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Your e-Mails

Barry Nield Malted Milk Review	Hi Nicey With a new baby due imminently, we've been making all the necessary preparations for the birth (rusks etc). At an ante-natal class we were given a list of things to take to hospital. This included the item: "favourite biscuits." I'm sure like most of your readers, we have different favorites for different situations. I wonder if you have any suggestions what would be suitable? Presumably it's got to be good biscuit in a crisis -- something that offers plenty of energy in case of a long labour, but not one that will melt all over the bed sheets in the warmth of a hospital. Many thanks Barry
	Nicey replies: Hello Barry, Well it sounds like you are already on top of most of the important aspects of biscuit selection, although I would say crumbs are another aspect to keep in mind. What ever you bring along will probably be very welcome. To be honest I seem to remember that it was me who ate all the biscuits as Wifey wasn't really in a biscuit mood. I also seem to recall that I went out on a limb and brought Cadbury's Chocolate fingers, a very non-standard biscuit for us. Thinking about it rationally and with hindsight I would have probably gone for some fig rolls, malted milks and possibly a small pack of digestives, although modern post-hydogenated fat Digestives are very crumbly. However, something that shouldn't be overlooked was the on tap supply of NHS tea and toasted sliced white with Golden Shred marmalade that was available when the YMOS made their debut. I recent years we have taken to baking large NCOTAASD fruitcakes for our friends when the have their own younger members of staff. In fact Mr ad Mrs T are due YMOS No 2 in about 6 weeks time and Mrs T is already making space in her cake tin. Another thing to watch out for is that fact that post birth you'll be all over the show and may well not be entirely capable of making rational biscuit choices due to excitement, warm fuzzy feelings, lack of sleep and confusion as the Wife sends you out to buy all sorts of strange things you've never heard of before down aisles of the supermarket you didn't even know existed.
Tim Gwynne Rich Tea Review	Dear Nicey, Sorry to clutter up your inbox with my ramblings but I am a neophyte to this site and I have to get a few things off my chest. Having perused the site and I am puzzled as to why you harbour such a negative attitude towards the lovely Nice biscuit? When I was a toddler in the early Sixties, and my parents were struggling to raise a small family, we were fobbed off with a variety of cheap biscuits in the hope that we might actually eat them occasionally (if desperate, and at gun-point). They tried us on Rich Tea, which only demonstrate traces of something that might be described as "flavour" for the first 25 seconds after the packet is opened; they tried us on Morning Coffee, which were only a marginal improvement (and mainly due to the elaborate decoration); they tried us on Lincoln, which only provide pleasure through stroking the upper surface. Once we were given long, slim biscuits with a thin, hard, lurid, swirly pink icing on top which we liked but were declared "bad for the teeth". Eventually they hit upon Nice biscuits which were not only coconutty but had granulated sugar on top. And proper Peek Frean's Nice too, which were a lovely pure white colour and not the American Tan of the modern impostor. I could eat an entire packet of Peek Frean's Nice right now, if you had a time machine and decided to use it for biscuit retrieval purposes, rather than world domination. Tim P.S. to this day my parents always have Rich Teas in our old biscuit tin with a Kingfisher painted on the lid. They are always soft and smell of damp flannels (the biscuits, not my parents). My children won't eat them either.
	Nicey replies: Its a coconut thing really. Some desiccated coconut is like wood shavings and the taste can be quite overpowering. Although in later years it seems my views on coconut may be softening somewhat I would still like to keep the Nice biscuit at a safe distance. I think this is much like old adversaries who are bound up with one another by historical events but cannot yet bring themselves to regard old foes as friends. I can also see that given the selection of biscuits you were exposed to at a young age that something with sugar on top would have been magnificent and an instant hit. People often forget in our modern days of excess that such simple things were once genuine treats. I still think of the fruit shortcake in much the same way as biscuit whose cup runneth over with bountiful goodness.
Hiromi Miura	Dear Nicey,Wifey and YMOS On Wednesday afternoon, my husband and I came back to Korea after staying for three nights and four days in our motherland, Japan. Sad to say, when we arrived at Haneda Airport(Tokyo), there was no lady with a green tea trolley to greet us, but Tokyo was so beautiful because the lovely pink-coloured cherry blossoms were in full bloom. In Tokyo, my husband seemed to be busy visiting several offices on business. As for me, I was busy dropping by corner shops enjoying biscuit hunting, as you guess. And we flew back to Korea with a lot of biscuits I had gained in Tokyo, including a box of twenty "Black Thunder" biscuits, which are one of my favourite Japanese biscuits. Well, I am a lady who love inexpensive,mass-produced biscuits that are available at corner shops and common supermarkets. However, in remembrance of our brief retro life in Tokyo, I ventured to try to buy four extravagant biscuits at WEST shop. The WEST shop is a confectioner well-known for its even finer and high end biscuits in Japan. Actually, even a single biscuit cost me at 168JPY (about 0.82GBP / 1.64USD). Interestingly, the confectioner calls its biscuits "Dry Cake", while it calls its fresh cakes (such as cheesecake, sponge cake covered with whipped cream and cream puff) just "Cake". And it is fact that those 4 "Dry Cake" biscuits I bought were drier than Tunnock teacake and Jaffa Cake. Anyway, I am very happy that I was able to get such gems of biscuits as well as common biscuits in Japan. By the way, what lets me down is that I was not able to discover a gem of contemporary literature: Japanese version of NCOTAASD book in Japan. It seemed to me that your Japanese book has not been released in Japan, yet. I do hope I will get it next time we fly to Japan. Sincerely, Hiromi Miura (Seoul Korea)
	Nicey replies: Hello Hiromi, It sounds like you had a lovely time back in Tokyo, even if you didn't get your cup of green tea at the airport.. Of course the main reason for our book being published in Japanese is so that you can read it. I've pointed this out at length to all concerned. Fingers crossed that you'll find it next time. We have cherry trees all along our road, which have just began to blossom too. Each year they produce masses of black cherries most of which are eaten by birds or fall on to the road. This year Wifey plans to ask permission to grab a few pounds of them and turn them into her new found best drink ever, Cherry flavoured Vodka. NCOTAASD ISP Dr Borrill did this with his cherries and worked very well indeed.
Colleen Howe	Hi Nicey! Please - we need your help asap. We are sitting in the office with lots of different fruit tea options... We went for camomile, honey and vanilla and that has put us slightly over the edge! What is your take on fruit teas - where should we go from here?! Yours in anticipation Colleen
	Nicey replies: Our advice is to stop mucking about and have a proper cup of tea.
Marion Banks-Wilkinson	Well done Nicey, you got a mutation in your welsh greeting, the hardest thing to master apparently. They don't do half days on St David's day anymore as most of the children wouldn't turn up at all. Sadly dressing up ends when they go up to Juniors now. Infants and nursery age only, although you can buy the whole costume at Tesco or Asda these days, boys either wear Rugby jeseys or a bought Boys version costume of waistcoat and muffler with a Dai cap. very cute! On the day itself they are trying to get parades and so on going ala St Patricks Day, but a bit feeble so far. Also there are regular requests for it to be a National Holiday, so far unsuccesful. And the fake cream mix is Dream topping , excellent on trifle or my speciallity Butterfly cakes topped with a piece of fresh strawberry. Noswith da, butty love Marion
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