An evening in Leicester Square

Most days, it’s actually relatively easy to forget that we live in a huge, global city.  We wake up in our quiet neighborhood, I go off to the archives (I’m at the National Archives these days, which means I’m never near central London), Becca goes to her office (or works from home), and we’re back in our quiet neighborhood at 7 or 8 o’clock at night.

But then there are days when you come across this:

 

Those are flames, by the way, not just over-exposed bright lights.

(See here for far better photos.)

I don’t think we would have made a special trip to Leicester Square just for the premiere, but a friend of a friend was in London for the red carpet festivities, so we figured we’d go along and see what all the fuss was about.

If anything, I was struck by how small the whole thing was.  For the world premiere of the latest installment of a film franchise that’s already made more than a billion dollars, I’d expect teeming masses.  But instead, it was probably no more than a few hundred people, maybe a thousand.  The terrible weather surely had something to do with that.

But among the fans that were there, there was passion.  Every few minutes a cheer went up for yet another minor character.  Outside of Daniel Radcliffe, Tom Felton (aka Draco aka Stuart Broad) probably got the biggest cheer of all.

A few more thoughts:

• Emma Watson – shouldn’t she be in class?
• Ian McKellen – We’re not sure why he was there.  But, as Becca put it, perhaps he simply has lifetime wizarding credentials.  UPDATE: As Kathy points out in the comments, this is, of course, a picture of John Hurt.  But in our defense, the Guardian had it wrong initially, too.
• The Brothers Phelps – Glad to see they’re not pushing the identical angle too hard.
• Tom Felton was really pushing the English country gentleman look.  Apparently he wants to study fishery management (when was the last time you heard an American actor say something like that?), so I think he can just pull it off.

England...the Land of Beer and Tea...kind of

Random photo from September. We went to 0 Longitude!



When American's think of England, then tend to think of stereotypes (terrible teeth made up for by adorable accents, polite queing, adoration of the royal family except for Charles), many of these stereotypes coming from Hollywood ("I feel like I'm living in a Hugh Grant movie" - Kirsten, our most recent awesome houseguest). Some, but not all, of these turn out to be true (newsflash! In London, no one forms a queue). However, the stereotypes about beer and tea are absolutely true. The pub is completely central to English life, and tea is completely central to any work or social gathering, or really any personal encounter (I was recently offered tea when I went to pick up my new suit jacket from the tailor). However, both of these come with caveats that I feel are worth explaining.

I was so excited for drinking beer in England. Finally, a land not ruled by Budwiser and Coors and Miller! Going to a pub with multiple beers I'm excited about drinking! Not having to listen to Danny whine about what a terrible word "drinkability" is! While the first and third of those statements have proven to be correct, I've been disappointed in the beer selection, both at pubs and at beer stores.

Okay, so first a little background. There are two kinds of pubs here: "free houses", which can serve whichever beer they want, and pubs owned by a brewing company (generally one of the big English companies, like Youngs or Greene King). Most free houses will have two or maybe three "real ales," and then a selection of continental favorites like Amstel and Heinekin. (And always Peroni. Why do the Italians even bother making beer when they do everything else so well? well, except politics.) Now don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have Heinekin than Bud Light, but it just leaves something to be desired. Pubs owned by a brewer will whatever range of beers that brewer makes (which usually includes something darkish, several ales, maybe a lager), which is okay, but I always feel like I'm buying beer from The Man when I end up at one of these pubs. What's curious is that our trips to the lake district and several CAMRA beer festivals have shown that the UK makes lots of delicious beer, it just doesn't tend to show up in London pubs. I guess this is just my way of saying that I miss Sam Adams and Harpoon and Smuttynose and Brooklyn Brewery...

However, I should add that I still really enjoy our local pubs - we consider ourselves lucky enough to have five pubs close enough to be "local" - The Star, The Dartmouth Arms, The Lord Palmerston, The Bull and Last, The Southampton Arms. Here's the quick rundown of each pub, complete with the nickname that Danny has given each one. Points if you can figure out how each one was derived! (Sorry for the repetition from one of Danny's earlier posts, but I think that speaks to how great English pubs are!)

The Star - no nickname here. This one is just around the corner, so it's our go-to pub for a weeknight pint. It's quiet during the week, but it serves great food and is a trendy place to be come the weekend! The only pub where we know the manager by her first name.

The Dartmouth Arms (aka Al's Posse) - The less trendy heart of Dartmouth Park, this place shows football, has board games, and does an amazing plate of chips. It also has really funky pink flowered wallpaper, and we're just dying to try out their breakfast.

The Lord Palmerson (aka The Tap) - We walk by it every day on the way to the tube/bus, so when it's time for a drink we're less inclined to head back in that direction, but it also has a casual, local feel.

The Bull and Last (aka the Cow and First...okay that nickname's not as complicated) - we've only ever been once, and it has a fairly typical beer selection, but it's the menu that really got us excited to go back. Lots of yummy-sounding veggie options, and they've written all their local food suppliers on the wall, which is a good sign. We tried to go for lunch last Sunday and they said they weren't taking new food orders because the kitchen was too busy. It's a good sign for the quality of the food, but what is that supposed to mean? Aren't you in the food service industry?

The Southampton Arms (aka The Attempt) - Danny was singing the praises of this one in an earlier post about our pub crawl, but I'll repeat. This is where the real beer is. All from small breweries, all real ale and real cider (though real cider is actually pretty gross), and the staff really knows their beer. When Mark asked for "the hoppiest beer you've got", they knew exactly which ones to recommend. Unfortunately, when it comes to hoppiness, English beers just can't compete with American ones. Such is the plight of those brought up on Harpoon IPA.

But back to the main point about generally limited beer selection (The S.A. not withstanding)...the phenomenon is curiously repeated when it comes to tea. Tea is everywhere. At work, no one shows up to a meeting without a cuppa, and everyone who couldn't bring their own is immediately offered one (and never in anything other than a proper mug). Every tense situation on soap operas is accompanied with a plea along the lines of, "Don't leave! Let me just put on the kettle and we can discuss this!" And it's also totally normal to order tea in a pub. But the English are not really into fancy tea. I would guess that most households just have a stock of unremarkable English Breakfast, and that's it. And you'll rarely even hear people refer to it as English Breakfast. To them it's just...tea. I was doing fine with this model for a while (plus mint tea to have at night), but recently I've gotten desperate for something more complex, and we've gotten some earl grey and chai.

I guess I would say that when it comes to tea, it's really much more about the experience of tea than the flavor of tea. Something that makes you feel calm and safe, something to warm up those blustry English days, something that makes you pause for a moment to appreciate a curling whisp of steam rising off a milky lake. and that's tea I can believe in.

Cheeses of England #4: Ash-coated goat cheese

Random photo: recycling is run!



I know, we haven't posted a new cheese since August (!), but don't think for a minute that we've been depriving ourselves of cheese since the last post. We've been enjoying lots of unpasturized cheddar, more blue vein cheddar, some more Romanian cow's cheese, we just haven't written about any of those.

But today I want to share with you our new favorite, Nut Knowle Farm's award-winning ash-coated aged goat cheese. It's super creamy with the bite of an aged cheese and the smokiness of, well, ash. We enjoy it spread on crusty breads (like the walnut levain featured here), crumbled into soups or stews, and in salads (well, I do, anyway). If you can find something similar near where you live, I'd definitely give it a try!

From the National Archives

It’s true.  The British do love their sausage.

Recent photos

Our friend Lianna threw a Halloween party.  Following Becca’s genius inspiration, we went as the Man in Black and Princess Buttercup.  From, of course, my favorite movie.  Those of you who are also Star Wars fans might enjoy this.

Becca at Lord’s, the home of cricket.  The pavilion is behind her, and if you look closely, you can see the famous slope.

Regent’s Park has some gorgeous flowers, even in October.

From the gorgeous to the… not-gorgeous.  Bonus points to those who can identify my mustachioed companion.  Photo credit to Becca, who had the patience to put up with my insistence that she take dozens of pictures of me in this ridiculous get-up.

Primary Care Across the Globe! part 3

Return of the random photo, this time from from the Queen's Wood (N10), last Saturday. Sadly, this is about as dramatic as the fall leaves are here in London. Growing up in the Northeast spoils one for fall colors!


Okay, this is the last post in the current series about primary care clinics. I did visit a 4th clinic last week, shadowing a GP I met at the Oxford conference on health policy, but nothing to report about that. Well, okay, two things to report. 1) It was awesome to see patients again! and to use my stethoscope! 2) It still gives me a thrill to be introduced to patients as "a visiting doctor from the United States", and to be able to provide "two doctors for the price of one," as she said (the price of one, of course, is £0).

But the main focus of this post is my experiences in Denmark, when I went with my host mom to the GP clinic where she works as a nurse. The clinic has 4 GPs and 2 nurses, all of whom were incredibly friendly and welcoming. Danny spent the morning reading in the conference room, and it seemed like one of the GPs was popping in every 20 minutes to chat with him, mostly about the only place in the US he had been (Boise, Idaho). I think I would be a pretty happy GP too if I had a 20 minute scheduled mid-morning break to enjoy a cup of tea and some fresh bread with cheese. Whether this is standard practice in Danish general practice or just happened at this clinic I don't know, but I could certainly get used to it. Just two main points about this visit.

1) The casual nature. I don't remember if I've mentioned this before, but no one in the UK wears a white coat. Not because they don't like to, but because they've been banned. The white coat, with it's dragging sleeves and lack of regular washing, essentially turns the wearer into a walking drug-resistant bacteria petri dish, and no about of gravitas is worth that. But it Denmark they take to a new level. Not only do they not wear white coats, or ties, but they are perfectly comfortable wearing jeans and sneakers. In fact, most of the male GPs were wearing black jeans and plaid short-sleeve button-down shirts. It was pretty sweet. The relationships between the staff and the patients was incredibly jovial and relaxed; I don't know how much of this is due to the Danish sense of humor, lots of longitudinal relationships, but some of it could be due to a lack of pretense that the doctors emitted (while still emitting confidence).

2) Freestyle, as needed health care. I think there is a fear in this county that with a government-run health care plan would come scores of regulations about the services that physicians have to provide, how often they have to provide them, and demands that patients "consume" health care in a certain way. And the UK is moving in this direction - all patients over 40 are expected to be seen once a year, and certain "screening" data is supposed to be collected (cholesterol, BP, weight, fasting glucose, etc). Of course, the ironic thing is that this is already the norm in the US, even without regulation. Because of the defensive and perhaps excessive way medicine is practiced in the US you can't walk into a clinic without getting a full range of vital signs taken (I just heard of a friend who had an EKG done as part of a routine checkup as a totally healthy 24 year-old!), whereas in the UK blood pressure is only measured if it is related to the presenting complaint (or now as part of scheduled screening or follow-up).

But in Denmark, which is even more of a scary Socialist country, these regulations are close to zero. No rules about how often you have to go in for a checkup (my host father hasn't seen a doctor in 20 years), no rules about checking cholesterol and blood pressure on patients that the doctor has no concerns about. At first I couldn't believe this. What about public health?! What about screening for "silent" diseases?! But I think the chart below, which I posted as a comment to an earlier blog, says it all:



Better outcomes for less money? Um, yes please. Interestingly, Denmark is "behind" much of the rest of Western Europe when it comes to life expectancy, so there is clearly room for improvement, but the point is that it's not lagging behind the US (in fact, it's marginally higher), and for much lower expenditure per capita. Of course, life expectancy is not the only measure of health outcomes, but I think it's a good place to start, no?

My point here is mainly that even within "socialized medicine", there is lots of variation in what a program can look like, and more specifically, it doesn't have to mean that the government is telling you or your doctor how to make every health decision. Besides, private insurance companies already do that, so it really shouldn't be such a scary idea for Americans...

Primary Care Across the Globe! part 2

2. Luton. When I say the Detroit of England, I mean that it used to have several industries based in the area (car manufacturing and hat making) that have since left. What they've left behind is a huge problem with unemployment, homelessness, and drug abuse. But what Luton has the Detroit doesn't, is a large influx of recent immigrants. While most of them are young and relatively healthy, their presence adds an added complication to being a GPs in Luton, because many of them don't speak English (and for GPs to learn a bit of Urdu AND Bengali AND Arabic AND Polish is quite a tall order), and as I recently learned, because many of them are young and healthy, there has been a huge demand for more maternity services. And between the homeless population and the immigrant population, this clinic has decided that a dedicated TB nurse is necessary. oy. But this is what I love about general practice - you have to be ready for anything.

I shadowed a GP for the morning, then spent the afternoon chatting with some folks at the clinic - the practice manager (deals with $$ and staffing issues), the information system expert (deals with the medical record), his trainee (the equivalent of a 2nd or 3rd year primary care resident), etc, and there were some interesting things that I thought were worth sharing.

Electronic medical records. They're becoming the norm in the US and the UK, but for the most part they're only available within the clinic or hospital system you practice in. Well, England is making a go of a national computerized medical record - the Summary Care Record. So far, the plan is that it will contain some demographic information, a list of medications, and a list of allergies. So, the story goes, if you were rushed to the Accident and Emergency (ER, for us) anywhere in the country, the doctor could easily see "Hey, she's on insulin!" or "Hey, this guy had heparin induced thrombocytopenia!", even if you were unconscious and had no one with you. This ideal has been talked about for a LONG time in the US, but we're not really getting any closer to it. People are very concerned about privacy and security of records, which is reasonable, and it's obviously imperative that security be a cornerstone of the project. That fear is here as well (there is the option to opt out of the summary care record, just like you can opt out of chlamydia screening), and I read a recent letter in the British Journal of General Practice, by a GP, urging all other GPs and patients to opt out due to security concerns. nice. So it will be interesting to see if/how England really pulls this off, if they will be adding more information to the record in the future, and if America will follow suit.

Private insurance, and why you might get it. All right, I'll admit it: people here do wait longer for non-emergency surgeries, and sometimes there are more stringent criteria for who is allowed to have a procedure. The IT woman I was talking to gave the example of her father-in-law. He was old, he wanted a hit replacement, but the NHS wouldn't cover him because he was too overweight. I guess the assumption is that a hip replacement isn't absolutely necessary, and more importantly, being overweight that would greatly reduce his chances of a good result from the surgery (recovering from a hip replacement is a lot of work!). Now, some people would argue that this is the government making a moral judgment, that maybe the NHS is saying that this person got their hip problems because they are overweight and now they don't deserve a replacement. Some people would call it rationing. The NHS, I believe, would argue that they are just trying to only pay for procedures that will lead to better health outcomes (imagine that!). But at any rate, the father-in-law was able to buy private insurance that would help him pay for his surgery, and soon. Because he had just purchased the insurance for the sole purpose of the surgery (wait, isn't that an underlying condition???), he had to pay more out of pocket for the procedure. If he had been paying for a little extra insurance for many years, he would have paid less for the surgery. This whole situation with private insurance does lead to a situation where the wealthy get more access to some specialty care, that's true. But the point of the NHS is that everyone receives basic, necessary, high-quality care for free or cheap.

Foreign MDs. At Swarthmore, there was an orthopedic surgeon who working in the dining hall. No joke. He was from South Asia, and he was serving up our tacos, pizza, and other delightful entrees of college dining while he studied for his exams to get certified as a doctor in the US. There was an Indian resident on my surgery rotation who was repeating most of her residency (!!!) in the US so she could practice there. Now, I don't know what the exact rules are for coming to either country, but talking to this trainee (who was from India), it was clear that it is fairly straightforward to come to the UK to practice from other countries. She has started her residency in India, then came to the UK and started right up again where she had left off. Maybe it's because their education systems are similar, maybe it's Colonial guilt, maybe it's the honest recognition that doctors from other countries can also have exceptional training, but I was stuck by the simplicity she recounted in getting qualified as a doctor in the UK vs. in the US. And this actually works out well in terms of having doctors and patients who speak the same language.

Lastly, I had lots of conversations with people about healthcare in the US. First of all, except for those people who have made a career of studying it, they have no idea what it's like (even most people in healthcare in the UK don't really get it. Who can blame them?). And when I explain it to them, they are horrified. People go into debt for medical bills? They had debt collectors calling them daily? 45 million uninsured? even kids??? I think that a lot of Americans imagine that the English are jealous of our fancy healthcare in the US, with our abundance of MRI machines and slews of specialists, but in my talking to people one thing has become clear: they would NEVER give up the NHS to have any of that. Just something to ponder as states amend their constitutions such that they won't have to follow the new healthcare reform legislation...

Primary Care Across the Globe! part 1

Okay, so across the globe is a bit of an exaggeration, but I did have the pleasure of observing and talking to people in three primary care clinics in two countries in the past month or so, and I have some thoughts. The first clinic was in our neighborhood, and I was there as a patient (just routine stuff). The second was in Luton, a city north of London which I now affectionately think of to as the Detroit of England. The third was in the aformentioned "Socialist" country of Denmark, where my host mom is a nurse in a GP clinic. We'll take them in order, and I'll try to keep this interesting to people who don't want to spend their lives studying primary care organization and delivery (which is I think all but one of you).

1. Parliament Hill Surgery (in the UK, "surgery" is both the profession of slicing people open, and the physical building in which doctors work) is just your average GP clinic in London. A handfull of GPs, two receptionists with dodgy mastery of English, and a few nurses who give flu shots, see patients with minor illnesses, offer smoking cessation advice, take out stitches, and follow-up with patients with stable chronic diseases like diabetes and asthma and hypertension (did I mention my mad respect for nurses? I have mad respect for nurses.).

There are a few notable things I got out of this experience (well, notable for an American, anyway). One is, and this is what many people imagine and fear when they think about "Socialized Medicine", is that you don't have unlimited choice of which doctor you see. In the US you are limited by who takes you insurance, and of course the extent of this limitation depends on what your insurance is. In the UK, you are limited by geography. In the original incarnation of the NHS, every GP was given a list of patients that lived around them, and they were responsible for the health of these people. Everyone on that list had to go to that local GP for healthcare (or, free healthcare, anyway). And if you needed the care of a specialist or a hospital, they would tell you where to get that care. As the system modernized, "choice" got added to the NHS. Now there are multiple surgeries that will accept you as a patient, but it is still limited: many clinic websites have a map of the area they serve, and you have to bring proof of address when you first show up to the clinic. There is now choice in specialist or hospital care as well, although if you live in a rural area that choice is probably more theoretical and real (but that's the same for any rural area, with any healthcare system).

In addition to having to give proof of address, you have to "register" with the surgery, which means going in and filling out forms. These forms, in addition to the standard questions one finds on registration form of all sort, include information about family history, personal medical history, as well as questions about smoking, alcohol, drug use, and the option to opt-out of routine chlamydia screening for women 18-25. I found myself contemplating whether I wanted to opt out or not ("Well, I'm really not at risk for chlamydia, but then again I want to be supportive of their public health efforts...") when I realized that I'm too old to be considered "high risk". Which I guess is a good thing? Anyway, it got me thinking about these written tools we use to screen for problems as diverse as asthma, depression and alcohol abuse. Even when problems can be quantified, as in alcoholic drinks/week, how do we pick a cutoff of 7 drinks/week for women as the difference between "normal" and "problem" drinking? I know, I know, these tools are validated, tested on a larger population, tweaked, and tested again. But despite the fact that screening tools like this fall into the realm of what I am studying this year (GPs delivering public health), filling out these forms for myself made me realized the impossibility of it all - how can we decide just from a form who might be depressed, or who may be in an abusive relationship? The answer, of course, is that these forms will never be the only method of diagnosis - luckily we still have caring, thoughtful GPs to care for our patients.

Whew, I guess that wasn't really specific to healthcare in the UK, other than the fact that the NHS loves for GPs to gather data about patients. In fact, the biggest quality measures (upon which hefty payments are based) for GP are just based on keeping good records of patients with chronic diseases and keeping up to date with regular health checks for healthy adults. But more on this later, if you're interested.

Okay, for both my sake and for yours, I'm doing to break this post up into 3 different posts about primary care. I should point out that you should feel free to ask questions about the UK healthcare system (or the American healthcare "system", for that matter), if you have them. After this series I promise we'll get back to the fun stuff, like cheese and beer.

Stay with us...

Where have we been?

Hi folks,

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I wish we had a good excuse, like we were traveling Europe for 15 days or were just so busy with our research that we couldn't stoop so low as to write a simple blog post. But no, our departure from blogging has been due to 4 mundane things:

1. Danny's computer has been being repaired for the last 2 weeks. The saga has been much longer and more complicated than that, but we'll spare you the boring details. Just know that when they finally returned his laptop after replacing the motherboard, they neglected to also return the power cord. Laptop - powercord = desk decoration. And obviously he can't possibly write a blog post on a Mac. Good heavens, no.

2. I had a cold and spend a few days doing nothing but putting my head under a towel over a pot of steaming water. Another good sinus-clearing option that I've never had the guts to try is the Neti pot.

3. I've just finished a really excellent novel, called White Teeth, which kept me unable to concentrate on anything else for a while. It's the impressive first book by Zadie Smith, and it delves into the lives of first-generation Londoners, trying to find their place in the swirling mass of ethnicities that is London, all with their own history and family circumstances. It's a vague description, I know, but the book tries to do so much (and succeeds!) that's it's hard to sum up. Suffice it to say, if you're looking for a really good read and are keen to better understand London, this book would be a good place to start.

4. Umm... I'm embarrassed to say this, but Danny and I have finally broken out our 2-person card game version of Settlers of Catan, and we're hooked. For a while it was looking like every game would be be a nail-biter, but lately I've been running up the score. We'll see if Danny can recover tonight!

We did manage a trip during all that, up to Glasgow to visit our friend Barnie. You can check out our facebook photo album (if you haven't already) to get a taste, but the short version is: it was shockingly sunny and warm, the city is surprisingly nice, we didn't eat haggis or hear bagpipes, but we did drink whisky. And there was much rejoicing.

Cows are to Oxford as Christianity is to Britain

At the beginning of September, Becca and I went to Oxford, she for a conference on health policy, me to check out some records of the Conservative Party related to religious education. But in addition to the professional activities, we also took some time to wander around town.  As we strolled along the maze of streams surrounding the city center, we came upon what might seem an odd sight in a city of 150,000: cattle.  Not many of them, but there they were.

This got me thinking about my dissertation (Tim Burke’s right: after a few years of grad school, nearly everything gets you thinking about your dissertation).  And what I came up with was this analogy: Cows are to Oxford as Christianity is to Britain.

No, seriously.  There are parallels here.  Cattle and Christianity are both marginal these days (literally in the case of the cows – they’re on the outskirts of the city).  If you were to start from scratch, you’d never think of grazing cows in the fields surrounding Oxford or establishing the Church of England as the state church.  Oxford’s economy is, these days, based largely on tourism.  Just 15% of British adults attend church on a regular basis.  It’s safe to say that Oxford is no longer an agricultural market town or Britain a solidly Christian country.

Yet… they’re there.  They're there because they were there in the past, and certain things stick around beyond what seems to be their natural or rational lifespan.  Path dependence is a crucial fact for understanding the world around us.  Simply put, history matters.

The difficult thing is figuring out the significance of these strange holdovers, these things that don’t quite make sense.  In some cases, like the cattle of Oxford, I’d readily admit that the significance is pretty minimal.  The cows are part of the ambience of the place, reminding visitors of Oxford’s agricultural past.  Along with certain architectural details in the city, the cows create a sense that Oxford is a place of the past, a place where you can step back time.

So what about Christianity?  Does it matter that the Queen still gives an annual Christmas message or that the school day, more often than not, opens with a recognizably Christian act of worship?  I don’t have a convincing answer to that question (yet!), but my current thinking is that it makes far more sense to think about Britain as “post-Christian” than simply “secular.”  The former label recognizes history; the latter simply effaces it in favor of observations about the present.

Christianity is still around.  If you start looking for it, you see it everywhere: churches, street names, schools, bishops on the front pages of the papers.

This is where my dissertation comes in – an exploration of why and how certain Christian institutions endured for so long.  Those questions are fairly easy to answer, given the archival materials available.  The tricky (and really interesting) problem is the significance of those elements of Christianity that stuck around for so long.  If all goes well, I’ll be able to tell you why we need to look at Christianity in order to understand the broader history of postwar Britain.  In other words, I suppose, my whole project is an attempt to prove the analogy of cows and Christianity wrong, to show that Christianity did not simply become a charming or eccentric anachronism.

Check back in a few years to see if I’ve done it.

A Dartmouth Park pub crawl

1) The Southampton Arms - a new place, prompted by a rave review in TimeOut.  The best beer selection I’ve seen among the local pubs thus far.  It’s a real shame that it’s taken us three months to discover it.

2) The Bull and Last (aka the Cow and First, courtesy Laura) – another new place.  Pooh-poohed by the recent Times piece as excessively upmarket.  I get their point, what with the rather prominent list of the local producers’ of their food.  But as well-educated twentysomethings, we rather fit the desired clientele.

3) The Lord Palmerston (aka ‘The Tap’ – exercise left to the reader).  Even though it’s just down the hill from us, this was only the second time we’ve been there.  It strikes me as a bit “shiny,” what with the dedicated restaurant-y dining room in the back.  But I appreciate the board games on the bar.

The night ended at this point, but if you were looking to complete the set, the places to go would be the Star and the Dartmouth Arms, which are really our two regular haunts.

Slight correction to my Denmark post

Did you know? Karl Marx's grave is just around the corner from us in Highgate cemetery! It's a bit on the tacky side, but it's pretty cool that he's buried there and that his grave is such an attraction. This memorial was built in the '50s by the Communist Party of Great Britain - before that there had just been a small gravestone, as the 11 people at his funeral could hardly pull together the money or interest in anything more. This is a great segue into my slight correction, which is about calling Denmark a Socialist country in my earlier post.

After listening to another great Planet Money podcast where they try to address the question of what exactly constitutes Socialism, and more importantly whether Obama and the Democrats were turning the US into a socialist country, I was thinking that Denmark doesn't exactly fit the model of socialism in every regard.

They do have a great social welfare state, which goes along with being Socialist. However, they don't have the worker-driven system that Marx was so fond of. Corporate profits are still the ultimate goal, and most people work for private companies, not the government. In this way Denmark is just as capitalist as the rest of the western world. Although their excellent windmill industry is a great example of large corporations combining financial gain and growth with social responsibility. Just wanted to clarify!

Good smells –> even better tastes

Autumn has brought some exciting additions to our local farmers’ market, especially in the freshly prepared foods genre.  Soon after our friends’ Laura and Mark’s arrival from the U.S., we tramped off to the market, where we promptly devoured: 1) Reibekuchen with various sauces.  I imagine our readership knows them better as latkes – fried potato deliciousness. 2) A cheese toasty, split in four: Keen's cheddar hot-pressed (with fried leeks, onions, and garlic) between two slices of hearty bread.

Maybe the damp cold of the English autumn and winter won’t be so bad after all.

What she said

I, too, was going to blog about our weekend in Denmark.  But I’m afraid that Becca already said just about all of it.  The title for my post was going to be “Hygge, bicycles, and the welfare state.”  I suppose this is what happens after six and a half years together.

I do have this to add: the use of English as a lingua franca is even more widespread than I could have imagined.  Henrik told us that, even though the Scandinavian languages are very similar, when Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes are having communication issues, they all simply switch to English.  Becca overheard a conversation at the GP clinic between a Polish patient and a Danish nurse.  The language used: English, of course.  It makes me feel both fortunate and imperialistic at the same time.

Things we've cooked...with recipes!

Another gem from Highgate cemetery:


Fall has arrived in London! So far it's much less magnificent than New England fall, but there are a few pretty red vines and some brilliant yellow trees.


While Laura and Mark are napping in the next room (!), I thought I would share some of the things we've been cooking over the past few months, because they were really tasty and you might want to cook them, too! Some of them didn't come from recipes, so I'll try to do my best to point you in the right direction :)


I'll start with a Rogers-Loss family favorite, which is shakshuka. Danny discovered shakshuka first in Israel, at the famous Dr. Shakshuka in Jaffa, and ever since then we try to make it as often as possible. Incidentally, this is also where the chef Yotam Ottolenghi got to know shakshuka when he was growing up. I'm pretty sure I've already linked to Ottolenghi's video of how to make shakshuka, but I'm going to post it again because it's just so good. Watch it here! Or if you'd just prefer to read it, you can do that here. It's filling enough for dinner, but since it's made with eggs, we also make it for brunch sometimes.


Now for something from a very different part of the globe, here is the really delicious tofu and bok choi stir fry (or as they call it here, pak choi). This recipe is super easy, and it confirmed for me that it is *always* better to marinate the tofu before cooking it, preferably with ginger and plenty of chilli. They say to serve it with rice, but I think I'm speaking for everyone when I say that noodles are better.

Hmm...lets see. If you have a garden and are still drowning in late-season zucchini (or courgette, as they say here. and in France), we really, really liked this recipe. Even if you aren't drowning in zucchini, we still liked this recipe :) Jamie Oliver is one of my heros - teaching people how to make delicious food, campaigning (and winning!) for healthier food in our schools...all good things. I'm especially pleased that our photo kinds sorta looks like the photo that goes with the recipe (except with worse lighting - stupid basement!)


Okay, now we're moving on from recipes I can easily link to, to recipes that I actually have to type out. First, Ottolenghi's cauliflower and cumin fritters (you'll notice that we've gotten a bit obsessed with this guy - gay Israeli with an Italian dad, trained at Le Cordon Bleu who states in his cookbook "If you don't like lemon or garlic...skip to the last page". What's not to love?). Seeing as they're just brown patties they don't photograph all that well, but just imagine the creamy, nutty taste of cauliflower, mixed with parsley and cumin and fried in oil, and you'll see why we were so eager to make them. Also on the plate is something I affectionately refer to as "vegetarian mush", which takes on many, many forms. In this case it consists of red lentils, some kind of winter squash, and samphire. We made it for Rosh Hashanah, but it would also be good for Hannukah alongside other fried goods. Sorry for the metric measurements, but this website seems to have good conversions.

Ingredients:
1 small cauliflower
120g plain flour
3 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 garlic clove (um, or 3)
2 shallots, finely chopped
4 free-range eggs
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
500ml sunflower oil for frying

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Trim the leaves off the cauliflower and snip into small florets. Add to the boiling water and simmer for 15 minutes or until they are very soft.

2. While the cauliflower is cooking, mix the flour parsley, garlic, shallots, eggs, and spices in a bowl and whisk together until smooth. Add the soft cauliflower and mix to break down the cauliflower into the batter.

3. Pour the oil into a wide pan to a depth of 1.5cm and heat until very hot. Carefully spoon in about 3tbs of the batter per fritter. Take care with the hot oil! Fry in small batches for about 3-4 minutes a side, until they are brown but not burnt. Enjoy the sound of the spattering oil!

4. Let each fritter try on a few paper towels, and serve with plain yogurt (to which you can feel free to add lemon and cilantro!), if you want.


Hungry for more fried cauliflower? I know, I know, who isn't? We've also tried this fried cauliflower with tahini sauce, which is amazing. Ottolenghi has brought tahini into our lives as something more than just an ingredient in hummus. It's another recipe that doesn't photograph well, but you can imagine. Fried food becomes healthy when you eat it with salad, right?



If fried food isn't your thing (but be honest...fried food is everyone's thing), this spinach polenta topped with tomatoes is a bit lighter but equally delicious meal that comes from a collection of Moosewood recipes we brought with us, courtesy of Danny's mom. The tomato topping doesn't call for red onion, but I added some and is was delicious, so I'll give it to you that way. This recipe makes a lot - I was eating it for breakfast for a few days!

Polenta Ingredients:
2 cups water
2 cups milk
1 tsp salt
1 cup polenta cornmeal
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
8 or more ounces fresh spinach (baby, or chopped large-leaf)

Topping:
4 large tomatoes or 8-10 plum tomatoes
1 large red onion
2 cloves garlic
2 tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tbs balsamic vinegar

1. In a saucepan, bring the milk, water and salt to a boil. Add the cornmeal in a slow, steady stream while whisking. Simmer about 5 minutes, until the polenta is thick.

2. Meanwhile, dice the tomatoes and onions, and chop the garlic into small bits. In a saucepan on medium-high heat, heat the onions until they are soft, then add the garlic for a minute. Add the tomato and the rest of the topping ingredients and simmer for about 5 minutes.

3. When the polenta is thick, reduce the heat to low and stir in the cheese until melted and smooth. Fold in the spinach until just wilted. Serve the polenta hot topped with the tomato mix.



If you're looking for a really delicious side dish (or main dish, in our case), look no further than this simple but scrumptious grilled broccoli recipe, again from Ottolenghi.

Ingredients:
2 heads broccoli
115 ml olive oil
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 mild chillies, thinly sliced (or hot chillies, if you like!)
coarse sea salt and black pepper
optional: toasted flakes almonds or very think slices of lemon to garnish

1. Separate broccoli into florets. Fill a saucepan with water and bring to a boil (enough water to accommodate the broccoli easily). Thrown in the broccoli and blanch for 2 minutes only - don't be tempted to cook it any longer! Transfer to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and allow to dry completely. Once it is dry, mix with 45ml olive oil, salt and pepper.

2. Place a ridged griddle pan over high heat (or a pan in the broiler) and leave for 5 minutes, until it is very hot. Grill the broccoli, in several batches if necessary (the broccoli must not be cramped) until the have char marks.

3. While grilling the broccoli, place the rest of the oil in a small saucepan with the garlic and chillies. Cook over medium heat until the garlic just begins to turn brown - don't let it burn!

4. When all the broccoli is cooked, mix it with the chilli/garlic oil and toss. Season to taste and garnish as desired.



Okay, now on to the things that don't have recipes at all. First there is the cranberry bean stew, or at least that's what I'm calling it. In the US they are called cranberry beans, but here they call them Borlotti beans. Usually you buy them in cans but our farmers market sells them fresh, which is awesome because they are so beautiful! I think what I did here was 1) saute 2 medium onions in olive oil until they were soft, then 2) add about 3 large tomatoes, chopped. Once the tomatoes were soft I 3) added the beans and 1/2 teaspoon of salt, then let this cook for at least 30 minutes until the beans were soft and the onions were delightfully caramelized. This was really easy, and really, really delicious. The onions were so sweet it was practically dessert.

We rounded it out with some kind of scary-looking purple cauliflower and anemic looking corn. Apparently corn is meant to stay in the Americas, because this stuff is pretty bad. The cauliflower, though, was very good despite it's bizarre appearance. We blanched it in boiling water, coated it with olive oil and salt and pepper, then threw it under the grill/broiler until it was cooked through and getting brown (like the above-described grilled broccoli). Then we tossed it with fresh lemon juice, which is when it took on the magenta color.




Then there's our go-to recipe for green things. When in doubt, we saute some onions/garlic/leeks in olive oil (or occasionally butter if we're feeling decadent), then throw in the greens (sometimes we blanch them first if they seem a little tougher) and cook until they turn an edible texture. With some salt and pepper, it's hard to go wrong. Here we have runner beans on the left, and spring greens on the right.


Enjoy!

Typical Danish Weekend

RPOTD:



The fact that this saying is used by physicians everywhere for some reason makes me feel better about the future of the world.

Another thing that makes me feel optimistic: Denmark. Sometimes all the right-wing opinions out there somehow wiggle their way under my skin and make me start to question some of my core political beliefs: is nationalized healthcare really the way to go? are higher taxes for the wealthy just a punishment for doing well? is a welfare state just an invitation for people to be lazy? is Obama really orchestrating a systematic dismantling of America we as we know it just for his own political gain? Okay, so I never actually entertain that last one, but the Right is just yelling so loudly sometimes that I find myself wavering. But 4 days in Denmark was enough to confirm my belief that moving towards socialism is a good thing. This isn't meant to be a blog about socialism, or the welfare state, but it is going to talk about the awesomeness of Denmark, with hints about what enables it to be so awesome (spoiler alert: the answer is usually "taxes").

So first some background: why did we go to Denmark? it's not because we love pickled herring or pork, that's for sure (although I do love pickled herring). I studied abroad in Denmark in spring 2003 (if you can call that weather "spring"), and in addition to getting to love Copenhagen, I also lived with a really great host family and we wanted to visit them. Also, since I was there my host sister had a baby, and I wanted to meet her Danish toddler (verdict: just as cute as most toddlers, but speaking Danish!).

The very short version of our weekend was that we spent Friday in Copenhagen and stayed with Catrine (one of my host sisters) and her boyfriend Christian that night. The next morning my host parents, Ghita and Henrik, brought breakfast over and we all had a nice breakfast together (Oh, how I miss Danish breakfast! Dark bread, rolls, several kinds of cheese, jam, chocolate, butter, occasionally soft boiled eggs, and tea.). We spent the rest of the weekend staying with them in the small town of Jyllinge, on the eastern shore of Roskilde fjord, exploring the surrounding area, and visiting with Camilla, Kasper and the above-mentioned Danish baby. On Monday I went to work with Ghita for the morning, who is a nurse in a primary care clinic (but more on that later), then we spend the afternoon back in Copenhagen before flying home. It was a great weekend!

Okay, now on to the meat of the post, which is my impressions of Denmark. First, it was really interesting for me to be back in Denmark as an adult. When I was there before I had never lived on my own, didn't really think about politics at all (I think most of us were trying not to in spring 2003), hadn't traveled much, and probably didn't fully embrace the experience because I was thinking of a boyfriend back home. Also, it was always cold and windy, so I literally spent the first 3 months with my head down. This time I was much more aware of some of the things that make Danish people think they live in the best country in the world (*especially* better then Sweden), and I started to think about why those things are the way there are.

1. Bikes. It is impossible to talk about Copenhagen without talking about bikes. They are simply everywhere, and ridden by everyone. There are a few factors that make this possible/encouraged. One is that it is flat. Really, really, flat. So you can easily bike across the city without breaking a sweat (okay, so it's a small city, but still). Also, cars are expensive - really, really expensive. Or more accurately, the car is the normal price, but you pay around %200 in taxes. Many jobs will provide you with a company car, but for everyone else cars are just too expensive (though starting soon you will be able to buy an electric car and avoid the taxes, as an incentive to buy an electric care, which may be "powered" by wind). But importantly, the city doesn't just hang people out to dry: biking is a very viable option in cities because there are bike lanes along all the major streets. And when I say bike lanes, I don't just mean a magical line of paint that is somehow supposed to defend bikers from massive SUVs and MBTA buses. I mean an elevated, smooth lane on the side of the road. Like a sidewalk for bikes. And of course, there is a separate sidewalk for pedestrians. Copenhagen also boasts a good bus system, a train system, and most recently a sleek, fast metro system that is currently being expanded. All of this means that there is a minimal number of cars in the city, which makes it much more pleasant to walk around.

2. Family support. My host sister Camilla is getting her master's degree in urban planning/landscape architecture, rebuilding her new fixer-upper house, painting beautiful paintings, making homemade jam, and raising the adorable danish child along with her partner Kasper. And she seems to be doing it with ease. How is this possible? Mostly it's her own dedication and focus, but it's made easier by the country she lives in. For one thing, when both she and Kasper were in school, childcare was free. Free! At whichever local daycare they wanted! There is an income level under which childcare is free, and unsurprisingly the income of two students is below that level. Which is not to say that they don't have income: in Denmark college tuition is paid for by the government, plus students get a stipend to pay for their living expenses. Many students also work a few hours a week so they can have some spending money, but isn't that amazing! No student loans! No $150,000 of debt if you want to be a doctor! Another factor that makes it easier for women to have children during school is that their concept of the usual path of education is much more fluid. Many people take a gap year to travel or volunteer between high school and college, or maybe go to one year of another kind of school. It's much more acceptable to take time off while you take classes, or just delay the progress of classes. So Camilla thinks it was wonderful to have a child during school, because she could just take time off from classes then restart when she wanted.

This is a big deal for a lot of reasons. It makes sense to make having children compatible with education, so women who have children on the younger side are not discouraged from continuing their education. And conversely, it makes sense to make it easier for women, should they want to, to have babies when they are younger. It's very clear that there are health problems that arise when women who have children later in life, and it's harder for them to get pregnant in the first place. Now, there are many reasons that people in the US and Western Europe are having children later that are unrelated to education and cost of childcare, but it is certainly a big factor.


3. Unemployment support. This was relevant while we were there, because Henrik's company was in the process of laying off a 3rd of their employees. This was very upsetting to him, because as it's a company of 62 people, he knows all of these people personally. And he had to do some of the laying off, which, while better than getting laid off yourself, still sucks. But this reminded me of a Planet Money piece on Denmark that we heard back in the spring. If you have time you should listen to it, but if not, I'll give you the unemployment-related summary. In Denmark, unemployment benefits are high, and they last for a long time, so 1) people are less concerned about losing or leaving their job, and 2) companies are less concerned about having to lay people off, so they're more likely to take a risk on hiring a bunch of new people as soon as they have the capability. Oh, also, if you lose your job you still have health insurance because the government provides it. So people in Denmark, by the end of their working lives, have usually worked more jobs than your average person in the US, either by choice or not, but they haven't had to stop going to the doctor or work 3 low-paying part time jobs to make up for their lost income. So people may call is Socialism, but freedom to not be afraid to leave your job, for companies to not be afraid to hire people quickly...that sounds like the free market to me.


Okay, that's all the economic-related stuff I wanted to talk about, but before I move on I of course have to address the elephant in the room, which is how all of these nice things - the flashy, expanding metro system, the well-maintained bike lanes, the tuition and childcare support, the health insurance, and unemployment benefits are paid for. Taxes. Massive, massive taxes. The 200% tax on the car is a good example. They also have a 25% VAT, and their progressive income tax system maxes out around 50%. Obviously there are some people in Denmark who are less than thrilled with this system, but as the Planet Money piece suggests, most of them are pretty okay with it. It's just the Danish way of life - you get to keep less of your income, but most of it comes back to you in benefits. And you get the satisfaction of knowing that the economic systems of your country does not result in people living out of their cars or not being able to afford to feed their families when they lose their jobs, or get pregnant while they're still in school.


In addition to all this, there was just a certain *something* I felt on this trip to Denmark that I couldn't put my finger on. Scandinavians have a reputation for being not very friendly (How do you spot an outgoing Swede? He looks at your feet.) But our experience on this trip was the opposite. I was impressed with just how much my two host sisters had grown up to be just as gracious, honest, caring and curious as their parents. And I think if you asked them they would say that they are just a typical Danish family. There was always a plentiful stream of food and tea and snacks, which is just how I remember it from when I was there (but incidentally, they are all in great shape) - even at the primary care clinic they schedule a 30 minute break in the middle of morning so people can get caught up on their work and appointment, and during this time someone brings in a loaf of fresh bread and a block of cheese. Everyone at the clinic was really eager to meet us - Danny sat in the conference room and read, and he says that he probably spent a 3rd of his time talking to the doctors who would pop in to chat with him (mostly one doctor, Hans Christian, who had just been on a trip to the US recently). Also, people were very interested in Danny's dissertation topic, as Denmark has a lot of parallels to England in the current state of religion. They really wanted to discuss the issue, to hear what he was learning. We talked about this a bunch over drinks on Friday night, and I think the term "path dependency" was thrown around, and not by one of us. Did I mention that they all speak really, really good English? Catrine goes to Copenhagen Business School, where all of her classes are in English - she even takes notes in English!

Beyond the friendliness to us, there is just a certain embracing of life that I found very impressive. They live in a cold, dark country, and they've really made it their own. Fashion is focused on thick tights, long wool scarves, multiple layers, and big sweaters. I've never seen so many stylish people riding bikes in bad weather in my life! They even manage to look stylish in outwear, thanks to the prevalence of Helly Hansen jackets. They put a lot of effort into decorating their homes to create a welcoming, relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. One of the first things my family explained to me when I got there was that "Italians all have nice verandas, we all have nice living rooms." They light candles as soon as it gets dark and have them all over the house, something I had forgotten about but was immediately reminded of how nice it is. All of this works together to create the feeling that the Danes describe as "hygge". They insist that there is no appropriate English translation, but the closest thing is "coziness", maybe with a sense of "togetherness". There's also a real sense of national pride, and not a snobby national pride like of other European countries, but a pride in what Denmark has accomplished and created. They're proud of everything from traditional food, to the history of the Vikings (except maybe not the pillaging), of the many kings Christian and Frederick and their contributions to the country, to the ultra-modern danish design and architecture.

I'm not sure how much this general happiness is related to the so-called welfare state (or maybe the general happiness makes them a more gracious population who is willing to support a welfare stats?), or maybe the two are unrelated. And all I can say is, I want to go to there.

A weekend in Salzburg and Munich

It doesn’t look as if we’ll have time to blog in any substantial way about our trip to Salzburg and Munich, so here are some pictures to suffice.

Becca, cycling along the Salzach.  With no helmet, but in a dedicated bike lane, so she’s not nearly as unsafe or reckless as she looks.

Brunch at Café Tomasseli in the Altstadt.  At first, our waiter looked very concerned about our request for vegetarian food.  But when we insisted that an omelet without meat (and plenty of Käse) would be fine, he happily obliged.

A view of the city from the fortress.

A view of the cathedral and fortress from Schloss Mirabell.

Salzburg’s cathedral.  The interior has too much stucco decoration for my taste, but the exterior is pleasantly restrained.

That’s right.  Nine different kinds of pretzels.

Salzburg through a stein of Stiegl.

Becca enjoying said stein of Stiegl.

View from Nonnberg Abbey.  Climb ev’ry mountain…

No comment.

We spent the better part of our time in Munich drinking these beers.  As you can imagine, a liter of beer takes time.

Obligatory stop at the Hofbrauhaus, even though we didn’t have time for more beer.

So… beer, mountains, and churches.  A good way to spend a weekend.

To tide you over

Yeah, I know we haven't been blogging so much recently (especially Danny!), but it's with good reason - our parents were here! Now that their excellent visits have come to an end we hope to get back to semi-regular blogging...but not before a quick trip to Denmark to visit Familien Jacobsen. In the meantime, here are some pictures of Beppe and Nanni, just in case anyone was worried about their well-being in our absence. I think you'll find that living with Sam and Katie suits them just fine :)

But on the other hand...

...it still is your grandfather's England.

(Slight divergence for RPOTD:


Mike was here! We met up in Salzburg where he was attending a prion conference, then we took a quick swing through Munich to drink beer by the liter, then he hung out with us (and my mom!) in London for a day. It was excellent!)

But back to your grandfather's England. In many ways, England still exhibits that quaint, slightly stodgy charm that Americans expect from the home of Shakespeare and Jane Austen. For example, last week I took a day off work to explore the southwest edge of London with my mom. First we explored the truly magnificent Kew Gardens, which features some of the oldest greenhouses in Europe, all full of flowering plants and other greenery from all over the world. There is also an excellent butterfly room. There is nothing that makes you appreciate the fragility of living things like looking at a butterfly up close.

What really struck me about this day, however, was the visit to Richmond, where we walked along the Thames and got afternoon tea. Here we were, sitting within the bounds of London, a city of 8 million people, and we had this view:
Okay, so it's hard to tell because of the glare of the window, but there are cows in that field. Cows! In London! My mom wanted to experience the English countryside, and it turns out we could get there on the tube.

Also amusing were the two men in suits discussing Somerset's unfortunate season in county cricket (despite another solid season from Trescothick), while enjoying coffee with biscuits. And they ordered the biscuits specifically. If there's one thing that ties all Englanders together, it may be a love of biscuits. All hotel rooms come with a small packet of these crunchy treats. At my conference in Oxford there was a break for tea and coffee every 90 minutes (!), which was always accompanied by a wide assortment of biscuits. The cafe around the corner served Danny a solo cup of tea, then came around to the table to offer him several fresh-baked ones when they came out of the oven. I've heard grown men grumble when their tea is served without an accompanying biscuit. And so on.

This is just a few small examples, but I think the love of biscuits and the proximity of cows to central London are good examples of how England has maintained a delightfully antiquated charm while still galloping along with the pace of the modernizing world. And just for the record, lest anyone think I am being judgmental, I love biscuits, too. I also love afternoon tea!

UPDATE FROM DANNY: For, perhaps, the best bit of biscuit humor I've ever seen, here's Rob Brydon on Would I Lie to You.