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 |
Sally O'Hagan
 Graham cracker Review |
Dear Nicey,
I stumbled across your website after googling graham crackers (what are they? I asked). It's a lovely website - I never dreamed there'd be an entertaining and informative forum such as this where I can indulge my unhealthy interest in packaged things in the biscuit line.
Having spent a little time doing just that, I have just had the life changing experience of finally finding out what graham crackers are... with actual photos and everything!
I live in Australia, and for at least 30 years (that's about three quarters of my life) I have wondered (quite often, quite regularly) what the hell a graham cracker square could be. I've come across so many recipes calling for GCQs - trying various substitutes, I knew in my heart that none of them were quite it.
I've quizzed American friends, but they're all so complacent about it (and frankly, not interested in cross-cultural biscuit exchange), giving vague answers like, You use them to make cheesecake bases (well, derr...).
I hardly know how to thank you... |
Nicey replies: Glad to promote international biscuit understanding. |
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Dean Anderson |
Gill Casey's point about the credit crunch is spot on, but it also got me thinking.....wouldn't this make an ideal name for a new biscuit in these troubled times? The Credit Crunch biscuit could be made of cheap and easily accessible food stuffs (I'm thinking oats mainly) and may even encourage a bit of home baking.
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Nicey replies: Those Credit Crunches sound yummy.
Actually I'm starting to feel a bit sorry for BBC News 24 who seem to be unable to talk about anything else and are starting to look like their hearts aren't in it any more. What we need is massive global story about kittens and fluffy ducklings to give them a bit of a break. I think they should have made out that story yesterday of the little boy who got stuck in the Postman Pat kiddies ride outside a supermarket. The fire brigade who had been called in to release the boy who had become jammed between the end of Pat's giant conk and the windscreen treated it as a standard RTA and cut the roof off. When they still couldn't shift him they had saw the end of old Pat's snout. That's proper news. |
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Sue Girard |
Hello Nicey,
My Gram was born in Hastings in the 1880’s, moved to London as a young wife, then brought her two young daughters to California after losing her husband in WWI. We always had proper English tea at holiday dinners, but I didn’t much care for it. To entice me, Gram used to call to my attention the bubbles in my cup. “Ooooo-o-o-o—loook, you’re going to have lots of money coming your way….” I still didn’t like tea, much to Gram’s chagrin. But I do have Gram’s biscuit tin. I use it every Christmas when I load it up with homemade cookies—err, biscuits.
Best
Sue Girard |
Nicey replies: Hello Sue,
We have a special icon for tea bubbles and their associated wealth, and one for biscuit tins too. I think it's lovely that your Gram's old biscuit tin gets an outing at Christmas time.
As for Hastings I seem to remember from my trip there as a child that it has very tall wooden sheds covered in tar, which were something to do with fishing. |
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Greg Fradd
 Bourbon Review |
Hi there Nicey,
I love the site and I love the book, too.
Biscuits remain a real constant in life. They say that “Nothing is certain but death and taxes”. I amended that to include the size of Bourbons. I took great reassurance that, the world over, bourbons are the same. People may come in different shapes, sizes, colours; but wherever one happens to find oneself, one can be assured that a Bourbon is a Bourbon. Believe me, I know these things: been a lot of places, ate a lot of biscuits.
Not so, yesterday. I was in Lewes at a conference, and at tea-break eagerly made my way to the catering table, where I knew the biscuits would be waiting. I was very pleased to see bourbons and custard creams (the “Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder” of the biscuit world) side by side on the plate. These two are my perennial favourites, and with them I have toasted the good times; coasted through the mediocre times; and taken refuge during the bad.
However, I was reduced to a quivering wreck when I immediately noticed something wrong with the bourbon. It was a maverick; a loose cannon. Not the regulation 10 hole, 61 x 30mm specification; this one had 8 holes and was a different size and shape. If I was forced to guess the size would say it was in the region of 45 x 40mm – in other words, shorter and fatter. A lightning-speed inspection of its colleagues confirmed that they were all like that
I am not a “biscuit nazi”: on the contrary I consider myself to be a very tolerant, patient and inclusive individual (pink wafers aside). However some things are clearly necessary in order for reality as we know it to continue. The size and shape of bourbons is one of these things.
Can you imagine the effect it had on me? I was left questioning the nature of the universe itself. This sent me into an existential crisis and a state of confusion and near panic.
I took this up with the catering staff, and asked them how this abomination could be allowed. They – and my colleagues – all advised me to “get out more”. Clearly their priorities are different to mine. How, and why, could I get out more? How do I know the sky isn’t going to fall down? Gravity might stop. The world might explode. Who knows? Change the shape of the Bourbon and change the world.
I took some comfort in knowing that Lewes now has its own currency. Maybe these people want to have their own type of bourbon too.
I also took some comfort in your website, and in particular David Harman’s appraisal of the situation in the feedback on your bourbon review. It is good to know that there are like-minded individuals out there. Maybe we could form some sort of silent minority?
Best wishes
Greg Fradd |
Nicey replies: Greg,
Sorry to hear of your run in with the dud non-standard Bourbons. My last run-in with said dodgy biscuits was at a theatrical event entitled 'three men and a bourbon', which Wifey and I travelled down to London to see. The cast passed round a packet of Happy Shopper Bourbons hurriedly purchased some thirty minutes earlier, prior to their performance. This of course created an awkward and uncomfortable atmosphere amongst the modest audience, (well I thought so) and personally lasted till at least Letchworth Garden City on the train home. |
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T. Maryam
 Wagon Wheel Review |
Hello,
I am writing to ask if you could please make wagon wheels suitable for vegetarians and with no gelatine as i love it and am unable to purchase them now because they contain gelatine.
So could you please make them suitable for vegetarians.
Yours Sincerely T. Maryam.
P.s I look forward to your reply. |
Nicey replies: Hello T. Maryam,
I'm flattered that you think that I, a mere bloke with a website, could hold sway over the contents of the legendary Wagon Wheel. I share your enthusiasm for it too, however, it is not within my limited powers to grant you your wish, nor I suspect Burton's who actually make them. The gelatine based mallow of the Wagon Wheel which has already in recent years undergone significant revisions to both its biscuits and coating is the last bastion of retro biscuit engineering left in the product. To fiddle with this bit because of your dietary choices would be the straw that broke the camels back. So I'm afraid you will have forgo them along with, strawberry jelly, trifles, fruit fools, marshmallows, chocolate teacakes and pigs trotters. |
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