Chocolate:Cadbury's fruit and nut (click on the words to see the price I pay) is my favorite but I will take any chocolate as long as it is not dark. I can get this here for a price and I pay that price. One has to be careful in purchasing though. The U.S. made Cadbury's chocolate is crap--tastes just like the hershey's wax pile that American cheap chocolate is. British or Cadbury's from the middle east is smooth and creamy. My number one favorite find in the UK is this.
Fruit: In December the fruit one can buy in the U.S. is just a waste of space. wimpy tasteless grapes that are often shriveled up. Soft mealy apples, tasteless strawberries. In the UK even at Tescos you can by sweet, crisp, large grapes that taste like summer. You can buy small UK grown strawberries that taste like June fresh from field strawberries. The bananas are creamy, Bramley apples are wonderfully tart and crsip (we don't even have those here)...I do not know where or what the growers are doing but ours are coming out of cold storage and do not taste good at all. I can only get this fruit when I visit. :(
Magazines: The first thing I do when I travel to Wales is go to Tescos and gaze and the huge racks of magazines. Grace has several good magazines (with learning value not just Disney movie stars) to choose from. I have several gardening, knitting, home decorating or even just multi-mix good housekeeping like ones to choose from. Best of all they are 2 and 3 pounds to buy. In the U.S. we don't have this many magazines to choose from and even in the few places where there are several they cost considerably more (I have seen 10 dollar magazine at the check-stand here).
Yogurt-The yogurt tastes better in the UK. They also have really funky and cool flavors like gooseberry and rhubarb. On my Tesco run I always pick up a 6 pack of funky flavored yogurt to eat with big crisp grapes for breakfast.
Cream Products-creme fresh, clotted cream, double cream, whipping cream, light cream. The cream variety is impressive. Although this is a cholesterol nightmare I love the cream products on a Victoria Sponge with strawberry jam or scones. We can only get half and half or heavy whipping cream-the rest I have to wait for.
Shortbread-Walkers is damn good and I can get it at our local import shop. it costs quite a bit but like the chocolate is worth the expenditure. We can make it but it is not the same (well we haven't found the recipe yet anyway
Tesco's trifle...berries, berry jello, sponge cake, birds custard and whipping cream...heaven in a fluted bowl. I can make this at home but have yet to match the perfect storm of jelled sweetness. I buy this on my first Tesco run.
Man o man I am glad we will be over soon :) July!! We are buying tickets either tonight or later this week. The dates are: July 2-August 6. I will be in and out on side trips but if any of you UK peeps want to meet up I am more than willing and excited in fact to make it happen. Name the pub and I will be there with bells on.
Ok...now to the blow up part: What do you call the opposite of a NSV? I am having a non-scale regression. One of my co-morbidities was edema. At 304 my ankles, especially my left ankle would swell up after a day's work, a trip, a day at my desk..you name it and my poor ankles and feet blew up like crazy. Until today I thought my weight loss had pretty much licked this problem. Sure on a vacation where we walked all day, I sat on an airplane for 24 hours and I didn't get any sleep my ankles would swell a little but this...this is extreme swelling. So much so that I will have bruises on my ankles over the next week or so. See picture-
Ignore the hairy legs (It is Winter after all!).
I am not sure if I should go to my GP or my lapband surgeon...I am not sure if I should go in at all. In my own non-doctory opinion I think this is being caused by my hormone messed up body (remember the two periods in a month thing? Well I am guessing I am facing another one any day now). I think it might also be from one night when I stayed up past midnight and then got up at 7am (I have done this post weight-loss before though without a problem). Basically it is a pain in the rear and disappointing as it was one of the major reasons I was scared to keep carrying around the weight. I was afraid that eventually my circulation would get so bad I would lose a foot. Now the fear..have I still lost that circulation? I would prefer to keep my feet thank you very much.
9 comments:
OOOOOOOOOO, how exciting; you're coming over the pond! Perhaps we can meet up. We'll have moved to Somerset by then, will you be anywhere in the vague vicinity? We can eat Dairy Milk, trifles and shortbread together!
If you like Tesco's you need to go to Waitrose, you'll be blown away!
I'd love to meet up, I'm on the other side of the country from Wales pretty much but can get to London if you're going?
Agree with Alison, Waitrose is the Rolls Royce of supermarkets. I'll meet you anywhere too, though as we're on the way to Wales it might suit you to stay overnight in our annexe if you would like to. But no pressure, obviously. However we've got a massive Waitrose in Portishead... :)
I've had the same ankle problem for years - and I was so proud of my slim ankles... It's much better since losing some weight, but I've had bruising and discolouring too, and the only thing that brings them down is a lot of walking. As you do so much exercise anyway, it may be a different problem. I'm sure it's definitely a good move to consult a quack, if only because they can explain to you about the consequences - you may be way out fearing amputation.
I'd be happy to send you magazines once in a while, it's not expensive. I'll have a look around.
Caroline
I would go see your GP for the swelling. Make sure you give them your full swelling history and see what they can do for you. My mother in law is on water pills because she swells bad too
First of all, definitely go see your doctor about the swelling. Secondly, I'm hungry now and lastly, what does your tattoo say?
I love this post. There are foods I miss from my travels. My favorite from Mexico is Canelitas - little cinnamon cookies and tunas, which is a fruit that I believe we call prickly pear in English. I've never seen either of them in Oregon.
My fella makes AMAZING shortbread. He is quite the chef and claims it is simple. The packaged type is not a favorite of mine - I can take it or leave it, but his shortbread is HEAVEN. So yum. I'd probably have to kill him to get the recipe, but if you want it let me know and I'll ask him when we're doing it or something and see what he says. LOL.
There are a couple of bloggers coming to Oregon this summer - Joia and Shannon. I'll let you know the details and maybe we can get together again.
Weird about your feet/ankles. I went to the doctor once for edema and he said there wasn't much to be done.
I forgot to add (for Tessierose's benefit too!) that I tried turning the photo of your ankles this way and that and inside out, DETERMINED to see what the tattoo said - with no success!!! So either tell us we're nosey, or what the heck it says!!
Caroline
Here I sit trying to be back on WW...and you are talking about shortbread and other yummy things in england..Tina you should see why your ankle is swelling...I look at johns and I cant see if his looks that way or not. Dont tell John I am telling you this. Anyway...check it out..oh and I love Hersheys chocolate and I have eaten Mozart and Viennas chocolate. Give me Hersheys..also american cadbury..yum.. aunt sally
I love British Cadbury! It tastes so much better - I love Flakes the most.
Definitely get that ankle checked out.
I have a good shortbread recipe. The key is you have to have a stand mixer to really get it to turn out well. I make it to the standard recipe, but usually sprinkle a little sea salt on top. I'll dig it up and send it to you.
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