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 |
Maddalena Feliciello
ANZAC biscuit Review |
My Dear Nicey & TW
Tempted by your lyrical review on the launch of the Anzac Biscuit I duly hunted them out at Sainsburys' on Sunday.
I am now hopelessly addicted to Golden Syrup and Oats.
This is bad, really bad, I am eating them even without a cup of Yorkshires Finest to hand. I woke up thinking about them today and had three for breakfast. Then made the tea and had two more.
Luckily, unlike other addictive substances currently proscribed by the good law of this land, it is unlikely that I should be tempted to introduce them to others and gain their wide eyed and drooling compliance (could they be bent to my will with Classical Conditioning.....alarm clock -biscuit, alarm clock - biscuit?)
Eve would not offer these to Adam.
They are MINE, all MINE.
should I thank you....hmmnnn?!
Who the hell wants to be a size 6 - 8 anyway?
M :-)
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Scott Crowther
Bourbon Review |
Hi
I just wanted your opinion on the glut of cheap imitation biscuits available in your average local corner shop.
Take my personal favourite biscuit, the bourbon cream for example. Usually, dimension wise, roughly twice as long as they are wide, with a deep and rich soft filling sandwiched between two crunchy chocolatey biscuits. Perfect for eating 'in the buff', or dunking in tea or coffee (although tea is always my choice), they are, quite simply, perfection.
Imagine my horror to be given a packet of 'Essential Bourbon Creams' as a gift from my father, purchased at his local corner shop. Sneakily packaged so that you cannot see the offending product through the wrapping, or even as an image on the outside, I was dismayed and disappointed to find a roughly square item inside, with a pale imitation of the dark brown colouring I was expecting. Having the driest and thinnest layer of filling ever tasted coupled with outer layers roughly twice the thickness of the norm, this 'Bourbon' (if you can call it that) sucks all moisture from your mouth instantly. A truly painful eating experience, even with a good cup of Tetley.
Can I suggest that a 'taste off' would be a worthwhile exercise to identify the best brand of biscuit, so that we may never again suffer the pain of eating a food item that dares to call itself a biscuit?
Naturally, I would happily volunteer to be a taster guinea pig - in the interests of science you understand.
Oh, and thanks to my Dad for the packet. I know it's the thought that counts, but frankly don't bother next time unless you have a 'nicecupoftea' bourbon buyers guide to hand.
Scott C
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Nicey replies: Well 61mm by 30mm 10 holes should be the metric to follow. Step outside that at your peril.
Anyone else called Scott want to mail us today? |
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Scott Kaltenbach |
Thanks very much for the review and recognition of the 'Dare Maple Leaf Creme Cookie' (although we still call them biscuits, not cookies like the package says). Despite being a house-afire at home, Maple Leaf Creme Cookie would never feel truly successful, appreciated, admired or loved until he had heard that his name had been mentioned by someone (anyone!) in the States. Now to find out that he's been examined and accepted by the U.K., well, this was more than he dared wish for. It's like winning the Stanley Cup for old MLCC! All this time he's just kept his head down, working hard at being the best damn maple flavoured baked-good he could be. Who knew?
So keep enjoying those Maple Cremes and...thanks again, eh! |
Nicey replies: Scott,
Glad you liked Pete's review. We still have a couple of Maple Creams in our biscuit tin under a fearsome layer of Morning Coffee. |
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Jane Rickard |
Dear Nicey
have you seen Saturday19th July's Guardian page 10 of the national news bit? 'Teacup ban in chamber of horrors'. "Members of a Worcestershire council have been banned from taking their cups and saucers into the chamber because the sound of clinking china makes it difficult for voters in the public gallery to hear debates. Pauline Hayward, Conservative chairman of Wyre Forest council...has also banned biscuits".....
I am entirely on the side of councillor Howard Martin who says "Some councillors are at work all day. They come to a meeting at 6pm and pick up a cup of tea and a biscuit because they won't have anything else till 9.30pm".
Any chance of your website taking this up? Think of the implications if this banning should spread!
many best wishes
Janexx
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Nicey replies: Yes we did see it, actually online on BBCi. Anyhow, the perceived problem seemed to be due the clinking of spoons and teacups on saucers, which can be very noisy. Now surely rather than a complete ban they should have simply adopted mugs and maybe sugar and stir their tea before bringing it in to the council chamber, problem solved. Next.
As for banning biscuits that is just spiteful. |
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Katy Drummond |
Nicey
I definitely don't want to enter into the dangerous territory of mugs vs cups. It's like dogs vs cats - though dogs are clearly superior beings, you are never going to convince a cat lover of this by rational argument, or any other means for that matter. Some people (normally old people) like cups, the rest of us like mugs, and that's just the way it is. Live and let live, I say.
However, I do have strong views on the colour of the drinking vessel, be it cup or mug. I noted some correspondence earlier in which the author described her favourite mug which bore the legend 'World's Sexiest Woman'. Although she loved the message printed on the outside, she was
understandably distressed by its lurid orange colour.
It is quite obvious to all but the most inexperienced tea drinker that tea must always be drunk out of a vessel that is very pale in colour, preferably white, off-white or cream. Anything else just won't do. It makes your tea look watery and unappetising, black and navy blue being the worst offenders.
While we're on the subject of unappetisiting cups of tea, does anyone else have a view on the 'scum' you get when you leave your teabag in too long? I personally prefer to have a bit of this scum on my tea as it demonstrates that the teabag has not been whipped out too soon. Anyone can make a cup of tea that, judging by the colour, APPEARS to be the right strength, but once
tasted is revealed as watery and insipid. If you've got scum however, you know it's been brewed (or 'mashed' as I believe they say up north) to at least the minimum acceptable level.
I would also like to add that informative and interesting though Jenny Hugh's 12-point list on the superiority of the cup was, it is disingenuous to say that your site is not called nicemugofteaandasitdown, as everyone knows that 'cup of tea' can refer to any drinking vessel that contains tea.
Fair enough on the other 11 points though.
Keep up the good work.
Katie
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Nicey replies: You'll set off Jim Fussell again with all this talk of dark mugs.
Yes why not have a Scum debate, scum dosn't get its fair crack of the whip does it. |
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