On the tea issue-- we always boil the water in a teapot (tea kettle in the UK?)-- usually metal with a spout, cover, and handle and set onto the burner. Then the boiling water is poured over the teabag in the cup... or poured over the teabags or loose-tea-in-a-tea-ball in ANOTHER teapot (the ceramic kind you set on the table). My mom always put milk in our tea when I was growing up-- in northern Indiana near Chicago-- and the first time I had lemon in it was probably as a teenager. My parents were both born and raised near Chicago, never went to England, so I don't know where the milk habit came from. It was always milk into the tea, by the way.
I still prefer my occasional cup of tea with milk, unless I have a sore throat... then it's honey and lemon.
My mom also used to make Russian Tea: equal parts Tang (powdered orange drink) and freeze dried tea (like Lipton's ice tea mix), about half the amount of sugar and a bit of cinnamon and cloves, and you pour boiling water over a couple of tablespoons of the mix in a mug. We drank that a lot in the winter time, to warm up.
Like Paul, I associate the words "cheese curds" with cottage cheese-- but have never, never liked anything sweet on it-- no pineapple or any of that. NEVER EVER heard of maple syrup on it-- can't imagine how that would taste, and I have no intention of ever finding out! :p I love to eat potato chips (the UK crisps) with cottage cheese-- my favorite way to eat cottage cheese is as a dip for potato chips. My 9 year old daughter likes to use Frito corn chips with cottage cheese. The 6 year old won't even taste cottage cheese.
The mushy peas thing-- ick! I like peas ok, although I'm not allowed to eat 'em anymore. (There's too much vitamin K in the dark green veggies, and vit K interferes with blood thinners. This is actually pretty rough since I'm a vegetarian-- kinda hard when you can't eat any green veggies!) Anyway-- I'd want 'em with butter and salt. The only way I'd ever ingest a mushed pea is if it's part of pea soup. :p
The Duo Tang things-- locally, we call 'em three-prong folders, or three-prong binders if they don't have the pockets.
I've heard of ensuite, entree, serviette, and mickey. Wendy's correct that many restaurants list their main dishes under the header of "Entrees"... I personally also use the word to mean "entering" ("The role was his entree into the professional world..."). And "ensuite" is used a lot to describe a room which "comes with" a bathroom-- like a "master bedroom" in real estate language. That brings me to
Does that sounds odd to any Americans or people over the pond? The bathroom stuff I mean.
Yeah, never heard that... I'm familiar with 1/2 bath (sink and toilet), 3/4 bath (sink, toilet, shower) and full bath (sink, toilet, shower, and tub). As a matter of fact, my husband and I built on to our home a couple of years ago-- added a third car garage, covered the storm shelter (no longer out in the middle of the side-yard) and added a large room (currently the "playroom") and bath. WE considered it a full bath, as it allows the occupant to bathe as well as all the rest-- but because it has "only" a sink, toilet, and shower, it's considered a 3/4 bath. So I had a lot of fun with adding up our bathrooms for an imaginary real estate ad: we started with 2 and 1/2 baths, now added a 3/4 bath-- so we have how many baths? Let's see, change the "1/2" to "2/4" and add them up, that's 2/4 + 3/4 so we have 2 and 5/4 baths
which is 3 and 1/4 baths
... I don't know, I can see somebody trying to figure out what, exactly, a 1/4 bath is!
~Toc (who didn't really intend to ramble on quite this long...)
