Random Song Lyric #25 – I went to London to find Canadian music

So after a very long hiatus, the random song lyric is back. I am now living in England doing my Masters. It’s a music related field, and really, this is a city for music. This is where The Clash are from. This is where Queen is from. So many bands I can’t name them all. And still, I’m becoming more and more convinced the greatest lyricist of all time might be Canadian:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Filed under: London

A Treatise on Two Cheeses

So, a couple weeks ago, I decided to make pizza for my group of friends (tentatively called the scoobies hereafter, mainly due to the resemblance to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I’m Oz) in order to show them what true Regina pizza is like.

Whilst I was shopping for ingredients, I ran into a few snags.  The veg was fine, mushrooms, peppers, pineapple, it’s all here.  However, they don’t go overboard with 80 kinds of bbq sauce the we do in North America.  This forced me to adjust my sauce recipe (calling Dr. Daniels, Dr. Jack Daniels).  The bbq sauce I found is good, but it’s actually a bit too strongly flavoured to my liking for pizza sauce.  It made an adequate replacement, and I’ll continue using it.

The real issue came when it was time to top the pizza.  No Calabrese.  No Cappocolo.  While I have since found some Cap, I swear it’s impossible to find Calabrese in this city.  So, I grabbed some German salami as a nice substitute.

Then to get some cheese.  Provolone?  Nope.  Ok, how about Monterrey Jack?  Nope.  Alright, I guess I can use Mozzarella.  Nope.  What?!  No Mozzarella?  WTH?  Seriously, who doesn’t have mozza?  In the end, I ended up using a bag of pre shreaded, mixed swiss and mozzarella, that was obviously designed to top pizza and provide no flavour.  As an aside, emmental is easy to get there, and my usual pizza cheese is half emmental and half provolone.

Since there were a ton of British cheese, of which I had never heard, available, I got down to business and started trying them out.

First off, 90% of the cheese isle in a UK supermarket is cheddars.  Now, these are what I’ve always called real cheddar.  White, very old, a little crumbly, strong sharp flavor.  The kind of stuff Balderson’s makes.  And it’s all good.  I love the sharp cheddars they have, and I’m happy to see them offered cheaply and plentifully.

Now on to the other British cheeses.  There are three major varieties (not including Stilton, which is famous enough that I knew what it was in advance.)  They are, Double Gloucester, Cheshire, and Leicester.  Leicester is a bright red color, all through, so I decided to hold of on trying it until I had a better handle on UK cheese.  I bought a block each of Cheshire and Double Gloucester.

Double Glocester is essentially what at home they call Canadian Cheddar.  Bright orange, smooth, not crumbly at all, cheddary flavour, but not quite as sharp as the real stuff.  It would melt easily in a grilled cheese sandwich (processed cheese is for heretics) or on top of a burger.  Good stuff, but nothing I haven’t had a billion times.

Cheshire, is a white cheese, that is very crumbly and tangy.  If that sounds like feta to you, then you aren’t far off.  Although not quite identical to feta, it is very similar.  It’s a dryer cheese, however, and slightly milder.  Honestly, I like it more, and just finished making some risotto with it.

So, in the end, I’ve found that the UK really is a lot like home.  They have the same cheese here, they just call it by different names.  Well except for the still missing Italian cheeses.

Filed under: London

Where has the time gone?

Well, I am happily settled in London now.  So much has happened in the past month and a half, it’s hard to summarize all in one post.

I got in to residence, and am living there right now.  I got particularly lucky in the room draw, as I have the biggest room in my flat and it has two windows because it is on the corner.  I have some excellent flat mates, who hail from China, Greece, Greece, Denmark, and Taiwan.  I’ve met lots of new friends from all over the world, and had a bit too much beer. 

I have my first class tomorrow, and am quite excited to finally get started on my program.

I have uploaded most of my pictures to my newly upgraded flickr account, so you can feel free to check them out here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/11702947@N00/sets/

Filed under: London

Grad School

I’ve been accepted to the Digital Music Processing program at Queen Mary, University of London.  This is a Masters of Science program (M.Sc.) within their Electronic Engineering faculty.  The details of the program can be found by following the link over in the menu, but the jist is that it is a Digital Signal Processing degree with a focus on music and hi fidelity audio.  Those of you who know me from engineering probably know that DSP was by far my favorite class during my undergrad, and those of you who know me from before engineering probably remember my somewhat out of control love of music.  This program is a marriage of those two fields, and thus pretty much tailored specifically to my interests.

So, I’m off to London, UK to pursue my dream of a career in Music and Engineering at the same time.  I decided to start this blog as a place to track my experiences.  I’ve never been overseas before, let alone lived in a different country.  I expect it to be something worth writing about.  I’ve also bought a fancy new camera (Panasonic TZ3) to document my journeys.  So you can expect some of my mediocre photography to accompany my postings.

Filed under: London