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 |
Iona Morrison |
Dear Nicey,
I just want to thank you personally for reinstating the biscuit into my diet. For a long time I had been enjoying my cups of tea unaccompanied! (I know, can you imagine?) I heard about your lovely site on the lovely radio 4 and have since become a huge fan. To think, I had never even noticed the absence of biscuits until I began reading your reviews and realised that a huge chunk of pleasure has been missing from my life. You have made my nice cups of tea and sit downs complete. |
Nicey replies: Will you still thank me when none of your clothes fit? |
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Richard Bonfield |
Listened to you on BBC radio 2 Thursday, probably not the first to tell you, but the British Army still have oatmeal blocks on issue in their ration packs, designed for breakfast(crunched up into porridge with milk) or with strawberry jam as a snack for lunch. yum yum! hope this helps Richard |
Nicey replies: Actually you are the first to tell me that. They sound good. |
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Fiona
Tim Tam vs Penguin Review |
As a Pom living in sunny Perth in WA, I was very interested to see your article about Tim Tams being launched in the UK. Here in Oz, we are surrounded by Arnotts biccies. In fact the supermarkets sell extremely limited ranges of any other brand. It's a bit like the old Ford car really. You can have any sort of biscuit as long as it is made by Arnotts and is preferably a Tim Tam !! As most expat Brits will tell you, English chocolate is infinitely superior to the Australian attempt at this wonderful concoction so this will no doubt tell you what we think of the majority of Tim Tam biscuits. However, they do have some nice ideas about flavours - the chewy caramel being one of my husband's favourites. Also my 9 year old daughter loves the choc coated tiny teddies. Me-? I would love a real Highland shortbread biscuit. Arnotts just can't seem to get the recipe right. Also Sainsburys used to do a wonderful choc chip shortbread round. There is nothing to compare to that here at all.
I found out about your site from this weeks edition of the UK Mail published here every Tuesday and I will definitely be making regular visits.
What is it with Kimberley Biscuits. All our Irish friends here put them at the top of the shopping list for anyone visiting the Emerald Isle. In fact, one dare not return to the bosom of you friends here unless armed with copious packets from your suitcase. One of these days I may get to try one as they are jealously guarded and rarely shared with anyone else!
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Nicey replies: Well to us in the UK the Tim Tam is an exotic treat. As for the Kimberley thats all very standard stuff with the Irish, they love them, where as the rest of the world is generally left wondering what the fuss is about. |
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Hannah Mills
Oreo Review |
I think it should just be pointed out that the Oreo "biscuit" is a classic example of how the Americans have absolutely no concept of what a biscuit should be. They should leave the people who know what they're doing to it and concentrate on things that they can do, like eating the lovely biscuits that us British make, like Rich Tea biscuits for example.
Yours sincerely,
Hannah Mills (Biscuit fan) |
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Laura Hamilton
Oreo Review |
I am an American. I'm also Canadian (and your review of Maple Cookies omitted the fact they're intolerably sweet - and it takes 40 gallons of maple sap to make a gallon of syrup, not 75). I thought I should get my North American roots out of the way first just so that you understand where I'm coming from, literally and figuratively.
I'm also a writer and as such I spend a huge amount of time researching "stuff" (what a great word for someone with a Master's in English, huh?) which is rather heavy. So it was a delight to find your web page which is relaxing and fun to read.
However, I have to give you another slant on the Oreo cookies you so unmercifully trashed. One aspect of them you have completely neglected is the cookie's place in a transposed North American's psyche. When I miss the States and Canada, a trip to Sainsbury's helps a lot, when I can stand in front of the Oreo cookie boxes and remember so many things from "across the pond" dear to me. Time was I had to bring North American "stuff" (there's that word again) back to England where I have lived for 20 years. Now that I can buy Oreo cookies here, my suitcases are considerably lighter which British Airways probably appreciates no end.
And as far as instructions on how to eat Oreos go, that is the fun part of eating them. Spend time taking the cookie apart, peeling off the vanilla with your teeth (though double vanilla ones are a bit too sweet), then crunching the cookie halves when they still have a hint of sweet filling on them, and you spend a lot less time eating more and more cookies. No, I'm far from fat, believe me. But once in a while, a cookie treat of Oreos is delightful, and a reminder of home. I for one am really, really, really pleased Oreos have come to England.
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