In which we have no bread
Published at 9:06 am on February 8th, 2009
Filed under: Dear Diary.
As people have been asking, here’s the cake that K’s very kindly made me for my birthday. I haven’t actually tasted it yet – as I write this it’s sitting in the fridge – but as all of K’s cooking is wonderful and delicious, I’m sure it will be fantastic.
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Keyword noise: baking, birthday, cake, food, marscapone, puns, jokes, Tia Maria, tiramisu, tiramisu cake, tiramizoo.
In which a correspondent is nauseated
Published at 9:32 am on December 7th, 2008
Filed under: Dear Diary.
Regular readers might remember that a few days back, in a rant about vegan food, I mentioned a vegan cheese substitute product I came across called “Sheese”, a kind of oil-water-soya paste packed to the gunnels with artificial flavouring to make it vaguely cheeselike.
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Keyword noise: Bute, Bute Island Foods, disgusting, food, nausea, Rothesay, Scotland, sheese, soya, vegan, vegetarian.
In which we disbelieve vegan propaganda, and try food made of additives and nothing else
Published at 9:33 am on December 1st, 2008
Filed under: Dear Diary.
At the weekend: off we went to a vegetarian food event we’d seen advertised in The Spark, put on by vegan campaigning organisation Viva!. We were expecting it to be slightly biased, obviously, but even so the strength of the propaganda they gave was slightly surprising. They claim, according to a poster we saw there, that their “veggie roadshows” have saved the lives of 100 million animals so far, which sounds like, well, a rather large number. They claim that one person converting to the veganist religion will save “around 11,047 animals”. I love that figure, and, particularly, the “around” part. Around. A rough estimate: it might only be 11,046-and-a-half animal lives, or you might do well and manage a whole 11,047-and-an-eighth! Going by these numbers, that means they think they’ve converted 9,052.2314 people to veganism (don’t forget that almost-a-quarter of a person at the end there) – or about 650 a year, on average, since they started out. How they count those 11,000 – sorry, roughly 11,047 – animals, I’m not entirely sure. Do animals who will now not be born count as lives saved? Will all those 11,047 (roughly) animals live out their natural lives in some happy, predator-free elysium? Forever cute, as their propaganda posters show? Who knows?
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Keyword noise: additives, artificial flavouring, Bute, Bute Island Food, cheese, food, green, health, ingredients, propaganda, Rothesay, sheese, soya, statistics, vegan, vegetarian, Viva!.
In which we see how popular food is
Published at 10:41 pm on May 27th, 2008
Filed under: Meta, Photobloggery.
After posting pictures of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park last week, it got me looking at my Flickr account and wondering what pictures are the most popular. Flickr will, if you like, give you pages of tables and graphs to tell you how many people have been looking at each of your photos,* so I thought I’d see if there’s any general pattens in what sort of photos people like to view at full size.
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Keyword noise: cherry tomato, chicken, chicken breast, dinner, Flickr, food, pan-fried, parmesan, photography, salad dressing, statistics, tomato.
In which we are still on a quest for condensed milk
Published at 10:08 pm on March 17th, 2008
Filed under: Dear Diary, Photobloggery.
After Thursday’s post, Kahlan got back in touch, with a tip-off. Apparently there had been a rumoured sighting of a can of own-brand non-evil condensed milk, in a Waitrose. So our Saturday was spent driving 25 miles to Harrogate, the nearest branch,* to find … Nestlé products firmly on the shelves. Oh well.
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Keyword noise: baking, biscuits, condensed milk, dulce de leche, food, Harrogate, Nestle, recipe, shopping, Yorkshire.
In which I wake up feeling hungry
Published at 9:45 pm on March 10th, 2008
Filed under: Dear Diary.
No, really, they can. The one I’m thinking of hasn’t come true yet, but I’m sure it will soon. On Saturday night, I dreamed I was boiling a can of condensed milk on the stove, to make toffee.
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Keyword noise: biscuits, cake, condensed milk, dreaming, dulce de leche, food.
In which we use up some strange expensive pasta that was lurking in the cupboard
Published at 10:46 pm on December 10th, 2007
Filed under: Dear Diary.
In which we cook a frittata
Published at 10:05 pm on October 15th, 2007
Filed under: Dear Diary.
Back in the days when I was a student, ten years or so ago,* I would be quite experimental in the kitchen. I’d try things out, new recipes, experimental recipes. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t, but it made things nice and varied.
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Keyword noise: cheese, cooking, eggs, food, fritatta, mushroom, omelette, potato, recipe.
In which we study the markup on an import
Published at 9:38 am on August 29th, 2007
Filed under: Photobloggery, Unbelievable.
This was seen in the large Parisian department store Galaries Lafayette* the other day, in the “Epicerie Britannique” section of the gourmet foodhall:
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Keyword noise: British, Epicerie Britannique, expensive, food, France, Galaries Lafayette, Heinz, import, Paris, pricing, salad cream.
In which we look forward to a delicacy
Published at 7:47 am on June 24th, 2007
Filed under: Linkery.
Science news of the week: scientists have finally invented an odourless breed of durian, the tropical fruit which is popular in the East Indies, but entirely impossible to obtain in Britain. It smells like a potent mix of vomit and custard, and is banned from the cargo holds of every airline because of that. In Malaysia, several people are killed by durian every year, not because of the smell, but because they are large, spiky, and grow high up in trees. My former Malaysian flatmate would send me news clippings about deaths rising at the start of each durian season. Note to European publishers: start getting those durian recipe books ready now!
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Keyword noise: durian, food, fruit, science, tropical fruit, tropics, Malaysia.
Or, the discovery of Ultimate Crisps
Published at 9:24 pm on September 17th, 2006
Filed under: Dear Diary.
In which my cynicism is exposed for the cynical, hollow sham it is
Published at 7:10 am on September 8th, 2006
Filed under: Dear Diary, Media Addict, Meta.
Well, good morning. It’s the end of the week, and I’m glad. One more day to get through, though.
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Keyword noise: bad driving, books, Craig Moore, driving, food, grumpy, literature, reading, restaurant, Thermite, Yorkshire.
In which eating the leftovers is ill-advised
Published at 11:08 pm on August 21st, 2006
Filed under: Dear Diary.
Note to self: be more careful with the leftovers in future. Two day old Chinese food with prawns in isn’t good for my stomach, clearly. That was at least part of the reason for my absence over the past couple of days. There were other reasons, too, of course – when I wasn’t in bed or throwing up, I was travelling round half of Yorkshire, escorting kissograms and delivering cats. Despite my illness, despite still spending most of the weekend in bed, I didn’t get much sleep.
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Keyword noise: Chinese, food, illness, leftovers, prawns, seafood, sickness.
…was the headline on the Evening Standard billboards when I was wandering around Islington this morning looking for a bus. It’s not a headline you hear every day. It turns out that the manic in question was a ‘heavy plant operator’, which at least might explain how he knew how to get hold of a JCB at 7 in the morning, never mind how to drive one.
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Keyword noise: Archway, food, fry up, greasy spoon, holiday, Indian, JCB, London, photography, travel.
I like bank holidays and long weekends. I especially like pairs of bank holidays, and extra-long weekends. Today really felt like a Friday at the office, particularly as The Secretary* was handing out buttered hot cross buns (albeit cold).
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Keyword noise: baking, Easter, food, holiday, hot cross buns, long weekend.
In which we talk about poverty, diet, and the deep-fried pizza
Published at 9:11 pm on April 11th, 2006
Filed under: Media Addict, Political.
I often don’t agree with the writing of Julie Bindel, the left-wing feminist who apparently believes that everyone should have full control over their own body, unless they were born male, or want to prostitute themselves. Today, though, I thought she was along the right lines when she wrote about diet and classism: it’s easy to criticise poor people for being unhealthy, when they don’t have the time or the money to eat well.*
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Keyword noise: classism, Clerk St, deep-fried Mars Bar, deep-fried pizza, diet, Edinburgh, feminism, food, Julie Bindel, Mars Bar, Pasquale's, pizza, poverty, Scotland, takeaway.
Or, not sure I like the sound of that
Published at 10:34 pm on June 21st, 2002
Filed under: The Old Blog, Linkery.