Chilli Day

It takes a lot of thought, a lot of searching around, and a lot of dumping in any old item that is standing around to produce a Chilli as bad as this one.  I think it will be referred to as the 'Cardboard Chilli,' as that sums up the taste I have manufactured.  I find cooking is always a surprise, at least the flavour, if that is a word to use here, always surprises me!

There was a recipe, but not the ingredients, there was an excess of water, but not those little sauce capsules, and there is a lot of chilli in there, I can vouch for that!  Flavour, taste, and sustenance, we can do without.

A cheese sandwich will do for that tomorrow...

I saw this picture and was reminded of how we all wore these constantly in days of your.  Through the 60s and 70s these were our constant feet!  I bought a pair a while back, and use them occasionally, but in the past we never took them off, it was the 'in style' fashion of the day.  Simon & Garfunkel's album, 'Bridge over Troubled Water,' featured them wearing these boots and jeans, like we all did then.  How wonderful to find them copying us!  'Levi's' costing around £3:50-£4 a go, and these boots were the thing.  The local 'Levi Outlet,' had a 'Special Offer' on 'Two pairs of Levi's for £90.'  That was the offer!  

Imagine what the price of other 'Levi's' could be?  I did not buy. 

Bay Evening Jeremy Mann

Another Dreich Day, Hooray....

Start the day with a smile they say, and get it over with.  Well I did that this morning.  Rising before the sun by seven thirty I had dumped the rubbish, eaten what is laughingly called breakfast, began to make soup, planned the 'wartime shortbread,', and made a list for a Tesco visit. 
Naturally it all went wrong
Too early to thump around the kitchen without waking neighbours (why are they not at work today I ask?), I noticed rain beginning which by eight was teeming down and remained so for hours, and I became immersed in some rubbish in the online papers and then facebook.  
The soup.  This was simple, add black lentils (I canny spell 'lentilles vertes'), rinse, boil for ten minutes, simmer for thirty five, then add stuff.  The mistake was to put all the lentils in the pot. As they were small I dumped in the whole packet, I did not realise they would swell up so much! I expected some degree but it meant there was insufficient space for the rest of the veg.  Onions and sauces only!  Tasting it much, much, later brought to mind a cartoon from forty years ago, a couple stand by the cooker on which a large pot bubbles, he holds a spoon to his mouth while she intones, "You can add salt if you like, but it won't get your socks any cleaner."  That is what this tasted like.
As I spoiled my lunch I made use of the recipe, using rough, wholemeal bread plain flour as it gives a better result in my opinion, and slid the hastily created biscuit into the oven.  As I toiled at the laptop, the rain hammering on the window drowning out the sound of my chattering teeth, (why is winter always cold?) i noticed a burning smell.  I ran to the soup, which simmered nicely, I opened the oven and stood back from the smoking black object therein.  Still, it will fill a gap I suppose.  Probably the cracks in the walls.
The cold rain kept me indoors, although if it's cold inside it is usually warmer out, and with the use of those woolen gloves with the fingers cut off I listened into Radio four's Agatha Christie tale.  Not a story but a chap following her adventure as she took the train to Baghdad!  A repeat maybe but very interesting.  
Late in the day I managed to spend far too much in Tesco's, and still forgot several things.  The picture above fits well.

The Scottish Independence Referendum is less than a year away.  All the media is London based, even the TV and Radio have a London bias among the staff.  Almost everyday there is a scare story informing Scots of the end of the world if Scotland becomes an independent state.  All arise in Westminster, all are indubitably nonsense.  One even had Rowan Williams the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury talking of the disaster if the union breaks apart.  Tsk!  The real truth is that Westminster NEEDS Scotland.  It needs the money that flows into Osbornes exchequer, England cannot survive without Scotland, that is why in 1707 Scotland was forced needlessly into the union in the first place!  While treating Scotland as a second class citizen who is expected to doff the cap to the mighty at Westminster the powers that be lie in their teeth to pretend they care, some not even being sure where Scotland actually is, it's somewhere beyond Watford is all they know!  The banner was, I am informed, placed on the headquarters of the people demanding a 'NO!' vote in the referendum, and was an excellent way to represent the peoples opinion.
Vote 'Yes!'

Now I'm Not One to Complain, But..

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Recently I have settled down at 6:30 to watch Michael Portillo's travels around the UK rail network. A delightful little programme that took us away from the stress of life and showed us some interesting and attractive parts of the UK. Last Friday was the last in the present series of this programme. Yesterday I awaited with baited breath the replacement offering, anxious to know if it could match Portillo's offering. I was not pleased. Indeed pleased I was not! After such an enjoyable programme one wishes the quality to continue, and while I was aware that this series involved a chap driving around the nation in his ageing Voltswagon Camper van I was not too pleased to discover he was another cook! Yes another cookery show! Why? There are chefs and cooks on motor bikes, in kitchens, black ones, drunk ones, sexy ones and even fusty ones, now we have yet another one who's gimmick is an old van! Touring the land he looks for material which 'just happens' to be there and then cooks it, woopee! At times like this I understand why Americans carry guns! Soap operas, dramas that are soap operas, and cooks! That sums up the telly these days. Enough of this pap, give us back proper programmes! 


At least the sun shone today and I got the bike out and trundled around the back streets for half an hour. Later my exercise regime continued with a walk along the old railway and tomorrow, if the rain holds off I will cycle much more. How much better life feels when the sun shines and the sky is blue. Chilly it may have been but we are creatures of light and respond to the sun. If only I had an escape in the Mediterranean!


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TV and Cooks!

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What is it with the cooks? At this moment in time two of the five terrestrial channels are showing cooks! When they finish a third begins, this one features a group of nerds  people cooking a meal intending to impress the man who would be their boss. The one that cooks the best meal wins the job. I would like to try that, there would be no cooking programmes on television ever again I fail to win employment! What is this all about? These days the TV world is stuffed full of antique shows, house programmes and cooking shows. They top this with a multitude of soap operas, which avoid any requirement to smile or engage the intellect, and fill the day up with what they refer to as ‘Hard hitting drama.’ This of course is just another soap opera exactly the same as the one shown last week but with a different background and lots more explosions.TV cannot get enough of them. Fat ones, hairy ones, individuals with twisted personalities, groups sharing the kitchen, trainees ‘chefs’ and now cook for your job! Now cooking, that woman’s job which only men tend to do on TV, (we can forget Nigella as she is less concerned with cooking than with just being looked at and enjoying her self importance,) cooking appears to be the ‘in thing’ these days. What's more they all wish to be called 'chef,' rather than 'cook.' What is the difference? If your head is over a pan full of mince it makes no difference what you are called! Mince is mince, no matter what herbs you add.


TOO MUCH! I’ve just had an e-mail from DK Books offering me a wide variety of cook books! That's it! I cancel the e-mail and I switch off the telly and head off to bed - hungry!


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