More Food

An addition to Thursday's post about food...

I just returned from a delicious traditional English lunch! Kris, one of the rectors of Kamen-Minerva (the flats here in London) often invites students to her flat for Sunday lunch. It is a bit of a tradition here in England for families to have big Sunday lunches after church and just kind of relax all day. It's sort of like our Sunday brunch, except there isn't any bacon and eggs. Kris' husband James cooked the wonderful meal for us and by the end, all seven of us who were there were completely stuffed with delicious English food. I know most people don't come to England for the food, but I was so surprised at how much I enjoyed the meal. The main course was lamb, which I had never had before, and it was delicious! Different than steak, but still good red meat (sorry, Lamb Chop...I tried not to think about you while I was eating. We were such good friends when I was a little kid, after all...) I will admit that I did put mustard on the lamb, which is a typical Maura move, to slather anything slightly different in mustard and think all will be well. But it was dijon mustard, which I thought blended perfectly with the lamb and was recommended by the cook. At least it wasn't American French's mustard (which I miss a lot, for the record). So I think I should still get some credit.
I also had rutabaga for the first time and loved that as well. It could be that my body is just really enjoying the few vegetables I get to eat, but it was delicious. It didn't have a very distinct flavor (which seems to be a trend with most foods I enjoy), but it was also a little sweet, too. And then there were roasted potatoes, my favorite part of the meal, and an interesting onion-y sauce that wasn't actually supposed to go on top of anything, but it was its own side dish.
Dessert was the best part--sweet toffee treacle pudding! It looked like the picture to the left, which actually looks kind of weird. But trust me, it tastes amazing. Now I know why Harry Potter loved treacle tart so much. It's mostly sugar, but it is SO delicious! I'm incredibly partial to chocolate (which some of you can attest to better than others, haha), but the treacle was just amazing. It tasted like a combination of gingerbread and pecan pie. I think we need to introduce it at American Thanksgiving dinner; I would totally trade in my yearly slice of pumpkin pie for some of that pudding. Or a lot of that pudding.
It was also really nice to have a relaxing Sunday afternoon. We went to Mass and then lunch and I am going to work on some homework and do some trip planning for the rest of the afternoon. It seems like we have constantly been in motion since arriving in London over three weeks ago, so I was definitely in need of a bit of a lazy Sunday. I can rest and regroup a bit before another busy week in this wonderful city!