Your ViewsKeep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions. To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin). Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com | If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay! | Your e-Mails |
Jamie Kirk
Tim Tam vs Penguin Review |
Dear Nicey,
I came across your excellent website while searching for somewhere to buy Penguin bikkies in Austin TX where I have lived for 10 years now. While the USA has looked after me well and I enjoy living here, it is not reboun for its abundance of excellent bikkies. In fact most of the US varieties are pretty revolting. You have already, quite rightly, poured scorn on the shocking Oreo cookie elsewhere on your website. Of course here in the USA a biscuit is a scone and a cookie is a biscuit, its all very confusing.
Anyway, getting to the point - I read your review of the Tim Tam with interest, so I decided to try and find them here as I wanted to have a go at the Tim Tam Slam. I found out they are available at World Market, which is a chain here in the US that sells food and furniture from all around the globe. They are called Arnotts Originals, Arnotts Double Coated and Arnotts Chewy Caramel. So any British or Australian ex-pats out there who need a Penguin/Tim Tam fix, you know where to go.
According to Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) Arnotts themselves prefer to call the Tim Tam Slam, the Tim Tam Suck.
Jamie Kirk. |
Nicey replies: Jamie,
Thanks for that useful info. Probably most useful to Australians who find them selves not in Australia as they are prone to do. They get a bit animated when the subject of Tim Tams comes up so its best and safest to take a couple of steps back and let them get on with it. Those three varieties are the core of the range. I liked the double-coats.
Still fingers crossed you might come across some Penguins too. |
| |
Murray James
Tim Tam vs Penguin Review |
Hello there Nicey
I have recently moved from England to Thailand for a 6 month work placement, and I have to say that the wonderful contents of your site keep me dreaming of hours of tea and biscuitty/cake based fun when I return to Blighty. I miss certain biscuits, the Bourbon, the Custard Creme, the Ginger Nut, but especially the classic Penguin. It was whilst perusing through your the archived tomes of your website however that I came across an exciting alternative, the eccentrically named 'Tim Tam'.
So having swotted up the great Tim Tam versus Penguin debate, and being a self-admitted Penguin fan, I was of course eager to try and compare the Tim Tams, so on my next visit to the local shop purchased a few packs. I was pleasantly surprised by the Tim Tam. Initially there is something about the little biscuit that looks a touch dodgy, it's snubbed size and curiously dark choclolate coating expire a sense of foreboding, but on taste you realise that in fact Penguins merely scratch the surface of the true iceberg that is Chocolate Coated Biscuitdom. Penguins just seem bland in comparison with a Tim Tam. Tim Tams come in many different deeply tasty varieties, in my opinion the best are Choco-Chocolate and Choc-Vanilla, but even an Original Tim Tam will more than adequately complete your cup of tea and biscuit combo, and leave you with a smile on your face. And maybe a touch of melted chocolate at the corner of your mouth.
After a few much enjoyed tasting sessions, I bravely decided, as suggested on this very website and on the bold, brown packaging of the Tim Tams themselves, to try the famous 'Tim Tam Slam'. So I bit off 2 opposite corners, and tried a few times to 'enjoy' my cuppa by sucking it through the biscuit, hoping to filter through some chocolatey goodness. But to my horror, the whole experiment went quite magnificently pear-shaped. Never have I experienced a better way of destroying a biscuit and also a cup of tea. Within just a few seconds of 'Slamming' I found that the bottom third of my Tim Tam was already lost to the dark side of bottom sludge. The top of the Tim Tam also melts, as the steam from your tea rebounds off your face, as you are hunched over the cup, desperately slurping. And if you wear glasses, they will undoubtedly steam up too, thus significantly impairing your vision. With only a miniscule amount of tea slurped through the biscuit, I decided to cut my losses and go for the munch. But the Tim Tam itself had become so soft and gooey that it had lost it's unique taste as it denatured into a watery quagmire, hitting my mouth like a festival buffet stand cup of tea. There was nearly a tear in my eye. The results of the experiment were that firstly I felt and looked like a fool, secondly I had ruined my cup of tea, and thirdly I had also destroyed a couple of delightful Tim Tams that could have so easily been dunked and enjoyed in the 'proper' way. I feel quite ashamed and have vowed never to Tim Tam Slam again. Those Australians need to learn I thing or two about ingesting Tea and Biscuits.
I just thought you should know...
Murray
PS For a real treat, place your Tim Tams in the freezer ten minutes before you find somewhere for a nice cup of tea and a sit down. |
| |
Julie Marlow and Mal Bryning |
Dear Nicey and Wifey.
We’re in serious trouble. I’m working in Jamaica for six months, from Australia, and loose leaf standard issue tea can’t be bought for love nor money. There’s tea bags, good old Tetley’s (normal and British Blend), which is a relief, and we took the precaution of bringing a stock of Twinings Irish Breakfast tea bags, imagining these would tide us over till we got a packet of good small tipped leaf. Alas, there’s plenty of other kinds of leaf here, but NO TEA. Or not so as we’ve found, but we’ve scoured the malls and supermarkets of Kingston to no avail. Can any kind Jamaican soul out there please advise??
I must say though that a nice cup of Blue Mountain coffee and a slice of rum cake goes down very nicely at teatime as a substitute.
Looking forward to your book,
Yours, Julie Marlow and Mal Bryning
Frustrated tea drinkers of Jamaica |
| |
Alice Gorman |
Dear Nicey,
Thank you for your charming response. You've made me think that perhaps biscuits in space is a much-neglected research area that I should pursue. I'm attaching a picture of a 1959 Russian biscuit tin featuring Sputnik 1 for your enjoyment.
Regards,
Alice |
Nicey replies: Alice,
That is a fantastic biscuit tin, you must be very proud. I tend to think about biscuits in space about 3 or 4 times a week at the moment, which I think is healthy. In our book (out in November) I thought about which would be the best biscuit for zero-g or micro-gravity situation. This is surely going to be an issue for the in flight catering on any future sub-orbital space planes. Inevitably I think its the fig roll. |
| |
Kristina Swan
|
I had a friend of mine from Oz send me some Tim Tams in a variety of flavors, and now I'm addicted. Unfortunatly I have been unable to find anywhere to purchase these delectable bisquits anywhere.
My Aussie friend is sending me somemore, however it is a lot of work and I eat them very quickly. Especially when I have a hot cup of Vanilla Chai, to "Slam" them in.
*shudders*
How do I get a Tim Tam invasion here in the US?
HELP !
Chocaholic Extrodinare,
Kristina Swan
|
Nicey replies: Sorry no idea, as you can see they have only just become available in the UK. Arnotts do ship boxes of them anywhere in the world from their webstore to satisfy the homesick Aussies abroad. Its a bit pricey but it can be done. |
| |
|
|
|