Day 183 - barbecuing jackfruit in wonderland, y'all

4th of July,  that date rings a bell. Oh yes, its the day when the 1996 movie Independence Day suggests that the aliens will attack. I can confirm that they haven't so far today, at least not in Shrewsbury. I think that it is also a holiday in America when they celebrate freedom from tyranny and oppression, or eat turkey or something along those lines. Here in the UK it was also Independent's Day, a day to celebrate independent shops. I didn't so any shopping but I did do a lot of tweeting to help raise awareness amongst my army of loyal followers. I sure that the economy is now looking rosy thanks to my efforts. I heard that Shrewsbury has the longest unbroken row of independent shops in the country (I was tempted to call it a chain of shops but that would be against the point). We certainly have a good helping of them.

To celebrate Caesar Salad Day I made a Caesar salad. I bet you weren't expecting that were you. A colleague at work was leaving us so we had a picnic to say goodbye. My contribution was the said salad. To make it easier to eat I put the chicken, cheese, croutons and sauce into the lettuce leaves. I wasn't bad actually and all got eaten so I'll take that as a positive. I'm not sure I'd want to just eat a salad like that though, it was a bit samey.

Next up we have a three in one. Firstly, Barbecue Day.  As we are still having a heatwave, barbecuing is now the norm so it was easy to have another. The kids weren't taken by the choice of food though, too many sauces. It was Barbecued Spare Ribs Day so they were obviously on the menu. I used Jamie Oliver's recipe as they only took an hour rather than the suggest four which most went with.  The meat didn't fall from the bone but they were tasty. The star of the show though for me was jackfruit. I've never tried jackfruit before. I made a rub and cooked it on the barbie.  It pulls just like pork does and soaks up the flavours well. It was delish! I'd happily have had some with coleslaw in a bun. I heartily recommend it and will be buying more. Yay! Today was also listed as Don't Eat Meat Day but I think that it one of those protest days to rival the meat eating which went on today.  I've mentioned before how I'm getting less interested in meat and jackfruit certainly helped provide an alternative texture wise.

Still two celebrations to go. For Country Music Day I listened to the best that Nashville has to offer. I'm quite partial to some country tunes and particularly enjoyed Garth Brooks singing with Justin Timberlake.  It's worth a listen if you have a moment.

After all that celebrating I'm afraid that I have to end on a low. I decided to finally watch Alice In Wonderland as it was Alice In Wonderland Day, the anniversary of the original book. I hadn't realised how important a book it was. Unfortunately the movie is dire. It misfires so badly that I had to turn it off. I usually give films a chance but this one was just too painful. Oh well, I'll have to try the book one day instead.