Annie's Burger Shack

Here in Nottingham, there is a restaurant called Annie'e Burger Shack, which serves American-themed burgers. During Pre-Access, my friends and I wanted to go there but it had a month-long waiting list; in Access, we still didn't go but finally, this past June, my Access friends and I went there for a reunion.

A few months later, I took one of my uncles there and then yesterday, I went to Annie's Burger Shack with my girlfriend and her mother. After two years of being unable or not going to Annie's, I've now been there three times in under five months.

Annie's is notable for being one of the best burger restaurants in Nottingham; I've yet to meet somebody who hasn't enjoyed the burgers there.

Back to the diet

Now that my colds have concluded, I'm back to dieting to lose weight. Unfortunately, I think I put on a few pounds during my illnesses, as I barely exercised, had no loss of appetite, comfort ate somewhat and drank a lot of sugary teas. That weight now needs to be lost.

Having my wheat-based cereal, salad, fish and a few other low-to-medium calorie foods, plus returning to exercise, should be enough to drop the excess weight and what I was trying to lose before. It's also not a particularly expensive diet and should lower my weekly expenses somewhat, too.

The burnt garlic bread

One of my housemates accidentally burned some garlic bread this evening. While he was able to immediately quell any fire, the resulting smoke overwhelmed the entire bottom floor of the house, which set off all the smoke alarms and it became necessary to open all the windows.

While the house is no longer filled with smoke, the smell nevertheless remains. At least the house and everyone are okay - it was just burnt garlic bread, which was easily dealt with! Disappointing that the smell of smoke overpowers the smell of garlic.

The pizza night

The housing manager for my accommodation paid for a pizza night; this is what he did last year except back then it was held in the first week rather than this far into October. Nevertheless, the effect was still the same: We had the chance to meet other residents of the student village and ate pizza for dinner.

In addition to being a pizza night, the event doubled as the occasion where we handed in our inventory forms to the housing manager; however, I did not need to do this because I gave it to him last week when he was here briefly for another reason.

Lea & Perrins

Years ago, whenever Dad had tinned fish on toast, he would mix Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce into any particular fish mix. Before I left my accommodation a few weeks ago, I'd re-discovered Worcestershire by mixing it in with tinned fish to then put in salad.

The primary purpose of Worcestershire sauce is to enhance the flavour of any food it is mixed into; in some cases, such as tinned tuna, it can be used to moisten a particular food. It is especially effective when adding to casseroles and some pies.

I re-discovered it because I had some tins of tuna to eat but the tuna was all dry; as such, I remembered what Dad used to put in his tinned fish.

A missed post

After many years of blogging, despite many close shaves in that time, I'd never missed a day of posting. Then came yesterday - the first day since I started on which I did not post. What happened?

Nothing terribly serious. I was with a college friend in the morning and with another college friend in the afternoon. The latter friend is going to Lincoln University this weekend, so to celebrate we went to the new Krispy Kreme donut shop in the Victoria Centre and after that, we went to the pub for drinks. The sugar from the hot chocolate I had in the morning, plus the donuts plus the cocktails combined with my lack of a proper lunch and enough water caused me to have a headache. When I got home, I rested and ate but then went to bed, thus missing making a post.

So, yeah, I was out celebrating and then had a headache. Not too much of a big deal; the headache, which I overcame fairly quickly, was a small nuisance given that I'd had a great day preceding it.

Apple tree and Chinese candy

In my mother's and brother's backyard is an extremely prolific apple tree; it has been producing apples at an incredible rate - to the point where Mum and my brother had too many apples and had to give some away. As such, when I went over to my grandparents' house today to do some gardening and other work for them, I brought with me a huge bag of apples for them. On the bright side, with all these apples we have fresh fruit for the time being!

While I was at my grandparents', however, they had something for me: A bag of Chinese candy. One of my cousins and his girlfriend were recently in Hong Kong and they brought back with them a load of candy from there. They gave a lot of it to my grandparents; however, it was too much for my grandparents and so they gave the excess candy for me to share with Mum and my brother.

Excess apples, excess Chinese candies - what fun!

Tinned fish and salad

I've become hooked on a dish that I should have eaten more at the beginning of my university year: Tinned fish and salad. Last night, I had two bags of salad and some tinned tuna, which I combined and also mixed with Worcestershire sauce. The result? A super tasty meal that's also easy to prepare and healthful for me, as well as cheap.

People often complain that salad is bland on its own and so they add salad dressing to it; the trouble is, salad dressing is fattening because of its sugar content. Fish and Worcestershire sauce have little to no sugar or artificial sweeteners in them and are thus better for a person than salad dressing.

This evening, I had tinned mackerel with salad and Worcestershire sauce. I can lose weight with this!

"Low-Fat Foods Are Making You Fatter" - a clip from 'Adam Ruins Everything'

Here is a good reason to not buy low-fat foods:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rWjb7t8cfo

Low fat = more sugar or other sweeteners. Best to stick to regular fat foods but just eat less and exercise more!

The 80th

My grandparents here in Nottingham are both turning 80 years old this year; my grandfather reached that milestone earlier in the year and my grandmother will do so later. Rather than hold two separate celebrations, my grandparents instead opted to hold a joint 80 birthday party today.

Besides my grandparents and me, others in attendance consisted of my Nottingham aunt and uncle, plus their children and the boyfriends of two of said children; my East of England aunt and uncle were there with their children and the girlfriend of one of them; finally, my Hong Kong uncle was also present. I arrived at 12:30pm before my Nottingham aunt and uncle returned me to Clifton in the evening.

As a present, I bought my grandparents some chocolate from Hotel Chocalat. I usually buy them some chocolate smiley faces but this time they had some chocolate hearts with a hummingbird and flower pattern on them, so I bought those instead, which they loved.

The mouldy egg

Scotch eggs are hard-boiled eggs wrapped in sausage meat and breadcrumbs. The first time I recall having one was when my family and I were living with my grandparents' in 2010; ever since then, I have liked them - well, "ever since" until today.

I bought a pack of Scotch eggs this afternoon. When I opened the breaded shell of one of them, the egg inside was partially covered with mould. I had no choice but to throw the egg away, as it wasn't safe for consumption. Fortunately, the other eggs were all okay but it took me awhile to eat them, as I had little appetite for them after seeing the mouldy egg.

Needless to say, after this incident it will be awhile before I have Scotch eggs again! That might not be a bad thing, however, as it means it's one less fatty food for me to eat.

The chicken

I visited my grandparents today to do some garden work for them. One task consisted of me trimming the hedge at the back of their property; while said hedge faces their neighbours' house, the hedge nevertheless belongs to my grandparents.

While I trimmed the hedge, I had "help" from one of the neighbours' chickens. As the leaves from the hedge fell to the ground, the chicken rummaged through it looking for snails to eat. She had previously looked through the rest of the yard for food but decided that her newfound leaves were far more worthy of a forage for food than anywhere else.

I'll be back at my grandparents' house tomorrow and Friday to do more work at theirs.

Any 2017 Easter chocolate

I received as well as bought to share some Easter chocolates this year. Rather than leave them hanging around, I decided to eat mine almost immediately (not all at once, of course). The room I have in my accommodation can be warm when the Sun is over - warm enough to soften chocolate.

In addition, I am currently reducing the amount of desserts I consume, as I wrote in a recent post, and so I wanted to eat and enjoy the chocolate straightaway, then go back onto the sugar reduction.

Less sugar

Ever since I was really young (maybe 3 or 4 years old), I've added sugar to a cereal called Weetabix whenever I ate it with milk; when I ate it dry, I rarely sweetened it. Last week, however, I ate milk-covered Weetabix without sugar for what I think is the first time; this is how Dad used to eat it.

For this week, I drank tea without sugar. I rarely drink hot drinks but I have the occasional chocolate tea and have always had sugar in my tea. Inspired by the success with Weetabix, I thought I'd try the tea without sugar and was pleasantly relieved that I could accept it, as it meant I'd found another place to trim my sugar consumption.

The best ways to reduce sugar intake is to add it to fewer foods and to purchase fewer sugared items. Sugar-free goods often contain artificial sweeteners, which are often worse than regular sugar. Have less of the natural sweetener!

The student bars

Today is the first time that I visited on the same day the student bars on the Clifton and City campus sites. The student bars are merely an on-campus place where students can purchase food and drink, similar to how they'd buy and eat food in a pub. They are bar/pub-like in layout, rather than heavily spacious like the canteen here at Clifton.

My reason for being at the bars was because a small meetup for mature students was being held at both. The organiser was the only person besides me who was present at both locations and I knew from elsewhere or from other meetups some of the other people who attended.

I'd been to both bars before but again, today is first time I went to both on the same day.

Photoshoot, pork and crackling

This afternoon was spent at my mother's and brother's house. While I was mostly there to simply see them for the day, my brother required my assistance for a photoshoot he needed to complete for an assignment of his that he wants to submit next week. Naturally, I was happy to help.

We had roast pork for dinner - something that none of us have eaten for a while - and tomorrow I'll be back over to eat some of the pork crackling that was cooked tonight. I have an academic assembly to attend first, so I'll head over to  theirs once that is finished.

An early incentive

As part of being an academic rep at NTU, I am required to attend at least one meeting held by the students' union; this evening, I attended one of these meetings. Now, I'd go whether required to or not but one incentive for this particular meeting was free pizza. When I was at Central, I was known for being punctual; as a result, I arrived at the meeting ten minutes early, both to keep up that reputation and to obtain a decent seat.

When I arrived, the venue was packed and the free pizza was pretty much gone. The prospect of free food appears to be something that can cause others to defeat me at punctuality. I think I should have arrived twenty minutes earlier if I'd wanted pizza and to have obtained a good seat; in the case of the latter, I sat next to a rep I'd met at another meeting, so it wasn't a loss at all.

Shrinking chocolate

There was some recent controversy over the reduction in size of Toblerone bars but I had noticed that since March, other chocolates have shrunk, too:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-38155475

The above confirms my observations. To be fair, people should probably be eating less chocolate, anyway - myself included.

Access dinner night

My Sociology/History teacher from Access and I arranged a get-together and meal for this evening. At our end-of-year dinner back in the summer, we agreed to have another meal at a later date. When I visited Central a few weeks ago, I spoke to both my main teachers about it and now I'm off to said dinner! I'm looking forward to seeing much of the class again; I've seen only only a handful of them since I've been back.

Cat and chips

On my way back from my evening walk, I saw something that brought about mixed feelings of "Good news, everyone!" and "I don't want to live on this planet anymore". What was it? A cat eating out of a container on the ground filled with leftover pie and chips.

It was cute in that the cat was eating out of the container and because the cat would take a chip or two out, run underneath a parked car to eat them before returning to the food to repeat the process. However, it was sad in that the pie, chips and their container were all litter and because a cat should not be eating human food, as it unhealthful for them to do so (well, some meats are okay, provided they're not raw).

The cat looked healthy, so I doubt it was eating the pie and chips because of malnutrition. No, more likely the cat thought the human food smelled nice and decided that it would take a bite. In the long run, the cat munching on the occasional bit of human food in encounters won't hurt it but even so, it's better off with food designed for cats.