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 |
Patrick Grabham |
Dear Nicey,
I was intrigued to read Martin Booth's tale of a little old Hastings lady offering him a buttered McVitie's digestive. Whilst discussing this with a work colleague, I recalled eating digestives topped with a Dairylea triangle as a child. (Obviously a poor relation to the more traditional cheese and biscuits).
What are your views on adding toppings to biscuits. Should they remain 'au natreulle' or is a light spreading of some dairy product permissible? I await your wise words.
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Nicey replies: Well in the quasi democracy that is NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown we defend peoples right to drink their tea and eat their biscuits in which ever way they see fit, unless of course they doing something plainly wrong. As you see we have an icon, albeit rarely used, that denotes cheese on biscuits, so that is grudging acceptance of the practice. |
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Simon Huxtable
McVities Milk Chocolate Digestive Review |
I'd like to thank Lisa Koester for her interesting point asking 'which way is up?' for a biscuit. It certainly caused me to question a few of my long-held beliefs on the 'natural' order of biscuits. This type of thinking is invaluable, and I'm sure there is role in management, or as a 'creative' in an advertising agency for such ability to 'think outside the box'.
However, if you stand a packet of Chocolate Digestives up the right way and open it at the right end, you will see that - clearly - Chocolate is the 'up' side, and the biscuit side should be on terra firma.
Thanks
Simon |
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Lisa Koetser |
Which way is up. When I lay the biscuits on a plate I put them chocolate side down because I think that the chocolate is on the underside of the biscuit and the writing and holes are on the top. When I did this at my book group everyone thought that I had placed them that way to deter people from eating them by hiding the chocolate. Which way do you think is up.
Lisa
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Nicey replies: Lisa,
Chocolate is always placed on the the base of the biscuit as this flat and more easily processed. However, once on there it effectively reverses the polarity of the biscuit so that the chocolate side is now considered up. Your book group is obviously a bunch of polite if somewhat conspiratorial people. I would have told you to stop mucking about and turn the biscuits the right way up before you create an unnecessary and embarrassing spectacle. |
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Tom England |
Can I just congratulate David Cowie on his splendid idea. I, like Dave, have often found myself throwing away half bottles of milk. In fact I am fully aware when purchasing a bottle, that it is highly unlikely that I will consume the whole contents prior to them seperating into their various
constituents.
It must be borne in mind though that due to the cooling effects of the frozen milk, this process should only be used for cups of tea to be consumed swiftly, ie. to be downed prior to dashing out of the door to work. In all other circumstances a proper cup of tea must be piping hot. But I think
that you will agree Mr Nicey that a cup of tea cool enough to gulp, is infinately better than no cup of tea at all.
I'm just off to try and find those ice cube freezer bag thingies, and a bottle of milk. |
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David Hammond |
Is it actually possible to make a nice cup of tea with a tea bag?
Not entirely, but pitifully few types of good quality tea bags have come to my attention during my life long quest for a decent bag. However, I do have a tip or two. Most tea bags exude an oily slick if left in the cup/mug/pot for more than 30 seconds and the taste is often very far removed from the cups of tea regularly consumed in my youth. Of course this was before the advent of the 'convenience' bag when better quality leaves were usually given better quality attention in most households and catering establishments.
Today, few can be bothered with the messy tea leaf method and most of us have succumbed to the sheer convenience and habit of the tea bag and it is now undoubtedly the tea makers preference.
All is not lost! Find a good quality tea bag producer (my favourite everyday one is Marks & Spencer Gold). Place one bag in a mug, pour on boiling water and vigorously and continuously bash with a teaspoon about 30-40 times (20-30 seconds max.). Remove the bag and dump it. Add milk if you want and hey presto, the best possible result for making tea from this miserable substitute for the real thing.
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Nicey replies: David,
Thanks for enlightening us all on how to make tea, I'm sure all the people who have been stuffing tea bags in their ears, snorting sugar and gluging down cold tap water are feeling fairly foolish about now.
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