Philly Cheesesteak

My only experience of Philadelphia so far has been from the inside of a train station, but thanks to a friend of ours who is a native we recently got to sample its most famous culinary creation, the cheesesteak.  This is a sandwich (in the American sense, which encompasses a broad church of bread-based foods, in this case it means it comes on a long roll) filled with thinly sliced steak and cheese, at the very least, with added extras depending on who makes it.

Our friend was kind enough to bring us two different kinds, one from Pat's, which has widespread reputation for good cheesesteaks (and is supposed to have been founded by one of the inventors back in the day), and one from Max's which is her personal favourite.

Max's was modestly wrapped in paper, Pat's was more promotional.

Having tried both of these I can honestly say that they were both fantastic but Max's clearly blew Pat's out of the water.  Apparently Pat's use processed cheese (only in America!) while Max's uses real cheese, and it really makes a difference.  And while Pat's added only onions Max's added some kind of tomatoey sauce which moistened everything up delightfully.  Here's a cross-section, Max's on the left, Pat's on the right.

Max's reminded me very much of eating a good steak and cheese pie back in New Zealand, which isn't surprising because there are many similarities.  Given that meat pies are almost entirely lacking in this part of the world, it's obvious that things like the cheesesteak fill the gap.

It's also clear that the City of Brotherly Love knows what its doing.  I've ordered cheesesteaks before in other parts of the country, even the state, and the genuine article is just in a league of its own.  I certainly know what I'll be eating next time I go to Philadelphia!

The plumbing strikes back

I had been going to end the last post by noting that when the Amish fix something, it stays fixed.  Alas our toilet seems to have the devil in it, for not a day had elapsed after they left before it started playing up again.  We've been on to the landlord and have received instructions that Hosea (which I now learn is the satisfyingly exotic name of our erstwhile and taciturn plumber) will appear sometime next week to have another go.

I hope he brings his bible as well as replacement valves, just in case there is more than rust at work and he has to exorcise demonic forces from the cistern.

The Return of the Amish

The Amish are back again.  Long time readers will recall that they fixed our deck earlier in the year.  Now they're back to fix our screen door, some drainage difficulties out the back, and an unrelated problem with the flush in the downstairs toilet (or "half-bathroom" as they're called here, despite not containing a bath).  For thirty years of my life these people might as well have been from a fairy tale, now they're fixing my toilet.  I'm not sure what to make of that.

I'm writing this post to take a break from writing about the next big thing in high speed wireless communications.  Somehow it feels a bit wrong doing that while these famous eschewers of the electric age are downstairs fixing the door.  Admittedly I'm still using a computer as I write this, but at least the subject matter isn't adding insult to injury.  Anyway, I hear the fellow downstairs using his electric drill and possibly even a cell phone...so my overactive conscience is somewhat assuaged.

Unlike last time when they swept in and out with barely a word, this time I have had to interact with them to explain the plumbing difficulties.  I had been going to write - and indeed had just written before I erased it - that these Amish workmen seem cold and unfriendly.  But I've just this minute been on a hunt in the basement for the main water valve (turned out it was hidden behind some slapped-together walls) and I think I should revise that.  Taciturn and quiet, yes.  But not out of hostility, I think, just as a way of using as few words as possible.  They've got a job to do, you know.  Mind you, they don't say hello or goodbye.  I don't know their names, they come and go without a word.  So maybe not cold, but certainly rather chilly.

It's an interesting experience, trying to learn about a people from the way they mend your house, and a technique that anthropologists would no doubt frown upon as full of methodological flaws.  It's the only one I've got, though, so I'll have to stick with it even if it leaves me with more questions than answers.

Thanksgiving fare

Thanksgiving was last Thursday, followed by a few days off for Mrs Walles and I.  We needed it after preparing all the food.  There was the turkey, of course...

 ...and bread stuffing with cranberries...

...fresh bread...

...along with yams (the American kind, like sweet potatoes), cornbread, more stuffing (cornbread this time, out of a packet), gravy, cranberry sauce and, as a token gesture towards nutritional balance, green beans.

Then there was dessert.  I made two pumpkin pies - to test the difference between fresh and canned pumpkin - and an apple pie.

There were only the two of us, but that just meant that we had leftovers right through the weekend, plus a few things for the freezer.  I wasn't going to let my first Thanksgiving pass without all the usual trimmings, just because there would be far too much food.  That's seldom a good enough reason to stop me doing anything!

Turkey time

It's Thanksgiving next week, and Mrs Walles and I are well prepared.  In past years one of the local supermarkets has given away free turkeys if you have enough loyalty points.  This year turkey prices are unusually high so they aren't offering that, but by biding our time and keeping our eyes open (most of the credit here going to Mrs Walles) we found one for 45¢ per pound. We got an almost twenty pound bird for less than eight dollars plus extra money off next time we fill up the car, which just about makes it even in my mind.

The idea that an entire turkey can be bought for less than ten dollars - a real flesh and blood bird, not a photograph - seems remarkable to me. Apparently some of the locals have become conditioned by Thanksgiving deals into thinking a turkey at Thanksgiving is an inalienable right, like freedom of speech and guns.  There was a man behind us at the checkout when we bought ours who was almost apoplectic with anxiety that he might miss out on his free poultry, and then even more so when the cashier told him, in effect, that if he was waiting for a free one he'd better go and catch it himself (which, as this demonstrates, is quite possible).

We also picked up ten cans of cranberry sauce on special, which should tide us over.  It might not be so much a matter of having sauce with our turkey next week, as having turkey with our sauce.

Now we just have to decide how to cook it.  I've cooked turkeys a few times here but I want to do something a bit special for the holiday meal, and my mind is turning to stuffing.  That poses a problem, because I like the dense, moist kind of stuffing that goes inside the bird and is traditional where I come from.   But I also like the comparatively dry herbed bread cubes that are traditional here and cook separately.  I don't know if I'll be able to choose between them, so that turkey had better look out: it's going to be well and truly stuffed this Thanksgiving.

Election Day

Last Tuesday was Election Day here in the US.  They have it every year, on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  It's a Tuesday because that used to be market day, or some such, which was a good day for people to vote on.  Now it's Tuesday because it always has been and if it was good enough for grandpappy it's good enough for me.

That certainly seems to be the gist of it, and Mrs Walles was complaining how silly it is that Election Day is not a holiday so that people could get to the polls if they so wished. 

The reason they need to have an Election Day each year is that they do like a vote here (whether they actually use the vote is a different matter, but they clearly like the option to be there).  In Pennsylvania they vote judges in and out of office, and district attorneys and all manner of relatively minor public officials at the local and state level.  Some states like to hold referenda on legislative issues, what they call voting on propositions.  Mississippi had a contentious one on whether an embryo is a person (they decided that it isn't).

All this reminded me that there is an election back in New Zealand that I have a say in, so I got my papers filled in ready to send away.  I suppose I could have posted my papers away on Tuesday, to get into the swing of things here, but in many matters I'm a traditionalist, so I sent them away on Saturday instead.

A matter of degree

The weather is cooling rapidly now.  No more snow since the big storm last week, but the temperatures have been dipping down low overnight - we've had several good hard frosts.  Even the squirrels are getting up later in the morning when it is warmer.

The other night it got down to twenty five degrees, which I'm used to thinking of as comfortable room temperature, but which here is a chilly frost.  Though that's not as disconcerting as temperatures reaching one hundred degrees in the summer, which to me sounds like I should be actually on fire, rather than just feeling like I am.

Yes, this Fahrenheit business is all very confusing.  Like all the other measures here it takes a bit of getting used to. I have to try to remember that sixty something is room temperature and a hundred or thereabouts is blood temperature and so on.  But it's a little more complicated with temperature, too, because it is not just that a degree of Fahrenheit is smaller than a degree of Celsius, but the zeroes are in different places.  That really throws me.

I'm very used to talking about temperatures below zero as being freezing, because that's where water freezes in Celsius.  But water freezes at thirty two degrees Fahrenheit.  If you say the temperature is below zero here you mean not just cold but bits-of-you-turn-blue-and-fall-off cold.  I still catch myself in the winter about to say "below zero" and quickly substitute "below freezing".  Except when I forget.  Then I get the odd looks suggesting I have a poor grasp on reality.  You know, as if I ordered mayonnaise on my salad, or something.

And here comes another winter.  Another opportunity to hone my vocabulary into a more US-friendly form.  At least in public.  In private I'll think whatever I like because there's nobody around to give me a frosty look.