"British" news and stories

Jagermeister in the snow. Photo: janeyesee, Flickr

Our counterparts over at AOL U.K. recently ran an article entitled "Comedy Booze" lamenting the unfortunate habit some guests have of using parties to re-gift hard alcohol they found unfit to stomach back when they received it. From Greek ouzo to French pastis, it's a multi-culti takedown.

Of course, sometimes that famous Brit wit doesn't cross the pond. We know some folks who adore pastis, and others for whom a bottle of Jagermeister might be considered quite a smashing (or quite funny) addition to a party.

That said, we can certainly sympathize with the sentiment. After the jump, three things we think you should never bring to a party. Tell us what we missed!

We see celebrities endorse products every day, and as silly as they might be (What actress actually dyes her hair on her own, rather than getting it done for her?), nothing compares to this little nugget of news. NME reports that Johnny Rotten (of Sex Pistols fame) is starring in new advertisements for a British brand of butter, Country Life. Oh, but they're careful to just call him John Lydon and stay away from his famous Rotten moniker.

Country Life says: "We don't think enough people know Country Life is the only major British butter brand and John gets the message through loud and clear." They continue, "He is seen as a great British icon. His independent views are part of his consumer appeal and his tongue-in-cheek sense of humour shines through in our TV advertising."

Even if most people get the joke, who would want their butter to be so closely linked to the word "rotten"? Maybe they're trying to reclaim the word... Who knows? Too bad there isn't a Tim Spoiled to take over when Rotten moves on.

[via Gawker]

Researchers from Exeter and Oxford U asked 740 pregnant women (all first-time moms) to keep a food diary during their gestation periods.

Their findings? That women who ate more food and more nutrients were 24% more likely to give birth to a boy (specifically, 56% of the women in the group who ate the most gave birth to boys). The average woman who gave birth to a male consumed 2,413 calories a day and ate foods containing potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12. The odds of having a boy were also higher among women who consumed one bowl of cereal every day (though the researchers didn't specify whether the bowl was eaten at breakfast or not).

But some people are wary of the stats, saying that a man's sperm ultimately decides whether a child will be male or female, and that diet has little or nothing to do with it.

If anything, hopefully the study will remind and encourage pregnant women to eat a healthy, well-balanced meal no matter what sex their baby turns out to be.

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Bored at work? High tolerance for grossness? Check out this B3TA (a juvenile, crude and quite hilarious British "arts" site) message board on "the worst thing you've ever cooked or eaten." The board is closed for posting, but there are 20 pages worth of responses. Some are almost certainly made-up, many are obscene, others so British they may be nearly meaningless to American readers (Bovril? Walkers crisps? Fry-ups?). But a lot of them are pretty darn funny.

Outstanding responses include turkey-wrapped sheep brain, roadkill badger, maggots meant for fishing bait and a chunk of cigar.

As for me, I'm going to have to pick the soggy tripe stew I ate in Argentina. Tripe is fine when all the stomach-y flavor is well cooked out, but this tasted of wet dog and gym socks and old burps, with the texture of snot-slicked rubber tubing. You?

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Last week, when I visited the Kitchen Arts and Letters bookstore (I do intend to actually write about that amazing store and post some pictures I took while there), I came across a cookbook unlike any other I've ever seen (and that's saying a lot, as I've been reading cookbooks for fun since I was 7). Written, photographed and designed by British artist/writer/designer/cook Jake Tilson, A Tale of 12 Kitchens it is as much a life history through food/pictures/recipes as it is a cookbook. It starts at the point when Tilson was born and his parents were living in a converted Victorian dairy shop. It moves through his childhood, his memories of the nightly dinner parties his parents hosted and then to his years traveling, marriage and eating his way through New York.

All through the book, keeping step with the prose are lots of images and appealing design choices. There are reproductions of pages from his mother's recipe notebooks, photos of shops and restaurants that were instrumental to his cookery journey and scraps of flotsam from his personal food history. I haven't cooked from this book yet, but having already been touched by the amount of passion and affection with which this book was created, I hazard a guess that the food will also be wonderful.

This is the only book that I've featured where I want to encourage you to go and check out the related website. Tilson and his web designers (although he may have just done it himself) have put a lot of energy into creating an appealing and interesting site. I especially like the fact that you can see a generous selection of images from inside the book.

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