Martha's Marvellous Munchies

The stuff of life. A ploughmans lunch in a country pub. Cheddar rolls for a picnic in the hills. Brie smeared on crusty French bread. Why, then, do Americans struggle so hard with the concept? It's not that you can't get decent bread and cheese over here. You can - if you go to posh shops and pay inflated prices. It's that the everyday stuff is so abysmal. Let's start with cheese. If you go to the regular packaged cheese section in the supermarket, there's a choice of about four varieties. The most flavoursome is the "sharp cheddar", which is about on a par with the mild Cheddar sold in the UK. What's worse is that the packets are all labeled "natural cheese". This makes me depressed every time I see it. What kind of a country is it where you can get unnatural cheese? And the citizens might not know the difference unless it's pointed out to them? THIS is what receives the proud title of "American cheese". Processed, ...

It is rare to find a place that has been planned and tended so carefully that every view, vista or passing glimpse is a beautiful one. It is even rarer that you can spend as long as you like in such a place for a mere dollar apiece. The Dallas Arboretum during August is just that place. Dallas skyline in the distance. An infinity pond merges seamlessly into White Rock Lake. The garden was planted on the grounds of two estates. I believe this was one of the original houses. For added interest, there were children's-story-themed playhouses dotted around. This rather abstract one is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I'd heard of this book a few times but never tracked down a copy, so was delighted to find an online text here . This next is Hansel and Gretel , of course. Disappointingly there was no view of a witch being pushed into the oven when you looked through the windows. Only some old chairs. Eragon by Christopher Paolini. He was 15 whe...

We came home with tons of photos from our Virginia trip. Some of them don't really illustrate anything in particular, but are too good not to show off. Here's a selection. OK, so I know squirrels are just tree rats really, but they are cute. Especially when they're trying to eat a piece of bread as big as their head. Me in one of my favourite poses. We encountered a lot of pets on our trip. I was happy. Real birds in a fake tree. This was an art installation in Pittsburgh, and even close up it was hard to tell that the trees weren't real. The quintessential American country church. My aunt and uncle are renovating a house up in the mountains, and this newspaper, dated August 31st 1919, was pasted to one wall. Doesn't it seem incredible that the "fight for women's suffrage" happened so recently? Graham chillin' out with Mr Jefferson. Ummm... I seem to have got the Washington Monument stuck in my head......

1. Spending time with friends and family. As well as seeing my parents, grandparents and assorted other close relatives, we also visited some of my mum's brother's wife's family (got that?!) who live in an incredibly beautiful part of the world in the western Virginia mountains. John and I got to know them when we came to America by ourselves as children, and when I calculated how long it was since I'd last seen them I wished we'd planned a much longer stay. However, we were en route to see more friends whom I knew from Bristol, now residing near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We were greeted not only by the Ewings but also a couple more Bristolians, so it was a veritable reunion! I'm always touched by how warmly American families welcome you into their home, sit you down in front of a delicious meal, and offer to lend you anything and everything that might make your stay more pleasant. Thanks y'all! 2. Enjoying the James River via canoes,...

Believe it or not, we've now been married for over a year! In honour of our first wedding anniversary, John and Kristal (and Kristal's mom) very kindly arranged for us to stay in a beautiful little cottage over their wedding weekend. It was a fantastic place with everything you could possibly want, including cinnamon raisin bread in the fridge for breakfast. The large lawn just outside ran down to the Piankatank River, with a long jetty from which we spied ospreys and jellyfish. After the wedding on Saturday, we strolled along Bethel Beach, a narrow strip of sand between the Chesapeake Bay and some protected wetlands. We helped a kite surfer launch his enormous kite and were amused by the antics of some fiddler crabs. These lopsided critters have one claw bigger than the other. They sit in little holes in the sand or mud, and if you stand still for a few minutes they all start popping out to take a look around. As we drove back into Mathews we...

Once you get to a certain age, you suddenly start going to a lot of weddings. Gradually they all tend to fade into a white-dress-pretty-flowers-dancing-music-best-man's-speech kind of blur, but a few still stand out. Some for good reasons, some for bad, and some for just being an altogether lovely day. Of course, when it's your brother getting married, that automatically makes it stand out from the average, but John and Kristal's wedding definitely fell into the "altogether lovely day" category. With my grandfather officiating, they made some simple and beautiful vows under a shady tree in the garden of Kristal's honorary grandparents. The Chesapeake Bay shimmered in the background while a soft breeze kept things cooler for the guests seated on gingham-covered hay bales. After a few family photos by the cheerful photographer, John and Kristal departed for the reception venue, perched up on the back of a red convertible (don't worry, the roads ar...

Last weekend we headed down to the Austin/San Antonio area for a relaxing time with a few friends. We saw the bats at the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin, had a few drinks on 6th St , went tubing , climbed Enchanted Rock , and had a meal on the River Walk in San Antonio . All of which I've blogged about before, so just click on the links if you want the details. Pedernales Falls deserves a mention, though. We dropped in at the state park on our way from Austin to New Braunfels, and cooled down with a dip in the Pedernales River. The Falls themselves weren't exactly falling, but were spectacular all the same. The river runs over some huge slabs of limestone, forming beautiful green pools and sculpting the rock into curvaceous features. Flash flooding is apparently a common occurence; see here for some awesome before-and-after photos. All was calm and serene while we were there though. There's not a lot of spare water around Texas in the summer. The ...