Measurements

I'm afraid US recipes drive me mad – they're so imprecise. It’s all 2 cups of flour, ¾ cup of butter. Firstly how big is a cup?* Secondly how do you measure a cup of butter? It’s completely different depending on how small you cut the pieces. You can’t even just scale things to pounds or kilograms because the recipes invariably also include measurements which are exact such as a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda / the juice of one lemon. I find myself practising recipes and translate the successes into proper measurements.

It’s not just recipes which are so vague though – in the California Diving handbook it states that the gap you require when merging with traffic is:

• Half a block on city streets.
• A full block on the highway

How far is a block? Is there really a standard distance? Surely giving a distance would be a little more useful than thinking; well if I say I've just passed Office Depot I just have room to merge into the freeway traffic before I reach Starbucks on the corner.


* Update – I have found a measuring jug which measures cups – result! Still not quite sure how to manage ½ cup of butter though. I mean the only way to do this is to melt the butter ... :)