A Very British Thanksgiving

As my flatmates are all non-American, none of them had had the experience of the best of American holidays before -- Thanksgiving. A day where you celebrate food. (Regardless of original reasons behind the creation, nowadays we celebrate food. Gluttony, really, but let's just go with food)

So as a good American, I made Thanksgiving dinner for us. Which was a wonderful chance to one, bring out my inner Martha Stewart, and two, to have a nice meal, with all of us together, and let me enjoy a little bit of home here across the pond.

I tend to go with simple veggies and a rotisserie chicken (it was on sale -- turkey wasn't). Although it was funny wandering around St Andrews watching the Americans in town clamor through the Tesco looking for very American ingredients or trying to come up with a UK equivalent. At that point? Just realize you're not going to make it EXACTLY like it was at home. But that's part of the fun of it!

Anyway, I was a good day. Good food, good friends, and a touch of home. I hope everyone else had as good of a day!

Black Isle Brewery

On our way back from Gairloch last weekend, we decided that it would be fun to stop by one of the breweries on the way home to take a tour. And why not -- never been to a brewery before. So we stopped by Black Isle Brewery just outside of Inverness for a bit of drinking and learning.

Of course we pick the one day where they aren't actually giving tours.

So everyone else is tasting some of the goods -- me, I don't particularly like beer. So I'm happy just to enjoy the time out of the van on our way home.

But as we get ready to leave, the owner comes out going 'Are you guys from St Andrews?'

Why yes, we are indeed university students there. How can we help you, Mr Owner?

Turns out that they want to expand into St Andrews and would love suggestions on pubs we enjoy that may be a good market for them. We'd get free beer in exchange for the suggestions.

University students + free = why, of course.

So, I ended up with a free bottle just for offering town information.




And you know what? For someone who really isn't a beer fan (at all), it wasn't that bad. Totally split it when I got home, because lord knows I couldn't drink it all myself, but what I had wasn't bad. Light. Organic. Good with pizza.

I do vote distillery next time, though.