Nice People Thread Number 10 -the official residence of Nice People

PasturesNew

From thread 9

Spirit wrote: »

No. there is one near IKEA. walking distance to the IOW ferry. handy for when you move.:)

There was a hoo-hah there last week... ferry prices have increased. Tales of doom and gloom for businesses based on the island who use vans to get their stock off the island. Ferries mean you're a hostage to prices and weather.

lostinrates

Pn.....

I know like NDG you are clever at fixing things...if I brought something for you to look at would you give me your opinion? Its a tree decoration?

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

Pn.....

I know like NDG you are clever at fixing things...if I brought something for you to look at would you give me your opinion? Its a tree decoration?

No.... you think I am clever .... different thing entirely.

Of course I'd be pleased to look, but can't you take a photo now? You can PM it if you don't want others to see.

PasturesNew

Speaking of Xmas dinners... what happens now is that I'll have no control over the dinner/what is in it/how it is done.... but I'll be randomly "put in charge" of something I didn't choose, then hindered and told I am doing it wrong..... whatever it is, I can't do it right. Even something simple like "you're in charge of gravy" using granules and boiling water and I can be told I'm getting in the way, using the wrong jug, in the way, turning the kettle on too soon......

I'm in charge of serving up, I'm wrong for staying out of the way, wrong for moving a dish by 1", wrong for being ready/available, wrong for not being ready/available, wrong for the dishes I chose .... just everything.

PasturesNew

Venison hot pot on Sunday Brunch...

Too late and too much faffing about for Spirit today though. Lots of ingredients you'd need to go out and find/specially buy.

http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/tv-show-recipes/sunday-brunch-recipes/venison-hot-pot-recipe

silvercar

We don't do big Xmas dinners. I have hosted passover seder meals and the (jewish) New Year big dinners. So the food without the decorations, if that counts.

I think I was about 30 before I hosted. There is a moment when you realise that hosting is less aggravation than travelling a long way and worrying about whether your kids will behave/ be bored/ get tired or hungry. It also means you control the guest list.

neverdespairgirl

My mother's a very good cook anyway, and sees Christmas as a worthy expression of her talents. She usually does turkey, nut roast, two types of stuffing, sausages (both pork, and venison for OH), bacon, roast and boiled spuds, leeks, sweetcorn, cabbage, sprouts, "sludge" (a puree of swede and carrot), carrots, peas, broccoli and so forth, with gravy, cranberry sauce and bread sauce. Then Christmas pudding with brandy butter, rum butter, or ice-cream.

Practically everything is made by her from scratch - Christmas pudding, stuffing, cranberry sauce, brandy and rum butter, and ice-cream, all her special recipes. She also makes mince pies, and various types of Christmas biscuits, but we usually don't manage to eat them after that dinner, just scoff them in the days afterwards (-:

Everything is gluten-free (one sister is a Coeliac) and veggie apart from the meat (other sister is vegetarian) and there's a crowd of us - parents, my 3 siblings, me, OH, Isaac, Dad's brother, Mum's brother and his wife, and quite often OH's younger brother, since his parents died.

The rest of us do the menial work - peeling vegetables, draining saucepans, etc.

I couldn't even start to do half of that lot!

neverdespairgirl

silvercar wrote: »

We don't do big Xmas dinners. I have hosted passover seder meals and the (jewish) New Year big dinners. So the food without the decorations, if that counts.

I think I was about 30 before I hosted. There is a moment when you realise that hosting is less aggravation than travelling a long way and worrying about whether your kids will behave/ be bored/ get tired or hungry. It also means you control the guest list.

I thought the guest list for Passover was often a big of a moving target, including any random relatives who announce they are gracing the occasion with their presence? And feel free to criticise the meal for being non-Kosher-enough?

Or maybe that's just OH's extended family in Israel - their Passover meals are huge, loads of people, some of whom tell you they are coming rather than get invited. And the living room / dining room / landing is littered with bodies because people won't travel until the sun sets the next day.

You are both brave and accomplished; I couldn't ever even try to cater for 30 people.

PasturesNew

zagubov wrote: »

Anybody mind if I conclude a conversation from the last thread? It was a reply to PN and gen and I posted it there but removed it as it was post #10002.
I can post it here and then remove it from here if its obtrusive.

I went there, clicked reply ... then copied the text... then came here and posted it and replied.... so the quote then linked back to thread 9.

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

No
No
Yes - hideous stuff. Camp coffee ... hated that.
We didn't have wine, no idea where wine comes from even now (didn't know Austria had it)

I also remember the shortages for:
- butter; not sure if we ever had it, we always had marg and still do
- spuds; chips went up to 15p a bag and so we stopped buying chip shop chips and made parsnip chips at home
- sugar
- petrol rationing books distributed
- those daily power cuts and cutting the little table out from the local paper that told you when you power cuts were going to be ... and having toast for tea, cooked with a toasting fork over the fire, on the days when it was at tea-time

Generali wrote: »

I'm 42 and I've worked under the assumption that PN is < 10 years older than me, although not much less than a decade.

I remember neither NSM nor Ghost Cigarettes and I started smoking in 1986. I do remember those cigarettes that were shorter than normal ones. Can't recall the brand although I smoked them for a while. It's odd, since I quit smoking it's like my brain has destroyed a lot of my memories of having smoked. Not all of it but plenty.

I remember the Austrian wine thing (anti-freeze to make it taste better: how terrible must it have been before if anti-freeze makes it taste better!).

Parents of friends used to drink Camp Coffee. Never tried it, no desire to. Chicory has 1 use IMHO: braised in the oven with ham and white sauce.

Apologies to the non-smokers.
New Smoking Material cigarettes were a variety of ciggies containing a less carcinogenic filler to bulk it out- it was the very late 70s I think. The number of packets on the shelves doubled as the companies brought out alternative lookie-likey wrappings to show which brands they were related to. They contained Cytrel and other stuff. We had twice as many types of packets to choose from we could buy. Made the shelves look a bit more rainbow-like I suppose. Didn't taste much different.

They died out without a trace and I'm surprised how little an internet footprint they've left (obviously they predated the internet, but still...).

Ghost brands were something I dind't understand until decades later. They're non-advertised non-marketed brands (e.g. Mackesons Stout)
Ah -found it.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_mark

There was a brand of cheaper but nice cigarette called Nerit I used to buy. I was puzzled by the odd-sounding name but it was part of a trend of trying to register trademarks that sounded like real words but not quite. Again, died the death before the internet era, with surprisingly little trace.


Austrian wine's about as hard to find here now as Swiss wine. Frankly I never see it at all.