Nice people thread part 5 - nicely does it

vivatifosi

zagubov wrote: »

Shame to hear about Davy Jones death. I was a big fan of the Monkees back in the day

It's really sad news. I loved the Monkees when I was growing up in Australia. I think they were all repeats but when you are 5 I don't think you care. I saw the Monkees in concert a few years back when they played Wembley (minus Michael Nesmith). We also caught Davy Jones several times when he played free concerts in Florida. DH met him and his family on a few occasions and said he was a really nice, decent bloke who was warm and funny and spent a lot of time with his fans.

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

Pn, i have a freezer, i have two! But i don't shop like most people. I am alone more days than together, and honestly, you could keep some basic store cupboard stuff in with out it going off and without eating it monotonously. Eggs should last a while, so if youbought six i am guessing theyvhave three weeks ish date onnthem? And usually they are ok after that for cooking.....you have to test them.

Of course, it does require a different approach, but it is a choice...

Btw, my kitchen is not nice.:D tbh, dreading hiaving it moved into the new kitchen, i think it will fall apart.

I'm talking about a lifestyle where it's only me, ever. Just me and I don't go to anybody else's for meals and I don't go out for meals. Year in, year out, alone, cooking for one. There's no buzz.

I buy eggs in 12s. 6 costs about as much as 12, so have to buy in 12s really. I buy everything with an eye on value. Like peppers - I'd never buy one pepper. One pepper's about 70-80p, but you can get a bag of value ones for about £1-1.20 and that has about 5 in. So suddenly I can't buy one as that seems overpriced. On the other hand, I can't buy a bag of 5 as I've no use for that many.

Eggs last about 3 weeks, I always check the dates and make sure I've got the longest run at them that I can get. So most of the time I can get through the 12 before they run out - worst case scenario I deliberately cook scrambled eggs on toast on their last day.

I've no bread, so yesterday I picked up four bread rolls (for a change), so today I've had a bread roll half toasted (couldn't toast it fully in case it caught fire in the toaster and that's right under the fire alarm sensor so couldn't chance it and couldn't stand by the toaster as I was 8' away doing the eggs/beans. I've also had about 10 chocolate fingers - bought a 400g bag of them for £1 (bag of seconds) at the local shop.

I am now running my cupboards down - I've never bought store cupboard stuff for here as I won't be taking food with me when I leave. Used the last of the brown sauce today and wondering if I should buy another one or just do without until I've moved.

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

Oh dear... and I'm already sitting here in tears thinking of all the dead people I've known and stuff. I had planned a trip back to where I used to live, before I got caught up in all the "ill old" stuff.... and now I am looking at my future again I had another go at finding old friends to contact and already discovered two are dead.

Everybody's dying

And then I wonder how long I've got left.

PN, you're doing the right thing by looking up old friends. Remember how misskool was discussing meeting up with old friends before Christmas.

I was reminiscing about the friends I went to the Kiss FM launch party with over 20 years ago and how they were living on other continents or had died.

It's important to keep the contacts going.;)

If ever there was a New Years resolution worth keeping it would be keeping in touch or sending messages to people who mean something to us. Very important, that one!

PasturesNew

Oh - and right now I have one shelf in one cupboard for food, it's a wall unit, so shallow. 6 tins of beans would be 1/4 of the space and the shelf isn't even tall enough to stack two tins on each other. My eggs and bread are on top of the fridge and my spuds are on the floor. There's no storage space here - or in a lot of small places. This place is set up for people to make toast only really ... and it's fully furnished for 4-6 people, meaning the cupboards are full of bowls/plates/etc for holidays, leaving no space for full-time living.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'm talking about a lifestyle where it's only me, ever. Just me and I don't go to anybody else's for meals and I don't go out for meals. Year in, year out, alone, cooking for one. There's no buzz.

I buy eggs in 12s. 6 costs about as much as 12, so have to buy in 12s really. I buy everything with an eye on value. Like peppers - I'd never buy one pepper. One pepper's about 70-80p, but you can get a bag of value ones for about £1-1.20 and that has about 5 in. So suddenly I can't buy one as that seems overpriced. On the other hand, I can't buy a bag of 5 as I've no use for that many.

Eggs last about 3 weeks, I always check the dates and make sure I've got the longest run at them that I can get. So most of the time I can get through the 12 before they run out - worst case scenario I deliberately cook scrambled eggs on toast on their last day.

I've no bread, so yesterday I picked up four bread rolls (for a change), so today I've had a bread roll half toasted (couldn't toast it fully in case it caught fire in the toaster and that's right under the fire alarm sensor so couldn't chance it and couldn't stand by the toaster as I was 8' away doing the eggs/beans. I've also had about 10 chocolate fingers - bought a 400g bag of them for £1 (bag of seconds) at the local shop.

I am now running my cupboards down - I've never bought store cupboard stuff for here as I won't be taking food with me when I leave. Used the last of the brown sauce today and wondering if I should buy another one or just do without until I've moved.

No, i concurr, buying a lot of storecupboard stuff for where you were such a short time would be a faff, i would have bought some, but not a lot.

Its obviously touching a nrve, so i won't go on about it, lets agree to disagree that is an essential way to live as a single.

Incidentally i have an excellent cook book called the delectable egg...more to do with eggs than you could dream of. I have a less great opne, but useful one called eggs by, i think a Roux, but cannot remember!

I have to eat lots of eggs, because they are free for me. Being single and eating twelve in three weeks is less of a test of imagination than being single part time nd getting sevral times that a week .

PasturesNew

zagubov wrote: »

PN, you're doing the right thing by looking up old friends. Remember how misskool was discussing meeting up with old friends before Christmas.

I was reminiscing about the friends I went to the Kiss FM launch party with over 20 years ago and how they were living on other continents or had died.

It's important to keep the contacts going.;)

If ever there was a New Years resolution worth keeping it would be keeping in touch or sending messages to people who mean something to us. Very important, that one!

The trouble is, these were all people from 30 years ago ... although, miraculously, one does seem to still live at the same address.... a tiny one bed starter home .... except on Google Streetview I see he now has a f*** off mega-fast sports car parked outside. So there's at least one door I can knock on and go "wassup" - and I know he'd be welcoming and we'd go out for beers and talk b0ll0x.

Everybody will be 50-60 though and not on facebook etc

lostinrates

zagubov wrote: »

PN, you're doing the right thing by looking up old friends. Remember how misskool was discussing meeting up with old friends before Christmas.

I was reminiscing about the friends I went to the Kiss FM launch party with over 20 years ago and how they were living on other continents or had died.

It's important to keep the contacts going.;)

If ever there was a New Years resolution worth keeping it would be keeping in touch or sending messages to people who mean something to us. Very important, that one!

I lost touch with lopads of old friends. First when i left ex. Most of our friends were shared, i wanted nothing of that lingeriong....no news filtering eitherway, no contact. Second when i was ill, lots of peoe just aren't ionterested.

I like NEW friends.:D. I have a fair few old friends of course, but there are so many interesting people that one who didn't know you at school, or with your ex, or at uni might be just as good or better a chu than someone you happened to share geographical space at an ear.ier time with. I like That any one you meet might become someone you can have a chuckle with or learn from

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

The trouble is, these were all people from 30 years ago ... although, miraculously, one does seem to still live at the same address.... a tiny one bed starter home .... except on Google Streetview I see he now has a f*** off mega-fast sports car parked outside. So there's at least one door I can knock on and go "wassup" - and I know he'd be welcoming and we'd go out for beers and talk b0ll0x.

Everybody will be 50-60 though and not on facebook etc

I'm regularly stumbling across old friends from that long ago on facebook and they're all 50-60. What about LinkedIn? Friendsreunited?;)

zagubov wrote: »

There's surely a gap in the market for minimalist cooking on a budget.


I don't know if anybody will remember these but in my student days I had a book called Cooking in a Bedsitter by Katherine Whitehorn. It assumed you had one ring to cook on or, if you were lucky, a baby belling oven. It didn't presume you had a freezer or even a fridge. It advised wrapping ice cream in blankets and keeping food under the bed as it's the coldest part of a room. Yes, I know some of you have under-floor heating but that wasn't one the scene in those days.
Hardly anything had more than four ingredients! Which frankly appealed to me with my ability to burn ice cubes

Perhaps surpassed by "]Superpig by Willie Rushton which was a more male-oriented equivalent written in a comic style.

Also just remembered this post from when we were discussing on the old thread about cookbooks like Wilie Rushton's Superpig. Might be worth a nose around!

PasturesNew

... and I just remembered the strange (Polish) surname of my mate from that crowd too ... been racking my brain for a few days now ... and it just came to me, so off to google him too. He was a bit strange though and if I turned up at his door (he's probably moved), he'd just be monosyllabic and say it wasn't convenient for me to drop by.... he was a super-nerd. The rest of my mates were just nerds and daft.

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

Incidentally i have an excellent cook book called the delectable egg...more to do with eggs than you could dream of. I have a less great opne, but useful one called eggs by, i think a Roux, but cannot remember!

Eggs - I do a lot with eggs.... scrambled, boiled, fried, omelettes, spanish omelettes... I liekz eggz!

I always have cheese in (except last week when I opened a packet and found it was already green) ... and can always knock up a cheese omelette in under 3 minutes from scratch. Love that.

I also like pickled eggs, but not enough to ever make any.

Most things I like, I have 1-2x a year. e.g. take cake, cake's easy to make, cake's nice.... but I only actually want about one slice of cake a year, so no point making one. Same with biscuits/cookies/hobnobs - 1 a year's enough.

I like the idea that out there I can pick up stuff spontaneously, as I stumble across it - and enjoy it about once a year because I see it and fancy it .... rather than planning and having to not have something I fancy because my meals are already planned (and defrosting).