to wear off for them now. Driving was a bit of a nightmare too.

we have a light smattering - it was coming down most of today, but not really settled. tis feeling v cold though - below freezing all day.

spent ALL day painting & have made some progress - got to shift furniture this eve (joy).

dd went carol singing with brownies tonight & came home v excited - she loved it.

linzer - probably around 5 or 6 chapters left. I am not very good at planning so it keeps changing. I think I know where I am going with it now, but to be honest the characters sometimes just do their own thing without me realising it's going to happen (that sounds daft doesn't it?)

Feeling very left out of all the snow excitement - although I gather that even if we were at home they don't have snow where we live anyway!

Mark of a good book, stranded, that the characters have their own lives and voices! I'm also feeling left out of the snow but am secretly praying there's a huge thaw in the UK, or at least that City airport remains open until Sunday and that I can get into London on Tuesday! Other than that I don't really care...

That's pants about the oven, thumb :( Hope you get the cable sorted or can find an oven which meets the specs you need.

Linzer - have you remembered skillet? That's an American cooking term which makes me smile.

Good luck frakkin! (All of a sudden I want to call you frakkinaroundtheChristmastree!)

Hehe that was last year....I should probably put this year's seasonal namechange on!

frakkin No, I hadn't - aargh! Do the Americans use frying pan at all?

I've only just remembered that they use confectioners' sugar rather than icing sugar, so have had to go through changing that. I also keep forgetting to write flavor, color, etc. but at least the spell check picks that up.

you probably already had zucchini instead of courgette?

Frakkin - will keep my fingers crossed for you for next week....is this a holiday? You're not going back to have the baby yet are you? No that's ages away. And you're having it there aren't you?

My head is a sieve - who else is pregnant? And when are you due?

Noooo not having baby yet! Am only 20 weeks.

Not going back to have it at all if I can help as I'd have to fly well before due date and DH wouldn't be there, so I'll submit to the French system. Just going back for a 10 day visit this time and going to get some baby-related shopping in.

Linzer I've never heard an American say frying pan but they may!

Yes, zucchini has come up a few times - it's easy to remember as it's Zucchini in German.

Oh well, it looks like I'll have to change frying pan to skillet then! I've already sent two batches to the proofreader so will have to e-mail him (still haven't found out whether he's American so might have picked up on it anyway).

frakkin Fingers crossed that the snow will have melted by the time you get back! We had 5 or 6 inches yesterday, but the roads are mostly clear now so we get all the advantages of snow (it looks pretty and the DC can play in it) without the hassle of not being able to get around. The snow doesn't usually cause much chaos here anyway; we're just expected to get on with things and schools never seem to close.

don't they say frypan? I thought they did...
And of course they broil things which I still can't get my head around - is that the same as roasting, or isn't it? e.g. broiled chicken

Am ignoring the oven ishoo until my Dad can get back to me. I can't bear thinking about it.

On the upside, my cake was bloody good - I covered it in chocolate fudge icing (frosting for you, Linzer!) this morning and was very impressed that I managed to cut the top off straight, and cut it in half straight too! I might have won some WI points there - it did help that they had had a Masterchef masterclass on baking on tv here, and I had watched how they did it So - shoved raspberry jam in the middle to glue it together again, chocolate fudge icing over the top, waited for it to cool before painting the sides with it as well - covered it in gold, silver and red edible glitter and put candles on. V. pretty, if not very inventive - and it went down a storm at the playgroup Christmas party! One lady, who told me that her mother bakes every weekend at least and that she is a bit of a cake connoisseur, had two bits, she thought it was that good. Am amazed and quite pleased - and have posted the recipe in the Cakes section on MN recipes, under moist spelt chocolate cake.

I wish I could fly back to the UK...

Your cake sounds delicious, thumb - will have to go and look for it in the Cakes section.

I've just heard back from the proofreader, who is indeed American; he said that frying pan and skillet are interchangeable, so I don't have to change it after all - phew. Am bound to discover something else that I've been mistranslating before too long, but at least the proofreader should pick it up before it goes back to the customer.

US UK

broiling = grilling

grilling = bbq

so broiled chicken is done in an oven under the grill (or broiler). grilled chicken is done outside on the bbq.

it was about 3 months after we moved into this house that i discovered what the 'broil' button on my cooker does

it is NOT the same as roasting at all.

That opens up a whole new can of worms. The German for barbecue (the verb) is grillen and I've been translating it with both grill and barbecue. And sometimes I wasn't sure whether something was being cooked under the grill or barbecued... will leave it up to the proofreader to decide, I think!

ah. Thanks kickass! I always used to assume that broil = boil but spelt wrong (in the days when I first saw it mentioned in What Katy Did, gives you a hint of the age I was) but never really got to the bottom of what it actually was.

So do the Americans have broiled cheese as well, or is that still grilled? Or would that make it barbecued? still

It took me years to work out broil as well. And grill.

What about tail-gating then? Am still trying to work that one out...

Thumb - the cake does sound good. In fact you have made me very hungry and it's at least another hour before I can admit it's almost lunch time....

Frakkin - thanks for saying that about my novel btw. I have no idea if it's any good or not, haven't shown it to anyone yet. But I enjoy writing it - I'm just really bad at actually getting down to it. I am sure the French childbirth experience will be absolutely fine. I assume you speak French enough to understand/be understood? And as your dh is French he'll be able to swear at the midwives as much as you want him to!

You are doing the right thing to give birth there though. It's really sad for people who have to be separated from the baby's father for weeks after the birth because the father has to return to work.

isn't it called tailgating because the Americans call the back end/boot of the car the tail gate? Or were you asking something more about it?

I assume that tail gate comes from trucks, where there would have been a gate closed across the tails of the animals being transported - but I'm probably overthinking it! I do that...

Football was a very big thing in the town where we lived in the USA and (as a result, I think) so was tailgating. I was very confused when I first heard about it and never actually went to a tailgate party, but I sort of imagine it to be like a large car boot sale, but with everyone eating and drinking rather than actually selling things from their car boots! I've probably got it completely wrong, but I do know that there's often a lot of alcohol involved!

I thought I was going to have to come back to Austria to have DD1 as I was pregnant when we moved to the USA and wasn't sure whether our insurance company would cover it, as it was a pre-existing condition. I've given birth in Austria twice but didn't actually speak much German either time - DD2 arrived too quickly and DS was an emergency C-section and I had a general anaesthetic.

grilled cheese is neither grilled nor barbequed! it's 2 slices of bread, with the outside buttered, cheese in the middle, then done in a frying pan/griddle or electric griddler, which is almost exactly the same as a sandwich toaster. so, basically, it's a toasted cheese sandwich.

they don't have 'cheese on toast' like the brits do.

tailgating - indeed named after the tail gate of a pick-up truck. not just for alcohol-infused frat boys (though that exists) but families as well. kind of like a pic-nic, but being american they do it BIG. you turn up with your truck, which is piled HIGH with the grill (unless you're at a park where there's one already), the gas for the grill, the food & drink. you listen to the game, and all wear the team colours - even your new born babe. probably there'll be a game of horseshoes or ladder ball going on.

now, can anyone tell me what the brits call it when someone drives really close behind you. i used to think it was tailgating, now i just think i've got confused.

Yes I think that is (British) tail gating......

Thanks for the explanation. It's like a picnic/barbq with cars then?

And btw from my trip up to Florida - wow the Americans have BIG trucks these days. I saw some that were about ten foot off the ground. WHAT is going on!