2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

Can I climb up onto that soap box stage too, please?  One of my favourite memories is the shock on a favourite colleague’s face, when I was travelling with him and knitting a sock on a train up to Manchester.   He asked me how long it took to knit a pair of socks and I told him “approximately 16 hours”.  “So when you give someone a pair of socks, you’re giving them 16 hours of your life?”, he asked.   “You must really care for them.”

He was even more shocked when I gave him those socks for Christmas, because he knew the labour involved.  (He was my business boss at the time and general partner-in-mayhem, complete with “big brother bossing rights”.  When I brought him home for dinner one night, to introduce him to DH for the first time, he commented in the car “I hope your husband is worthy of you”.  Just as well the two of them get along.)

CAFCGirl said:

Always room for more. 
Maybe less box and more stage 

Ah yes the chicken offers and the price of milk! I don't think people would consume nearly as much of these things if they had to pay true market value (i.e without subsidies to the industry). Not that I wish to see those in the sector go bust or farms sent into ruin, but I want them to be paid fairly. Seems they're just as held over a barrel!

Agreed.  One of the reasons I like shopping in France is that they appear to value their food and are prepared to pay for quality.  Food in France is not as cheap as it is here, but it is much more appreciated.  Most people buy their veg from market stalls and their meat from the butcher.   Even in the supermarkets, they have signs showing where the veg was grown. 

Love the story about your dad and chicken, @Laura_Elsewhere.      With the exception of the odd YS item, that’s why I buy virtually all my meat at the butcher.  The flavour and quality is (usually) much better than you’d get at a supermarket and the animals usually free range.  Yes, I pay more.  We don’t eat as much meat as some, but it is enjoyed.   (FWIW, our Meat budget is £40/month and we go to the butcher’s every 2-3 months.)

There is no comparison between a good, butcher-shop chicken and a factory-farmed one from the supermarket.  A few years ago, we had a BBQ and bought some chicken thighs from the supermarket to feed the hungry hoards on a discount.  After years of buying butcher-shop chicken, I was surprised at how anaemic they were.  And tasteless.

- Pip 

TwibbleDee

We're off to the farmers' market here this morning.  

Sadly, after the freeze and drought conditions 'round here, I'm not sure how much decent produce there will be, but we'll at least look!

maryb

Lidl do free range chicken which I always buy and it's not nearly as expensive as  Rose Waite's .  But I'm never sure exactly how free ranging it really is

Laura_Elsewhere

maryb said:

Lidl do free range chicken which I always buy and it's not nearly as expensive as  Rose Waite's .  But I'm never sure exactly how free ranging it really is

That's the problem, not all the terms have a legal definition...! I love Waitrose because when I lived very near one I asked awkward questions like "how free-ranging is your "free-range"?" and they took me to the office and sat me down with a nice drink and brought out a big folder, and let me read all the different definitions, which ones are legally-binding and which ones are purely decorative, and what the exact meaning was of the terms Waitrose uses... 

We have no farmers' market within 15 miles, sadly, and not even a local independent butcher.... there are one or two independent greengrocers, (although even those are 7 miles away, two buses each way) but then we ran into the problem that, for example, at the height of tomato-season they had no British tomatoes, only imported Spanish ones at twice or even three times the price of supermarkets' British ones... presumably the only way they can undercut or compete wth the supermarkets is to sell cheap imported stuff to people who don't (or can't) care. 

You can only do what you can do!!! 

We go for buying the best we can in ethical terms, ie never buying dairy stuff in Morrison's or Asda, looking for the legally-meaningful terms on meat, checking where veg and salad comes from, etc., and try to wring as much out of the supermarkets as we can do while we're atit, so as not to boost their profits too high!

Laura_Elsewhere

Where's that tin gone... I've been baking, and thought I'd re-fill the tins again...

PipneyJane

Wow!  @Laura_Elsewhere that is quite a spread!

I watched The Funeral.  Beautiful music.  My heart bled for the Queen.  Nobody beside her to hold her hand or hug her.  Despite the cameras, it was primarily a family funeral not a “state” one, so hopefully she took some comfort in that.

- Pip

TwibbleDee

From the farmers' market this morning:

Pickles (with no red peppers in them!)
Gluten-free cinnamon bread
Gluten-free chocolate brownie cookies
Gluten-free birthday cake macaron
Spinach
Dill
Radish & cabbage microgreens

All the cold-weather crops seem to be going well, as the only produce in the market right now seem to be leafy greens.

Nonnadiluca

Laura, your baking looks delicious: can I ask what biscuits they are?

Laura_Elsewhere

Nonnadiluca said:

Laura, your baking looks delicious: can I ask what biscuits they are?

The round ones at the front? They're probably called custard shortcakes but they are known in our family as my sister's piano teacher's biscuits, and now various friends of mine make them as Laura's sister's piano teacher's biscuits....   Guess where we got the recipe from, back in the 1970s?  

6oz butter, soft (I ping it in the microwave for 7-8 seconds)
3oz sugar
5oz plain flour
2oz Birds custard powder

Cream together the butter and sugar; add the flour and custard powder. Mix to a stiff dough. If it's very sticky, shove it in the fridge for a bit. 
Roll into balls - I do about 10g for small ones, 20g for larger- and place on a baking tray, squashing them slightly flatter as you put them down; you need a LOT more space than you think as they spread out a lot! Bake at about 170C for about 10-20 minutes, basically it varies, oven by oven, so keep an eye on them; they're best not too overbaked. 
Leave them to cool on the baking tray before you try to move them. 

Mum puts half a glacecherry or half a walnut on each one, but I just do them plain... 

PollyWollyDoodle

Ooh they look good — I am really missing baking. I’m used to making biscuits every week which I take to a choir rehearsal for tea break, but obviously that hasn’t happened for over a year now. I daren’t bake at the moment, I’d just eat the lot. Thanks for the recipe, I’m going to note that one for future use. 

I recognise the butterfly cakes and jam tarts (and I think they would have been very familiar in the 1940s!) but what are the sort of triangular ones at the back? And are those two little pigs I see?