Climate Change

We’re drawing to the end of the coldest Glasgow winter in fifty years, according to my informants here. Today it snowed all day (though hardly accumulated, as the temperature was hovering around 0°). Everyone agrees that it’s an extraordinarily long, chilly, snowy winter for Glasgow; I feel apologetic, as though I’m complicit in the importation of New England-y weather.
 
So, on my way upstairs at the end of the day, my neighbour remarked, “So much for global warming!” to which I responded right away, “Climate change doesn’t mean ‘always warmer,’ just ‘always weirder.’ ” I’m tired of people regarding one day’s weather, or one location’s season of weather, as a putative rebuttal to the mountains of data from around the world — though that does help explain a number of other political phenomena.
 
Call me “Delayed Gratification Man.”
 
Well, not exactly — I was practically trembling from the force of a sudden craving for nachos the other day. The UK sells crisps ( = “chips”) mostly in teeny little one-serving bags such as you might put in little Courtney’s school lunch bag. Nonetheless, Alana brought a couple of slightly larger bags of Doritos by my office, and it turns out Tesco (of which a new branch just opened on Byres Road) sells small bags of actual plain mass-produced tortilla chips (without extra flavorings such as “Prickly Pear Doritos” or “Smooth Mint Doritos”).
 
I poured some of these chips out onto my baking pan, sprinkled grated cheese on them (Red Leicester; I didn’t see any Monterey Jack), some salsa I had bought for a night on which I cooked fajitas, and some faux ground beef, over which I scattered chili powder. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

4 thoughts on “Climate Change

  1. any place to get plain corn tortillas there (migrant workers in the highlands, perhaps?:) if so, you can break those up and spread the, out on your baking pan and, well, bake them, actually. bake them on whatever is the equivalent of about 350 here, until they’re brown. they’re heartier and much better for you than doritos, too.

  2. AKMA, You REALLY need to visit Lupe Pintos (right across Great Western Road from St Mary’s). They have proper tortillas (good enough to please a Mexican), both flour and corn ones. NB The corn tortillas are in the freezer. They also stock proper tortilla chips in big bags without added flavourings and, if you go to the back of the store, they stock Monterrey Jack too. Also about a dozen varieties of chiles, and their spicy chorizo is the best.

  3. My postgrad colleague Bryan pointed me to Lupe Pinto’s too, Sophie, so I expect I”ll make a trip over there soon — especially since my gluten-free beloved is in town for the week, and corn tortillas accommodate both her diet and our mutual love of Mexican food. Thanks for the prompting!

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