Thanksgiving

To those of you who have seriously annoyed a turkey today, Happy Thanksgiving!

For me, dinner was cheesy pasta, aka mac 'n cheese. This is a big occasion for me, I kid you not, because I haven't had it in over two years. After years of avoiding the stuff having met my quota in early university, I returned to the dish with Alastair's help and a little bit of mustard powder or salsa, then it was off the menu as I await the day my system tolerates cow's milk again... still waiting.

Well, the mustard powder went a long way tonight, as I grated the precious ewe's milk Wensleydale eagerly sold to me by our local Waitrose cheesemonger and then melted it into my roux. It was so creamy and tangy, I could almost forget it wasn't cheddar. Far from the salty orangeness of the fast meals I relied on when I couldn't figure out how to adjust mom's recipes that fed 5+, and yet still the same sort of salvation.

Bless that cheesemonger!

Ely Cathedral

With the arrival of a houseguest, I always look forward to the new territory we'll explore together. Alastair and I don't often play tourist whilst living in Cambridge and are often grateful when we host houseguests for the opportunities they offer to do so. Most recently this meant a trip to Ely to visit the cathedral. I have to confess that the origins of the trip were to mostly take advantage of the lovely drive to Ely filled with fire-y autumnal leaves, and the big skies in contrast with the dark soils of the fens. It was just luck that we learned that cathedrals were a special interest to this particular houseguest.

Off we went, in pursuit of lunch and cathedral touring whilst the clock counted down to that evening's whisky tasting. The drive was beautiful, lunch quayside was an unexpected treat, and then the cathedral. Mind you, that cathedrals in the Britain don't have the reverent quality for me that others do. They can be awesome with architecture and displays but they don't have that ... something, which can leave me silent in grace, perhaps it's because of their size or perhaps their opulence or no, none of those rule out the others. Ely's cathedral was breathtaking and huge, especially when one considers the size of the town, and something I'll look forward to visiting again. Thank goodness for houseguests.

Something for everyone?

Post Office, St. John's Street, Cambridge