Tuesday 30 January 2007

Birmingham and my endless struggle for food...

I got the internship with Birmingham Museum and Gallery-I start next Monday. I really like this gallery and the staff. They are re-doing their Pre-Raphaelite exhibition and I will be able to help, which is exciting. They have a large Burne-Jones collection and quite a few Millais, Rossetti, Holman, and Wallis. I also really like Birmingham-I walked around a bit today after leaving the gallery and it reminds more of a US city, but with a European flair. However, it isn't so much of a flair that it annoys me. I think I could actually live there and not complain so much about the way British do things, or in my opinion, how they're doing it all wrong. The only problem is the commute-four hours round-trip. However, I figure this is why I'm here-to work in a museum that focuses in my area of art, so I'm going to try and think positive about the commute-at least I don't have to drive there-what a disaster that would be!

I also started my other two classes today. They went well and I think they are going to be very useful in the future. The instructors also seem quite friendly and the course of study is exactly what I'm looking for.

Then there is the endless food situation-I tried the Bisquick I bought from ASDA. I followed a recipe from Bettycrocker.com for drop biscuits-they didn't turn out very well, but they have potential. The recipe called for stick butter, which I haven't been able to find here, so I had to use butter out of the tub and you were supposed to "cut" it and roll it around in the Bisquick mix. Anyway, the lumps of butter didn't work as well, so some of the biscuits had too much of a butter flavor. Normally, butter flavor isn't too bad, but their butter tastes a bit funny. At least I know I can find Bisquick, so I will work on improving the recipe. I can also had pineapple and popcorn to my diet. I think my next goal will be to make banana nut bread from scratch-for those of you who cook on a regular basis-this may not seem like a challenge, but for me it will be a great accomplishment if I pull it off. I had a dream about Carriage's bread the other night-I was so happy I had bread to make toast, but alas, it was just a dream.