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 |
Damian Kelleher
Lincoln Review |
I have a particularly nasty association with Lincoln biscuits which I would like to share.
Like most kids, my brother and sisters and I were always on the scrounge for biscuits and sweets. Chocolate biscuits were the work of Beelzebub, and disapeared too quickly for my mother's liking. Sick and tired of our constant pleas for interesting biccies, my mother decided that we obviously all had worms and invested in some worm powder which she duly administered to us all. No excuses were allowed.
I don't know if anyone can remember what worm powder tasted like in the 60s but it was foul. Supposedly 'rapsberry' flavoured, it cam in little orange sachets and was the most disgusting, chemical, pungent concoction I ever tasted.
Under my mother's beady eye, I was told to hold my nose and tip it back, which I duly did. Then my mother passed me a biscuit to 'take the taste away'. It was a Lincoln biscuit.
I bit into the biscuit and a couple of minutes later, threw the whole lot up, worm powder, Lincoln biscuit and all.
I can never even look at a green packet of those bobbly, boring biscuits without the painful memory resurfacing. They are the sort of non-descript, unadventurous biscuits that nobody likes and people buy just so they won't be tempted to eat biscuits. Or worse still to take the taste away of something filthy.
I say stop these travesties of the biscuit tin! Ban them NOW!
Yours in biscuitry
Damian Kelleher |
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Phil Dennison |
Dear Nicey,
I'm an Englishman abroad in California. I've just looked in the fridge and a stick of butter is indeed 4oz. Bizarrely, the paper wrapper has markings to show some kind of spoonful conversions, and cup conversions. It is very odd that people do not weigh ingredients here. And of course they use a 16 fluid ounce pint rather than the 20 ounce pint which used to be used in the UK.
I try my best to confuse my colleagues by using the 24 hour clock and metric measurements.
I've attached a photo of our kitchen tea station, as we found a rather fetching cup of tea sculpture in a local bargain store.
The best local biscuits that we buy are Graham Crackers. Quite light and suitable for regular consumption, particularly the honey flavoured kind. More serious biscuit enjoyment is restricted to imported products.
best wishes,
Phil.
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Nicey replies: Phil,
Thanks for the butter info. You seem to be doing splendid work out there in California getting the tea making sorted out. That's a very nice mug you have there. Wifey says she's concerned about which teabags you are using in it. I trust from time to time you have baked beans on toast for lunch to further unsettle the locals.. |
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Keith O'Kane |
Dear Nicey and the Wife,
I was interested to read the letter by Jim McCourt in which he suggests using identity tags to clearly identify personal mugs. Unfortunately, such tags are not widely available outside the NHS and this strategy is therefore difficult to implement in the average workplace.
Perhaps you could do your bit to stop the spread of gingivitis by producing a NCOTAASD mug with a slogan such as "The Wife says, USE YOUR OWN MUG" and a space underneath to write your name. The mug could be supplied with a special pen which would withstand the rigours of washing up.
Keith O'Kane |
Nicey replies: Having seen unscrupulous mug thieves drinking from vessels baring the names of other people and even pictures of their children glazed on I doubt if writing your name on it would really work. I think there must be a certain degree of professionalism in the healthcare sector that results in them actually taking notice of the little labels around the handles, which we wouldn't find elsewhere.
Still plans are very much afoot for a new UK based webstore for NCOTAASD, even as I write this a large consignment of exclusive mugs should be arriving at a secret destination somewhere in Southern England. We will of course let you all know more very soon, and if you purchase one you are free to disfigure it in any way you see fit. |
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Victor Vierra
Sarah Nelson's Gingerbread Review |
I am addicted to Sarah Nelson's Gingerbread although it is nothing like what we Yanks know as gingerbread. I have been to Grasmere on several occasions and always buy enough Gingerbread to last me thru Scotland, Wales and the South of England and some for home. Alas, I have never had it survive past Edinburgh. There is nothing that evokes any more wonderful taste sensations than that wonderful gingerbread. I have even tried ,without much success, to duplicate the recipe. I suppose it is time to return to Grasmere for a refill!
Cheers, COL (RET) Victor Vierra |
Nicey replies: Victor,
Thanks for that frank account of Gingerbread excess. You'll have to add Tunnocks Wafers, and Tregroes Toffee Waffles to your repertoire that will enable you to make it through Scotland and Wales. Of course McVites has recently moved Gingernut production to Carlisle not far from Grasmere. They are currently making 6,854,400 of them a day, or about 80 a second. I think 5 seconds worth would get you round the UK comfortably for a fortnight. |
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Diana Pleasants |
Dear Nicey
Where have all the nice biscuit barrels gone?
I am looking for a tin one with one of those special lids which keep the contents dry, with a handle.
All I can find are pottery jars like teddy bears which are hideous and chip, wooden ones which taint the biscuits with a woody flavour or the type of canister you can keep lentils in.
Where have all the nice tin ones gone? |
Nicey replies: Yes Biscuit-Enthusiast Mandy had one of those Teddy Bear ones for a wedding present and its still in its box after a year. It didn't help much that the box had pictures of pink wafers on it, possibly because they are colourful and easy to draw.
Our proper biscuit barrel originally had a cracker selection in it, from M&S I think, perhaps a trip to there might bare fruit.
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