Gulp...

[davidgillon]

My plan for this week to ring my gastro consultant's secretary to find out what's going on with my gall bladder op date (they initially said 6 weeks in mid-December...) and how much notice I'll get to plan around it just got short-circuited. She just rang and asked if I can do the 29th - so I guess the answer is about 8 days... Gulp.

Annoyingly that puts it just before my favourite weekend of the year, so I guess this means a very low-energy participation in Sweeps Festival this year, if at all.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

The festival looks like a wonderful time. Were you ever a dancer? What kind of street food would a visitor find there?

Best wishes for the cholecystectomy! Will you need to stay in hospital?

[davidgillon]

Dancer no, though friends did have an Irish band one year and I usually got roped in on Bodhran (I'm really not very good, but can just about keep a rhythm), but that was years ago. Mostly it's an opportunity to meet friends - aat least one I only see that one weekend, and drink good beer.

WRT the op, the plan is in and out on the same day, possibly overnight if it's scheduled for late in the day. I don't actually know when it's scheduled for yet, the letter has arrived, but I'm still nerving myself up to actually open it...

[jesse_the_k]

Pull that bandage off, it hurts less when you do it quick. (But then I always dive into the pool.)

I'll keep you in my thoughts—this is one procedure that has been refined and honed as to be truly routine, and I'm sure you'll do fine.

[davidgillon]

Yeah, I opened it not long after typing - admission 0730AM next Wednesday, don't think I'll be getting much sleep.

I'm actually fine about the op, looking forward to it so I can put cheese back in my diet - piiizzzaaaa!!!!! It's the uncertainty about the date I haven't been doing well with, but that's no longer an issue. Having said that I'll probably be shaking like a leaf on Wednesday, but performance anxiety is pretty much a given where I'm concerned.

[davidgillon]

Didn't answer the street food question. Because Rochester is a touristy high street rather than a shopping high street, there are a lot of restaurants and pubs, pretty much all of them stick a stall outside, mostly just doing bacon rolls and burgers, a few will do chips (fries) as well, but there are a couple of places I favour for something slightly more exotic - noodles, rice, veggie curry, sweet and sour etc. Even the antique shops and charity shops often stick a stall in front doing soft drinks and crisps (chips). A friend who has a house between the High Street and Castle ran a Pimms stall during a festival last year, in aid of the hospice she helps out at, and raised several thousand pounds over the weekend, so it's fairly lucrative. If you head off the High Street and up to the Castle, then that gets a bunch of the event catering vans in the grounds doing stuff like hog roast, crepes and so on. And of course anything that can get a license is selling booze.

[jesse_the_k]

Most terms which differ between US/UK I know from decades of British mysteries and years of Sherlock fanfic. But I had to confer with Duck Duck Go to fetch me details on "bacon rolls." Oh my god! Those sound totally delicious and given that I live in a state proud of its dairy and pork, I want to know why those fools at the Wisconsin State Fair are selling deep fried pickles instead of bacon rolls.

Around here the latest trend in chips is deep-fried sweet potato curls, with plenty of cayenne. (One place serves them with blackberry-jalapeno jam.) Delicious, but probably not on your menu right now.

I wrangled volunteers for a city-wide non-profit street festival two years. We have an ongoing tradition of civic groups volunteering to serve beer, with all the income going to their charity. Kind of a win-win for everyone. But the Rochester pubs and restaurants probably depend on their takings from this event to cover the lean times.

[davidgillon]

Dairy?!? Goes to check out the link.

Hmm, that's not quite what most Brits call a bacon roll, though doubtless yummy*. Roll in this case just means a bread roll (or bap, bun or half a dozen other regional variations in naming), sliced open, maybe lightly toasted on the grill while the bacon cooks, stick a couple of rashers of bacon in the bun, then add liberal amounts of ketchup. Basically the bacon equivalent of a burger**. This article goes completely over the top on the subject (though I don't know where the author's living that she has difficulty finding bread rolls in a bakers, or any other food shop for that matter)

*It seems like we'll wrap bacon around most things, including the Christmas turkey, but pigs in blankets, small sausages wrapped in bacon, are probably the most common as a party food. The cheese one in your link is probably a spin-off from Devils on Horseback, leaving the prune out.

** My personal variation is to lightly toast a pitta, while briefly pinging a rasher or two in the microwave (crispy bacon is anathema), slit the side of the pitta, slide in the bacon, maybe spoon in some mustard, then squeeze in a whole lot of ketchup. Nom (and great minimum prep spoonie food).

[calissa]

I hope it all goes well :)

[davidgillon]

Thanks. Theory is in and out in a day and recovered in not much longer.