Now You Wouldn't See That in the USA

I was at the grocery store tonight. Walking the isles with my head down (I HATE the grocery store), I was thinking how so much of London is so similar to much of the USA. I could have been at any Safeway in California. Then I noticed a few differences that sort of struck me......

No Chocolate Chips: I am serious, there isn't any blueberry muffin mix either. There were 22 different kinds of raisins, sultanas, and dried fruits in the baking section where the Toll House chocolate chips should be. I just don't get excited about dried fruit bits in anything I bake. I had to buy the sad little mini-bags of what will probably be sad little chocolate chips. I am just glad I found them in the corner of the baking/candy section. I am making the cookies for a party with some actual British people. They won't know what do to with our cookies (a.k.a. biscuits), I have a feeling.

Fireworks for Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes Night) at the GROCERY STORE (Don't tell Dave): I suppose that perhaps in southern states or Wyoming and Idaho, you could maybe get fireworks in the grocery store parking lot around the 4th of July as a special thing. Here in London, you can buy and shoot the damn things off whenever and wherever you please, than you very much. Of course, no one does. Maybe because we are all packed like sardines in this city and there is nowhere to set them off that wouldn't start a fire or completely piss off your neighbors - who can see everything you do since (again) we all live on top of each other. 

Darwin on the $10 Bill: Can you imagine the shit storm in the US over something like that. I definitely appreciate the European religious pragmatism (or really, the lack of religion - excluding Poland and Ireland, of course). It's refreshing that politics is about politics, but I digress.

Eggs - Not Refrigerated Here: This probably has to do with the total shit conditions in which the majority of chickens are kept in the USA - all to give us cheap, flavorless eggs. OK, I actually heard they just keep longer when refrigerated. Also, in the USA we wash the natural protective coating from eggs. Thus, they can go rotten more quickly and need to be refrigerated. Weird. 

Don't get me started on eggs though......

OK you got me started, this is from Local Harvest:

• Grass-fed/pastured hens are raised on pasture, as opposed to being kept in confinement and fed primarily grains. Eggs from pastured hens contain up to 20 times more healthy omega-3 fatty acids than those their less fortunate cousins, factory hens. 
• Pastured hens' diets are naturally complemented with bugs, earthworms, and other such critters that give their eggs a huge nutritious oomph. Although not necessarilly organic, pastured hens are usually much healthier and happier than their space-restricted and antibiotic-pumped industrial cousins.
• Pasturing is the traditional method of raising egg-laying hens and other poultry. It is ecologically sustainable, humane, and produces the tastiest, most nutritious eggs. 
• Pastured eggs also have 10 percent less fat, 40 percent more vitamin A, and 34 percent less cholesterol than eggs obtained from factory farms.