Americans: why don't you use kettles?

[Spymaster]

are they? it's weird if that's all they sell

A bit, but it seems more like different varieties of the same thing which isn't odd and is what most pizza and sushi gaffs do.

There's a small chain of restaurants in London and Paris called Le Relais De Venise who really do serve only one dish. They just do sirloin steak with frites and even the way it's cooked is limited to rare or medium rare.

If you're only going to have one thing on the menu you need to do it extraordinarily well, and they do. Best steaks in London and Paris.

 

[Miss Caphat]

It's not any more weird than a restaurant that serves only cereal.

actually its a lot less weird. cereal is not a food that's cooked or prepared in a restaurant, just poured out of a box. not that I have any problem with "just cereal" restaurants. just that there's no comparison, really.

 

[maomao]

They just do sirloin steak with frites and even the way it's cooked is limited to rare or medium rare.

Their website says they do a bleu and a well done too. Plus there's even a choice for dessert.

 

[dilute micro]

1. I can't tell how much water is in the kettle.

2. My water filter sometimes has stuff growing in it and floating in the water. I inspect the water.

 

[moonsi til]

and guess what's on the menu, ha! (mac & cheese toastie)

ringo

only time mac n cheese has looked tasty!

 

[ringo]

ringo

only time mac n cheese has looked tasty!

Oi! I could eat that right now

 

[Orang Utan]

ringo

only time mac n cheese has looked tasty!

You are British. Be ashamed.

 

[Opera Buffa]

I have noticed this disturbing 'mac n cheese' trend on Bristol pub menus

 

[xenon]

1. I can't tell how much water is in the kettle.

2. My water filter sometimes has stuff growing in it and floating in the water. I inspect the water.

Electric kettles tend to have a level indicator and a filter over the spout.

I'm wondering when mine's gonna break. I think this is the longest service I've gotten from one, about 6 years.

 

[xenon]

I have noticed this disturbing 'mac n cheese' trend on Bristol pub menus

Where? Just out of curiosity. Not that I'm excited by pasta and cheese. Steak 'n chips stalwart pub food wise here.

 

[Opera Buffa]

Bristol Flyer and the Mall. They have identical menus, featuring Mac n Cheese.

 

[Combustible]

Also, Chinese homes always have a kettle despite having the same voltage as the US. But then I've never had a decent cup of coffee over there. Been served instant in a five star hotel.

Chinese voltage is 220V, so a mere 20V less than the UK. Taiwan is similar to the US apparently.

 

[Guineveretoo]

I am not going to read all this thread, because I have just spotted that it is 39 pages long, but I really enjoyed the first page! I have often questioned why Americans don't have kettles, and have had many theories expounded as to why this should be. I stayed in a spectacularly posh hotel once - one that was a suite with a sitting room and everything - and it had a coffee machine, but no kettle... I stayed with friends in San Francisco who told me to use the microwave... A few people I stayed with in the States had kettles on their stoves (particularly the ones who thought they were cosmopolitan), but none had electric kettles.

But no-one had ever told me that the American electricity is not really up to running hundreds of kettles.

I am childishly pleased to have learnt this

 

[Miss Caphat]

I am not going to read all this thread, because I have just spotted that it is 39 pages long, but I really enjoyed the first page! I have often questioned why Americans don't have kettles, and have had many theories expounded as to why this should be. I stayed in a spectacularly posh hotel once - one that was a suite with a sitting room and everything - and it had a coffee machine, but no kettle... I stayed with friends in San Francisco who told me to use the microwave... A few people I stayed with in the States had kettles on their stoves (particularly the ones who thought they were cosmopolitan), but none had electric kettles.

But no-one had ever told me that the American electricity is not really up to running hundreds of kettles.

I am childishly pleased to have learnt this

Hmm. Stove top kettles are more of an old fashioned "country" or suburban thing than a cosmopolitan thing here I would argue. It's more cosmopolitan to have a separate tap of filtered hot (boiling) water which I've seen in more luxury homes.

 

[moonsi til]

You are British. Be ashamed.

When I wrote it I knew I was going to be had but I think it sounds better. I also do not like it.

 

[Guineveretoo]

Hmm. Stove top kettles are more of an old fashioned "country" or suburban thing than a cosmopolitan thing here I would argue. It's more cosmopolitan to have a separate tap of filtered hot (boiling) water which I've seen in more luxury homes.

The people I was visiting were mostly hippies, though. not sure they would have had the filtered boiling water

 

[Miss Caphat]

The people I was visiting were mostly hippies, though. not sure they would have had the filtered boiling water

Yes, kettles also = a hippy thing, as is drinking tea

 

[gosub]

Yes, kettles also = a hippy thing, as is drinking tea

through back to visiting the hippy trails of India? Tea drinking in UK is just a thing.

 

[mentalchik]

Yes, kettles also = a hippy thing, as is drinking tea

Erm no it's not

 

[Miss Caphat]

Erm no it's not

I meant that it is here in the US.

 

[Miss Caphat]

through back to visiting the hippy trails of India? Tea drinking in UK is just a thing.

See above post

 

[skyscraper101]

someone should invent coffee bags

Been done. They're shit. Coffee goes stale very quickly when exposed to air and a little bag doesn't really hold enough for a mugfull.

There was a sort of coffee bag thing going on last time I was in a hotel in America. They're more like filters bu enclosed in a giant tea bag (presumably for easy cleaning), and they're kept in airtight filter/bags until you get them out and put them in the filter.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

There was a sort of coffee bag thing going on last time I was in a hotel in America. They're more like filters bu enclosed in a giant tea bag (presumably for easy cleaning), and they're kept in airtight filter/bags until you get them out and put them in the filter.

"Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon Bleu hobby kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap. The people I meet on each flight? They're single-serving friends."

 

[halfinchbrush]

Where did you go to college?

north wales

 

[wtfftw]

Also. Breakfast club does all brunch options til 5pm
http://www.thebreakfastclubcafes.com/brunch/

This is where I'm going. And I've not had breakfast so I guess I'm actually having brunch.

 

[BassJunkie]

ringo

only time mac n cheese has looked tasty!

Jesus, is that really macaroni, as in, pasta, in a sandwich? Like, bread surrounding pasta. Fuck, why not chuck some rice in there and complete the triptych of carbohydrate food groups ?

 

[campanula]

or better still, crisps

 

[High Voltage]

Jesus, is that really macaroni, as in, pasta, in a sandwich? Like, bread surrounding pasta. Fuck, why not chuck some rice in there and complete the triptych of carbohydrate food groups ?

<patronising smile>I think you'll find that this is known as a "complex carbohydrate" and thusly is good for you

 

[Guineveretoo]

We have been eating pasta on toast for decades in this country, which is pretty much the same thing.

Spaghetti hoops anyone?
Or Alphabetti Spaghetti?

 

[8den]

Lots of new habits.

Do you remember kitchens in the 60s? Did people have chilled ready meals? Nope. That's one big difference.

And there are others. The microwave, like many gadgets, wasn't a solution to problems that existed. People got the gadget, then wondered what to do with it.

Do you remember the adverts with depressed people saying "I use mine for defrosting", but after reading a magazine they were singing about all the things they now used them for.

Those adverts were playing on the fact that people didn't know what to do with them.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/9-recipes-from-saddest-cookbook-ever-tested/

What's the worst way you've ever messed up bacon and eggs? If it was anything short of a grease fire that burned down a puppy orphanage, I'm pretty certain it was not as bad as the picture above. The lighting for said picture, by the way, was exactly the same as it was for the others in this article -- even light is so ashamed of this abomination that it didn't want to be in the same picture.

Let's break it down. That white thing you see coating the bacon is, of course, the paper towel, which soaked up enough grease to fall on top of the delicious pig strips and fuse itself into them, creating one of the few instances of inedible bacon in history. What little I managed to nibble of the actual meat didn't exactly convince me, either -- what I by now recognize as the taste of microwaving (which is actually a complete lack of the kind of signature taste all other methods of preparation bring to the table) rendered even the bacon experience bland.