It was getting tough in 2006 and the workhouse still threatens us in 2011

Living_proof

Mrs_Chip wrote: »

Silva -Dad used to take us cockling in the mud off Leigh-on-Sea. Nasty black stuff, but the cockles were lovely. We were quite an OS family, I spent my kidhood foraging berries and scrumping, Dad went ferreting and fishing, and mum cooked everything from scratch. All skills I am so glad to have now!

Well you probably went blackberrying at Hadleigh Castle for a day out, like we did?

Mrs_Chip

Hi LP - no we had an abundance of blackberry patches in the village, I didn't actually go to Hadleigh Castle until I left home! Not even on a school trip? But lots of trips to Southend seafront to see the lights and trips down the pier on the little train!

HariboJunkie

Kidcat I hope that whatever is troubling you so much can be resolved. Take care of yourself. :kisses3:

LB I hope you can come back and join us. Your posts were very interesting.

Mardatha I love cooking but I know a few people who are like you and see it as a means to an end. I don't know why I enjoy it so much other than that I was raised in a family where food meant eating my mum'a latest creation and sitting round the table sharing (mostly) fun times. Now I do that for my family and cooking and baking also appeals to my creative side. You need an inspirational cook book girl" And to programme the RV to say "That's very delicious dear. You are wonderful! after every meal. ;):rotfl:

The debate on what children eat from a young age is a fascinating one. I was brought up by a fabulous cook who was adventurous and very much ahead of her time with recipes and ingredients. As a consequence there is little I haven't tried and virtually nothing I dislike. So I did the same with my twins and literally from the time they were weaned they were offered exactly what we were eating and by the age of 18 months had developed a passion for smelly cheeses, mussels, olives and pickles. I also didn't buy into the idea of telling them that sweets and fizzy drinks were a treat. Yes they had sweets occasionally but the didn't have fizzy drinks as I never offered it as a treat and from an early age I explained why I thought it was so bad for them.
There is no banned food in this house as I think a ban makes it more endearing (although I don't allow them to consume aspartame) and they love their food and seem to have a healthy relationship with it. That's something that is very important for pre pubescent girls.

I really, really believe that it's our job to keep our children healthy while not making them obsessive about food.
So many health problems are stored up in childhood by what we are fed. If education doesn't work I'd like to see a campaign that guilts the parents who feed their children relentless crap in the same way that smokers are made to feel like the spawn of satan for smoking around children.

Sorry. It's a bugbear of mine. Can you tell?

GreyQueen

Softstuff wrote: »

I was stood next to a lady at the reduced meat section in the supermarket, and she'd picked up a couple of packs of mince. I'd picked up the others, and then noticed some chicken breast pieces. Everything was less than half price, so a great bargain. I offered her one of the packs of chicken, but she said it was ok, the mince would do her dog, he liked a bit of mince as a treat now and then... I had to stop myself saying that the mince would do my husband, who liked a bit as a treat now and then.QUOTE]:rotfl::rotfl:Softstuff, you write so vividly I can SEE this encounter!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, there are those moments in the world of retail where a body feels a little pauper-ish after a throwaway remark by a complete stranger. Take it on the chin; bet you anything you can out-cook the Dog Mince Lady.......

Re shin beef; it is my preferred cut after the butcher recommended it for stews and I find it very tasty. One day, he was out of shin beef but he did have a leaner cut of something normally much more expensive at a reasonable price (memory escapes as to exactly what) and I made a stew out of it. Too lean; you need a bit of fat to make a decent (non-veggie) stew.

I was around a pal's a few months go and she had another pal around already, a workmate from their well-paid career in what we will broadly-call the financial sector. Anyway, I was chit-chatting and mentioned that I'd just mended such-and-such and this chap (who I like btw) pipped up: "I've never mended anything in my life!" :rotfl:

I just laughed as it was just an innocent remark not an attempted put-down (and my pal is an ardent crafter and fixer-upper and skip-trawler and home-cook-from-scratch) but it did make me think a bit.

Y'see, I was raised by people who never had a lot of money and for whom Mending Things was a natural as breathing. You went to mend before anything else and had the tools and materials around to do stuff; handtools, chimbney sweeping brushes, a few plumber's tools, saws and axes, sewing kit and more bits of trim and elastic and buttons than your could shake a stick at. You only stopped Mending Something when either it got too worn out or you couldn't get the part(s) anymore and then it was usually stripped for useful components and disposed of via recycling.

To me, and I suspect to most of us here on this thread, that's the way things are done and have always been done, in our particular families. I am so glad that I had this background as it has made me resourceful (and a terrible Womble ) although I was raised with a limited repertoire of trad English foods and am neither a very good cook nor terribly adventurous - but am working on that thanks to the sterling examples of other posters up here.

NualaBuala and Rachbc, many thanks for the beetroot recipes which I have taken into protective custody.

Kittie, I am a little cross (;)) that you followed my tip for late-July-sowing of beetroot and have a rousing success whereas I have had a truly pathetic crop of marbles and, as their leaves are yellowing, so probably not destined to get any bigger. Wahhh, s'not fair.

Scottishminnie re mending tights, I have darned holes in toes of tights with matching ordinary sewing thread as it can't be seen once your shoes are on and it seems a shame to discard an otherwise good pair. Goodness knows, a quality pair of tights isn't the cheapest thing. The trick in my experience is to use a double sewing thread but don't just run twice the length off the spool and thread the needle so it's halfway along IYSWIM. If you use sewing threads on the double, the twist on the thread tends to torque the two strands together (sorry, splitting headache, hope I'm making sense) to tangle into little loops and knots which is a PITA. It's better to cut two separate lengths off the spool and thread both of them thru the eye of the needle at the same time, with just a short tail to stop them coming out again.

You can (and I do sometimes) darn cotton or cotton-rich socks the same way.

Well, I am on my self-imposed discipline of October's limited grocery-shopping and using-what-I-have and can report that this week's spend (I go Sat-Sat) was a princely £1 for a 4 pinter of milk. It's a misleading figure as I went into the week with stuff in the fridge and I have been eating things from earlier purchases and earlier bulk-cooking sessions. Anyway, I have only a tiny tiny freezer (50 litre capacity) and need to eat some of the contents so that I can take advantage of any whoopsies which come my way.

Anyway, I have told friend and neighbour SuperGran that, in event of food-related emergencies, she is to let herself into my flat with my spare key and access the underbed storage area for tinned goods. I have enough tomatoes to cook a dinner for the entire block. SG just laughed......

(((((Kidkat)))))

Well, I'm limbering up for a wee bit of allotmenteering later today and waiting to see which way the day will fall out, weatherwise; grey and murky right now but no actual rain......not got a lot to do which is exciting but am tidying up and going to inventory the seeds before I give my 2012 seed order to the Association tomorrow.

Hope everyone has a good day and that the Yellow Ball is going to appear at some point.

Softstuff

I've tried a durian flavoured dessert, but never actual durian. I'd quite happily eat it if I was out and it was prepared, but was warned that to prepare it at home you risk stinking up the place for months. I suspect the smell would be somewhat like the mouse that died behind a kitchen cabinet, and we had to dismantle part of the kitchen to remove. But that wouldn't stop me trying it.

Celery on the other hand is a different matter. It's the only thing I won't eat. I mean, literally the only thing that can be described as food that I won't consume. And somehow that irritates me, so every so often I have a bit just to make sure I haven't changed my mind.

I won't say I love every food I'm given on every occasion, but I do have varied tastes and a very large sense of adventure when it comes to food. I'll quite happily sample a forkful of something with no idea whatsoever of what I'm eating.

As for kids, I'd say a lot of what children will eat depends on the attitude of their parents towards certain foods, and also how culturally acceptable they are. You seldom find a Turkish child who'd shun an olive, and most would happily eat a variety of offal, because they're entirely normal in that culture. A Gujarati friend of mine had 3 children, all of whom were eating various curries from the moment they could eat solids. Over here given the proximity to Japan, sushi and sashimi are very common, and you often see kids holding a sushi roll. Where I came from in England it was more common to see them holding sausage rolls!

HariboJunkie

Hope your headache goes away soon GQ. :kisses3:

Softstuff

Thanks GQ. On the subject of accidental pauper put downs, another friend of ours (very well employed, single, flys business class for business) was coming for lunch. So we went to the off-licence for a bottle of wine, his treat to go with the home cooked meal. He commented that he'd found if you spend over $15 (about 10 quid) a bottle, you couldn't go far wrong :rotfl: I replied that I didn't want to get too used to the good stuff, given our normal treat bottle is $2.50!

Incidentally, he's under 30, hard-working, kind and good to his mother, and he's not bad looking either, if anyone out there is looking for an eligible chap, he could use a good wife

NualaBuala

((((((Kidcat))))) - I'm so sorry to hear you've been going through a horrible time. I hope things resolve sooner rather than later. x

mardatha wrote: »

Nuala - the RV hates celery, hates beans, & hates lentils in anything other than lentil soup. Life is not easy for me! (but I hate them all too so mustn't blame him! ) .
I notice this week that even Costco's meat is getting dearer and smaller.

Haha, you have your work cut out for you!
Maybe add soup back in, esp now winter's on it's way and have sandwiches and porridge the rest of the time! I love soup and sandwiches and could happily live on them. In fact sometimes I do!


I've got to make a list now and figure out if I'm forking out the busfare to go to town for a big shop in the organic co-op or just making do with a few veggies and bits of fruit from the market in the local park.

Have a lovely day everyone - sending big hugs to everyone who'd like one. x

GreyQueen

HariboJunkie wrote: »

Hope your headache goes away soon GQ. :kisses3:

Thanks, Haribo.

It's just a fatigue headache and is slowly lifting. My whole team at work have had a brutal two weeks and I'm very tired, so badly wanted a restful evening and a good night's sleep.

Alas, the nearby student house has a bunch of very high-spirited young men and they were roaring like a football crowd from early evening well into the small hours. I am hoping it's just the excessive enthusiam of being away from home for the first time (it's been like this since term started) and that they'll settle down shortly.

;) Youngsters, eh!

Anyway, the not-buying-groceries obliged me to get out the breadmaking flour and I rustled up a batch of sunflower seed rolls and left them to prove overnight on the baking tray and baked them off this morning. Fresh bread and butter.....nomnomnom.

Daft Joke of the Day

Q; What happened to the cowboy in paper trousers?

A; He was arrested for rustling.

:D:oSorry! Someone told me that last night and I thought it soooo baaadd that it was good, IYSWIM.

meg72

Love the joke, think its one to put in my homemade crackers.