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 |
Jackson Green
Afghans Review |
Hi Nicey
I thought I'd better write in to make sure real afghans didn't get a bad name (us kiwi's are proud of them you know). You are quite right to be dissapointed in the Griffins version, real afghans have a much more substantial and less structurally sound biscut about 8cm diameter. There is a thick dollop of chocolate icing in the center and a walnut perched on top of that.
Here in New Zealand you can get passable versions in bakeries and there is an acceptable (although not strictly traditional) version made by Cookie Time. However, for a genuine afghan you really do need to make it yourself. Make sure you have heaps and heaps of coco and cornflakes.
Jackson |
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Kelly Lawless |
I thought Keith O'Kane raised a very good point about "sitting down" activities. When looking at your site I do get very excited at the prospect of eating biscuits (though do not experience same feelings about cakes) but was sent into a trance-like state at the mention of toast. I more or less live on toast. I love it. The best type of toast is lightly done with lots of Anchor butter - no cheap, marg rubbish please. Although recently have been enjoying fresh bread, lightly toasted and absolutely smothered with Philadelphia cream cheese. Heavenly.
My colleague, Jinty, prefers cheese and crackers. How are crackers classed?
Kelly Lawless |
Nicey replies: You are of course right about Anchor butter. I know we make butter in this country but it really seems to taste nicer when its been put in a boat and shipped here all the way from New Zealand. Perhaps we send ours back to them on the return trip, I don't know.
We class crackers by simply drawing a little box and putting the word 'Crackers' on it, I refer you to the Venn Diagram.
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Tomsk |
Sainsburghers in Swindon now has Muller (Müller) corner yoghurts with corners of Jaffa Cake, Penguin or Choc digestive. What kind of weird hybrids are these then? Couldn't bring myself to taste them.
Of course a nice sit down with tea and yoghurt is fine (alternately not simultaneously), but yoghurt and biscuit?!@?
cheerio
Tomsk |
Nicey replies: Really! I can just about see how to smash up choc digestives or Penguins to get them into the little hole, but how do you break up Jaffa cakes? The smashing orangey bit in the middle would surely make this quite tricky. |
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Rachael
Kimberley and Chocolate Kimberley Review |
Dear nicey,
in response to your correspondant in birmingham, my local safeway has a whole irish food section (bizarre as we are in the middle of jewish stamford hill), which includes various kimberleys, and of course tayto crisps and barrys tea. Don't know whether all safeways have the same section, but it might be worth giving their customer services a call.
Love the site.
Rachael |
Nicey replies: Rachael,
This is of course an extremely important development thank you for alerting us. |
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Keith O'Kane |
Dear Nicey and the wife,
Having looked through your feedback, I notice that there are many items relating to various cakes and biscuits but very little correspondence on the subject of toast.
I imagine that for most people, the phrase "A nice cup of tea and a sit down" evokes an image of afternoon tea. This is perfectly understandable as the 3 o'clock cuppa or a freshly brewed pot on arriving home after work are the most anticipated and well deserved breaks in the average day. On these occasions, a biscuit or a nice piece of cake is exactly the right accompaniment.
There are, however, other tea drinking opportunities, particularly breakfast and supper time, when a slice of toast is more appealing. As a child, one of my favourite culinary treats was hot, buttered toast with a sprinkling of sugar. The toast has to be hot to allow the sugar to melt into the butter. Nowadays, I enjoy toast with butter or marmalade for breakfast. Speciality jams are also provided for the younger members of the household.
For supper, I will occasionally top my toast with peanut butter or something more exotic such as cheese (with a dash of Lea & Perrin's), pilchards, plum tomatoes or mushrooms with cream.
Perhaps you could provide a survey on the best "toast topper", including butter, jam, marmalade, peanut butter, marmite (yuck!), mashed banana etc.
As you can see from this short list of options, toast is extremely versatile and should note be ignored.
Keith O'Kane
p.s. Possibe new icon alert. |
Nicey replies: Kieth,
Our mate Nick Parker wrote a splendid book on toast, he also ran the London marathon last Sunday.
Of course Toast falls within the gamut of tea and sitting down activity. Wifey likes tea before, during and after Toast in the morning. Wifey sticks rigidly to Marmite or cheese. I like Bovril, Marmalade, sometimes a spot of jam occasionally Peanut Butter with sweet pickle or fresh ground black pepper. A spot of Heinz Tomato Ketchup is very good also. The whole team enjoys Sardines on toast and we feel strongly that more people should eat Sardines on toast.
I'll try a sweet toppings poll first, but I think I know the outcome already.
Big Woos for the icon fest nature of this message |
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