Peanut Butter, the Gourmet Food Market, & Finals Month

Good peanut butter is hard to come by in Coventry. First off, the selection of peanut butter at the stores is minuscule; you have your choice of crunchy peanut butter or extra crunchy peanut butter, and both are made by the same UK company. I am no peanut butter connoisseur, but the locally made stuff does not cut it for me. It tastes weird. Thank goodness for the International Foods aisle where two jars of Jif peanut butter were hidden behind a crushed container of Captain Crunch cereal, next to a box of Jello instant pudding and a few beef jerky packets. One jar of Jif cost around 8 USD, but I bought it anyway because, to me at least, peanut butter is worth any price.

While comfort food is good to have, it fun to try what the locals eat, too. Once a month, a Gourmet Food Market sets up shop by the Students’ Union, and I have bought some of the most interesting foods from the various stalls. My first purchase was a bacon burger--the least expensive item on the menu. It was amazing. The bacon was thick and well seasoned. I have also sampled delicious spicy tomato and caramelized onion chutney, treated myself to Irish coffee flavored fudge for my 21st birthday, and polished off a whole bag of savory samosas.

First Gourmet Food Market of the Spring term!

My bacon burger.

The nice men who made my burger.

Fudge! My favorite is the toffee fudge.

Unfortunately, as much as I want to continue writing about my love of food, I absolutely have to get back to studying. The University of Warwick (finally) announced the exam schedule for the summer term, and while mine are not for a few weeks, I have a lot of notes to read over. My first exam, which is May 20th, is for my International and European Employment Relations class and counts for 100% of my grade in that course, so I need to do really well on that. My International Marketing exam on the 21st is 50% of my grade, and my final exam on the 30th is for Managing HR and counts for 100%. I am a little nervous about my exams, but so long as I continue to work through all of my class notes, I think I should be okay! But just in case, please keep your fingers crossed for me.

And lastly, May the Fourth be with you!