The second day of our US holidays is always about finding our feet and shaking off the jet lag – this year was no different.
Three quarters of our party were up and about and ready for a trip to grab some essentials from Wallmart – basically a larger, tidier Asda. I don’t want to talk about America in cliches but I am going to – everything in Wallmart is super-sized. So we brought home a gallon of milk and an equally humongous quantity of liquid chemicals marketed under the brand name “Sunny Delight” along with copious quantities of other food stuffs.
Then it was off to Perkins for another great Americanism, ”brunch”. Eating out in the US is such a challenge and the Perkins Tremendous Twelve is a fine example of why. In the UK you go out, you order, your food eventually arrives, you eat, you leave. Sometimes we even pay. In the US the most challenging part is the order itself. So here is a typical dialogue between a hungry diner and waitress:
“What will you have?”
“Tremendous twelve please”
“Bacon or sausages?”
“Bacon”
“Hash browns or breakfast potatoes?”
“Hash browns”
“Fried or scrambled eggs?”
“Fried”
“How would you like your eggs done?”
“I’m sorry?”
“How would you like your eggs done?”
“It’s possible to have options for frying eggs?”
“Yes, we have seven different options”
“I’m sorry I no longer feel hungry and seem to have lost the will to live.”
OK so it didn’t quite go like that but you get the picture. You see in the UK we have only one option for fried eggs – fried. You’ll get them how the chef wanted to cook them and be grateful that they arrive at all. In the US, of course, you have a whole nomenclature for how you might have your eggs done (those planning a trip might want to familiarise themselves with said options <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_egg#United_States_and_Canada