I think Canada is superior; I went up to Alberta and B.C. recently and no two stores were exactly the same, with a lot of good candies in each. And ice cream is not candy, even though candy can sometimes be ice cream.

http://store.iuneeds.com/images/snickers_icecream_bars.jpg

how expensive would it be to go to japan for a weekend?

My Father was from south of Memphis. A small MS. town and I actually lived there as a small child during WWII but have no memories from living there and was brought back to Alaska (my Mother's home) as soon as the war was over. My parents moved back to MS when my Dad retired and lived there until they passed away. I visited there many times throughout life and thus my reason for knowing anything at all about Memphis. It's a great city with a lot of soul and my love of the blues is probably due to my many vacations spent visiting relatives there. I've not been there since my parents passed away. Great city though but of course, like all places, it has some faults and problems.

My son's bi-lingual, simply because he didn't know that dvd's came with any other sound track than the original English one for the first five years of his life..

..and I tend to throw in a lot of conversational English with him as well.


It was fascinating to watch as in the beginning the two languages weer inseparable to him. It was almost tangible the moment that the two languages separated in his mind. My doc said that if MRI's were conducted, we would have seen in the beginning that both languages were originating from the same area of the brain, and that when they separated they also took up different area inside the brain. -not that my son went through an MRI, just the *if*..

Apparently every language learned after the first two are 'embedded' within one of the first two regions of the brain, and not in a third area.


This has been a random drive-by involuntary factual information insursion. Although nothing compared to finding out Summer's actually a Memphis belle.

Waiiiiiit a sec, What small town? >___>

That's pretty cool that your son can speak two languages, has he learned how to 'Ramble like an old man' yet?

Why go for just a weekend ? A flight would likely cost you alot, so may aswell go for as long a possible for value for money. In Japan I have no idea. I dont even understand their currency. Seems weird having things cost thousands of yen. It would be as if, we used pennies, instead of pounds. But it could be worse, like when my mother talks about shillings.

It's either 'gift of the gab' or 'diarrhea of the mouth', I haven't decided yet with him. But it's persistent, that's for sure.

Gift of the Diarrhea.

What an interesting read...

As for chocolate - I grew up on Hershey's but haven't eaten it for years. I'm a Lindt fan myself... but when I try to eat other chocolate, like Hershey's or Mars, it seems.... waxy almost? So I have to say that even growing up with it, I don't like it anymore.

Can anyone explain to me what Turkish Delight is? I tried something that was supposedly that, supposedly imported, and I still to this day can't tell you what it was that I ate. It was... odd.

To those in the UK: Is it true that you tend to have lots of old things in your homes? This may be a seriously ignorant assumption, but it always astounds me when I watch real estate or auction shows from the UK and how many antiques everyone seems to have. I'm seriously jealous... Here in America is seems things are made to be disposed of, not to be kept.

Could be that they drop the ABV to drop below a tax/excise/levy/theft threshold. I can't imagine it being a legal issue.

I haven't been to the UK, but do know a bit about beer. There are various styles that are supposed to be served chilled (~7C, for many of the common ones), but there are also some that should be served closer to cellar temperatures (10, 15C), which may be perceived as warm to people used to beer stored in food fridges (which I would expect to be around 4C). As a very general rule, the darker and heaver the beer, the higher the serving temperature -- for pale larger it's pretty low, but barleywine is on the uppermost end.

As the temperature drops, the hops becomes more dominant while the malts fade to the background. So if you have a beer that's all about the hops with a minimal malt presence, you want to chill it down to help bring it out. On the other hand, if you've got a malt focused brew, you'll find a little more warmth will enhance the taste. 'Course, you can go too far in either direction no matter the drink.

To further complicate things, there's also mulled beer. Doubt it works too well with crud like Budweiser (or VB, or Fosters, etc.), but if you grab something heavy -a porter might be enough, though doppelbock or barleywine would be a better, I think- you may be surprised after heating it up and spicing to taste.

Can someone from Canada tell me the name of those fries with gravy and cheese curds? I know it sounds horrible but it's really yummy and I'd like to learn to make it. The gravy is pretty special.

@ http://www.gamesas.com/user/615553-colonel-martyr/: Near Sardis.

Very interesting, thank you for your thoughts.

Just saying, I have never had or even *seen* warm beer on the other side of the pond. And the people from over there with whom I've spoken to about it, seem to think it sounds terrible as well.

Still, I could see how different types of beer could warrant different tempuratures.

That's not that far from where I live now. o_o (Walls MS)

To any non-American: how is the diversity of foreign foods in other countries? We have Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean, Greek (LAMB ), Italian, and Mexican restaurants in my very rural area.

Sardis...just off the "double nickel" aka Highway I-55.
My folks were from Lambert, & Marks Mississippi, just East of Clarksdale...which is the location of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads"...not that far from Sardis...& 60-70 miles south of Memphis.

I love that entire Mississippi Delta area. Some places have cotton almost as far as the eye can see...in season.

Dad's buried in Crowder, MS.

Wow...Colonel Martyr...You're real close to the river...

Because we can make enough of it to fire it out of cannons at everyone else and at a quarter of the cost you make yours for. Buddha knows, I'd never eat American cheese, I hate all chocolate and I'm no fan of wine so that suits me fine.

In France, people prefer it in general I suppose. Never seen anyone who could be bothered to read subtitles, and there's frankly nary a person who can speak english good enough anyway. Lip movement is good enough, voices used to be real bad but are more or less correct these days, translation blows, and I mean really blows. I learned english myself merely to cut out the middle name.

The stupid "everything in french" laws do nothing to protect culture (how do american series in french do that anyway ?), given the average mastery of french in on TV or in games, they sure as hell don't promote good speech. *shrug* I maintain we wouldn't at least svck so badly at spoken english if there was more subbed stuff.

Does it make you mad that the world refers to you as Europe? *


*The world being America

I'd forgotten all about those things! I remember eating a few too many in the 1990s. Now I avoid them for obvious reasons...


Turkish Delight is a sort of typically rose-flavoured jelly (as in gelatine, not jam) type of stuff. You tend to find it either as approx. 1" cubes dusted with icing sugar, or in the UK as a commercial version made by Fry's in the form of a short, squat bar covered in chocolate.

The amount of old clutter depends on the person! A lot of people prefer to keep their homes uncluttered, like our neighbours who are very spartan compared to the average but especially the likes of us, who accumulate all sorts of odds and ends. I think with the prevalence of programmes about antiques a lot of people believe that they (or more specifically their relatives who they'll inherit from) have rare and valuable objects waiting to be found but usually it's all just old tat. I think a lot of it also depends on the era: my grandparents' generation and beyond were far more likely to adorn their houses with trinkets than is often the case today. But aside from any of that, it is nice to keep and maintain old stuff rather than viewing everything as disposable.


Tends to vary according to the area; and, generally speaking, its immigrant communities, so the UK has always had quite a number of Indian and Chinese food outlets, for instance. It also varies according to what's in vogue at any given time, and what tends to be in vogue these days is quite a wide cultural cross-section. I couldn't tell you exactly what we have here in Oxfordshire but probably quite a lot of it.

Gasp! (Did Bitter Coast just call the internet "nowhere"?)

I am not Canadian, but I believe that you are referring to a dish called poutine. I almost tried it once, but clinging to tradition I decided to order a hamburger instead. Sigh...

Poutine is one of the greatest foods ever invented. You will hear your arteries scream, but this is a minor side effect.

most people in France are happy with dubbing, I mean it's not like they could understand anything in English without subtitles, and most people can't be bothered with subtitles. The quality of dubbing is okay enough that most people won't complain about it but honestly once you start watching movies in English you can't really go back to dubbed movies, they're just not as good as the original versions. The pool of voice actors is quite limited so you're bound to hear the same voices dubbing extremely different actors and characters (I remember hearing the French voice of Homer Simpson in a horror tv movie, way to ruin the movie )
come on they're not all that bad, not everyone needs to speak like a grammar book I really dislike how prescriptive and elitist the teaching of French to native speakers has become (like when your teacher says "I know you all say this this way, but you're all wrong and in correct French you have to say it that way"), it's really stunting the evolution of the language. if there was one institution I could get rid of, it would be the French Academy (and maybe the senate as well, but that's for a discussion on other forums)

Also there's Salty liquorice here in the Netherlands, but for some reason many people don't like that.

I find liquorice (and aniseed etc) is quite a difficult flavour to get on with at the best of times. I'm not convinced that "now with added brine!" is the best of times...