Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

PasturesNew

kabayiri wrote: »

This time of year is a great time for veggies.

Farmers markets just before Xmas. Buy unprepared sprouts; dirty carrots; onions; parsnips; sweet potato.

Cheap as anything.

Seasoned winter veggies in a roasting tin. Just yum. Easy to do alongside a joint of meet.

I love parsnips, sweet potato, onions of different varieties.

Not all farmers' markets are created equally. In many areas they're sparsely attended by traders - and overpriced due to the "niche" market. I've tried a couple in past years, but they do tend to be on odd days, in odd places, then overpriced.... so I stopped bothering.

Checking here, the nearest to me is 20 miles away, so a 40 mile round trip for four hours every 3rd Saturday of the month. The total cost of the journey, with parking, is therefore about £8 ... cheaper to buy it at Waitrose from their organic range I bet

I can also see that it's only been going for just over a year. Before that the closest would've been 30-40 miles. This newness adds a new dimension to it: it can mean that when you turn up it's actually closed down due to lack of attendance.

silvercar

(Here is the bit where we don't mention.....

Is the oven electric? If so, then turning it on is little different from turning on your slow cooker. Other than it is housed in a bigger piece of machinery: you switch it on, it heats up.

If it's gas then you can feel more nervous.

michaels

vivatifosi wrote: »

I come from a working class family and shallots were routinely part of the diet growing up. In fact we had a wide selection of fruit and veg, mostly seasonal and sometimes less in favour now, e.g. rhubarb. I'm guessing the shallots were easy to grow. My grandad grew them I think.

Dad being part Romany has always been an expert forager, so we also always had lovely berries and tree fruit from common land.

What we didn't have is exotic imports, e.g. avocado, asparagus, sweet potatoes. Garlic was also notably absent and none of us are great fans now. I don't mind the tiniest hint of it, but don't like lots.

Quite agree about garlic, one clove is plenty to give the taste...my particular dislike is others who have partaken of strong garlic and then travel on the train or tube...even the next morning

PasturesNew wrote: »

Back from Lidl, sans spuds. It just kind of happened .... that I went in for one thing and came out without it!

I had my basket, but when I got to the spuds they were different to what I'd expected. 1Kg small roasting spuds for 22p and not 1.5Kg of regular spuds for 39p. So I then needed to think about that .... and off I went to get other goodies.

Having secured myself a pack of 3 cheesecakes and two scotch eggs .... I then espied the coronation chicken sandwich filler and thought "yeah, why not" ... so that needed bread, but I spotted/fancied the crumpets en-route.

Then I was by the sweeties aisle. Didn't go in for sweeties, but spotted dark chocolate with cranberries, so thought "why not" .... then spotted the salted peanuts (well, it is Xmas) .... and before I knew it I was in the shiny biscuit box aisle - and I bought myself a whole selection box of chocolate covered biscuits. I don't usually buy any biscuits, I was clearly having some mad moments at this point....

I also got another tub of marg, so I don't run out in the next month ... and it was off to get 4 cans of Pepsi.

Well .... this is where it went a bit wrong. I suddenly spotted a till that only had two people being served and they didn't have much, so I went for it ...and left. Sans spuds.

Basketful of goodies though. All gratuitous piggy-festfodder. Spent under £10, but it's all still just non-necessary .....

Had a coronation chicken sandwich for lunch

There is a £10 of £50 at Lidl voucher in the papers today - I am wondering if I can do a £50 shop there, normally I find about a fiver of stuff to by there. I think we have decided to do roast chicken for xmas day this year, we rarely have roasts so it is not much less special than turkey or goose and I suspect we would actually prefer the chicken meat for a quarter the price.

Doozergirl

I do wonder why turkey is so expensive compared to chicken, but I think ultimately, it is chicken that is cheap. I'd be perfectly happy with chicken.

Roasted onions. Nom.

I love garlic.

ivyleaf

When we lived in Gibraltar for a while in the 1960s we could buy Smith's Crisps...but they didn't have Cheese & Onion. Instead they had Garlic & Onion! And they were yum. Once you'd got your head round the idea.

GDB2222

OMG! How stupid can I get?

I went to pick DW and DD up from the Saturday morning service, and I was just in time for Kiddush. That's a sort of snack buffet set out after the service. So, I hung around, and they had these little tiny glasses of whisky. And, being a bit Aspie, I'm shy with strangers, which makes me a bit anxious, and so I had a few of these little tiny glasses. Quite a few.

And now, I don't feel so well. I mean! Hung over in the afternoon!? What a prat!

The only good things I did today were to take the little brown dog for a walk during the service and to give some left-over food from the kiddush to the tramp who lives in the synagogue porch. There are two porches, and usually two tramps, but only Eric was there today. Tom, the other tramp, used to live in the local church porch, but he has switched his allegiance to the synagogue.

PasturesNew

ivyleaf wrote: »

When we lived in Gibraltar for a while in the 1960s we could buy Smith's Crisps...but they didn't have Cheese & Onion. Instead they had Garlic & Onion! And they were yum. Once you'd got your head round the idea.

I read somewhere once that the way they decide what flavour crisps are is to ask lots of people to taste them and guess the flavour ..... which is probably how come Walkers' Cheese/Onion weren't suitable for veggies, yet the Beef/Onion ones were.

vivatifosi

Is anyone else watching Pointless Celebrities? How on earth did these people (with the exception of Ruth Badger) get on there?

silvercar

I went to pick DW and DD up from the Saturday morning service, and I was just in time for Kiddush.

You say that as if the timing was coincidental!

So, I hung around, and they had these little tiny glasses of whisky. And, being a bit Aspie, I'm shy with strangers, which makes me a bit anxious, and so I had a few of these little tiny glasses. Quite a few.

In your defence the quality of the whisky can be variable, depending on who did the ordering.

Tom, the other tramp, used to live in the local church porch, but he has switched his allegiance to the synagogue.

He prefers smoked salmon to roast turkey?

Nikkster

vivatifosi wrote: »

Is anyone else watching Pointless Celebrities? How on earth did these people (with the exception of Ruth Badger) get on there?

Course. Pre-Strictly warm up! The MiC guys did surprisingly well in the final round.