Nezuko's Rat's Nest

Nezu — A nerdy, bear-shaped guy who would much rather write stories, watch anime, and surf Tumblr than cook or exercise.
DK — A taller, slenderer nerdy guy with similar preferences to Nezu. Nezu's housemate and close friend.
Ki — A fit and active woman, good friends with DK and Nezu, who despite her own fondness for writing and watching K-dramas and surfing Tumblr, manages to make time for and enjoy exercise and cooking. She generally despairs over the tragic bachelorness of Nezu and DK's daily diet.

Ki: I'm very proud. Those are all vegetables.
Nezu: Yay! I wasn't sure if being in a salad invalidated them somehow.
Ki: Salad is generally composed of vegetables?
Nezu: I guess this is true!
DK: ... Nezu, what do you think salad is?
Nezu: Well, lettuces and stuff. I wasn't sure lettuce counted because it's not very nutrient-rich. And carrots taste nice, so they might not count, either.
Ki: Lettuce is like the preeminent vegetable.
DK: This explains much.
Ki: Although iceberg lettuce is not very nutrient-rich, it's true. Romaine is much better and much tastier.
Nezu: This was bibb lettuce, I think, and the salad did have cabbage. Cabbage is inarguably a vegetable. Maybe I need to rethink vegetables. I defined "vegetable" as "food that doesn't taste all that nice that you have to eat anyway" when I was a little kid, and never managed to redefine it.
Ki: Yeah, vegetables are fun!
Nezu: I'm not sure I'm ready to go that far, but at least if I am allowed to define salad as vegetables, I'll stop feeling like I never eat vegetables.

So really, what's my deal with vegetables? I was one of those kids who disliked most vegetables. In fact, I found out as an adult that I'm a supertaster with more tastebuds and a greater sensitivity to bitter flavors than the average person. Supertasters generally don't care for vegetables much. When I was a kid there were a limited number of plant-based foods that I liked, most of them sweet fruits and bland veggies.

(The exceptions were, strangely, spinach and broccoli. Ordinarily those two veggies are anathema to supertasters, but my mom allowed me unlimited lemon juice on those. Despite my aversion to bitter, I am an absolute fiend for sour, always have been. I'll delightedly eat lemons and limes out of hand, and used to beg for those little lemon-shaped squeeze bottles of juice as a treat.)

But in general the vegetables I liked as a kid, my mom explicitly told me didn't count. Corn? Not really a vegetable, but a grain. Celery? a snack, not a vegetable. Potato? Starch, not vegetable. Baked beans? Starch again. Only things like green beans and peas and squash (ewww squash) counted, and I detested them. (Still detest peas and squash - yuk!) Salad, when we had it, which was rarely, wasn't called a vegetable. It was salad, its own special class of food, and again, because it was made of lettuce, didn't really count.

So I've spent my life with the belief that I disliked vegetables, and that if it comes from a plant and I like it, it's not a vegetable. But recently I've encountered vegetables in several settings where I really enjoyed them. Edamame and oshitashi at a Japanese restaurant, baby bok choy in some Chinese takeout, roasted green beans with bacon at a friend's house, lightly steamed carrot coins mixed into mashed potatoes at home. (Ok, that was bachelor food again, but it was healthy bachelor food, and we made the mashed potatoes from scratch.)

So I'm trying to rethink vegetables. Also servings. The package of salad mix I used for the aforementioned meal claimed it had 3.5 servings. It made one meal for me. Add in the half-pint of raspberries I'm eating now, I'll have almost my whole five recommended servings for the day. If I made a smoothie with the strawberries in the freezer and a banana, I'd be over quota for the day, all on things I enjoyed eating.

This is revolutionary.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.


Big Ben

We went to London on Sunday, and it was brilliant. We had a great time. By "we" I mean of course DK and myself. We took a crack-of-dawn, six-hour coach journey down from Huddersfield, on tailbone torture seats, but we slept much of the way. Once in London we studied our map, found our hotel, then met up with my cousin Josh and his wife Sheneem and their 22-month old daughter Zara. It was my first time seeing them since I was at their wedding in Glasgow in 2003. Sheneem is as lovely as I remember her, Josh as fun, and Zara is completely adorable. We had a pub lunch at a place on the Thames, then walked up the river to the Houses of Parliament, and rode on the London Eye. It's an insanely giant ferris wheel built for the Millennium celebrations, and you can see 25 miles from the top on a clear day. It was just dusk when we got on, so we got to see the sun set and the city lights come on. As tourist attractions go, I'd give it a solid 10/10.


London Eye

The next day DK and I slept in, then took a double-decker bus across town to meet Josh in the financial district where he works, for a latish lunch. It took forever figuring out how to get the bus (we wanted a number 11, so waited at a stop marked 11, except it wasn't actually a stop for the #11 bus, but "stop number I1, or something stupid like that. Sans-serif signage for the lose.) We got to sit in the top front seat, and see lots of sights as we rode, including the horse guard at the Royal Mews, Trafalgar Square, and St. Paul's Cathedral.


Nezu and DK

Owing to the bus confusion, we were too late to share lunch with Josh, who had to got back to work, but he walked us through Leadenhall Market and showed us where to get cheap (and very good) moules frites (steamed mussels and french fries). Then we went to the Tower of London, but found it was too late to take the tour, so caught a ferry boat back down the Thames. We saw the big draw bridge, passed under London Bridge (which was not falling down,) saw the Globe Theatre (Shakespeare's theatre) and several other awesome sights, arriving at Big Ben in time to hear it chime five. We also saw 10 Downing Street, though no sign of the Prime Minister, chatted to Mark the policeman on guard there, laughed at an unsecured gate at the Ministry of Defense, and bought gloves and a hat from a street vendor, because it was insanely cold!


Dragons at Leadenhall Market

That evening we went to see Wicked! I'd seen the preview production in San Francisco back in 2003, and it was interesting to see how the show had evolved. It's a much tighter, better production than I remembered. We'd gotten cheap tickets on a discount ticket site, so were in the nosebleed section because of that. It was still pretty awesome. After the theatre we found a really atmospheric little pan-Asian restaurant and had a fantastic dinner.


Tower Bridge

Next day we met up with my cousins again for breakfast at an authentic 1950's-era diner (think the "spam, spam, spam, eggs and spam skit from Monty Python), a quick spin through part of the Tate museum of art, and then a return to the Tower of London to go on the tour. Wow. So much history. We saw the crown jewels, Henry VIII's armour (and a lot of other armour), the graves of Henry's beheaded queens (and a lot of other headless offenders of the king), the house where Lady Jane Gray was imprisoned before her execution, the tower where Richard III lived above the dungeon into which he cast the young princes Edward V and his brother the Duke of York.


Tower of London

Man, am I glad I read all those Shakespeare history plays now.

We made our way back across town via London Underground to Victoria Station, where we had tea (scones! clotted cream! marmalade!) with Josh before we had to catch our coach home, on which we plotted Fallen Leaves ideas for the entire journey.


DK and Nezu, with Houses of Parliament in background

Alas, once back DK had to go to work... Or so we thought. Off ze went to work Wednesday morning, only to find someone had stolen the license plates from hir car, making it illegal to drive. Ze reported the theft to the police, then walked home (ze has to park about a mile from the flat) and we went about sorting out getting replacement plates (done at an auto parts store, surprisingly!) and then had a late lunch and goofed around watching anime I'd brought to share. We have watched all of Cowboy Bebob and are most of the way through Samurai Champloo.


Red Doors in Huddersfield

DK's had to work, and I've come down with a fresh cold on top of my aging bronchitis, so we haven't done a lot since we got back. I went out walking around in Huddersfield yesterday while DK worked, but today it's raining, so I've stayed in, tidied a bit, and spammed this massive update, which is insanely long. Also I've uploaded photos, of which a few samples here, but you can see more if you click on one.


Huddersfield Open Air Market