Category Archives: food

Apocalyptic

family, food, science, social

@atoponce@fosstodon.org posted a poll earlier:

What is your preferred “end of the world” apocalyptic scenario?

– Aliens

– Nuclear fallout

– Pandemic

– Zombies

Assume strict science fiction and not fantasy fiction in the scenario (no supernatural magic).

The last time I looked Aliens was comfortably in the lead with 61% of the vote.

Quite naturally given that the world is undergoing an unprecedented period of stability and equality andā€¦ I took the question seriously and replied thus:

Feel free to accuse me of overthinking this šŸ™‚ but is this based on the likely survivability of my family and me (ark ship, bunker, isolated cottage) or a quick and easy demise free from watching the inevitable dismantling of our, erā€¦ civilisation?

*Or* (cue spooky music) something painful in between, something extraordinarily painful?

Maybe I should think of the bigger picture. šŸ™‚

Aaron’s response?

There aren’t really any rules other than no supernatural mumbo jumbo. I think that’s part of what makes this question kind of fun.

Are zombies animated only for a limited few days/weeks before decay makes them immobile?

Will the cancer from nuclear fallout kill you quickly, or will it be a slow painful death?

Are you food for the aliens or a science experiment?

Me, after a bit of thought:

I’ve voted for aliens on the basis that my preferred scenario involves the destruction of Earth for a hyperspace bypass, and it happens not long after the announcement. I’ve never been keen on prolonging things. šŸ™‚

Ok, I’m not at all keen on the destruction of anything but if it has to happen I’d like my participation in it to be over quickly. Incidentally, the hyperspace bypass thing is borrowed from the novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy1, a trilogy in five parts.

So, why did I not choose any of the other worthy contenders?

Nuclear fallout?

I’m thinking of Chernobyl.2 I’ve watched dramatised documentaries34 and actual documentaries of the nuclear meltdown incident. That’s accidents. Thoughts on the intentional use of nuclear weapons leads me right to Threads – a film I cannot bring myself to watch but that I’ve read lots about.5

Not sure, but I don’t think I’d want to survive in a bunker, to see out my days cut off from ‘life’.

Pandemic?

2019- COVID-19. Everyone who reads this will have a memory of the 2019- pandemic. But not everyone died, and civilisation didn’t collapse, so that’s alright then.

1981- HIV/AIDS. Mostly under control, and it’s a good thing global outreach programmes are still well-funded isn’t it.

1918-1920 Spanish flu. Pretty much no-one who lived through this is alive now. A 100% mortality rate by now should annoy most people, right?6

1331-1353 Black Death.

Heck no, it’s not an exhaustive list, but this is only a blog post, I’m no academic!

Pandemics vs epidemics though, it’s all a matter of scale, excess mortality rates, pre-existing medical conditions, demographics, isn’t it.

So, a world-ending virus, bacteria, biological thing, has to be pretty, erā€¦ virulent, right?

Zombies

Watch the film ‘Shaun of the Dead’.7. That’s all.

It won’t be enough to prepare you for zombies, but it’s a good start.

I can’t choose this way to go because I wouldn’t want people I know and love to be consumed by or turn into zombies and want to eat my face off. Erā€¦ whether they consciously want to or not. I see enough of that with the increasing reliance on social media and propaganda shaping opinions instead of taking the time to have views shaped by ‘hard’ news organisations. So much for my 1997 dream of a golden age of information availability.

And, like most people, I rely on infrastructure spanning the turn of the 21st century for my survival. Were not ready for bartering and butchering and bravery.

Soā€¦

Aliens

Right. I’ve read and watched a good amount of science fiction. The ones that stand out, plot themes from memory:

‘Footfall’, novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle; conquest, assimilation, kinetic energy weapons.

‘The War of the Worlds’, novel by H.G. Wells; mass killings, enslavement, nourishment, climate change (in the grossest of senses).

‘Battlefield Earth’, large novel by L Ron Hubbard; mass killings, enslavement. Great book, dire film worth watching only after reading the book and then never again.

‘Doctor Who’, TV series; particularly extermination by the Daleks.

‘V’, TV series; sneaky extermination, eating us.

‘To Serve Man’, Twilight Zone TV episode; misunderstandings, a cookbook for humans.

There’s a theme that pervades (is that the right word?) most of these works, that humanity will somehow prevail against the might of space-going aggressors. Sure millions die along the way, butā€¦

And that’s the problem. I’d still want to ‘go’ quickly. I’m not prepped and ready, not even for probing by little green men

Hyperspace bypass then. I don’t even want to know of the planning application. Ignorance is bliss.

Or is itā€¦

Links:

  1. ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guidevto the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams, Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheHitchhiker%27sGuidetotheGalaxy. ↩
  2. ‘Chernobyl disaster’, Wikipedia link:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster ↩
  3. ‘Surviving Disaster review Chernobyl’, brief Aerial Telly review, 2006: https://aerialtelly.co.uk/surviving-disaster.php. (Page is broken but the review still stands).
    ‘Chernobyl Nuclear – Surviving Disaster (BBC Drama Documentary) FULL COMPLETE 1hr – ADE EDMONDSON’, video on DailyMotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tufjj ↩
  4. ‘Chernobyl (miniseries)’, Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries) (Jared Harris is superb in this). ↩
  5. ‘Threads (1984 film)’, Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film). (One of the most terrifying things the BBC has ever shown). ↩
  6. Please note the sarcasm here, sorry! ↩
  7. ‘Shaun of the Dead’ film, Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_of_the_Dead ↩

Sandwich

food, history

To begin with, a Hawaiian pizza is a pizza with ham and pineapple toppings. The odds are good that if you could get over the shock of fruit on a pizza you tried it, at least once. The ā€˜Bazwichā€™ though, probably not, if you ever heard of it.

I made a sandwich a couple of decades ago, a sandwich of polarisation. People who try it either love it or hate it. It has to be said though, nobody has given me feedback, maybe nobody tried it.

I called itā€¦

The Bazwich.

(A sandwich not for the masses).

Ingredients
Heavily UK-biased (with rest-of-the-world explanations parenthesised):

  • White bread, preferably Warburton’s medium sliced;
  • Butter, or equivalent low-calorie spread;
  • Peanut butter, crunchy;
  • Jam (US: jelly): strawberry, damson, bramble jelly, etc.;
  • Cheddar cheese;
  • Kit-Kat (chocolate coated wafer biscuit);
  • Marmite (yeast spread, better than Vegemite);
  • Tinned ham, the firm stuff, not too-heavily processed.
  • The more adventurous soul may wish to add lazy garlic, but thinly.

Preparation

  1. Spread the spreadable stuff on alternating slices of bread,
  2. Place the non-spreadable stuff on one slice and cover with the other,
  3. Slice in half… side- or length-ways, or even diagonally if you’re so inclined,
  4. Place on a plate with potato crisps (US: chips),
  5. Er…
  6. Eat!

It’s not a looker

The Bazwich, a photo of a partially-completed assemblage.
The Bazwich, a photo of a partially-completed assemblage.

Have you booked your place at the local A&E (US: ER)?

[Basic recipe is decades-old, reposted here from my Google+ and later Github accounts for posterity.]

Saucy

family, food

Oops, we’re on the verge of running out of ketchup. Whatever will we doā€½

Go to buy some more of this stuff, that’s what!

A cupboard full of sauces, condiments, cans and stuff to be cooked. Of particular interest are the sweet chilli and garlic sauce, chipotle sauce and Tabasco & sriracha sauce bottles.
A cupboard full of sauces, condiments, cans and stuff to be cooked. Of particular interest are the sweet chilli and garlic sauce, chipotle sauce and Tabasco & sriracha sauce bottles.

Instant

food

A colleague gave me a sachet of guava chilli instant tea earlier. Just add its contents to 200ml of water, stir until dissolved, add an ice cube. Easy.

The ingredients: sachet, small mug, teaspoon. You'll have to imagine the ice cube, it's still in the freezer at this point.
The ingredients: sachet, small mug, teaspoon. You’ll have to imagine the ice cube, it’s still in the freezer at this point.

What’s special about this one? The company is owned by my colleague’s friend’s cousin.

Nearly ready:

Part-way through stirring.
Part-way through stirring.

Just before offering it round my family for tasting:

Bubbles!
Bubbles!

It’s really rather refreshing, without any kind of aftertaste that often accompanies instant drinks, and so gets Baz’s seal of approval.

I wish I’d looked at the ingredients on the box now, but maybe that’d have spoiled the experience?

Followup November 7: The hibiscus tea given to me today isn’t as easy to dissolve, another colleague said it’s a bit ‘bitty’. I tried.

Weight

family, food, health

For the first time in years I’ve lost weight to the point it shows – to others and to the waistline of my stretch jeans. Sure it’s only 10lbs/4.5 kg so far, but I’m impressed. I don’t care how long it’s taken.

The only negative for this Brit, I’ve one less thing to moan about – that I can’t lose weight no matter what I try. šŸ™‚

A prepackaged, microwave/oven-cookable veggie burrito. Beans, cheese & roasted peppers.
A prepackaged, microwave/oven-cookable veggie burrito. Beans, cheese & roasted peppers.

So how?

More frequent and longer dog walks, and I’ve started jogging with Pumpkin dog (1 year old now) during them. The jogs are only a few hundred yards/metres at a time though, mainly because she needs to stop to sniff things. It’s honestly worth the aching muscles.

Although I’ve eaten more healthily for a couple of years now (health scare) this time around there’s been no measurable change in diet.

So, exercise not extra fries.

Butternut Box

family, food, misc

On Thursday I signed up to the Butternut Box dog food delivery service and was pleasantly surprised to see they’d deliver an introductory pack of 2 weeks of food the very next day.

The sign up and variety selection process was pleasant enough I suppose, and I looked forward to getting, erā€¦ told Pumpkin to look forward to some lovely new food.

She’s been a very fussy eater of late, probably because she’s started the transition from puppy to lady dog. So we’ve tried introducing her to new varieties of biscuits, wet foodā€¦

Anyway, as soon as their delivery partner’s email dropped in my inbox my heart sank. dpd have a well-deserved negative reputation. But hey, how difficult is it to deliver a box within a 1-hour window?

Bear in mind I’d instructed Butternut Box that our safe space is to the right of the house behind the bins. In the shade. Bear in mind I’d already informed dpd too. Easy.

I arrived home just after my wife had returned with daughter1, to a box dropped upside-down at the front door in the heat of mid-afternoon sun. The contents had started to defrost but at least Butternut Box said they could be refrozen if still cold to the touchā€¦

So I complained.

I tried to complain.

The reply-to email address is a ‘no-reply’. The from email address was returned to me with AI instructions to try another one, which elicited an AI response letting me know that I could save a safe space location in my Butternut Box account and with dpd.

Sigh.

Right, let’s close the account.

That’s not possible without a message to either an AI or via a telephone call. So I asked the AI to delete my account. Nope, had to wait for a human to contact me to do it.

So I waited.

Just tried signing into the account in the app and on the web site. Nope, it’s now an invalid email or password.

Erā€¦

They shut the account without a request for feedback. To be fair it’s what I asked for, but it all seems just so impersonal.

No, I cannot recommend Butternut box and I emphatically cannot recommend their delivery partner dpd.

But hey, at least Pumpkin has a new branded bandana. It’s too small to fit her, but hey we can’t have everything.

A Butternut Box branded bandana in a table with, in the background Pumpkin, a female black cavapoo dog. She's waiting to be let out to chase a neighbourhood black cat invading her back garden.
A Butternut Box branded bandana in a table with, in the background Pumpkin, a female black cavapoo dog. She’s waiting to be let out to chase a neighbourhood black cat invading her back garden.

Moist

food, health, misc

I acquired a peace lily plant when my last boss retired in November. I feel a great responsibility to keep it alive. I’d killed 2 of his previous plants and bought this a couple of years ago to make amends.

A desk with a peace lily plant in a white pot. To its right is an IKEA watering can. To the right of that are some papers. In the foreground is a mug with a cat motif, it is full of a very dark brown liquid.
A desk with a peace lily plant in a white pot. To its right is an IKEA watering can. To the right of that are some papers. In the foreground is a mug with a cat motif, it is full of a very dark brown liquid.

Until recently it positively thrived in my care, but this week it drooped. It has browning leaves too despite it being watered to the same schedule and with the same volume of water my ex-boss used. (Science)!

Now if you hear in mind that I’ve been poking my finger into the soil between twice-weekly watering sessions, and it’s always been just slightly moist. But today I tested at 180ā° from my usual place.

The photo caption mentions a dark brown liquid. My poking finger submerged up to the first knuckle.

Oops!

Kitchen roll pushed into the pot absorbed some of the surface water, but it just kept on absorbing and absorbing andā€¦

I cradled the plant and tipped up the pot over my mug (which needed a wash anyway). Most went in the mug.

Next week I’ll trim the dead leaves.

It’s a plan.

Phase 2: I’ll buy a soil moisture meter/monitor.

And, erā€¦

That’s it folks.

Cock-a-Leekie

family, food

A conversation with my wife, the evening before Valentine’s Day 2025:

Me, “How much cock do you think is in there?”

She, “12%?”

Me, “No, it’s only 2%.”

She, disappointed, “…”.

Me, “How about leekie?”

She, “3%?”

Me, “No, it’s 11%!”

She, “ā€¦” again.

She’d bought me a 400g tin of Baxters ‘Cock-A-Leekie” soup. Its blurb:

“The finest leeks, succulent chicken, tender rice and freshly grated juicy carrots ā€“ that’s what makes our Cock-a-Leekie soup the very best. No wonder this traditional Scottish recipe is loved by so many.”

ā€“ Audrey Baxter.

From the Baxters shop site, a photo of a typical tin of Baxters Cock-A-Leekie soup.
From the Baxters shop site, a photo of a typical tin of Baxters Cock-A-Leekie soup.

Cock and Shito

food

A few days ago a post on Mastodon caught my eye, posted under the content warning “unexpected lewd at the grocery store”. I’m not linking to it here because I can’t remember the privacy settings of the 2 other participants.

My wife brought both these home 18 months ago; Cock soup is fine, I’ve had it a few times since (giggling each time) and Shito sauce is something everyone must try at least once in their lives.

I liked the Shito so much I took it into work in case anyone wished to share my unfettered joy and give the jar a good home. I felt so lucky when my colleagues only sampled it, such was their love for me.

Anyway, I was moved to take this photo.

A sachet of Cock flavour noodle soup ("a Caribbean favourite") and a jar of Shito hot chilli sauce with shrimp (a Ghanaian staple).
A sachet of Cock flavour noodle soup (“a Caribbean favourite”) and a jar of Shito hot chilli sauce with shrimp (a Ghanaian staple).

Longrow 18

food

I won our 3-person office NFL ‘Pickem’ this year. We each had to try to correctly predict more winners than the others from every game, every week throughout the 18-week regular season. It’s not a trivial pursuit, it’s not just guessing a result by looking at what other people are thinking.

Before we started none of us really spent time choosing a reward from the others for gaining the ultimate victory.

Anyway one of the guys pushed me a bit for an answer, and so did the other. And today, one brought in his treasured shiny hipflask with something special sloshing gently inside. For me to try.

It’s a ‘Longrow’ 18 year old single malt.

And I’m just about to take my first sip.

And I’m going to make the most of it.

I don’t know much about whiskies or whiskeys, but I do know, when I’ve tried one, what I like.

It smells perfect. It’s peaty, which I like. Love.

Ideally, and it seems extraordinarily churlish of me to say this given the circumstances, my choice would be a Laphroaig 15 year old – probably the most rounded (most polarising) whisky I’ve ever tried. But the price went silly after the company withdrew it then brought it back. It would have been silly to even ask for a miniature bottle.

Ok, I’m going to sample this ‘water of life’ neat from my 20 year old ‘Glencairn’ glass – a most-treasured present from my wife 3 days after we got together.

Please don’t be disappointed that I’m not briniging you an evocation of a Scottish loch in the autumn, crushed walnuts or burning tyre smoke. Naah, it’s unlikely I’d be able to separate stuff out like someone trained in this sniffing, sipping, swirling thing.

I cup the glass across my fingers and palm, take a long sniff, swirl, sniff, anticipation, sip. Think.

Same again, swill it round the old gums. Think.

Feel it going down. Think.

It’s a really good-sized measure this.

Because I’m bloody-well worth it!

Anyway, as an experience after almost-exclusively drinking Bud Light for the last couple of years it’s beyond my ability to describe.

Honestly, I’m not keen on the aftertaste. The initial taste though is awesome, and as it grabs the gums adds to the ‘experience’ a drink costing almost the absolute top end of my limit back when I hadā€¦

It slides down really really well too. Really well. Did I mention that already?

I can’t wait to sniff the empty glass in the morning. Trust me if you’ve never tried it, just have a go. I first did it with a Maker’s Mark – a whiskey I hated from the very first sip.

I feel nice and warm now. Nice. Warm.

Onto the second half then.

Cheers!

I’d better remember to give the hipflask a bit of a polish before handing it back, but I’m not washing it out.

Some context:

A post from 2016: ‘Hic‘.

One from 2017: ‘Drunkard‘.

A bit later in 2017: ‘Makers Mark review part 6‘.