24. Food in Singapore and More (Foodies Take Flight)

In this episode, I talk with Caroline Kelly, a freelance writer who has been to several countries, including Singapore. We talk about her foodie adventures in the countries she's visited.

This episode is part of Foodies Take Flight, a series where Jess talks with world travelers, expats and citizens of countries outside of the United States about their global food experiences. Whether you have wanderlust and want to get inspiration for your next trip, or you're a homebody who just wants a mental vacation, Foodies Take Flight will take you up and away.

Caroline Kelly
Website: https://carolinekellywriter.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolinekelly_writer/

The Flaky Foodie
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/theflakyfoodie

Transcript

Jess: 0:10

Hi, it's Jess and you're listening to another episode of The flaky foodie podcast. The only show where the discussion is delicious and there's chatter to chew on. Now this episode is a foodies take flight episode where I talk to people from all over the world who have been all over the world about their food experiences. This is a series that I started in season one, and it's going to carry over off and on in season two. So after the break, we're going to talk with Caroline Kelly, she's been to Singapore and a bunch of other countries, you won't want to miss it. Stay tuned. In may only be October but I'm already prepping for the holiday season. And I want you to help if you have a fun, interesting or unique holiday food memory or tradition. I want you to share that with me. It can be from any holiday that you celebrate from the end of November all the way until the new year the end of December. So that means that your food memory or tradition can take place during Christmas. It gets a place during Thanksgiving or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, or Festivus or any other holiday that's outside of my American way of thinking as long as it takes place. From the end of November to the end of December or into New Year's to submit your holiday stories. Just go to my website www.theflakyfoodie.com. That is theflakyfoodie.com. Those who submit a story will be entered in to win a raffle. And the winner of the raffle will be announced at the end of the year. Thanks so much. And let's get back to the show. Today with us we have Caroline Kelly. She's a copywriter and has a background in journalism as do I. But she continues to write to this day and welcome so much to the show.

Caroline K: 2:25

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure to be here.

Jess: 2:28

Yes. So tell me a little bit more I kind of about yourself. And I know you had a lot of different travel experiences. How did that begin? And how did that start? Sure.

Caroline K: 2:38

Well, I initially I never wanted to go anywhere. I was completely fine in my little hometown. But my husband got a job, basically in Switzerland so we will decamped from the UK. I was heavily pregnant, and I had a toddler. So I was all kind of like already pretty, pretty burdened down with family life, but got to go to Geneva Festival, which I don't know if you know much about I heard your Swiss podcast. Yeah, about that. Yeah, the snack gourmet snacks. So that was a real eye opener, just to kind of getting into European food a lot more. I mean, you know, in the UK, we love Italian food. We love French food. But Swiss food was a bit of a bit of a different different start for us.

Jess: 3:18

Well, what did you find most different? Did you find any dishes that you enjoyed? Or was it? Oh, yeah,

Caroline K: 3:24

that's the problem is just I mean, if you love cheese, Switzerland is your place. Everything is just melted cheese. I mean, I kind of thought before we left, maybe, you know, maybe it's a bit more complicated than that, you know, what did this this fondue, you know, maybe there's a lot more to it. I mean, maybe there is but it really is a lot of melted cheese, a lot of different meats as well, a very seasonal kind of place. So you have the kind of hunting season. So you'll get a lot of game at certain times of year. And if you I don't know how you feel about eating horse meats, but that was something that I hadn't come across too much before. Not much of a fan of the horse meat, I've got to say, but I love the idea of seasonal foods as a great a great element to Swiss eating. Okay,

Jess: 4:05

and how long did you stay in Switzerland?

Caroline K: 4:07

We were there for four years. Yeah. So four years in Geneva?

Jess: 4:11

Okay. And what other countries have you visited? Yeah.

Caroline K: 4:15

So after that we I mean, I was never going to leave Geneva It was amazing. The Outdoor Life is incredible. If you love skiing and running, and you know, all this kind of thing. But we ended up moving to Singapore in 2016, which was a massive I mean, if you like expensive countries beginning with S That's this is basically our what what we're doing we're heading to a really another expensive city. Very different culture, hugely different culture. I hadn't been to Southeast Asia before. So this was a real eye opener for me. Yes, we and we were there for two years. What city in Singapore? Well, I mean, it's still kind of island state. So we were down in the kind of central area a place called Ang Mo Kio. Anglo means foreigner. So we were really kind of within a fun foreigner enclave there but actually See, I was in the French enclave. So we carried on speaking French carry on, you know, meeting French people eating French food, but also had this incredible culture of food. I mean, Singapore loves to eat.

Jess: 5:11

What are some of the dishes that were like the first time you tasted it? You're just

Caroline K: 5:17

Yeah, I mean,

Jess: 5:19

it's true eating the truth.

Caroline K: 5:21

I mean, Singaporeans, they they love eating. And I mean, I'm not I'm not I wouldn't claim to be like, I don't understand the full cultural, the full history. And I would, I would hate to kind of put words in anyone's mouth and be kind of like, this is how we do things in Singapore. But if you love food, you are going to be absolutely fine in Singapore. The big cultural kind of element is the Hawker centre. So these are food courts. They've been the hawkers, the food peddlers have been in existence since around the 1800s. When it was when it was a major seaport and you hadn't Chinese influence, Malay influence, Indian influence, British influence, all coming together. And in around the 1960s, the government wanted to regulate the hawker centers. So all the street food stalls were placed under one roof, or several roofs, there's probably well over 100 hawker centers in Singapore, and you have different stalls. And you can get an amazing three course meal for like $3

Jess: 6:17

so wonderful street food is there it was a dish that now that if you could go back tomorrow, and just get a dish or something like that, you again,

Caroline K: 6:28

you're making me so hungry, I think it would be higher nice chicken, which is I mean, it's it's incredibly simple. And this is the real beauty of the food is that it's you know, there's a lot of rice dishes, a lot of noodle dishes. And this is just a very simple chicken dish with a broth in some amazing fresh cooked noodles. And you usually would get a kind of a soup as well along with that, like a kind of chicken broth to start with. And they would and there'll be little bits of additions on there. There'd be some parsley and some that maybe some sample sauce or something kind of spicy to go with it. And you'd have you know, the option of food is is incredible. Lots of the ton of national dish I would say is Singapore chili crab. I don't know how do you do it? Are you a seafood fan?

Jess: 7:11

I am not I'm a pescetarian so I choose to eat fish occasionally. But I'm still I'm still not into the crabs and Mollison.

Caroline K: 7:25

You're not sold on the on the actual kind of shellfish stuff. No, no, no. Okay, so Singapore really loves loves that. My husband is allergic to prawns. So, you know, you have to be you have to be so careful because a lot a lot of the sources are just even if they don't have prawns in will be made with prawn shells. And so you know, you're always having to kind of watch, watch what you eat. But, I mean, it's such a I mean, laksa is what is another lovely dish. It's kind of spicy prawns in coconut sauce with noodles. And it's a breakfast dish, and it's just super spicy. And you're just like, it's just heaven.

Jess: 8:00

And I have to cut in to say for all of our American listeners, prawns or shrimp,

Caroline K: 8:05

shrimp, sorry, yeah. Okay, I should say this. Sure. It's a shrimp noodle dish. And it is and it's absolutely amazing. And if you like, you know, you don't you don't need to have like, oatmeal for breakfast. You can have spicy, spicy shrimp for breakfast in Singapore.

Jess: 8:19

So what about customs? Are there any, like unique customs that you had to learn in Singapore or anything that came up to where there was like a culture shock to you?

Caroline K: 8:30

Sure. I mean, the thing about if you go to the hawker centers, which everyone does, you need to know this one tradition and it's called choking. If you don't know, cheeping, you're gonna get told off by an auntie or uncle at the center and you're gonna feel terrible for doing it. If you walk into a center, and you see a tissue, you know, a handkerchief on a chair or a packet of like tissues on a table, that table is reserved. If you sit on a chair, that chair is reserved and you do not move it you don't do you don't remove the the tissues that the handkerchiefs from, from the chair or the table. And that's called choking. You know, you go in you buy you can buy these packets of Kleenex or whatever, and you place them wherever you need to go. And you kind of think, oh, you know, it's like someone's just lesson with some trash it you know, get rid of it, but do not touch it, you'll get shouted out by an auntie at the store

Jess: 9:21

where the packs of Kleenex

Caroline K: 9:23

because they mean a lot. And you know, this is a tradition that's been you know, this is how Westerners get really like, you know, stand out by being sort of not respectful of this kind of thing, you know, not knowing that. There's another thing as well, there's a Do you know that Do you know, the durian fruit? Yes, the king of fruits. Yeah. There's, there's signs everywhere to saying basically do not open these fruits anywhere in an enclosed space because although they're a massive delicacy, they really smell like you know, like a sewer sewer.

Jess: 9:55

Oh, wow. Did you taste it the flavor there's a smell kind of permeate A lot of labor.

Caroline K: 10:01

It does, but actually, it's not as bad like the taste is is pretty good. And it is. I mean, it's called the King of the fruits. So it's an incredibly popular dish. But you know, it's an acquired taste. It really is. And the smell is just you can't acquire that. It's just It's hideous.

Jess: 10:16

So I'm guessing you can't get dairy from a street vendor then since you can't

Caroline K: 10:21

or can't you? Well, there's wet markets, there's a lot of wet market so a lot of fresh fresh food and fresh seafood especially. So anything if it's in season, you can buy it, you can buy it really and durian. I mean, never seems to go away. It's just always there.

Jess: 10:35

Now, in my episode, where I talk with my friend who, from East Asia, she mentioned wet markets, what what actually is a wet market for those who may not know what it is?

Caroline K: 10:46

Well, I think it's mainly for I see it a lot is fruit and vegetable and fresh seafood. There's not so much meat on the on the island. Poultry there is but there's not a lot there's not much farming space. So you don't you won't find a lot of beef or pork. If you do find it that's usually imported into straight into the supermarkets. So the wet markets are where you find the freshest, the freshest seafood and the freshest fruit and vegetables.

Jess: 11:13

So did you cook a lot in Singapore? And how is the grocery store situation though people mostly just kind of eat at the hawkers or the street food vendors? Or do most people cook because I know in certain places, sometimes it's more economical to eat the street food they have to actually cook a big meal. Yeah, no,

Caroline K: 11:33

that's a great point. And actually it is it's more economical to eat, you can eat three times a day, or Hawker center and you're you're eating great food as well. Most people, most people have a certain income have a helper who lives in the house and cooks. So the helper goes to the wet market, the helper goes to the supermarket the helper does pretty much all the cooking and cleaning. I didn't I didn't have that, for lots of reasons, but it wasn't it wasn't something my family was was gonna ever be a part of. So we so I cooked all the time. And because it's so hot outside, you know, you step outside and you're into sort of like 80 90% humidity, the idea of carrying like bags around just was too much. So we had home delivery much like you know, you get everywhere. And they were kind of Yeah, they were different. Like you have probably, you know, pretty much everywhere. There's different levels of supermarkets, you get some pretty cheap and cheerful kind of stuff, ranging right up to the, you know, French supermarkets and various very specialized kind of supermarkets as well. It's such a melting pot of cultures that every kind of nationality has built a you know, a kind of production point within the island that you can access and get your favorite foods from.

Jess: 12:40

So in terms of kind of eating, and day to day dishes from Singapore and Switzerland, I'm not saying which one is the best, but which one? Did you kind of prefer eating on a day to day basis?

Caroline K: 12:54

You know what I have to say the Hawker food, I would take that any day. Just those noodles. Give me those noodles and the dark noodles. Oh my gosh. Another thing, there's a long side, the hawker centers, there's these like coffee shops you can go to and they're like they're like hawker centers. They're outside seating, and you have to enter but there it's called coffee. So you can kind of ask for copies is like very highly sweetened coffee with condensed milk. And you have that and he has your duck noodles. And you are you're set. Honestly, it's amazing.

Jess: 13:26

Did you have a lot of guests? Or did you go kind of visit other people? Locals in Singapore? And if So were there any kind of customs there any kind of interesting experiences that you've had?

Caroline K: 13:39

Sure. So I have Chinese neighbors we lived in we live in the French area, but we had a lot of a lot of Chinese neighbors. And on Chinese New Year. I mean, I hadn't realized just how big a deal Chinese New Year was. But it's as big as I don't know, like Thanksgiving or Christmas or you know, it's huge custom. And my neighbor's turned up on our doorstep with with oranges and red envelopes and some kind of like dried beef really chewy and covered in barbecue sauce. It's just it's just insane. Like it's so good. So it was porque I think actually. And so I really I really kind of really look forward to new Chinese new year every year because it was just every island closes down everyone's at home with their families. And they call it the reunion you know all the families coming together so you'd see lots of lots of sons and daughters and daughters in law are turning up to the to the Chinese to Chinese neighbors. And they were always so great at including us and every kind of condo would have a Chinese New Year dragon dance as well and there'd be lots of people just coming out and really enjoying it and I loved I love that I love the kind of family nests and togetherness of Chinese New

Jess: 14:50

Year. Did you have any other kind of experiences communal food experiences?

Caroline K: 14:55

Yeah, my condo was was really it was really good at laying on different different kinds of events. So we would have like Chinese New Year, the Lunar New Year, the French community would have their own their own events. So we would would often kind of sneak over to the French to the point where the French were having a party, because they'd always have, like, amazing, like crepes, and everything like that. So getting to, to kind of being within one culture, but experiencing lots of different cultures was, was was such a great, such a great blessing. It was great.

Jess: 15:27

So you can have keep mentioning the French area. So there's a huge kind of French presence there in Singapore, and kind of what other communities are there with that as you know, right? Sure.

Caroline K: 15:39

Yeah. So Singapore is a real amazing hub for travel. So you once you're in there, you can get to, you know, pretty much that's like the airport feeds every part of Southeast Asia so you can get to Vietnam and Thailand and Malaysia and you know, everywhere like that pretty quickly, which is which is great. So within Singapore, there are lots of communities so lots of European communities, Irish had a lot of Irish friends, Australian. And yeah, Chinese, but also it's a place where a lot of immigrant workers come like us I guess, and in a lot of Indian families there as well. So you kind of the food has kind of taken on a lot of different flavors to it and sometimes it becomes Singaporean rather than Chinese or Indian it kind of takes on different flavors and traditions and becomes a kind of hybrid version, I guess. And that's and that's thanks to the amount of people living and working there.

Jess: 16:35

Did you kind of go on any kind of adventures around to other countries around Singapore? And what are some dishes that you may have had if you kind of you know if you go to Hawaii they call it Island happened but if you go cuz

Caroline K: 16:50

it is it it feels like that because you could get on a like a ferry for an hour and you're on an Indonesian island. So it is it's island hopping. That's exactly it. So yeah, we went to Indonesia. We stayed and had some amazing Indonesian carriers. I think I can't remember what it's called. But there's some some lovely Indonesian flavored curries just really lovely flavoring and really just are so addictive. We also went to Vietnam that was somewhere I really wanted to go to. I hadn't been to Vietnam, I kind of was weighing up Vietnam or Cambodia and ended up in Vietnam and had fo lots of pho noodle phobot I think is the beef noodle. And again, I I love all the restaurants but it's the street food that really says so much about about the people and about kind of like the local food and the local availability of crops and you know, seasonal produce. So street food, Vietnamese noodle fo are just so good.

Jess: 17:47

So kind of how did your travel experiences you mentioned that you cooked at home a lot. While you're in Singapore? I'm assuming that you still kind of do that back home? What I know the feeling waking it's our what is every every single day. Exactly. What is What are they any kind of practices that you learn from when you were in Sweden when you were in Singapore where you were kind of island hopping to all these different countries? Is there anything that you kind of tried to recreate at home or it's something that you do?

Caroline K: 18:21

I mean, I do try like singing Singapore noodles I bought I bought a few kinds of recipes and things that with me, my my kids are a little bit at the time they loved it. But now they're back in the UK, they're a little bit more like perhaps less adventurous than they were. But we did bring back our fondue set and our raclette grill. So we're very like cheese. I mean, raclette is great if you have guests, right? Because you just say you cook your own meat, you melt your own cheese. It's such an easy thing to do, but so communal and such a nice way of sharing food. So I love the kind of so we do fondue regularly. I know you're supposed to eat it in winter, but we eat it all year round because it's just so easy. You know, I don't have to do too much cooking. It's not much involvement.

Jess: 19:01

So whether you normally serve when you do

Caroline K: 19:03

reckless, so I recollect grill you put the cheese underneath and on top is where we cook the meat. So we have different that we have strips of lamb strips of beef. We also do some vegetables. So we'll have pepper red peppers, and then you kind of match that up with some sauces and with some pickles like gherkins and and you can set that on little new potatoes or just crusty bread is just great. And it's so easy once you've cut everything up. You just really just ready to go.

Jess: 19:32

Do you ever recreate any dishes from Singapore?

Caroline K: 19:35

I have tried. I have tried. I've got like these lists of like try and make some fish head curry and try and make some ones on me. I like to Yeah, one times I really I've been trying to try and get good at making little ones but I mean they're fiddly and I'm really not patient enough to to do it. Any justice, unfortunately.

Jess: 19:52

Okay, so somebody was going to go to Singapore tomorrow and they say hey, Caroline was what do I have to do? fryer was something that I have to eat before I leave.

Caroline K: 20:03

Okay, that's a really good question, I would say, go down to satay by the bay, head down that way and you'll find a massive Hawker center it's pretty touristy but there are rows and rows and rows of satay being cooked and you can you can choose some pork satay beef satay or lamb satay, and it is the best set ate on the island. And you'll have that with some amazing spicy peanut sauce. There's a bar in the middle, grab a Tiger beer, and you've got the you've got the best meal and it's going to cost you like less than $10 for just an incredible, incredible meal. Yeah, go there. There.

Jess: 20:37

Okay, now the same question. If we went to Island hop, you mentioned one place in Indonesia. Do Can you name the specific Island? And what was the dish to Anna curry that you enjoy

Caroline K: 20:51

the chase. So there had to been tan Island, it's it's very low key. It's not it's not a metropolis. It's extremely rural. Go to the Bintan Island Resort, hang out in the pool for a couple of days and eat I think it's called Rangan curry. And it's just absolutely delicious. Any any Indonesian curry you will not be disappointed? It's so good. Yeah, with coconut rice. Amazing.

Jess: 21:17

So how does a curry necessarily differ? Because I know being British, I know any food is popular there. And so. Yeah. So how does kind of an Indonesian curry kind of differ from what you may get from kind of British or Indian British kind of curry?

Caroline K: 21:37

Yeah, I mean, I think I think British cars, I think we've actually created our own Indian dishes. You know? I think it's probably again, I think it comes back to seasonal food, you and what's available. Whereas an in you know, in England, we've got you know, for so much stuff that just gets frozen for for months on end. But, I mean, I guess it's to do with also a lot of coconut milk that you'll get more in Thai, Thai and Indonesian food, you'll get that much more than in UK curries. Which, which is which is so lovely. And lots of salary flavors as well. So lots of interplay with soy sauce and lime and really sort of sour tasting curry which Julie which if you like is so good. But anything kind of from that island, you're just going to get such great flavors. And you're going to know that it's not the same as the stuff that you'd get in the UK is yeah, it's definitely definitely a different a different experience.

Jess: 22:30

Do you have any new travel plans or any? Anything coming up?

Caroline K: 22:36

It's been a while. since anyone can make plans. It's so good. It's so good. So I'm gonna I'm what I've cut. I've just come back from a trip. Another eye opening culinary experience in Texas. Yeah, I went to Austin, for work. And I mean, like, you know, I didn't even know I liked barbecue. And I mean, I thought I knew what barbecue was. And then completely different. I had no idea. It was like, why are all these people queuing like, that's in Singapore? You know, in Singapore, the rule is join the longest queue because that's going to be the best. And I think it's the same in Australia. Because you know, at the end of it, it's something that everyone's so the guy in my taxi driver was saying, like, you know, you're going to keep for three hours, but it's going to be worth every every bite.

Jess: 23:23

Three hours. Wow. Yeah,

Caroline K: 23:25

there was some places that definitely, definitely kind of commanded that kind of attention. But I really loved the whole vibe of of like barbecue and live music. I love that intersection of you know, you could go to a bar, you're gonna get amazing food, and you're gonna get some really good life music as well. So I really enjoyed that. Coming up. I'm off to I'm off to Barcelona. Yeah, in August. Yeah, I've been before but it's, I love it. I love that again, if you're a seafood person, you're just gonna get some great seafood. It's just good second fantastic course as well, which is amazing.

Jess: 24:02

So what about your experience stateside? Was this your first time stateside? Or just your first time in Austin?

Caroline K: 24:08

First time in Austin? I've been along the east coast before so I've had the New York experience and then Washington and Boston and around that area Baltimore kind of but yeah, I mean, I you know, I understand I don't know this for a fact but I understand that Austin is not Texas. Like a lot of people say they that's what I was told. So what's a little bit different

Jess: 24:31

there? Apparently a lot more a lot more different. non traditional in terms of what you think when you think Texas from what I from what I hear. I'm in Florida, so I'm always away.

Caroline K: 24:42

Yeah, yeah. If you've been if you've been to the internet,

Jess: 24:46

I have not Texas is kind of on my to do list particularly Austin for the reason that it's kind of supposed to be kind of quirky and wonderful and weird, which is what the place type of places that I like.

Caroline K: 24:58

That sounds exactly what works for So last thing was, but then, you know, every time I come over to the US, I'm just so surprised at how, you know, even a neighboring state can have a completely different character. It's like being in Europe, you know, it's just it's crazy.

Jess: 25:12

Is if a lot of land, so yeah, no I can I can. We're planning on going to Fort Lauderdale pretty soon. And that's the eight hour drive St. State

Caroline K: 25:24

State Drive. Yes, it's crazy. Eight hours would take you to a different country that would take me to Scotland. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. But so but so interesting that I mean, I can imagine why you could just talk to us. Couldn't you just doing your like show? Where's your favorite, favorite place to be? Like, Favorite eating place in the US? Oh,

Jess: 25:45

I have so many. Where did I have the best food experience right now it's been just because it's accessibility in terms of I could go back there. I loved Atlanta, we took a trip there for our anniversary a couple of years ago. And this is before like, there's been some changes since the last time we went. But there are so many just gyms there. And it's kind of international as well, too. They have a lot of international places. But I like to eat vegan for whatever reason, if it's if it's available. And they have some amazing vegan restaurants like more than one like, yeah, probably I probably 10 I could probably count for you. And yeah, and it's like everything from kind of like quick bites, low cost of vegan. And then there's a place we went to urban fix where it's very fancy. And it's very kind of unassuming fancy, because you will walk in and it's just very bright and airy. But she kind of looked at people in the dress very nice. Where you all Yeah. And then you get your plates and everything is services amazing. And it was an amazing place to be. But since then, you know, you have a place called seletti Vegan that's kind of taken off. And they make these big, huge vegan burgers and chicken sandwiches and like everything milkshakes, and all that type of thing that wasn't as big of a thing when we were there. And it's just, I would love to go back to experience that and there's just so many gems because I really went on that particular trip with the goal to eat

Caroline K: 27:27

the mystery ever. What's Florida what's good in Florida?

Jess: 27:30

Oh, Florida is so different, like where I am is country. So you think like rural southern Georgia and northern Florida and lower Alabama, we're all kind of the same. But you know, and so a lot of people think Florida think the palm trees at Disney World and Orange, orange groves and that type of thing. And that's for the style. So it's a little different. And then you get more like Latin American influence, the further you go down, more kind of Caribbean and Latin influence the further you go down as amazing. Yeah, so you know, there's Cuban sandwiches and all that type of thing. But as far as what I eat, it's a lot of kind of southern food my mom makes but my family is vegetarian. So it's like a vegetarian twist on soul food. When I eat out, I just, I just like to eat kind of all over the world. But you know where I am. So yeah, favorite restaurants is actually kind of based on what you probably ate in Singapore is like street food type. Yeah, so it's called jays, Asian street food. So

Caroline K: 28:47

say it. Yeah, street food, I think is where the soul of the places you know, where you get, I think a lot of particularly Westerners, they go over to places like Singapore, and they are a bit scared. You know, you're kind of like, I don't know if this if I'm gonna do the right thing. Or if I'm gonna like, you're going to be too spicy, am I going to like make a fool of myself and you just think you've got to go for it, you've got to try. Try that try this, you've got to go and do this experience. Because once you've once you've got it is going to enhance your time there. It's going to enhance your cultural experience and your culinary experience like 100%

Jess: 29:18

Because I'm really feel like a kind of not as knowledgeable as I would like to be in terms of like Asian especially, like Indian food. Like, because there's kind of a big Mexican American population where I grew up. I feel pretty familiar with kind of Mexican and Latin American cuisine. But when I go to like the Indian restaurant, there's wonderful one here in Tallahassee called me a URI that I liked to go to occasionally it's a it's a big buffet and you can kind of try everything. You know, I have my found myself walking up like, I don't know, but this is just gonna try new Not in Spanish, which I can kind of read through education policy Yeah, type of thing. So I'm just like I have flipped his aloo. You know, what is this? Well, it's always delicious. And I love going to the Indian market where I live to. So it's, you can get things that are wonderful for vegetarian cooking like you can get like, chickpea flour, which is becoming more accessible. You can get things like all the different dolls and dry beans and rice and so I love it.

Caroline K: 30:33

So it's so good. I went to India for two weeks, many years ago. Yeah. And I had to say the vegetarian food that I found in the veggie restaurants was just out of this world who's so good. Like we were in Kerala, which is way down the south. And just like again, like the fresh fish was was amazing. Like you could use you saw the catch being brought up and then it was on your plate within like a few minutes. So good. Yeah, I love that. I will say you

Jess: 30:59

were there a lot of street food in India that you tried as well. Did you not get it?

Caroline K: 31:04

I didn't get to try so much. We weren't near too many, too many places where we could access that. But we did eat and a lot of kind of local little restaurants and just try to try to everything absolutely everything because you know when you're when you've traveled that far, you need to you need to try everything. Yeah, that's good. And actually alcohol was forbidden. So you would it was like a dry state at the time. But they would find ways around it by giving you a like a teapot. And on your like on your on your bill, it would say Happy tea. And inside the teapot was like laser beer. So you can find a way you could find a way around it.

Jess: 31:43

as well. Yeah, so if you ask for happy thieves to get some beer,

Caroline K: 31:47

yeah, cold beer in a teapot. Because

Jess: 31:52

that's amazing. I love it. Are there any other kind of things that you kind of bring to your home cooking besides you know, you say just try some Singapore food now we know that you've been to India you've you've been to the US is there anything kind of outside the norm for British cooking that you find yourself? Making? Yeah, no, I

Caroline K: 32:11

think I think British cooking has become such a mix. Like we're so we're such we're so close to Europe. So we've we've all been to kind of like France and Germany and Italy and Austria and you know, because because it's been easy once you're in especially if you're in Central Europe, like if you're in Switzerland or France or anywhere like that you can travel so easily around it's you'd be crazy not to so in Switzerland, you can get into Italy within an hour or two. And from there you can go on and you know so and catch ferries and boats to various islands. So we I mean we eat a lot of Italian food because we have Italian friends here and because it's easy and accessible. So I think are probably for us are European influences. A huge split in the UK. You know, Italian food is become comfort food to a lot of people you know is nothing better than like a big bowl of pasta and you know, we we feel like that. Yeah, exactly. It's just so great. And you just can't go wrong with that kind of thing. So I don't know if it's because it was British food doesn't really seem to have much of its own identity. It's assumed identities from other countries. We just eat everything in sight you know really everything and I love that I love that we embrace all those different flavors and cultures. It's great.

Jess: 33:26

Oh, something I will mention that I enjoy right up the street within walking distance from my house is a place where they serve is connected to a gas station it's very it's very much a hole in the wall. Okay. Oh. Which is what we call you know, restaurant that very sketchy was there's a great food. Yeah. And they're I think they're I think the owners are Italian by way of like through New York. So you know, maybe second generation I don't think first generation but they make pizza that people everyone says here that that's basically Brooklyn pizza, but down here. So I eat there's a lot Yeah, well,

Caroline K: 34:09

I'd be there every day. bringing

Jess: 34:11

me the pizza. The thing is we have a food face group group here and they really like they call it a swarm when they go to these different places. And it really is because the business are just boom out of nowhere from people mentioning it. And I'm just like, stop spilling the secret. Yeah, you

Caroline K: 34:29

don't want you don't want to be competing and Ally do waiting for hours for something really, really good. waiting

Jess: 34:34

longer than I normally have to.

Caroline K: 34:36

Yeah, yeah, I mean even I mean I'm right by the sea. So even in my little seaside town we have we yeah, we have a lot of little little pizza places like that. And lots of Indian restaurants and lots of places to choose from and it's not a particularly big place, but we do like that kind of Yeah, Italian and Indian food here is just everywhere. It's it's a good

Jess: 34:59

man very thoroughly hungry.

Caroline K: 35:02

Like what made dinner now I'm thinking watch my make maybe

Jess: 35:06

I think I did my job here, which is if you're listening and watching a hope that you're as hungry as we are right now I'm hungry. It's currently lunchtime for me probably dinner time for you. But thank you so much for being a part of the show. We played a little game of tag trying to get trying to get her here. But we happy that I'm so happy that you finally made it. So thank you very much.

Caroline K: 35:34

It's been an absolute pleasure. Yes. So

Jess: 35:36

if people want to find out more about you, I know you are copywriter freelance writer, they want to find more about you and your services. Where would they go?

Caroline K: 35:44

Oh, head over to my website, which is Caroline Kelly writer.com. I'm also on Instagram under Caroline Kelly, writer as well. And on Twitter at CAST Kelly 123.

Jess: 35:53

All right. And is there anything that you're working on that you don't mind like sharing about?

Caroline K: 35:58

Oh, I'm, you know, I work on podcasts. So I'm writing scripts for podcasts, many kinds of business side of things. So with the work week team who are just incredible. And I'm also I write for a feature of magazine called Breathe, which is a good old fashioned print magazine. And it's lovely, if you like kind of mindfulness and taking care of yourself. Check that out as well. Okay,

Jess: 36:18

amazing. So again, thank you so much, Caroline, thank you so much for listening or viewing us on YouTube. Feel free to like, subscribe. If you would like to be on the show. Maybe be a part of this series you traveled or you have some story to share. You can always leave a comment and let me know and I'll follow up with you or send me a message at Jess at the flaky foodie.com Thank you so much again, have a wonderful week and make sure you eat something delicious. Treat this episode like gossip for the gospel. Share it tell a friend and just put it out there. Alrighty, thank you. Bye bye

Caroline K: 36:57

bye. Thank you