sunshine and tomatoes: british expat

Wednesday, 12 March 2014

The Best of British!

You only have to spend a few minutes on my little blog to realise a couple of things. One, is that I am not a fan of the Italian post office. Another, is that I love exploring southern Italy. But one of the most obvious thing you can find out from my blog, is that I love Italian food. Dolce, pizza, pasta, gelato... the list of things I love eating here in Italy is endless. But underneath all of that love for Italian cuisine, I am still very British. There are a huge number of British products that you can't get for love nor money here in the Boot, so I may have literally yelped with joy when this wonderful package found its way to my door:

check out the FLAG!!!!

Thanks to the lovely people at the British Corner Shop (http://www.britishcornershop.co.uk/), my cupboard is now well stocked with some yummy goodies, including (but definitely not limited to) chocolate digestives, walkers crisps, Cadbury's fingers, Jamaica ginger cake and, the piece de resistance... LYLE'S GOLDEN SYRUP. Over 400g of thick, sugary goodness now sits in my kitchen cupboard. 'Is it like powdered sugar?' one Italian friend speculated. I corrected him by slowly prising open the lid and dazzling him with the golden GLOW.

One week after ordering, my package arrived on Monday. I discovered (via the handy UPS tracking service) that it had had a (relaxing?) weekend stuck in Bari. Trust the Italians to delay my British goodies. My Italian man was just as excited as I was about the package. 'Ooo my crisps!' he (incorrectly) stated. After a peaceful night's rest, safe in the knowledge that I had all sorts of deliciousness sitting downstairs, I did the only sensible thing possible: made a load of flapjack.

With 250g oats, 100g of butter, about 120g of brown sugar and two tablespoons of golden syrup, I recreated one of my favourite British recipes. My boyfriend took a load of the stuff for his parents to try and they apparently LOVED it. Well, what do you know. Those food-fussy Italians do enjoy some quality British grub!

In some of the flapjacks, I even added a cheeky bit of Green and Black's cooking chocolate, which had also arrived in my package. And guess what I'm having for my tea tonight? Oh yes, WARBURTONS CRUMPETS. ( 'So, do you like, make a sandwich out of these or what?' Silly Italian.)

So, if any of you fellow expats fancy a quick fix of some tasty British treats, check out a massive selection of stuff at the British Corner Shop, which also has an ever-growing American section too. Next on my list? Quavers and ginger biccies!

Happy eating!

Thursday, 27 June 2013

Back to good old Blighty...

Hello everyone! Once again, my sincere apologies for not posting any sooner. I have a brilliant excuse though- honest! Firstly, last week I moved house. Now, I've heard that moving can be one of the most stressful things you'll ever do. And to be honest, it was rather stressful. Me and the Italian one exchanged more than a few biting remarks as we carried stuff down three flights of stairs/loaded a bookcase that was far too big into the back of his Fiat/marvelled at how much stuff I actually HAVE. And we did all of this in 34 degrees of horrid, sweaty heat. Now don't get me wrong, I am a massive fan of hot weather, but when you have to do heavy lifting in said hot weather? Erm, no thanks.

And as well as the heavy lifting with a generous side of bickering and copious amounts of sweating, I have also made my way back to good old Blighty. It's raining as I write this, by the way. After experiencing a rather turbulent flight which included someone vomiting on the floor (eww), I had the most fantastic time EVER with some friends in London. I went here there and everywhere, squealing at the sheer amount of PEOPLE (I'd been in a small, rural town for a good 6 months until that point) and meeting friends I hadn't seen for years, as well as the regular crowd. We had overpriced cocktails, danced to northern soul and Motown hits, got absolutely drenched in the rain and enjoyed a delicious pancake breakfast...it was simply lovely. Then I made my way back to my home county of Worcestershire and ever since, I have been relaxing, watching terrible British TV, eating pub lunches, going on nice walks, raiding Primark and of course, getting a nice bit of TLC from my mum.

It's back to Italy next week and I shall try my best to resume regular blogging activities, but until then, I shall leave you with a few snapshots of the Brit week so far...