23 Hour Vegetable Soup

One of the really amazing things about our experience this time and the flat we're living in is that the kitchen has an Aga. Ahhhh, the Aga. You know how much I looove to cook and learning how to cook in this new way has really been fun and creatively rewarding. An Aga is a stored heat oven that is always on. It makes the kitchen always feel cozy and welcoming. (for anyone really interested in the technical details, here's the Wiki entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGA_cooker ) It doesn't have burners on top, it has two "plates", the boiling plate and the simmering plate. The boiling plate is very, very hot and is great for stir fry, quick boiling of veggies, making yummy aga toast, etc. The simmering plate is not quite as hot. It's good for sauces, scrambled eggs, omelets, etc. There are 2 ovens - the roasting oven and the simmering oven. Both have levels of heat and it's by experience and practice that you learn how to cook and where to cook certain items; you have to decide to keep dishes in deep or up front, on a high rack or on the floor of the oven. so timing the chicken and vegetables and bread can be a challenge. I've been doing lots of cooking and I am really beginning to feel like I'm getting the hang of this oven. and what is so great about it is that its 'radiant' heat (heat radiates from the top and bottom and sides and front and back) cooks the food marvelously and gives it real depth. Chickens come out moist and crisp, vegetables come out creamy and crunchy, bread is lovely and crusty but moist.

And, I learned that you can cut up a lot of vegetables that you'd like to use up, add some tomatoes, some potato water, some olive oil and a mix of spices and leave it all on a rack in the simmering oven for 23 hours (yes, 23 hours) and it comes out amazingly rich and deeply flavored. So much so that my 4 year old ate it right up - even the beans and other assorted veggies that she didn't even really recognize.
We had friends to brunch today and I used the soup as a starter course. Our dear friend Libby (who will soon be 7) told me that the soup was "really lovely, just marvelous". What fun. :)

There are many more Aga stories to come; I wanted to get started on this blog and try to be more regular with my posts. I will also be adding photos soon. Ta!

Here we are again!!

I can't tell you how excited we are to be back in England for the second time! Many of you followed my blog the first time we were here in 2008. I hope that you will enjoy these new installments of 2010, and welcome to new friends who will come along with us. (Please read the archival posts from our first trip.) I am excited about what new adventures that await us. I haven't had time to really get started, but I will very soon. There are already fun stories to share and big news - Sophia is already displaying a bit of an accent and clearly called me "Mummy" earlier this evening. What fun. Oh, and Steve has already had steak and kidney pie and at least 3 cream teas!

Pizza and Kebab - who knew?

One of the funniest things we have come across during our stay here has been the fact that pizza and kebab seemed always to be linked in restaurants. It is not a combination we'd thought of before, but it is very popular indeed. We've had great fun as we've explored Norwich noticing all of the pizza and kebab shops. There is the 'Pizza and Kebab Shop', the 'Norwich Pizza and Kebab Shop', the 'Pizza and Kebab Shop of Norwich'. Then we have the 'Best Pizza and Kebab shop in Norwich', 'Norwich Best Pizza and Kebab', and the really high end 'UK Best Pizza and Kebab shop'.

There are several factors that these shops all seem to have in common. They are always 'take-away' (to go) shops; they all play punk rock videos on televisions that seem to have just one volume control, which is best called 'ear shredding'; the walls are covered in posters of scantily clad women advertising bar specials and flyers for meetings for all variety of groups, from the Lute Players Association to next Tuesday's meeting of the anarchists-r-us; and the guys (for they are always guys) behind the counter who serve you surely have not smiled in a very, very long time.

Despite all of this, the kebabs that we tried from one place were actually pretty good, and Steve really liked the pizza from another place. Pizza and kebab - who knew?

Norwich Cathedral and its Close: Remarkable

Every day when we walk out our door, we simply have to turn around and we see the spire of the main Norwich Anglican Cathedral rising into the sky. It awed us the first time we saw it and every time since. It has been a marker for us for our entire time spent here. A marker for directions to get us home from the long rambles that Steve leads us all on and also from the much shorter rambles that Sophia and I take. A marker that we are not at home, and that we have traveled a great distance. And, especially, a marker of just how special is the place to which we have journeyed.

The history of the church begins around 1096 AD. It is mostly constructed in the Norman style with many renovations, alterations and additions over the centuries. It has the second tallest spire in all of England, and it is the only church to have a two-story cloister. The cloister has four corridors that form a square. The are roofed in, but have large arched windows that are left open to the air. It is thought that the second story of this cloister was used for housing monks at one time. It is an amazing experience to walk the cloister. I feel calmed, slowed, transported to a different time somehow. It feels holy - I think, even if you are not religious, or are of a different religion, the space would still feel very special to you. These four corridors form a courtyard within which is a large grassy area. In 2000, a labyrinth was added. These are stones laid in to the ground that form a circular path for you to follow. It takes concentration to stay in the lines, and so therefore clears your mind as you focus on the task at hand. And when you make the journey and come to the center, you look up and see the beautiful cloister corridors and even further up to see the ever-towering spire.

We have had some amazing times in the cathedral - from attending evensong services to formal tours to simply walking around on our own, nosing into nooks and crannies. Sophia has come to know this place and while she runs around and acts childlike as always when we are there, she seems also to know that it is a special place. Just tonight we attended a children's service in celebration of the upcoming holidays. All of the children got an orange and decorated it in a certain way to represent the seasons and the life of Christ. And, because this is a Christian church, there was a candle in the middle that, when lit, represents and reminds that Christ is the light of the world.

Outside of the Cathedral is the area known as the Close. The close is all of the buildings and grounds owned by and associated with the cathedral within the cathedral walls. It is a tremendously large area that houses a school and all its related buildings, spacious green areas and fields, an herb garden, stunning gates and doorways, and numerous buildings and houses, including a house for the Dean of the church. Some of the buildings and houses have been sold off by the church over the years for various reasons, mostly for need of money to run the church. But even the buildings that do not belong to the church are kept up in such a manner as to seem to still be a part of it. It is impossible to describe how beautiful is this space. Tranquil, magical, busy, calm, chaotic, empty, thronging with people, silent, jarringly loud and full of voices, cars and clanging, endlessly interesting, in the dawning light, in the dusk of evening, in the very dark of night, in-bloom, autumn leaves falling, covered in frost, grey and rain filled, bursting with incomparable blue skies and sunshine: this is how we have found the Close over the days that we have been here and walked through. We have lived a 5 minute walk from here our whole visit, and I dare say it is something that we will miss, very, very, very much.

BTW - I love the pictures we've taken because they are ours, but if you want to see some amazing professional shots of the cathedral, you can go here:

http://images.google.com/images?q=norwich+cathedral+images&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title