Sick Post

Pretty sure I have COVID, I lost my sense of smell and I've been feverish the last few days.  I am starting to feel better, and my flatmates have offered me butter chicken and couscous so I'm well taken care of.  The two skittish cats I live with have even poked their heads into my room and stared at me with their enormous and unblinking eyes to make sure I'm still breathing.

So this is going to be a low hanging fruit kind of post.  Look, food!

As I wrote before, often cakes are just called slice, so you could have Belgian slice (which is always covered in bright pink frosting) or currant slice.  Not everything is a slice though, as evidenced by the Cushions with Cherry Jam Filling.  I don't know the difference between a slice and a cushion, I'm sorry.

This muffin was Texas in size only, not flavor.  And honestly, it wasn't even as big as a Costco muffin.

This drink contains 0% frog.  It's one of the many fruity ciders I have yet to try because they come in a plastic bottle, and that seems less than delicious, but maybe I'm just being snobby.  

If I need that little taste of home all I need to do is go to the Korean supermarket and there's my old Hot Spicy Kentucky home.

Surely I am not the only one who enjoys the phrase "loose peaches."

I knew better, I really did, but I ordered the nachos.  That "cheese" sauce was more of a bechemel than a nacho, and while the tomato and avocado were good quality veg those are also sesame seeds sprinkled on top.

This might be my favorite one of all, this absolutely deranged centerpiece was a display at a flower show I wandered through in Oamaru.  It did not get a prize ribbon.  Even the color scheme is a lot.  Hot pink, orange, purple.  

I haven't tried any lumps yet, but the standard flavor is actually pineapple.

Whittaker's is a New Zealand chocolate brand that is pretty good, and they have some really good dark chocolate options.  Some of the milk chocolate seems a little sus, like, um, Jelly Tip, White Chocolate Bondie and Hot Cross Buns.

The infamous lolly cake, resembling a pastel conglomerate rock covered in coconut flake.

My lava lamp came with this helpful admonition.

For candy names a lot of these seem very martial.  Spearmint Torpedos, Black Balls, and Pink Smokers all sound like incendiary devices.  I wonder if the barley sugars have any flavor at all.

Fruit ice cream, which is made by straining fresh fruit into the ice cream through this particular ice cream sieve in a box that all the ice cream trucks and vans seem to have.  So, so good, because it tastes of cream and berries.

It is very rare to have a cup of coffee here that isn't really, really good.  And vegetarian sausage rolls are so damn good that I will need to come up with a good spice and lentil combo so I can make them at home.

This hummus based pizza (flatbread, we can call it what it is, bread with no cheese on it) was a delightful surprise. I have found vegan and vegetarian options on almost every menu.  Which is more than I can say for even traveling around in London, so bully for them.  I really did have to stare down this screaming gull the entire time I was eating, though.