Living in America 2015

[rootypig]

New thread. In honour of:

1. allegedly Irish bangers discovered I saw in Trader Joe's today, which made me think of you lot and especially you Want2b, you pork fanatic - I will report back; and

2. taxes bloody argh! do I have to do this? NOW??? My green card was granted in August last year and I didn't earn a bloody penny. What am I supposed to put on a tax return

How else is everyone's American odyssey going?

yours chaotically, as ever,

rooty

That sounds scary. I'm glad the tornadoes passed you by.

On a much more trivial note, does anyone know what I can use instead of Camp's coffee essence to make coffee cake? Please don't say coffee

Googling coffee cake is not helping, since that's what they call any sponge cake that's not out of a box

Still raining hard, but the storm seems to have passed. In Tuttle, OK (about 30 miles SE of OKC) a tornado hit a safari park, setting loose the tigers. They've all been rounded up now apparently, but it lent quite a surreal edge to the newsfeed this evening.

No help on the coffee baking dilemma I'm afraid. I used to use instant coffee when I baked in UK, but I understand why you wouldn't want to do that here.

This was the view from our porch last night. Amazingly it has mostly dried out now, but I expect to encounter some mud on the way to preschool this morning.

I've seen it in our local ShopRite in the spice section. I used Italian espresso powder when baking a coffee cake. Spent $12 on a really small jar for DH to tell me he hates coffee!

First you need a supply of instant coffee from the UK (refill packs of freeze dried coffee post very well)....

Could you make or buy a cup of real espresso and use that? Reduce the other liquids a little if necessary?

Another food related q - is it something I'm doing wrong, or does the food here go off a lot more quickly than in the UK? Doesn't matter whether it's from TJs or Target, things like fruit and veg, bread, meat all seem to have a short shelf life before they go manky

Fruit and veg go off in a day or two if you don't keep them refrigerated. Bread doesn't go moldy on me for ages. Freaks me out. Found a bread in Costco that goes moldy in a week which is on the long end of normal.

Meat is frozen down or cooked within 24 hours of purchase.

Thanks guys. Is instant coffee here so terrible? never tried it!

MrsF heard about OKC on morning edition this morning - hope the preschool run wasn't too muddy!

Why is instant coffee bad over here? Don't drink it but aren't they all global companies so basically the same stuff everywhere?

Rooty 'coffee cake' being cake you have with coffee is still weird to me (I love coffee cake but have never made it myself!).

It's a myth that instant coffee is terrible. Everyone here has been told that ground coffee is better. Of course a premium roasted coffee which is freshly ground to the right consistency and made with a proper machine makes the best coffee. The dunkin donuts/ Starbucks / whatever other supermarket bean compared to instant is not that different IMO. I do stop by our local coffee shop on Friday and pick up a 1/4lb of beans and have them ground for my machine. That coffee is excellent but you are not going to find it in a regular supermarket. Heck, most coffee places don't have it and I am lucky the place I go to is picky about keeping it fresh.

MrsFrumble, glad you are all right after the storms.

My Mum liked Jacobs instant coffee when she was here last. I only buy the smallest possible jar of instant coffee when she comes over, and use it for baking afterwards. Normally I buy Gevalia ground coffee or whatever is on sale, as the DDs like a cup of coffee from time to time. I keep it in the freezer. I drink tea myself.

We use ground coffee (just have a simple paper drip cup which is as fast as instant tbh) but I have read on the internet - so it must be true! - that ground coffee or even espresso won't work for coffee cake. Presumably it introduces too much liquid.

Gah! my mum and granny both use Camp, and I always did too.

I buy Starbucks instant coffee (the Italian one in one serving individual sachets) and it tastes fine. I normally drink fresh coffee but will drink this very occasionally. Dissolves sachet in a tablespoon of boiling water and use that.

Oh sod it, I've just ordered it on Amazon for ten bucks. It's actually for an event, expenses covered, so someone else will pay for it and I can keep the rest of the bottle.

I bet you're all sighing with relief

Phew!

In other beverage news, I can report that TJs English Breakfast Tea is pretty good - better than bloody Liptons anyway! And a steal at only $1.99 for 40 bags, as they might say themselves

Yes the TJs earl grey is fine too. I have a stash that my best pal brought me at Christmas, of breakfast and earl grey. They take up minimal space in the wee foil packets, I have more than enough to keep me going until summer when I restock

We can get quite a few English Brands, like Tetleys, just at the local supermarket. Yorkshire tea is also pretty available.

For coffee we have a ludicrous (but excellent) coffee grinder and double boiler machine. It's quite time consuming but makes really good coffee. I suspect a Chinese tea ritual is only laity more intricate though.

Yes, I can get tetleys, pg tips and Yorkshire tea in my local supermarket. I have horrible memories of yellow label tea in Paris circa 1998 after marks and spencer closed down....

Tonight we have a thunderstorm in LA. Watching Tory speech after Tory speech, with cold feet and dry eyes, it feels like England has come to us.

All quiet tonight in OKC, but tomorrow night is predicted to be a real shitter, with storms and tornados galore. Woo hoo.

I'm feeling slightly better about not fulfilling my civic duty as the guy who I would have backed (who has been the MP for my old London borough for the last 25 years) won again with over 60% of the vote.

Gosh MrsF, just seen some pictures. Stay safe.

How long does this season last?

We can get pg tips in our local (very expensive) supermarket, along with bisto gravy granules, chocolate hobnobs and hp sauce
Good luck for tonight mrsf

Chocolate hobnobs