Category: food

Pineapple

** Newsflash!! **

Dateline: Right now!

I just ate a couple of slices of a Hawaiian pizza I bought for my girls.

(pause for effectā€¦)

And I liked it.

Yes, I introduced a foodstuff (pineapple) positioned diametrically opposite to my views on the addition of fruit to savoury meals. One I'd purchased outwith the normal weekly shopā€¦

Heck, I even carried the thing up the icy path from the village!

I'm not averse to foodstuffs prepared in challenging ways but pineapple is one of those polarising fruits; tolerable in isolation, downright wrong on a pizza. Or with gammon.*

It would appear that 2016 is shaping up to be a year of experimentation, even compromise.

*Gammon with egg FTW!

I haz Laphroaig

This morning I badly needed a decongestant, so the timing of the gift could not have been more appropriate. Purists (and those who abhor the practise, however infrequent, of drinking alcohol before 10am) look away nowā€¦

I had it with hot water, maple syrup (the squeezy bottle of honey had solidified due to lack of recent usage,) sugar and a few drops of lemon juice (yup, Jif, from a bright yellow squeezy plastic bottle.)

And it was lovely. Please disregard the fact that I’m currently sat here with Earex drops in both ears to hopefully clear the temporary deafness, and both ears are plugged with toilet paper (there’s no cotton wool in the house.)

Laphroaig is a fantastic drink. It takes time. It’s best approached along a long and winding path. I confess I worked my way up through a lot of the blended Scotches, through the easy-on-the-palate single malts, and thought Talisker was the pinnacle of Scots’ liquid refreshment achievement, until I found Laphroaig. I’m not a drinker, it took a *serious* amount of time.

Incidentally, my previous Scottish pinnacle, ‘Irn Bru’ has now, though marginally, been beaten into third place.

The best summary I’ve heard of Laphroaig so far from a drinker of blended whiskies: “Ugh, it tastes like medicine!” *Medicine?* That works for me, and has in the past been an often-used excuse reason for getting the glass out. Forget Cask Strength and other marketing ploys designed to extract the unwary buyer’s money… The best Laphroaig by a long distance was the 15-year-old, now sadly not marketed.

I was introduced to it (thanks ‘Bob’ the builder) on a cruise down the Nile. Transported in so many ways to a more relaxed world (for society’s elite of course) and broad as the following statement is, I really cannot think of any combination of 2 things that, when combined, are more redolent of the luxury I imagine existed in the bygone age visitors to Egypt expect to encounter.

Ketchup

A potentially contentious post follows.

If you’ve been buying (or have been bought) Heinz Tomato Ketchup all your life, then let me tell you, you’re doing life wrong.

Try Tesco Tomato Ketchup instead. It tastes more tomato-ey, less vinegary, it’s got a better texture than its frankly artificial-tasting competitor and, the best bit, it’s approaching half the price!

Which? Magazine’s blind taste tests (login required to read the full article) and my discerning palate can’t be wrong.

Go on, give it a try, what’s the worst that could happen?

Cake

This postĀ was inspired by a comment from @neilco on the App.net social network:

"Iā€™m pondering a world where cake is the currency. My dad had this to say about both money and cake: once itā€™s gone itā€™s gone.

Just imagine a delicious, frosted, edible currency."

My daughters have an uneasy relationship with cake. TheĀ lure, allure, whatever you wish to call the experience,Ā of cake is strong and yet its execution in my householdĀ is weak. Before you think this is going nowhere, let me explain.

CakesĀ are bought, put on plates, cutĀ into manageable portions, put on smaller plates and distributed according to the size of the family member to receive them. Number 2 daughter gets the smallest portion, number 1 the next larger, my wife gets the next-up in size and I, being head of the household and biggest, get the biggest. However, the distribution of sizes isnā€™t at all as straightforward asĀ this outline implies.

Daughter 2 is still relatively clumsy so the floor gets some, she eats some, she sees something interesting on the TV, all is lost. Daughter 1 is also relatively clumsy, the TV plays a big part in her life too. So, the unconsumed cake, where still edible,Ā usuallyĀ goes to the head of the household. Me. (My wife is health- and weight-conscious.)

Now, Daughter 2 loves to share.Ā Itā€™s at the very core of her being. A slight issue is the concept of sharing is somewhat unconventionally applied in her world. I get my slice of cake, itā€™s lovely and moist and identical in all-but size to Daughter 2ā€²s. She looks over want WANTS mine. Thereā€™s nothing in-your-face confrontational about theĀ process of her taking over, itā€™s seamless. One minute itā€™s all mine, the next Iā€™m feeding her bite-sized portionsā€¦

Youā€™d think that would be the end of it. Nope, not by a long way.Ā Because I try to be the best dad I can (letā€™s not go there) I feel the need to reciprocate the largesse dispensed by my 2 daughters. Ice cream or a trip to ā€˜The Cupboardā€™ is allowed. Itā€™s only fair. And when itā€™s all over, am I owed a debt of gratitude? Maybe, but Iā€™m unlikely to ever collect.

ā€˜The Cupboardā€™, by the way, is where we keep the snacks, not some instrument of discipline similar to a mediaevalĀ iron maiden.Ā No, ā€˜The Cupboardā€™ isĀ a simple cupboard with shelves, situated at ground levelĀ with deliciously-edible contentsĀ available to all-comers, incidentallyĀ a strategy being re-examined as this veryĀ post is written.

Eventually I finish my cake, dreaming ofĀ simpler times ā€“ a single example being once whenĀ our 5Ā cats sat in a perfect semi-circle whilst I fed them the meat from an otherwise excellent triple pack of supermarket sandwiches.

In summary, quantitative easing seems a clumsy instrument compared to the arrival of even a single cake at Turner Towers.