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Your e-Mails

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.
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
Peter Mason	Dear Mr Nice, I have a short tale to tell. A month or so back I was ambling in an unfocused manner through my local high street when I was waylaid by a pleasant lady of middling years, clutching a clipboard. She asked if I could spare twenty minutes to answer a few questions. I was dubious, having heard of such things on Watchdog, and other high brow programming, but the winter sunshine had lulled me, I was feeling helpful, and I threw caution to the wind, grasped my adventurous side, and acceeded. She first had to 'qualify' me, by asking me very general questions. I expect you will understand how my interest was roused when the third question she asked was whether I preferred tea or coffee. I straightened my back and answered stoutly, "Tea, madam!" Imagine my delight upon discovering that I had been recruited to give my opinion upon tea! Specifically, it was Twinings tea, who are planning to launch an everyday brand, but are, I gather, concerned that they might lose their 'top of the range' brand positioning. A tricky business indeed, and not one to be taken lightly. I flatter myself that I played my small part in guiding the powers that be away from the lemon-yellow box design which they were, as it were, 'running up the flagpole to see which way the wind blew'. It was not in good taste, suggesting insipid offerings, served with neon-coloured french fancies rather than good, sturdy biscuits. I was rewarded for my efforts with a box of Twinings Assam teabags; a little posher than I am used to but a nice change for a week, until I could return with relief, but also, I confess, with a certain nostalgic regret, to my usual, 'Clipper' fairtrade brand; a cup I consider superior to even the PG Tips pyramid. I now take my tea with a more serious air, knowing that in Britain, the silent majority's voice can still be heard, and that the future of teabag box design is not settled upon lightly. Yours in bemused certainty Peter Mason
	Nicey replies: Good work telling them to ditch the yellow box. Anybody who has been traumatised by Liptons Yellow Label tea whilst abroad will have a strong aversion to tea bags from yellow boxes.
Dave Sowerby	My lust for a decent cup of tea at work has been sadly neglected by my corporate employers. Our vending machines have yet to introduce me to anything resembling tea They have some options that offer various shades of brown water and differing concentrations of sugar but I can't imagine the tetley tea folk or PG Chimps recognising them as bona fide tea. There's plenty of coffee, soup and sacharrine flavour cordial to choose from but unfortunately I don't like any of those either. It does a reasonable hot chocolate but there's only so much cocoa and froth I can manage in a sitting. We did kick up a fuss about a year ago about the fact that there was no hot water so we could make our own tea. They did give us a hot water dispenser(can't have kettles, apparently they're a health and safety risk). Unfortunately, they have yet to provide us with a fridge to keep the milk in or a sink to wash the mugs in. I got round the lack of milk by switching to chinese green tea but there's a limit to the amount of stains on a mug i'm prepared to drink from.
	Nicey replies: That's the advantage of working for a small/sensible company with a more realistic attitude to health and safety. You accept that if you are enough of a muppet to greviously injure yourself making a cup of tea then that's your look out. For their part they supply a kettle and a fridge, and usually a cupboard to keep the mugs and teabags. To be honest you are more likely to injure yourself carrying one of those flimsy cups from a vending machine.
Myth2magus Kimberley and Chocolate Kimberley Review	Hi Mr Nicey, I was reading through the mails and responses, in particular the Kimberly Gene, I don't think you have to be Irish to inherit the Gene, My parents originate from Pakistan, I'm a born and bred Birmingham (UK) lass,  I've been working for Irish firms for the last 8 years and I LOVE CHOCOLATE KIMBERLY'S. I actually found your site when i typed in "Jacobs Chocolate Kimberly's", I was hoping to find somewhere to buy them from, as i have no idea where to get them (somebody help me). It's been years and I'd love a Chocolate Kimberly. :-)
	Nicey replies: Actually as we found out the Chocolate Kimberleys seem to safe enough to eat by anybody, its the original ones which are an acquired taste. Sadly though I've not seen them outside Ireland. Maybe you can get somebody in one of your Irish offices to send over a case of them, either that or get a cheap flight to Dublin and sort it out directly. We are planning another Irish tea tour this summer so I hope to grapple with the Kimberley again.
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