Chips for Lunch

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 13:58 GMT

couldn't help but share some more bushisms:

"Do you have blacks, too?" —to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001

"This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating." —as quoted by the New York Daily News, April 23, 2002

"It is white." —after being asked by a child in Britain what the White House was like, July 19, 2001

"I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah." —at a White House menorah lighting ceremony, Washington, D.C., Dec. 10, 2001

Peter: 17th May 2005 - 13:58 GMT

mmm, chips. also: america hasnt been "nice", "safe" or "secure" for some time... but i guess ignorance is bliss, even if youre a world "leader".

also: funny about the brown-painted benches. the touch, the feel of fake wood!

Peter: 17th May 2005 - 13:59 GMT

hey wait, is that bush sticker stuck on top of a pet bird sticker?

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 14:42 GMT

that budgie gets everywhere

GGP: 17th May 2005 - 15:43 GMT

those chips look delectable. unfortunately, I quickly lost my appetite when I saw the shrub from hell and reviewed some of his choice quotes. HELP!!!

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 15:46 GMT

the chips do look particularly appealing.. but jamie, i have to tell you that chips are not a good lunch to have on a regular basis. you will get spots, and maybe scurvey, so you must try and eat your greens

Peter: 17th May 2005 - 15:50 GMT

yesterday afternoon, i rode my bike to coney island... i was hungry, so i stopped by nathan's hotdog stand. i dont eat meat, so chips were my only alternative... but i wanted a beer too... so i had a perplexing choice to make... beer or chips? because i most certainly didn't need both, heh.

of course, i chose the beer, which later made driving the go-karts all the more fun ;)

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 15:52 GMT

can you get proper chips in the us? I mean like english chips as opposed to american french fries. Not that they don't both have equal appeal in different ways.

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 15:53 GMT

and you! young man, you must know it is bad to drink on an empty stomach!

Peter: 17th May 2005 - 15:54 GMT

its rare to get chips that look that good unless youre at a pomme frites stand or a non-fastfood place... as opposed to the pre-fab, extruded skinny/greasy mcdonald's variants. i love what they call "steak fries" here... very large/coarsely diced potatoes with skin on, fried to dark golden/brown crunchy goodness. yummmmmmm.

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 15:56 GMT

One must line ones stomach with high levels of ASDA (Walmart) own-brand crisps prior to consuming lots of beer.

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 15:57 GMT

i had chips for lunch the day i went on the coast hopper to holkham. we were obliged to change buses at hunstanton which is a vile dive in my humble opinion. the chips had been cooked in palm oil, which is definately wrong for oh so many reasons, and the chippie also sold deep fried mars bars, and not the kind that is rhyming slang, actual chocolate deep fried. this also is wrong, along with it being a deathly boring place

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:00 GMT

surely you could have invested in a bag of crisps? it is wise to buy crisps and peanuts - scrunch up the crisps and pour in the peanuts - if substituting for a meal

Peter: 17th May 2005 - 16:00 GMT

hahaha deep fried candybars! there is a "british"-style (har har- but alas, they have a chef named 'nigel' so one never knows) fish/chips stand here in brooklyn called "The Chip Shop" that sells those as well as deep-fried twinkies. needless to say, ive never eaten there!

www.epinions.com/content_1219076228
newyork.citysearch.com/profile/11484105
splendidtable.publicradio.org/whereweeat/travel_twinkie4.shtml

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 16:01 GMT

You find those here most frequently in chinese places. They call them chips but they're more commonly reffered to as 'potato wedges'. I am partial to greasy american style prefab fries. Although i have boycotted McDonalds ever since watching Supersize Me. The kebab shop here in Horncastle serves quite delectable skinny american style potato offerings. The Pizza place over fry them to the max and they taste like dog shite. The pizza place does do a doner kebab pizza which is awesome though. That however is just my opinion. But that's enough about chips/fries/wedges for now...

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 16:03 GMT

Nigel certainly is a very British name. Like Trevor and Colin.

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 16:05 GMT

and i think i'd be right in saying that deep fried confectionery is a Scottish thing? Are you Scottish elaine?

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:11 GMT

to an extent. i was born in england, honeypot lane maternity hospital to be exact, of a scottish mother and english father, always and forever to be viewed as 'too english' when we repaired on divorce to the bleak dark suburbs of edinburgh, and on a subsequent attempt at living there as an adult, after college. bollocks to the place, i say, and their anti english sentiments, if they had any power they'd be dangerous, but luckily the strident racism is fairly contained to whining within scotland. do not go on a bus tour if you do not want the gripe in full.
yes, it is supposed to be a scottish thing, along with deep fried pizza, white pudding (a kind of savoury fried porrige, masons pies, which are yummy and chippy sauce which is also nice, brown sauce mixed with vinagar. the chips are different too, damn, i might have to go back!

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:12 GMT

however, hunstanton has them because of the busloads of northerners (english) so the cullinary taste has obviously travelled

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 16:13 GMT

savoury fried porrige sounds delightful! i drove through scotland once but didn't stop.

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 16:16 GMT

Have you ever tried the fish and chips in Cleethorpes. Another delightful English seaside resort. It has a very hight batter ratio in general which i like.

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:16 GMT

were you driving a car off a cliff? how can you drive through scotland?????

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:18 GMT

do you know, i have never been to cleethorpes. the chippie on the front at welles next the sea is very good

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 16:21 GMT

heh i knew that question would surface. Here is a summary of my journey.

1. Get inside red 1995 Ford Fiesta
2. Drive fom Lisnaskea, NI to Larne, NI
3. Drive little car onto big ferry
4. Feel ill all the way to Cairnryan, Scotland
5. Drive (whilst half asleep) from Cairnryan to M6
6. Follow M6 for many hours
7. Birmingham
8. Birmingham
9. Birmingham
10. Birmingham
11. M6 a little bit more
12. Some other roads, then Peterborough
13. Try to sleep but can't because of all the caffiene tablets

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:21 GMT

white pudding is actually very nice, as it happens, in the same way as chips are, quite bland in a way, but good, and vegetarian, peter, should you ever find yourself in a scottish chippie

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:24 GMT

sorry to hear about your journey. i see the driving through now, of course, i had forgotten ferries. i used to get the ferry to skye, but now there is a bridge, which has caused controversy. i like a ferry ride to be 20 mins tops

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 16:24 GMT

It's gotta be nicer than Black Pudding. Which is made from congealed pigs blood and ass-meat.

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:26 GMT

nicer especially if you are a vegetarian or a bit sqeamish. i tend not to eat black pudding, not because it is made of blood, but because it doesn't taste good to me.... probably because of the cooked blood content

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:27 GMT

jamie: are you a butcher? i didn't know there was a cut called 'ass meat'

Peter: 17th May 2005 - 16:27 GMT

jamie: i just went down to my office's cafeteria to scope out the scene for french fries...

before: 100% pre-fab foodservice chips with hot pepper sauce and extra salt... (cameraphone photo of fries in front of the cement thing, incidentally)

after: empty paper boat with grease/salt/peppersauce residue and a queasy stomach...

the source of said fries... alongside some really rank looking insitutional fried chicken parts.

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:30 GMT

more lurid, less a good on food - you have achieved a traffic light effect - from a country where green, red, blue is the sequence. i feel that blue might mean, drive if you like, everything is chilled out

Peter: 17th May 2005 - 16:31 GMT

to me, hell is defined as a place where they make you gorge on black pudding, blood sausage and scotch eggs.

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:34 GMT

i am glad we have markers to look for references to black pudding, blood sausage, and scotch eggs now, though not hell, no photos yet of hell?

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 16:37 GMT

oops, my mistake, there's loads, though you suggest perhaps i meant to type in hool hello hool, which would be a less miserablist search

Peter: 17th May 2005 - 16:38 GMT

quite the contrary... here are some great photos of hell:

black pudding

blood sausages

scotch eggs

kobe: 17th May 2005 - 16:41 GMT

what are the white bits in the black puddings, you ask? why, they are cow snouts and bull penises!

elaine: 7th Jun 2005 - 09:56 GMT

and pork pies, as long as you get stuff to eat with them. and black puddings are good in small doses in a fry up

Jamie: 7th Jun 2005 - 10:05 GMT

A black pudding is an unnecessary wrongness in any circumstance or quantity, elaine. What the HELL is wrong with you?

Jamie: 7th Jun 2005 - 10:09 GMT

Freaky, me too! Let's get married and have council house babies

elaine: 7th Jun 2005 - 10:14 GMT

you would have to be quick, i am on the turn, age wise. plus i am a snob, so i would tend to bring up my babies as young bohemians rather than chavs

Jamie: 7th Jun 2005 - 10:19 GMT

I was thinking trout; but yeah, go with that if thats what floats your boat milfy

barry: 29th Sep 2005 - 23:55 GMT

wow that was a long chat about fried food.Elaine you must be lighting fast on that keyboard,(16:11 to 16:12)one second.That would probably take me 20 minutes to write.

elaine: 30th Sep 2005 - 11:10 GMT

it could have been nearly two minutes, though, from just turned 16:11 to the very end of 16:12. i touch type. it was one of the few things i learned at secondary school, beyond how to stare out of windows for protracted periods of time. also a good skill

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 10th Apr 2006 - 19:32 GMT

I've been meaning to post this on the lunch/food/fries thread. This is a chopped liver and pastrami on rye sandwich from Arties (Broadway and 83rd street). Note the Dr. Brown's cream soda and coleslaw, the perfect match for the sandwich. And it's not your imagination, this sandwich really is about 4 inches high. Think of it as the Jewish Deli equivilent of a scotch egg. Delicious.

jamie: 27th Jan 2007 - 00:49 GMT

that pastrami looks much nicer than the stuff they sell in tescos

jay : 10th Feb 2007 - 15:16 GMT

having moved to the usa from england 3 years ago, i just hate the food in america...almost every "restaurant" (they even call fast food places restaurants here!) serves the same food, steaks, chicken, pasta....and in huge tasteless quantities.....if only some more americans would get passports, travel the world and taste real food, grown from the earth and not manufactured in factories and served in massive quantities to "wow" people with quantity rather than quality they might come back and do something about the awful food in the usa.

americans would do well to get out of their cars and walk too....the fattest people on earth now! but sadly too many brits are beginning to go down the same path....i cant wait to return to scotland, where i walk to the local family owned shops to buy my fresh produce every few days and use it in the small fresh quantities to make food which is fresh, healthy and tasty. haste ye back to scotland!.