…to talk like this and act like that.

Stop# 5

We left England and are now headed over to Wales for stop #5 on our global food trip.

Welsh Cakes

Despite how they might look, these are not breakfast pancakes as you may know them, they are a bit more like a hearty, lightly sweet dessert than anything. You can still have them with breakfast, just don’t expect buttermilk pancakes to drown with maple syrup. I was a little excited to make this because I seem to really be partial to dark fruit and berries like blackberries or currants. Currants are an awesome accent (I love the flavor in a good strong black tea) and they aren’t difficult to find.

Again, I referenced two recipes that took different approaches. One was pretty much straight-forward batter, and the other called for caster sugar and lard…so of course I went with the lardy one. I didn’t have any caster sugar, so I made some. The process is very simple, dump granulated sugar in the blender, set to medium high, pulse until powdery. Do not confuse this with powdered sugar!

2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup caster sugar (not powdered)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground mace
1/4 tsp of salt
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
2 oz chilled lard
2 oz chilled butter
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup dried currants
cold milk - a couple Tbsp
granulated sugar for coating

Notes

• Sources of inspiration: Most of the process and planning comes from The Daring Gourmet, but I also referenced King Arthur flour.
• Some recipes use Nutmeg, but Mace is traditional. I might have used a hint more.
• Currants can be found with the raisins at your supermarket. Sun-Maid makes some that I have seen fairly frequently, but I bought mine in bulk at Whole Foods.
• Chill the lard first for sure. It makes it way easier to mix into the flour.

Process

• Mix the flour, caster sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and mace in a bowl.
• Mix in chilled butter and lard until it is a coarse, crumbly texture.
• Stir in currants.
• Add egg, and enough milk to mix and make a soft, smooth dough.

• Wrap dough, refrigerate for 30 minutes.
• Roll out chilled dough to 1/4 in. thick.
• Cut into 3-4 in. rounds.
• Hot buttered pan.

• Fry for a few minutes per side til golden brown.
• Coat with granulated sugar.
• Cool and eat.

Results and Adjustments

These little cakes were amazing. It was surprised how many of them I wanted to eat right out of the pan. A few notes to make them better. Don’t roll out the dough too thinly, you want enough for a nice thick cake. Cook over a slightly cooler burner. It is a bit easy to burn these guys because of the fine sugar in the mix. I cooked them a bit higher than medium, so my net result was a quickly cooked crust…close to burning…then the inside was every so slightly under-done. The cakes that I cooked slower had a far better consistency and looked incredible.

Don’t be stingy with the granulated sugar coating, it makes them look great and gives them a fun extra crunch. Cook them in butter…not oil, just because it is better. Spice mix was pretty good, and the mace gives them an interesting flavor. If anything I would probably bump up the cinnamon a little bit, but only slightly. Maybe a drop of vanilla.

How to eat them? Plain is great! I tried a couple different things and think that melted butter is good, but trying with fruit jam seemed to be my favorite way to enjoy them. We had a nice blueberry jam that turned out the best.

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So, what’s next? I have another dish to try from Wales; cheese and leeks, what could go wrong?

Stop# 4

We are still in England and making Pork Pie for the next item on our global food trip.

Pork Pie

I seem to recall a lot of references to (actual) meat pies from literature and stories about England that I read or saw when I was growing up. But none of them really stuck in my head that actually talked about how to make them, at least that I have seen and can remember anyway. There are pot pies that we seem to make a lot in the US, but they seem more like meat accented vegetable pies rather than a hefty meat pie. Pork seemed to be the go-to for these kinds of pies and I found a few traditional looking recipes that were the template for this.

I had a few challenges and firsts on this one. I had never used lard in a recipe before, never made a hot water pastry, never used gelatin outside of Jell-O stuff, and never added a fully cooked item to another fully cooked item to complete a recipe. That last one is a bit vague, but will make sense if you go through the whole thing. It was also a little surprising to me that, despite all the hot prep, this is supposed to be served cold.

# EXTRA EQUIPMENT #
small funnel
small jars for pastry forms
string or twine

# PASTRY #
7 oz water
5 1/2 Tbsp butter
2 3/4 oz lard
16 oz all purpose flour
pinch salt
1 beaten egg
1 tsp vegetable oil

# MEAT #
6 oz pork shoulder
3 oz pork belly
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground mace
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg 
1 egg 
Pinch salt

# FILLING #
1/2 envelope of gelatin
1 cup of ham broth
1/4 teaspoon white pepper

Notes

• Sources of inspiration: The Spruce Eats and Saveur
• The two examples above are fairly different approaches. One is mostly meat, the other is meat and vegetable mix. Pick if you want to have one or the other first.
• Seems like there are lots of options for the pork to use in this dish. I went with shoulder and pork belly. Well actually, shoulder and uncured bacon.
• I minced up the meat by hand with 2 knives. This isn’t required, but I really wanted to do the 2 handed knife wielding trick.
• Hot pastry was actually kinda fun to work with.
• A point on the jars or forms for the pastry. I used Ball canning jars with a fancy design on the side. That was stupid. When you form the dough up around the sides of the jar and chill it like you are supposed to, the dough loves to stick to all those pretty designs. Use a smooth jar.
• Original recipe I followed called for sheets of gelatin. I couldn’t find that and I went with Knox unflavored envelopes.
• This is supposed to be served cold. The gelatin needs to set!

Process

• Pastry
  • Water, butter and lard into a saucepan.
  • Heat to a very low boil.
  • Mix flour, egg and salt in a heat-safe bowl.
    
  • Add in the heated water, butter and lard.
  • Mix and then knead on a floured surface til smooth.
  • Divide dough – 1/3 set aside, covered.
  • Roll out the 2/3 to 1/4 inch think.
  • Cut 6 inch circles.
  • Oil the outside of the jars.
  • Place jar in the center of the circle and form the dough into a bowl around the base. Repeat for other circles.
  • Wrap dough with a strip of wax paper and tie a string around to hold the dough in place.
  • Put the forms into the fridge.

• Fill the pastry
  • Preheat oven to 325.
  • Mince the meat however you see fit. I chopped mine with 2 knives.
  • Mix meat and spices in a bowl.
  • Add meat mix to the chilled pastry. Don’t fill all the way.
  • Cut lids to fit the tops from the remaining dough.
  • Seal lids by crimping into the pastry wall tightly.
  • Poke a small hole in the top of the pie (to fit your funnel).
  • Prepare an egg wash – beat the egg, add a bit of salt.
  • Wash the pastries thoroughly.
  • Bake for 50-60 minutes.
  • Cooking is done when pork at center is 175.

• Broth gelatin
  • Follow instructions to prepare gelatin.
  • Prepare and add ham broth and season with white pepper.
  • Add a pinch of salt if needed.
  • Let the mixture cool somewhat.
  • Pour the liquid into the pies using a funnel.
  • Leave the pie to cool and gelatin set.

• Something else: I decided to make a side to go with the pies.
  • 3 large carrots
  • 2 Tbsp butter
  • A couple pinches of smoked salt
  • 1/2 tsp brown sugar
  • 1/4 tsp crushed fennel
  • 1/4 tsp lime juice
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • Saute all the above until carrots are almost soft

Results and Adjustments

Almost all of my changes would be in the process.
Use smoother jars so the dough doesn’t stick. Also, letting the pies cool is actually a pretty important step. I poured warm gelatin/broth into hot pies. The result is that it spilled out of the pies and leaked through weak spots and seams. Some of the pies held it ok, but then I tried to pull them up off of the cookie sheet and I broke the bottoms…so a bunch leaked out that way. The cookie sheet probably should have been greased a bit better too.

Truth be told, I kinda freaked out a little bit when I cut into the first pie. As you can see from the photo, the pork is quite pink. I’m not really sure why mine ended up that way, but I can confirm that the temperature was at least 160, which should be more than enough. The pink really threw me off, but after I was calmed by the wife, I went ahead with claiming a success.

Let the pies cool! They are designed to be eaten cold and it is practically required in order for the gelatin to set correctly.

The taste was great! Somehow very comforting and satisfying. Some of the best, soft dough I have ever tasted. Thanks pork fat. The leftovers were awesome as well, and the wife counts this as the favorite so far.

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So, what’s next? We are done with England now, so it is time to move on to somewhere else in the UK. Wales.

Background

We unfortunately had to leave Ireland behind on our global food trip, but we have made just a quick hop over the Irish Sea to arrive in England. Once again, I started off where others had already done research and I looked up some compilation lists of food that are thought of as uniquely English. I pulled out a couple things that I thought would be a bit of a challenge and wouldn’t be completely cliche. A few things do come to mind when thinking of English food, but since I said we want to steer away from cliche, at least a little bit, we won’t be doing fish n’ chips.

Toad in the Hole

Toad in the Hole to a lot of people, mostly American people, is simply toast with the center cut out and a cooked egg inside. However, it seems that Toad in the Hole is very different to our friends across the pond. When it comes to having things the English way, it turns out to be a two-for-one deal. It is basically a Yorkshire pudding that has a bunch of bangers that are nestled into the middle of it. If you saw my last post on Ireland, you’d know that a banger is a very specific kind of sausage that I sought out for Dublin Coddle, so I decided to use them again here. I’m not sure if I’ll offend anyone using Irish branded bangers in an English dish, but I’m sure that I’m not the first to do so!

I looked up a few recipes on this dish specifically, and on Yorkshire pudding in general. There seemed to be a lot of options for seasoning, but there are very definite ideas about how to get the pudding to behave correctly. I picked one recipe to follow for the methods, and did a mashup of ideas for the seasoning. I always seem to find recipes, and then don’t follow them. So here is mine for you not to follow!

6 bangers
I cup of all purpose flour
1 cup (just shy) of milk, with a few Tbsp of cream to make 1 cup
3 eggs beaten
1/4 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp ground mustard
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp rosemary
1 Tbsp beef Better than Bouillon - straight out of the jar 

Notes

• Sources of inspiration: Simply Recipes, Great British Chefs, The BBC, and The Daring Gourmet, 
• Same thoughts as a previous recipe about the bangers. You can use other sausage, but to be traditional, you should use sausages with rusk in them.
• Rising of the pudding is super important, so get a deep dish.
• The pot I used was deep, but wasn’t really very wide, so my proportion was a bit off. Adjust the number of sausages to fit the pan
• I’m sure there are lots of things I did wrong if I wanted a perfect Yorkshire pudding, so follow those better instructions from someone with experience!

Process

• Make the batter
  • Whisk flour, sugar, mustard, nutmeg, thyme and rosemary
  • Add beaten eggs, milk/cream, and Better Than Bouillon
  • Whisk until smooth
  • Leave batter to set for at least 30 minutes
• Brown bangers in buttered or oiled pan

• Prep baking dish
  • Casserole or deep baking dish
  • Oil the inside to let the pudding rise easily – I used safflower
  • Preheat oiled dish at 425
• Add bangers to dish and put back in the oven for 5 minutes
• Add batter
  • Pull hot dish from oven
  • Pour batter in hot dish around the bangers. It should almost cover the sausages.

• Put the dish back in the oven for 20-30 minutes
  • The pudding should start rising in a few minutes
  • Watch til the top of the puddings gets a nice golden brown
• The pudding will settle as it cools, but it is best served hot

Adjustments

So, if I am making this again, what would I do differently? I don’t know that I would change too much. I was honestly a bit surprised I was able to get the pudding to rise so nicely on my first try. The spices and bouillon I added made the color of the batter darker, and I think it would be prettier if it were a light batter…however, that means less flavor. I think I would have increased most of the spices a bit if I were going to try something different. But honestly, it seemed quite good as is.

One thing that I totally forgot to do was add fresh rosemary sprinkled on top of the pudding. It would have made added a nice fresh flavor, and I as kinda annoyed that I missed it. I would try a wider pan, like a baking dish that wasn’t as deep, but would allow me to spread out the bangers a bit more. But flavor-wise, it was awesome.

As I was investigating this dish, it seemed like it wasn’t something that you had just by itself. If you have Toad in the Hole, you need to have it with onion gravy. So, now we need to find a good onion gravy!

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Onion Gravy

I didn’t have to go very far to find some recipes for onion gravy since it seems to be one of the more popular things to eat with it. one of them even had a recipe attached to the Toad in the Hole recipe.

1 onion 
1 clove of garlic
A couple Tbsp butter for saute
2 Tbsp all purpose flour
2 Tbsp cooking sherry
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 cups beef broth (Better than Bouillon made to instructions)\
Fresh ground black pepper

Notes

• Sources of inspiration: The Daring Gourmet and Allrecipes
• Use white onions. I used a red one, and it was way too big and the slices didn’t disappear into the gravy. Flavor was good though.
• Worcestershire sauce is fantastic in this.
• Don’t use broth that is too salty…taste it as you go!

Process

• Slice garlic and onion thinly
  • Saute in saucepan with butter until translucent
• Add sherry, Worcestershire and flour to the pan and stir until mixed evenly
• Add beef broth
• Increase heat
• Stir until thickened
• Add pepper
• Bring heat to low and simmer for 3-4 minutes

Results and Adjustments

Overall, I think the dish was a big success. The onion gravy goes great with the Toad in the Hole and when we sat down to eat, I scarfed it down. Definitely would add the rosemary, and use white onions in the gravy, other than that…I approve!

So, what’s next? More England!
Another popular English thing is a meat pie, so, we have to give that a shot!

Background

If you need the back-story please see my first post. But to catch you up quickly, I’m cooking my way around the world through a global food trip.

Last post we kicked off with our first destination, Dublin, Ireland and this is dish number two on the visit. For the first dish of the trip, I was talking about barmbrack, but I also wanted to do something a bit more substantial than a bread. Stews with meat and potatoes are a pretty commonly mentioned item in best-of lists for Ireland. A few lists mentioned coddle and I hadn’t heard of it before, but it showed up several times, so it seemed like a no-brainer to try.

Dublin Coddle

Coddle is basically a one pot stew. There are a lot of stews and one pot creations designed for the crock pot, but Coddle is a dutch oven dish. There are a few things about it that make it uniquely Irish but I could easily see this as an Americanized crock pot meal as well. Here’s the list of ingredients that are designed to cook the Irish way.

1 lb of bangers
1 lb of rashers (Irish bacon)
8 medium Russet potatoes
2 white onions
32 oz ham stock
4 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
Ground pepper, a lot if you like it, or light to season
Salt, only if your bacon or broth isn't salty

Notes

• This time I got a lot of inspiration and guidance from Irish American Mom, but I also referenced Genius Kitchen and House of Nash Eats
• This dish is all about good meats. You need two things Irish bangers and rashers, or Irish bacon.
• Irish bangers are a very specific kind of beef/pork sausage with a rusk filling…basically twice-baked breadcrumbs.
  • The slang “bangers” refers to the they way they burst open when they are cooked.
  • You can’t find them everywhere, but there is a great Irish market in Tinley Park called Winston’s Market that has them and they are quite good.
  • Don’t overcook them in the pot or they get mushy!
• Irish bacon is its own thing too.
  • American bacon=belly, Canadian bacon=loin, Irish bacon=back.
  • American bacon is cured and smoked, Irish bacon is brined.
  • Also, it is not super easy to find, I again recommend Winston’s Market.
  • You want fat…fat is good!
• Ham stock. This stuff is magic! I’ve had beef, chicken, vegetable, etc. but never ham. Get it! I found LB Jamison’s ham soup base at Meijer.
• I kinda guessed on pan sizes and it was almost too much for my dutch oven. Have a big one on hand or halve the recipe.

Process

• Cut:
  • Rashers into 1 in strips
  • Onions into 1/2 in rings
  • Potatoes into chunks
• Brown bangers in butter
• Layer:
  • In order, onions, rashers, bangers, potatoes, salt/pepper, parsley
  • Repeat to make 2 layers
• Pour in the broth
• Heat to boil
• Lower heat to simmer, covered for 2-3 hours or until potatoes are soft

One thing that is pretty obvious from the photo above, this is not a pretty dish. The browned sausages and parsley improve the appearance a little bit, but honestly, looks don’t really matter. Once you start to eat it, you won’t really care what it looks like. The browned banger sausages have a unique flavor that is much milder than Italian, Polish or sage sausage. The rashers cook down and the fat renders into the ham broth. The potatoes and onions soak up all that flavor as it simmers away. Serve it in a bowl with the broth, like a stew, or just eat the meat and potatoes. Either way, it’s great. Leftovers are pretty amazing too and it seems to maybe get even a bit better for round two…and three if you make as big of a batch as I did.

Adjustments

So, if I am making this again, what would I do differently? A bit smaller size for sure, I barely got everything in the pot and the lid on. Fresh parsley…I actually used dried and I’m sure it would have tasted better fresh, and it would have been a bit more pretty to look at. I think I cooked it too long. The bangers get a bit mushy if they cook too long, and I think that is something that you need to monitor. I’d say cook until the potatoes are soft, and not longer.

So, what’s next? There is a lot more to do in Ireland, but I’m headed to England next. Yes, that is still the UK, but there is a lot of different stuff to try across the UK, so we’ll be making several stops before we stray too far.

Background

If you need the back-story please see my first post. But to catch you up quickly, I’m cooking my way around the world through a global food trip.

My first destination is Dublin, Ireland…or thereabouts. What does everyone think of when they think Irish food? Right…mint ice cream.  Nonono, it is really corned beef and cabbage…but that would be wrong too. Believe it or not, most Irish people don’t really eat corned beef and cabbage, for some reason that is an American Irish thing. Sure, they serve it in Ireland when you go to visit, but it is mostly for the tourists. My searches led me far and wide for my first dishes and I saw a lot of traditional Irish stuff like breads and stews, but not really much around corned beef at all. Cabbage makes it into stews for sure, along with plenty of potatoes but the US St. Patrick’s day staple is not as common where people seem to expect. The general specialties seemed to be fish, stew and bread, so it made sense to pick something from those general categories to get started. How about we start basic…bread!

Barmbrack

Fruitcakes seem to be the butt of a lot of jokes around Christmas in the US, but I’m pretty convinced that the fruitcakes we see at the holidays now are the Taco Bell Waffle Taco of fruited desserts. Somewhere back in time, there used to be amazing fruit breads, but the side trip down the stuff-everything-possible-into-a-decadent-cake road has seen ingenuity process most of the delicious out of it. No offence if you love fruitcake…but I think the audience there is small. The fruit bread I found from Ireland didn’t seem to be anything like the fruitcakes of your imagination, and the result was anything but, so don’t bail on me yet.

I found a lot of mentions of barmbrack (or just brack), which is a leavened and lightly spiced dough with citrus and currants. It seems like barmbrack is mostly made around Halloween for celebrations and they even like to hide little treasures baked inside like gold rings or trinkets! I saw a bunch of mentions of it, and even saw it listed as a quintessential Irish recipe, so thought I’d give it a whirl. Here’s the list of ingredients.

5 cups all purpose flour
2 eggs
1/4 tsp kosher salt
3.5 oz. (about 2/3 cup) Thompson raisins 
3.5 oz. (about 1 cup) black currants
8 oz. strong, fresh brewed black tea
1/4 cup unsalted softened butter
1 tbsp dried yeast
1.5 cups water (100 degrees F)
1/4 cup sugar (for dough)
1 tsp sugar (for yeast)
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 orange
1 tsp mixed spice (see below for formula)

Notes

• I’m not going through all the steps because it is done more artfully on my main source The Spruce Eats. I also borrowed ideas from The Irish Times, The Guardian, and the
  Penn State Extension Philadelphia Master Gardeners for reference.
• The main adjustments I made to The Spruce Eats recipe were 1) adding currants, 2) soaking fruit in tea 3) zest in place of candied peel and 4) adding spices to the dough.
• Citrus zest was a replacement for candied peel, mostly because I didn’t have it, and it turned out to be a great substitution.
• Currants and raisins are common, but I also saw other fruits used like cherries and blueberries.
• I used a good strong tea, Bewley’s Dublin Morning.
• It is important that the tea is hot for soaking the fruit.
• I let the dark fruit soak in the tea for an hour, but would have been way better if it were 4 or 6.
• Mixed spice is a blend of some common baking spices that seems to be referenced a lot in the UK. See the Daring Gourmet for the formula I used.
  • 2 tsp allspice
  • 3 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 tsp nutmeg
  • 3/4 tsp mace
  • 1 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
• I had no mace for my attempt, so I think the spice balance was slightly off.

Other than the tea soaked fruit, spices and citrus zest, this ended up being similar to several other yeast breads I had made in the past. As soon as the dough starts to form, the leavened aroma fills the kitchen and it creates a ton of anticipation. When the baking was done, I wanted to cut right into it. But I restrained myself and let it cool.

The recipe makes two pretty decent sized loves of Barmbrack like these I photographed here, recently out of the oven, but cooled and freshly buttered. The citrus flavor is light and mild, and the dark fruit flavor comes through in small bursts with just a hint of the rich tea. It is pretty good plain but is downright fantastic when it is lightly toasted with butter. In fact, that is exactly how we ate most of it. This is an undoubted hit right out of the gate, and will definitely be making it again.

Adjustments

So, if I am making this again, what would I do differently? Not a whole lot really. I do think that the spice ratio was probably a little off, and I’d like to see how it works with mace. Maybe a bit too much allspice. The currants and raisins were very good, but I might even add a bit more of them, and/or possibly some other kinds of dark dried fruit. The tea soak was really interesting and it gave the fruit a deep, rich flavor, even so, I would let that soak a couple more hours. The last thing I’d do, not that it was in many of the sources, but maybe I’d add a drop or two of vanilla.

So, what’s next? I still have one more Ireland dish so maybe one recipe per post? Not sure yet of the long term plan, but the short term plan is Dublin Coddle next.

TL;DR – I’m going to cook something from every country.

The Genesis of The Idea

Everyone loves a vacation. It is certainly one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. In my mind, I am super adventurous in the places I want to see and am a big-time world traveler. But the reality is that I am so much less than that and I barely ever get past the idea stage. The romanticism of taking a world adventure sounds fantastic in my head, but then I think about stupid stuff like…having money to do it. I do love going somewhere new to explore and try new things, but I am also somehow left earthbound with practical and sometimes self-imposed roadblocks.

I went to Ireland with my sister over 15 years ago and have been talking about going back ever since. Every year, I find myself thinking that this will finally be the summer that I get to go back…maybe. But, it never happens and I just keep dreaming. This past year, my wife and I did get past the talking-about-vacation stage, and actually planned some things ahead of time, but the furthest we got for a world trip was Galena, IL.

Now, not that there is anything wrong with Galena! It is a fine place visit, has great history, and scenery (I still need to share some pictures from there), and I intend to go back…likely several times…but it isn’t quite Ireland, or Norway, or Laos is it? There is always a deeper hunger to travel someplace really far away, take some time to live in someone else’s shoes; see their part of the world and appreciate the things that they see every day. Like…food. I do love food. Perhaps there is some way to see and experience another part of the world, without actually going anywhere. The answer was obviously through eating! This idea started formulating in my brain well over a year ago, but took until now to turn into a full plan. Yeah, I am a little slow.

I have always loved to cook but I get bored with the same old things, so I don’t do it as often as I would like. In order to keep myself interested, my original idea was to take a cookbook and go through the whole thing, making every dish as described. But then I thought of Julie & Julia and about 17,000 other blogs and decided that concept had probably been done to death. Plus I couldn’t decide on a cookbook that would hold my interest without getting bogged down in doing 11 versions of tuna casserole or 83 ways to cook lima beans, yes, that is an actual cookbook.

The Almost Trip

So this quasi-ambitious thought just kinda sat in the back of my head and I kept revisiting it now and then to see if I would actually do something about it. Sometime this past month, in between Christmas revels, I got one of those promotional emails, that I usually ignore, from Scientific American (great publication…you should read it!). The email was about their summer Bright Horizons 38 science cruise where you could learn about cool science stuff while going to visit extra-cool history stuff! This sounded very interesting, so I read on. 13 days of a cruise starting in Amsterdam, then Dover, then to Scotland; Inverness, Glasgow and Edinburgh on to Belfast, Liverpool, then Dublin.
Are you kiddin’ me? I could learn great information, see incredible places, and get to try all kinds of great food in these places. This sounded like my kind of trip, a cruise that I don’t have to plan. I could try haggis and real shepherds pie!

I clicked on the booking and estimating tool.

• Number of passengers? 2, because wife.
• Cabin type? Sunset Verandah vs. Interior, because I’m not a complete animal!
• Attending Seminars? Yes, because science.
• Nights in Hotel Before and After? Well…I want to be cheap, but it makes sense to take 1 night each to prep and recover respectively.
• Calculate price? Yes please…click.
• $13,708…food not included, and I still would need to book flights to Amsterdam.

My scientific shepherds pie and historical haggis dreams died a swift and painful death with that simple mouse click. I am WAY too cheap to be paying that much for a vacation. It brought me back to reality on booking big trips, but it did start me thinking about grouping travel differently, and looking at a couple travel plan websites I never saw before. A few mental detours later, I came up with a new idea for world travel, that while much less science-y and tactile, would be a whole lot cheaper to pull off.

The Flight Plan

If I “can’t” fly to visit Ireland, Scotland and the others, maybe I could at least eat some food from there. Every great journey begins with a single step, and I began by stepping into my kitchen to grab a cookbook. The trip was short because I didn’t really find much listed in the index under “Irish”, so I went back to the web and started doing some research. In no time, I found a slough of recipes from Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands, and more. But, I didn’t really have it organized in any meaningful way. Perhaps it would make sense to organize the recipes as if visiting different regions on an actual trip! That’s when I went back to the flight planning web sites and mapped out a 10 city trip. But why stop at 10 cities? I got ambitious and plugged a bunch more info into a nifty site and started plotting a semi-logical, country hopping flight path. Eventually, I had a daunting, glorious, utterly implausible, chain of stops across ALL the countries in the world.

Some of these countries obviously have more regions, more people and more cuisines than others, so we couldn’t just make one stop in places like, France, Italy, China and India. It was pretty clear we’d have to have multiple stops in quite a few places. I added a few extra hops to pick up additional regions and by the time I was done, I had a total of 262 entries in my increasingly detailed Excel spreadsheet. Just for fun, I used the site to estimate the cost for two plane tickets to all these places. I think it is safe to say that the rough cost of $170,000 was a bit out of reach, but imagine how many ingredients that could buy! For now, I’ll stick with my imaginary world trip through cooking.

The Rules…sort of

I know that I’ll never be able to do justice to the food for people that know better, but it would be an adventure to try! There needs to be a few basic ground rules, and I’m sure to make some of this up as I go, but here we go.

1. Make at least one thing from every country.
   • If possible, make things that might go together in a meal.
   • Add more meals or “stops” where needed to cover cool stuff.
2. Follow a path that would make a logical trip from country to country.
   • This is relative and I’m going for best effort.
   • I’ll bounce back and forth a little bit to make it varied.
3. Be brave!
   • If I can get adventurous ingredients, I will use them.
   • Even consider using mushrooms.
4. Try to go traditional instead of cliche.
   • This might be a little hard, some cultures have ancient traditions and some are more recent. I’ll try to pick good representatives.
   • Sometimes things are cliche because they are good!
   • I will do a bunch of research (can we say Google?), but I’ll try to be quick too. Otherwise, I know I’ll get bogged down in searches.
5. Give credit
   • I am sure others have done this before, so props to them!
   • I will credit all the sources I can. I’m certainly not inventing this.
6. Give it my best shot.
   • I’m going to screw up these foods. But the adventure is in the attempt, and trying new things.
   • I might not be able to get some of the exact ingredients, but I’ll get as close as I can.
   • Realistically, I am going to tweak some ingredients and swap some stuff around. But I’ll try to keep it based on the real thing.
   • No offense meant to any purists.

The Start of It

So, where to first? I am going to start where I would likely start a real world adventure, Ireland of course. It is also a good place to start for ingredient familiarity as well as realism. From there, I’ll hang around the British Isles for a bit, then swing across Iceland, Greenland and Canada before heading over to Russia.

I don’t have a fixed schedule, but I am going to try for at least one dish a week. Assuming my plan doesn’t break down somewhere that calls for seal meat or insects of some kind, I’m going to be at this for a while.

I know this project isn’t going to have a huge audience, and If you read this far, thanks Mom. I’ll keep you posted.

So now I’m off to the Emerald Island, for some Barmbrack and Dublin Coddle. Don’t know what that is? Tune in next week 😉

Tomorrow is the day everyone in the United States waits for with unparalleled anticipation; the day where everything changes. The second Tuesday of November is one of the most important days of the year, no matter if you follow politics or not. It is the day when all the politicians finally shut up a little bit and leave us to get on with our lives while they either gloat in their 15 minutes of limelight behind synthetic humility, or seethe in private anguish at their unprecedented injustice. Is that flippant? Yes. It is a learned response. Perhaps it is a bit of a cynical view, but cultivated ire for politicians can hardly be among the greatest of sins, especially with the stellar crop of buffoons we’re served up year after year. 

Our local representative race is a classic example of sleazy politics at its best. We’ve had endless campaigning with focus on personal attacks over substance on television ads, endless YouTube ads, nightly phone solicitation, door to door campaigning, radio spots, and particularly annoying attack mailers sent in bulk. I started collecting the mailers early since this race was very nasty in the last cycle and I anticipated nothing less this time around. I missed a few at the beginning, but my collection of insulting, vapid drivel in snail mail was soon the envy of…well…no one. As of November 7, I had collected 85 separate pieces of attack mailers that were sent to my house in an unceasing flow. Barely a day went by in the past 45 days where we didn’t receive at least one, but sometimes up to four pieces per day. The race is so nasty, it has gotten party headquarters heavily involved and gotten national attention. A recent editorial piece by USA Today picked one of the TV/YouTube spots as one of the five worst political ads in the country. Way to show that Illinois pride ladies. As if we need more reasons to show how awful Illinois and its politics are.

Most of the time, we aren’t home during the prime door-to-door hours, so I know we missed a few choreographed visits, but I was home for one. My doorbell rang one night at about 6:45, just moments after I sat down on the couch to have my dinner and watch anything that was on TV. With an exasperated sigh, I shook off my I-just-got-home-from-work-now-leave-me-alone face, and I opened the door to what I thought would be a girl scout cookie sales pitch. To my surprise, the solicitor at the door was our state representative, Kate Cloonen, telling me how important it was to get out and talk with people in her district and find out what issues mattered to them. I’ll admit that as I held the storm door open and leaned on the door frame listening to her talk, I was at a momentary loss. Here I was expecting to be reluctantly charmed by a fumbling young entrepreneur, aided by the bewitching spell of Thin Mints, and instead I was greeted by rehearsed, superficial pandering. I tried to recover while she finished her greeting and introductory prelude. She handed me a familiar political flyer and my sourness returned in a flash. 

When dealing with rehearsed or scripted salesmen at work, I have learned an invaluable lesson in combating their manipulation; do something they don’t expect. It can be quite funny to hear the equivalent of “does not compute” in their silence or stammering. I saw my opening with the politician when she asked me “So what issues are important to you?” Her assistant held his pen and clipboard at the ready to scribble something that would likely never be read, and I held up the flyer in front of me and said, “I just want these to stop!” They both looked at me blankly for a second and then tried to get clarification on my puzzling statement. “You mean the pamphlets?” In my head I heard, “Well, allow me to retort!” I then launched into a deft soliloquy on the evils of negative smear campaigning and the long-dead virtue of honor among statesmen in an environment that crushes the common man. It would have been pretty cool if that was what actually happened, but I honestly don’t remember exactly what I said. There were words like “disgusting attacks” and “insulting oversimplifications” and “offensive volume”, but I’m not sure what order they came out of my mouth so it could have been completely incoherent. Something must have been intelligible because she hesitantly reasoned that I should check to see who sent the mailing since they don’t have control over all the mail that comes out. They could, however, make sure that nothing more came directly from her campaign. The assistant gave me an earnest nod, as if he were my buddy about to do me a solid, and they agreed with each other that they would certainly do what they can to make sure I didn’t receive any more political ads. In reality, I’m sure they were recoiling at the thought of further discussion and looking for any way out, so as they both visibly retreated, I accepted their tepid offer and they quickly left.  

Looking back, my encounter with my representation was a bit of a lost opportunity. It may have been the leftover angst of dinner interrupted, but I thought later that I could have actually discussed the problem with her, brought up tangible concerns and proposed solutions. Later that evening, I began to write an email to Kate Cloonen to express some of these thoughts, but my cynicism won out and I abandoned the email in frustration. The critic in me decided it would have made no difference if we had shared a genuine conversation or not. I have learned that politicians say anything to get elected, and I was sure my opinion would have been written off as soon as my vote was in a column…either column. Not that I think the interaction would have been much different had her opponent, Lindsay Parkhurst visited my house, but she has yet to be elected and prove my cynical theories. Judging from the volume of negative garbage I have received from her side, I expect nothing less than a politician. I’m not totally cynical I suppose, it very well could be that Cloonen and Parkhurst are both nice, decent, well-meaning ladies and it is the system or their party is to blame for the nasty demeanor. But that doesn’t represent me, and that they would allow it to happen in their name is disgusting.

My disgust in general at politicians is that they constantly underestimate us. They think we are stupid enough to believe their statements and fall for their carefully framed tricks. And you know what? It works. Americans feed this beast by consuming and believing the one-sided arguments. But I don’t think it is stupidity. Instead, confirmation bias is to blame. We only hear what we want to hear, and believe what we already think is true. If you hate Politician A and Politician B says something awful about Politician A, you tend believe Politician B, even if it is an outright lie, or if B is a disgusting person themselves. B sends out floods of negative ads confirming bias in all directions and everyone gets all fired up to vote. B wins and deduces that negative campaigning works. This is your fault! If you hate the negativity, don’t feed the cycle! Think for yourself and don’t parrot others opinions. And as much as you hate it, really listen to other opinions, you don’t have the monopoly on “right”.

A simple concept that most people seem to forget, is that when someone is elected, they are supposed represent ALL of their district, city, state or country, not just the portion of the electorate that voted for them. I think that is especially important for this year’s Presidential race. It is an idea that I am sure both major candidates will forget the moment the winner takes office, but it is equally applicable to you the voter. Accept the results, don’t threaten moving to Canada, it is all a bit silly. The great thing about our country is that if something is broken, we can try again the next cycle and someone else gets to try their ideas. Talking heads excel at whipping people up to think that their world is going to end if the opposition gets in power. That kind of thought creates fanatics. Use reason instead. Believe it or not, you can say, “That’s a fantastic idea! There is not even the slightest chance in the world I am voting for you, but…great idea!” You can actually say that sentence and not devolve into a brawl over who “won” your debate. Just once I would like to hear a reasonable discussion about Hillary and Trump without hearing about fascism or socialism or the end of America, or moving to Canada. They are nice people up North, why send our bitter, angry people there?

One terrible aspect to our elections is that the common voter feels as though they have no real choice in a two-party system. To give back some choice, wouldn’t it stir some stew to have “None of These Jokers” as an option on the ballot? Imagine how many votes that option would receive for President this year! Plus, it would be very satisfying to hear a news anchor announce a forecast: “And we can now officially call the state of New Hampshire for None of These Jokers.” Have the NoTJ vote mean a vote of no confidence, if NoTJ actually wins, the person that gets the next most votes gets to be President or Governor or Mayor, but only for a year, or in a temporary fashion until we get someone we actually want. We’d certainly avoid some of the messes we find ourselves in now. The idea worked in the movie Brewster’s Millions as “None of the Above.” And while I’m at it, why are we voting on Tuesday?! Shouldn’t this be a weekend, where it is easier for people to “rock the vote?” At the very least, make it a holiday so no one has an excuse to not vote. The old idea for voting on Tuesday was designed to accommodate a day of travel after Sunday to be able to reach polling places, how many people do you think would vote now if they had to drive for a day beforehand? I also have opinions on the electoral college, third-party candidates, term-limits and districting, but I’m tired of thinking about politics…tomorrow is a celebration day, go out and vote so they all shut up faster! 

Original recipes included further below.

Sometimes things come last minute, other times it takes a bit of planning. For me, I find that I manage to make it a little bit of both. Last weekend I had a Saturday full of plans. The biggest project was repairing my mower that had a bit of trouble at the end of my previous lawn care session when it somehow decided to completely rip a wheel loose from the deck! A little investigation and I found that one of the other wheels was ready to do the same. All the parts needed to be purchased for repair before I could start, so a trip to Menards or Lowes was first on the list. The repair itself would involve some steel sawing, drilling and bolting, so I figured a good couple hours for the full repair plus a blade sharpening while I had things apart.

After repairing the mower, the grass was obviously waiting to be cut, so that would take a good hour and a half or two. I had some minor fence repair that had been bugging me, so that was another half hour. Clean out of the gutters would take another hour, if I tacked on sweeping up the sidewalk afterward. A bit of raking, some tree trimming, some minor deck repair, some garage clean up, a few other odds and ends, and I was looking at a full 8 hours so I knew I needed to get started if I expected to get some laundry done too.

Of course before starting all this, there is the requisite moment where I stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open and absent-mindedly stare at the stock of food while pondering what there possibly could be to eat. I happened to open the freezer and saw several packages of meat waiting for their turn to be used, and I had the bright idea that brisket would be just the thing for later. “I’ll smoke some brisket today!” I foolishly said to myself as I threw the 2 lb package into the fridge to thaw.

Yes, I know. Did I really think that frozen brisket was going to thaw by the afternoon just by putting it in the fridge? Well, I suppose I did at the time, but I didn’t give it the required amount of thought, I had stuff to do! Needless to say, the thawing time wasn’t nearly sufficient, and I still had frozen brisket by the end of the day. Not to mention, I had a few leftover items from my to-do list that I didn’t get done as well. But, I did have a fully wheeled mower and a fully cut lawn.

Thursday came around and the brisket was still sitting in the fridge. It was getting to the point where it needed to be used, but I kept forgetting. At 7:50 am that morning I remembered, and determined it HAD to be used that day. I needed to leave for work, but how can you cook a brisket without a good rub!? I grabbed the brisket out of the fridge and tore off the packaging…meat still looked good. Time to make the rub. I threw together some ingredients and coated the meat generously before covering it back up and shoving it back in the fridge. I wouldn’t make work by 8:00 like I was supposed to, but the rub was made.

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Rub Mix
Measurements are VERY approximate
1/2 c brown sugar
2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp cocoa powder

Rub into meat vigorously and completely cover brisket on all sides. Set in fridge for 8 hours.


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Now with the rub in place, the plan should be to smoke the same day right? Of course! However, I worked late and didn’t get home until about 7:00 pm. The smoker hadn’t been used for a while, so I needed to do a little setup. I finally had the flames going and heating up the box a little bit after 7:30. Usually, I like to go for low and slow, so I got the smoker up to about 220 degrees and a batch of apple wood chips in the smoker box. Brisket, in, fat side up, middle rack.

Off and on I checked in on the meat for the next couple hours. When the apple chips were used up, I added a couple helpings of peach chips until the meat reached about 140 degrees. At that point I was going to let it go smokeless until 180 degrees. But now it needed a good mopping of additional flavor.

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Mid-Smoke Baste
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp black raspberry jam
2 tbsp water
1 tsp orange marmalade
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp lime juice

Melt butter, add other ingredients. Warm in microwave and stir until all ingredients mix evenly.


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At this point in the process it was getting quite late. I had to leave early in the morning, but this was important to get right. I basted the brisket once and turned it fat side down for the next 45 minutes at 250 degrees. Then another basting and back to fat side up for another 45 minutes at…300, because honestly, I did need to get to bed. Once the internal temperature was 180 degrees, I took it out to rest on the kitchen counter til it was cool enough to slice, then cool enough to put in the fridge. I finally finished at 1:30 am, and had some glorious smokey goodness.

This weekend I wanted to use some of that glorious meat in another application; slow-cooked chili. Most of the time when I am cooking, I don’t use hard-set recepies and go from a general idea, then pick elements here and there that feel right to go with it. I wasn’t under pressure to get this meal completed, so I took my time and thought out the ingredients.

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Slow Cook Brisket Chili
5 strips of smoked bacon
Cook up the bacon in a frying pan until it is just shy of crispy. Remove bacon and set aside.

1/2 c. chopped celery
1 c. chopped red pepper
1 1/2 c. chopped red onion
5 cloves garlic, chopped.

Sweat the vegetables minus the garlic in the hot pan with the bacon fat until onions are almost translucent. Add the chopped garlic on top and continue cooking for several minutes.

In large crock pot add:
2 tbsp olive oil
28 oz can (1) crushed tomatoes
27 oz can (1) red kidney beans
15 oz can (2) black beans
16 oz can (1) cannellini beans
12 oz can (1) tomato paste
6 oz smoked brisket, chunked or cubed
5 slices of bacon (cooked above) chopped
2 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground mustard
6 ground allspice berries
1/2 tsp hickory smoke flavor
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp Better Than Bouillon, Beef
2 cups water
1 cup apple juice or apple cider (optional)
Vegetables and garlic (cooked above)

If I had it available, I would have added:
1 tsp ground fennel seed

Set crock pot on high, uncovered for about an hour. Covered on high for another hour. Then covered on low for another 4-5 hours. Total of 6-7 hours in the crock pot...stirring occasionally.


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So what was the end result of a messy mix of some half-baked planning and some reckless spontaneity? Hopefully a bunch of halfway decent meals. I got some positive reviews from the wife, and she had the suggestion that I share…so…here ya go! Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of the process, so you will just have to imagine how tasty it looks.

At one time, a little boy in a yellow and black squiggly striped shirt was famous for frequently lamenting “Good Grief!” to express his dismay at his situation. No matter how amusing the scenario was for Charlie Brown to resort to his most memorable catchphrase, I always thought that the words themselves never really made much sense. Can there really be such a thing as good grief? Is there actually some variety of that horrible feeling that could be considered positive? It is rather a dark thought to be having while reading a comic strip about a little boy with a cute dog and blonde bird, but I’ve always had a bit of a morose streak in me. There are times when these kinds of random thoughts feel more pertinent to share than at others, and I have felt recently more compelled to gather a few together into some sort of a bundle that might make sense to someone.

There is no shortage of unhappy detours and rockslides for us to endure on the roughly hewn mountain trail of life, but the intense despair and emptiness of grief never seems like a path that anyone truly chooses to take and never feels anywhere close to good. When someone is assailed by the emotions and emptiness of a devastating loss, it is difficult to articulate comfort or support in any meaningful way. We stammer condolence, but words alone cannot express the depths of sympathy required to ease the pain. We reach out to hug or hold, but arms cannot replace the presence or protection that was taken away. We see the loss, we share in the loss, but no one can repair it. We feel truly helpless, but we still must assist somehow, so we try. A card, a flower, a plate of meat and cheese, none of these things actually help, but we are desperate to show we care somehow. We shuffle awkwardly through a line to ineffectually whisper some comfort-like words that are received in equal awkwardness and punctuated with a trembling handshake or embrace. We solemnly move through the line with eyes averted, internally chastising ourselves for the words not coming out quite right, for sounding trite and hollow like a glitter greeting card.

On the other side, the bereaved are struggling for composure, sometimes in shock but still trying to stand strong. They accept the words, the cards, the plates of meat and cheese with a conflicting smile that approaches gratitude, but guiltily skulks away from any emotion that feels inordinately too early or disrespectful to entertain. Nothing feels appropriate, so everything feels inappropriate and uncomfortable. All spoken and written words ring hollow out of no one’s fault but the complete inadequacy of our language to convey the breadth of emotion that builds and seeps from the corners of our eyes. No one knows what to say, no one knows how to reply.

Everyone handles sorrow in their own way and it is usually difficult for us to see our own limit and see it in the same hue of light that is seen by our friends, family and neighbors. However, one common element that remains the same under any shade of light is the feeling that grief is awful, and we would rather stay happy, or at least comfortable, rather than deal with that painful emptiness.  We block memories from our minds, bottle up our emotions and build walls around our hearts to protect ourselves at all costs from experiencing that harm. Those defenses are different for each person and they significantly alter the fragile facade of recovery. We can sometimes succeed in keeping the pain behind as we bravely attempt to stagger forward, but its creeping shadow lurks low and close, waiting for the vulnerability of solitude, biding its time to viciously clutch at our heels.

A sudden strike upsets the delicately constructed balance and we crumble to the floor amidst the dusty rubble of our carefully fashioned defenses. A storm of tearful memories rises up from the cloudy blue into a swirling rage, releasing its fury at gale force and battering our soul with relentless blows. When the storm finally subsides, we’re left alone and defeated in a gloomy puddle of brokenness and despair. At that darkest moment, in that full devastation, is it possible to feel anything but completely helpless and shattered? It is a strange thing to feel not mourning but to feel comfort in the midst of unspeakable pain, but that pain should confirm what you already know…this matters to me. Feel the good that is now amplified from the mourning of its absence. Feel the calm privilege of having had the opportunity of holding anyone or anything so dearly that it matters to you so. Feel not the loss, but feel the beautiful fullness of all that you were given for a time.

One day you will reluctantly find yourself on a hill of cold stones in the crisp winter air as the wind flutters coats and crunchy leaves and distant notes of Taps. Time will be a dark and murky bog, and your heart will hang heavy in your chest. Though it doesn’t seem possible, don’t feel alone. Stand close in those moments as the final words of the final memorials are shared. Feel peace in stillness of the final prayer. This pain, this loss, shows what you’ve already gained.

Hold close…to what you have and were given.

Hold close…how much this matters to you.

Most everyone has had to call a tech support phone line at some point. No matter who I have conversed with on this topic, they usually feel roughly the same way about it.  They’d rather have their eyes poked with rusty forks then have to go through a call to a technical support line. I understand their pain. Perhaps more than they might realize since I have actually been stabbed by a rusty fork…not in the eye, but it still really hurt! And sometimes even I would rather be stabbed again by that fork then call a support line. Too bad it’s part of my job.

Generally, I don’t really like to talk about my job, much less write about it. I’ve always been warned…don’t ever cross the streams, that would be bad. But it’s a little bit unavoidable in this topic, so there’s that. I understand the pain more than a fork in the eye, I’ve spent a great deal of time on both sides of those types of calls. There is the side where I’ve been the tech support person on the phone trying to impart some sort of arcane wisdom from the dark reaches of cyberspace to help solve why a mouse pointer keeps changing into an hourglass. Those conversations can be left for another time. This little anecdote is about the other side, my own calls into tech support.

Over the years I’ve been through it all on IT support calls. Quick and painless ones or long drawn-out multiple hour-long affairs. Some conversations that proved very helpful, others that you wonder if they have ever even seen a computer. And I have heard hold music, far, far more than my fair share of hold music. Minutes, hours, days and weeks of hold music. Hold while they talk to their boss, hold while they look up your question, hold before anyone will actually even start talking to you. I’ve even been put on hold for an hour and a half to wait for the next available technician with 23 other calls ahead of me, only to be disconnected when finally reaching the very end of the queue.

When most people complain about their experience on a tech support call, they inevitably mention they were connected to someone in India that didn’t know what they were talking about. My experience with off-shore tech support is a bit different. First of all, on some topics, I’ve found some of the Indian tech support agents to be the most knowledgeable that I’ve come across. I’ve spoken to engineering agents and teams of agents from India that write and explain code that would make the heads of their US counterparts just spin in bewilderment. I’ve also spoken with agents from Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Japan, Indonesia, France, and Italy, as well as others from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. These are just the ones I remember off the top of my head and were just the ones I had bothered to ask about location. I am sure that if I dug deeper, there would be many other countries represented in my pool of experience as well. No matter where the agent is from, there is one thing I have found in common with all of the techs of all nationalities. The good ones make sure that you both understand each other.

There is a Kilimanjaro of vital information that can be lost in translation and it doesn’t matter if the language is nationality-based, or jargon-based. Whether someone is speaking in Urdu or in tech acronyms, they first must make sure that the person listening actually comprehends the words being said. This concept can get tricky when one is speaking a language that is actually their second language. This is also where your internal translator can get a workout when trying to filter what you hear into what you understand.

Most of the time, I am fine with comprehending accented English. It can be kinda fun to guess where a person is from based on the inflections and words they pronounce. Even though I find the conversation still works, I do find myself having to work a little harder at comprehending the words I am hearing.  My brain chugs a little as it spends time re-verifying that I heard correctly, and I can see where that would be mental tripping hazard for a lot of people. I can also see how that trip up could cause instant frustrations and bias when encountering the same sounds again. This whole idea became very clear to me one day after I had a particularly challenging hour long troubleshooting conference call with four pretty smart people all working to solve a problem together. All four people just happened to be from different continents speaking with their own accented English. I honestly had a little bit of a headache when I hung up, it was exhausting, and all I was really doing was internally translating variations of English!

A stunning illustration of how much extra work your brain is forced through when processing accented English comes when you see how an automatic message transcription service translates a technical call from a person speaking English as a second language.  I just so happen to have some great exhibits where the results speak for themselves.  There shouldn’t be much background needed on the problem being solved, and I won’t say which country the tech was from.

After working for several hours on some ongoing issues one day in the relatively recent past, we took a break from our phone call for my helper to do some research.  He called back some time later and left a message for me.  My messaging service translated the following:

Call #1

Eric Riley from the social and support team calling in regards to an incident so that it really sure what this means. So hoping … that there will be a you that the hotel H A … you can come home and is for candy supposed to supposed to be so please it’s urgent … I wanted to confirm this notification press onto any means of a little bit. Thank you have a nice day

It seemed to start off pretty well there at first, but you can see that it quickly went downhill. I knew in great detail what he was supposed to be calling about but I couldn’t even come close to figuring out what that text implied he was saying. It really didn’t get much better than that either. The issues continued and I received several more calls from the same company. The next message I got on this problem was from a different agent…

Call #2

Yeah hi Denise this is louis from Microsoft in supposed been calling in regards to in case the last week we will be sleeping so hopefully … I e of the do this via the Internet and phone is giving us the just wondered who is about on this case you do because I am suspended pending snow storm … please let us know how you wanted to close to do this is thank you.

At least we got a company name out of that one! Over the next couple of days I received a few more messages on the same support issue from 2 different support agents, with varying degrees of translation success.

Call #3

Hey hi this is louise from Microsoft into for the call is in regards to a new this severely sure we will … you just been tied off all food inc. if you know the proposal template in this case. Thank you any line is that nobody.

Call #4

Yeah hi could … I was hoping this is for this … So hopefully just wanted to discuss this issue … selfish and wondered were doing on this is … for the defer those belts that is listed you as part of the dentist office there but if you do the whole beach and wonderful to this message. So Beach … she’s on the Fulton. Please take me to work with me please two donation’s love..

Call #5

Hey how you please visit with from Microsoft me supposed to be this is in regards to Juanita supposed to be open the same we have received a non issue will continue to investigate and I will be do that you had it in time and open each of Alan and … I was hoping for me to just … that she said he’s only do it and send the other two phone calls from your side as want to the city to make it sounds good? But I have been off so please let me know how you wanted to thank you this is Willy.

Call #6

Yeah hi liz this is Lee from Microsoft beautiful in this call is in regards to an interest in either insurable. If anything’s couple of days … you had … ovations from the back and say they can support those for sex and the city. So just wanted to check over the issues is what I did know talk. I was not any minute not want anything just wanted to call and thank you in advanced.

By the way, at no point were these conversations ever actually interacting with anyone named Louise, Liz, Lee, Juanita, Denise, Fulton or Willy.  I’ve known more than a few techs that shortened their given name so that it would seem more pronounceable for Americans, but the name Willy was never one of them.

I was able to call these agents back and we eventually worked through our technical difficulties, but I did find myself amazed that we were able to collaborate at all through our linguistic difficulties. It helped me be more appreciative of what the human brain can comprehend and interpret. Think of your brain doing those same translations the next time you call in and get Raj from India. I would bet you are translating his instructions a lot better than the hopeless text above! Think of what Raj’s brain is having to sift through as well, I bet his is doing more work than yours, never mind the cultural differences.  Sure, both your brains will make some mistakes, it will be frustrating, and you might get a bit of a headache.  But think about how cool it is that you can even communicate with each other at all…and remember, Raj probably has a headache from listening to you too!