Saturday 12th July
Well here we are, mid July already! I'd love to be able to say we're basking in glorious sunshine - and it is true that there is a bit of it outside, but when I was at the bus stop earlier, needless to say without an umbrella, what happens? Happily for once the bus turned up on time and I didn't get too wet.
I was browsing the Guardian website mid-week, and came across this great little story about a German website that I went to have a look at and really - well, have a look for yourself. pundo3000.com puts up photographs of the sorts of things we all end up buying at some time or another, no matter how much we tell ourselves (and others!) that we don't eat processed food. There'll come a day when we're tired, hungry and end up grabbing the nearest thing off the shelf at the supermarket, get it home and take it out of the pack... this website puts up photo's of the packaging - those glorious shots of wonderful looking food - and the stuff that's inside the packet. It's German so there's a lot of sausage, which I'll admit I don't eat a lot of over here (Great Britain) but you can recognise the brand names on a lot of this stuff. You really should go and look at it, and I feel like I need a print out of it to take with me to the shops! The original Guardian story is at http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2289879,00.html
I reckon I'm going to be keeping a look out for this gallery of theirs, should be interesting to see what revolting concoctions we Brits are shovelling down our throats!
I can hear you saying now, ok, so why aren't you out there taking a photo Tess? Truth is (and I swear this is the truth) yesterday I ate meatballs made from minced pork and various spice mixes, with some rice, and today at the shops I bought some really lovely looking large courgettes, which with the addition of some leeks, peppers, onion and some goats cheese, I intend to bake. I'll take a photo of the result to prove it! In fact whilst I'm at it, I'll put up the whole kit and kaboodle, you can check out my version of a baked courgette. I was listening to Saturday Kitchen before I went out, and they have this food heaven, food hell thing for the guest - it was John Craven, who my lord has gone totally white in the hair department, there's age for you - who's idea of food hell was stuffed marrow. As a kid, my parents grew marrows in the garden, and we'd have them stuffed with mince and tomato, with cheese sauce, and they were absolutely delicious. When I saw those large courgettes - it's a bit early as yet for marrow at the supermarket, I thought yay! Stuffed Courgette. And there's enough there for a little courgette to be left over and have as vegetable with another meal.
I just popped out to put the oven on, I'm going to make a small fruit loaf cake this afternoon - it's the weekend, and I'm partial to a bit of cake with my cup of tea on weekend afternoons. I don't promise to photograph this because I'm still getting used to my new loaf tin, and the last couple of times I've used it the top of the cake has ended up getting burnt. But if it comes out nice, well what the heck, I might photograph that too.
It's been a night shift week - well feels like a couple of weeks, because I was night shifting it all of last weekend, and then again in the middle of this week. But not to worry, because I have no more night shifts for a couple of weeks now - and I'm off on holiday too, so that's good. Mum's not been too well recently, in fact she's been in hospital for a bit over the start of last week, so everything's been up in the air - but we seem to be coming down to ground a bit. I will freely admit that I've been feeling a bit down about it all, the thought that whilst she's ok now, the fact that this will inevitably happen again at some point and we'll all be put through it again. So a bit of a holiday will do me the world of good.
For those of you who've been checking out the old shop, no I haven't put enormous quantities of new items on sale this month. I have in fact been building up a nice little stash of bits and pieces to be listing when I get back, and I have been doing a roaring trade in bookmarks - I think people are starting to buy ahead for Xmas! I did a 'stock check' of my pre-Xmas bookmarks last week, and I've managed to put together about 160 so far - I've rather astonished myself! Oh well I'm off to make cake and check out the days' stage in the Tour de France - ah, alas a positive drugs test. You know what with Dwain Chambers, the cyclists, the Olympics coming up, I'm beginning to think rather than have the assumption people won't take drugs, why not go ahead and let them? We could make them read out a list of everything they've taken to get these silly medals, and with each drug name, make them read out a list of the side and long term effects. Here you are, here's a medal for being the person able to run fastest in the world in 2008, now tells us what you're going to be experiencing in 2028. Organ failure? That's nothing in comparison to the glory of running a micro second faster than the chap who came second. It's a different kettle of fish for the kids that are being sucked into these so called sports though. When you've got a kid who's spending three quarters of their entire life trying to run that little bit faster, and you've got someone sidling up to them and hissing in their ear, here you are take this and you can run faster than you ever dreamt, well that's when it all turns rather sick. It's those people who need to be found, caught and prosecuted. Some one's pushing this stuff. It really shouldn't be any different from your neighbourhood drug dealer, if the police haul them in, why aren't they hauling in the people shoveling EPO and whatever down a young athlete's throat? And come to that, has anyone found out what the Chinese are going to do with someone caught doping in Beijing? I presume it'll be the same as at any other Olympics, they'll be hauled up in front of the press to try and explain themselves, then flown away. Thing appears to be that whilst these are illegal according to the sport authorities, they don't appear to be illegal to the legal authorities. You never here of anyone being prosecuted for possession of anabolic steroids for example. Well if they have I haven't heard of it. If, as a society, we really wanted to stop this, it would be illegal to possess these drugs and probably a reasonable number of athletes etc would think again about taking them. Mind you, I don't know what I'm blathering on about, I know nothing about drugs in sport. And I did say I was off to cook cake - better than anabolic steroids anyday!
I was browsing the Guardian website mid-week, and came across this great little story about a German website that I went to have a look at and really - well, have a look for yourself. pundo3000.com puts up photographs of the sorts of things we all end up buying at some time or another, no matter how much we tell ourselves (and others!) that we don't eat processed food. There'll come a day when we're tired, hungry and end up grabbing the nearest thing off the shelf at the supermarket, get it home and take it out of the pack... this website puts up photo's of the packaging - those glorious shots of wonderful looking food - and the stuff that's inside the packet. It's German so there's a lot of sausage, which I'll admit I don't eat a lot of over here (Great Britain) but you can recognise the brand names on a lot of this stuff. You really should go and look at it, and I feel like I need a print out of it to take with me to the shops! The original Guardian story is at http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2289879,00.html
I reckon I'm going to be keeping a look out for this gallery of theirs, should be interesting to see what revolting concoctions we Brits are shovelling down our throats!
I can hear you saying now, ok, so why aren't you out there taking a photo Tess? Truth is (and I swear this is the truth) yesterday I ate meatballs made from minced pork and various spice mixes, with some rice, and today at the shops I bought some really lovely looking large courgettes, which with the addition of some leeks, peppers, onion and some goats cheese, I intend to bake. I'll take a photo of the result to prove it! In fact whilst I'm at it, I'll put up the whole kit and kaboodle, you can check out my version of a baked courgette. I was listening to Saturday Kitchen before I went out, and they have this food heaven, food hell thing for the guest - it was John Craven, who my lord has gone totally white in the hair department, there's age for you - who's idea of food hell was stuffed marrow. As a kid, my parents grew marrows in the garden, and we'd have them stuffed with mince and tomato, with cheese sauce, and they were absolutely delicious. When I saw those large courgettes - it's a bit early as yet for marrow at the supermarket, I thought yay! Stuffed Courgette. And there's enough there for a little courgette to be left over and have as vegetable with another meal.
I just popped out to put the oven on, I'm going to make a small fruit loaf cake this afternoon - it's the weekend, and I'm partial to a bit of cake with my cup of tea on weekend afternoons. I don't promise to photograph this because I'm still getting used to my new loaf tin, and the last couple of times I've used it the top of the cake has ended up getting burnt. But if it comes out nice, well what the heck, I might photograph that too.
It's been a night shift week - well feels like a couple of weeks, because I was night shifting it all of last weekend, and then again in the middle of this week. But not to worry, because I have no more night shifts for a couple of weeks now - and I'm off on holiday too, so that's good. Mum's not been too well recently, in fact she's been in hospital for a bit over the start of last week, so everything's been up in the air - but we seem to be coming down to ground a bit. I will freely admit that I've been feeling a bit down about it all, the thought that whilst she's ok now, the fact that this will inevitably happen again at some point and we'll all be put through it again. So a bit of a holiday will do me the world of good.
For those of you who've been checking out the old shop, no I haven't put enormous quantities of new items on sale this month. I have in fact been building up a nice little stash of bits and pieces to be listing when I get back, and I have been doing a roaring trade in bookmarks - I think people are starting to buy ahead for Xmas! I did a 'stock check' of my pre-Xmas bookmarks last week, and I've managed to put together about 160 so far - I've rather astonished myself! Oh well I'm off to make cake and check out the days' stage in the Tour de France - ah, alas a positive drugs test. You know what with Dwain Chambers, the cyclists, the Olympics coming up, I'm beginning to think rather than have the assumption people won't take drugs, why not go ahead and let them? We could make them read out a list of everything they've taken to get these silly medals, and with each drug name, make them read out a list of the side and long term effects. Here you are, here's a medal for being the person able to run fastest in the world in 2008, now tells us what you're going to be experiencing in 2028. Organ failure? That's nothing in comparison to the glory of running a micro second faster than the chap who came second. It's a different kettle of fish for the kids that are being sucked into these so called sports though. When you've got a kid who's spending three quarters of their entire life trying to run that little bit faster, and you've got someone sidling up to them and hissing in their ear, here you are take this and you can run faster than you ever dreamt, well that's when it all turns rather sick. It's those people who need to be found, caught and prosecuted. Some one's pushing this stuff. It really shouldn't be any different from your neighbourhood drug dealer, if the police haul them in, why aren't they hauling in the people shoveling EPO and whatever down a young athlete's throat? And come to that, has anyone found out what the Chinese are going to do with someone caught doping in Beijing? I presume it'll be the same as at any other Olympics, they'll be hauled up in front of the press to try and explain themselves, then flown away. Thing appears to be that whilst these are illegal according to the sport authorities, they don't appear to be illegal to the legal authorities. You never here of anyone being prosecuted for possession of anabolic steroids for example. Well if they have I haven't heard of it. If, as a society, we really wanted to stop this, it would be illegal to possess these drugs and probably a reasonable number of athletes etc would think again about taking them. Mind you, I don't know what I'm blathering on about, I know nothing about drugs in sport. And I did say I was off to cook cake - better than anabolic steroids anyday!
P.S.Here's the cake!
It's a pretty standard Victoria Sponge - 2 eggs, with a couple of handfuls of sultanas, and half a handful of walnuts!
