Martha's Marvellous Munchies

That pretty much sums up our recent trip to the East Coast. My parents were over for a visit so we flew to Richmond for a week to join them and other members of the family, and admire my brother and sister-in-law's newly acquired house. We arrived to stay a whole three days after they had moved in, which has got to be some kind of hospitality record. Major props to them for making us feel very welcome despite trying to repaint, unpack, do general DIY and deal with their cat having kittens all at the same time! Virginia is beautiful in the spring, with flowering bushes and trees every way you look. Those cherry trees with their big puffy bunches of pink blossom are my all-time favourites and there were whole streets full of them. We paid a visit to the Lewis Ginter Botanic Garden for extra flower admiration. Tulips at the botanic garden The problem with America's size is that a few hundred miles suddenly falls into the category of "just around the corner". We...

These are the most chocolatey chocolate cookies I've ever made. Small surprise given that they involve melted chocolate, cocoa powder and chocolate chips. The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson's latest book, Nigella Express . And she apparently got it from a book called Big Fat Cookies . If you make these original size they really are big fat cookies, and so rich you will struggle to eat a whole one. I've already made this recipe twice, due to spousal demand, and the second time halved the size to give 24 cookies instead of 12. This is better, I think, and less likely to result in big fat Whites. I've tried to convert the recipe to dual-nationality units. The strange amount for chocolate chips is because here you get 11 oz packages which say they are 2 cups. so the first time I used a whole one of those. The second time I had a 12 oz package, and just used 4 oz to melt and the remaining 8 oz unmelted. It still seemed like plenty. In the UK choc chips come in teen...

Today I passed my driving test! Texas insists that you take its own personal driving test if you move from a different country, cheerfully disregarding the previous decade of driving experience you may have accumulated. Still, at least they don't take your UK drivers licence and shred it in front of you, as happens if you move from another state. I'm not sure I could have coped with the trauma. The plus side of a decade of being behind a wheel is that this was considerably less nerve-wracking than my original test. It was also a lot easier, involving one parallel parking maneuver and a 10-minute drive around some almost empty streets. Unfortunately the Texas Department of Public Safety appears to be allergic to the appointment system. So you line up to be given some forms to fill out and a number. When your number is called you stand in another line to have your photo taken and do the computer-based test. You then get in your car and wait in a third line until a drivi...

It seemed as if my previous post was out-of-date five minutes after I'd written it. We pretty much immediately made the decision to stay in Texas for a few more years - most likely about two more, depending on Graham's job (which will have a definite end point at some time) and how long we can cope with the heat. Graham's company still haven't made a firm decision about how they'll arrange everything, but it was easier to go ahead and decide. We aren't likely to be worse off than we would be in England, either way. That decision out of the way, I felt like I could move forward with career ideas. Believe it or not, I'm applying for chemistry jobs. Or at least I am when I'm not procrastinating by writing blog entries. (I did four applications yesterday; I'm sure being run over by a steamroller is a less draining experience.) Whether anyone wants to hire a not-so-recent chemistry graduate with a lot of cake decorating experience remains to be seen...

What are you doing right now? When are you coming back to the UK? Do you think you'll stay in Texas permanently? How long does Graham's contract last? Sometimes you come to a crossroads in life. Sometimes you come to a mass of decisions which feels more like Swindon's magic roundabout. Believe it or not, our initial three-year stay in Texas (two for me) will be up in August, and the pressure's on to decide what to do next. There's more than a possibility we can stay longer, and the idea is not unattractive. Fort Worth certainly has its good points: That legendary Southern hospitality. People say hello when you're walking down the street. Families you barely know invite you for Thanksgiving. Shop assistants give you advice on making babies (OK, that was a bit over the top!) Sunshine. Lots of it. Spa-a-a-a-ce. Did you know England has a population density of about 990 people per square mile? It's the most crowded country in Europe, according to...

One of the pitfalls of moving to a different country is that words often mean something different to what you think they mean. A trolley is a form of transport that runs on rails down the street, rather than something you put your shopping in. That's a cart. Which doesn't carry as much of a connotation of "horse and" as it does in the UK. And I was recently gently informed that "jugs" more usually refer to a part of the female anatomy than to something you put milk in. I will have to get used to saying "pitcher". Isn't that what you hang on a wall? After a few years here, we are mostly au fait with the local lingo, and manage to turn up at the right place and avoid offending the natives. However, on Friday night, Graham found out that there was a gospel music concert going on at a local church. Our Americanism detector did not light up, and the predominant picture in both our heads was something like this: Big choir, bright colours, high-...

Well, I know all my neighbours to the east are heartily sick of snow already, but snow in Texas is about as common as cowboy boots in London, so you're just going to have to grit your teeth and listen to me rave about it for five minutes. If it makes you feel better you can always do the "12 inches? That's nothing! Bunch of wusses!" routine. We always enjoy mocking the locals when it rains and the news stations send reporters out to stand there damply telling us how wet it is. But significant snowfall is outside of our comfort zone, too, so we're happily staying off work and panic-buying cat litter or whatever it is you're supposed to do. So, yes, the photos. It was very wet snow, so venturing out was a rather splashy business enlivened by occasional plunges into ankle-deep liquid slush. Nevertheless, I sloshed my way down W 7th St, determined to extract maximum enjoyment from the situation. This guy didn't look too impressed. The snow stuck to the...