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 |
Simon Bartle |
Long live the fig roll I say. I am currently tucking into a 'bag' of these delicious treats by Barilla, under the brand 'Passioni Italiane - Fico' but translations aside, they are without doubt, fig rolls, and tastly too. Small I admit, but very 'figgy', with a soft texture.
Do you know of this brand?
One other point from your site. I would like stand firmly on the side of the pink wafer. I have fond memories as a child of these melt in the mouth biscuit wafers. I admit, each to his own, and me, occationally to my pink wafers.
Cheers.
Simon Bartle, UK, in Paris |
Nicey replies: Yes we have heard of Barrila via the Parvesi Ringo, but we have yet to sample their Fig Rolls. |
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Helen Rees |
Dear Nicey,
When we were kids, we spent every Sunday in the summertime at Llangennith beach on the Gower (South Wales). My mothers idea of a picnic was a whole roast chicken, a pressure cooker of potatoes and veg taken straight off the top of the cooker and put into the boot of the car not to be opened until we were ready to eat and an enormous red thermos full of gravy. This would be eaten in the field above the beach obviously for fear of sand. The adults wouldn't actually venture onto the beach at all in fact. There were always warm hard boiled eggs too and angel cake and pink wafers. We had a little camping gaz stove and a kettle for tea. It would take all afternoon to boil. My Gran (bless her) would sit there on her deck chair all day in her Sunday Best Coat and Chapel hat despite the blistering heat (1976 if you're wondering - we might be the wettest place in Britain now but we did have sun once I'm certain).
Ps just eaten a custard (or iced) slice. Is that soggy cream cracker on the bottom? Could they go in the venn diagram between crackers and cakes? Loved the book.
Helen |
Nicey replies: Splendid we now have beans, soup and gravy as Thermos contents, but I'm willing to accept weirder ones, porridge perhaps?
As for the bases of Custard slices I had always assumed that this was puff pastry that had been transformed by the immense humidity and pressure exerted by an inch and a quarter of custard, into a strange slighty glassy substance. Perhaps custard slices are a model of some geological processes such as the laying down of sedimentary rocks, or the earth's lithosphere. |
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Mike Howells |
Nicey,
firstly, congratulations on an excellent website. i've read it for a while and recently bought a packet of tim tams to try the slam. excellent stuff.
secondly, congratulations on being in time out which led to me rushing out and buying...
your excellent book (thirdly, congratulations on that too) i bought it for wifey (mine, not yours) yesterday and liked it so much that i missed my stop on the way home. if you can refund my cab fare, that would be great. i now know that cadburys fingers are suitable substitutes for tim tams and i'm looking forward to trying it at the earliest opportunity.
your book may well be this year's all-purpose christmas present book - we'll have to wait and see.
however, regarding the question of tea rounds of work, i was sickened to find no mention of Optimum Mug-Handle Compatibility - the art of choosing mugs to allow you to carry up to six mugs of tea per trip so long as you've got those nice big oval handles that you can get three stabilising fingers into. Those silly little mug handles with corners are the enemy of anyone who has to make a large round because it means making two trips back from the kitchen.
you're right about dark mugs and pink wafers though. they're horrid.
Well done. |
Nicey replies: Mike,
Fourthly congratulations to you on raising such an important topic. Mug handles are often over looked. I did briefly mention in the book the unsatisfactory nature of novelty shaped handles, but as you rightly point out small ones with that little corner bit on are just as disastrous, never mind having to carry six of them. |
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Helen Lo
 Mint Viscount Review |
Hello,
I’ve just finished reading your book which was extremely informative and brought back many childhood memories which the psychotherapist has yet to manage. There is one omission which I must raise and this is surprising given the attention to detail.
You talk about the Mint Viscount but then don’t give any information on what was the difference between it and the YoYo. Also any differences between men’s preferences and women’s preferences? I’m afraid my husband is crying into his mug of Assam, after I read out your disparaging comments about lemon puffs and pink wafers. But then I’ve always thought he was a bit of big girl’s blouse……
Best wishes
Helen |
Nicey replies: Helen,
Well the primary difference between the Viscount and Yo-yo as I'm sure you know is diameter and depth, with the Yo-yo being wider and thiner. Sadly the Yo-yo was discontinued by United Biscuits in 2003, which is why I omitted them. WIth the exception of the Abbey Crunch I wanted the biscuits all to be currently available.
As for differences in male and female preferences there are not really any strong trends apart from a much higher tolerance of Chocolate by the females, and hence their enhanced ability to enjoy Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Triple Chocolate cookies. Men compensate with the ability to put up with smashed up, past it's sell by date, and generally iffy biscuits if nothing else is to be had. |
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Gill Tweed
 Iced Gems Review |
I was in the depths of despair today, missing my son and his wife and my tiny grandson, who live in TimTam land in Sydney. I was wondering how I could make it through Christmas without them. I was in tears of abject misery. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. It was the postman with a parcel from Amazon containing your book and a message from my family with love and the wish,'may your tin be always full!'. Well, because I have been trying to lose weight, so I will be able better to fit into the airplane seat the next time I fly to Oz, my biscuit tin has languished empty for many months. But buoyant with the joy this present brought and cheered by the loving wishes from my family, I rushed off to Sainsbury's and splashed out on virtually every biscuit variety available, including pink wafers, to which I am unaccountably addicted (chacun a son gout and de gustibus non disputandum, as they say!). I just wanted you to know that I feel a hundred times better than I did before the postman's knock. And I think the book is pure genius.
Thank you so much.
Best wishes.
Gill Tweed.
PS I once had to perform the Heimlich manouevre on an adult at a school Christmas party in order to dislodge a stubborn iced gem from her windpipe. Truth is stranger than fiction. GT. |
Nicey replies: Gill,
So glad that we have cheered you up with our ramblings. Hope you get to do some biscuit research with your family down in Oz soon. |
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