Food and Drink #20

[Sideboard Bob]

No one I know irl knows I’m a tattler, I’m sure I’d get a row from someone too @Into_the_tunnel but that still sucks.

Yay for hats though! Are they for thanksgiving?

I just heard my neighbour, (who is a very quiet, polite man), singing All I Want For Christmas Is You, from beginning to end, including the ad-libs. There wasn’t even any music in the background. I’m kind of impressed! And relieved it wasn’t Landslide.


ETA. The hats are gone!

 

[AlphaBetaDeux]

I’m in hospital so a nice busman’s holiday this weekend. Feeling completely miserable but hopefully that I’ll get home after an X-ray, via McDonald’s because haute cuisine is the last thing on my mind right now!

Apologies for being so me me me, looking forward to being in my own bed and catching up on all the tea

 

[jordishaw]

So much wisdom and love here, thank you all.

Spoiler: Essay

The AIDS epidemic years took me from my mid 20s to my mid 30s, and also took so many friends and colleagues. I've missed them every day, and it's really strange that now (It's a Sin, POSE) it's becoming much more widely acknowledged because at the time it was so silenced. And what terrifies me now is that I think collectively we're carrying so much unacknowledged grief and mourning = carrying a time bomb. (Also, the last 24 hours of Monroe twitter seems particularly heinous in this context, like tapdancing on a volcano)
Nothing cures grief or makes it go away, but taking time to sit with it and speak of it helps to make it possible to live with it. One thing that helps me - there's a traditional Jewish (but useful, so feel free to borrow) saying when you mention someone who has passed 'may their memory be for a blessing' - and I've found this genuinely helps, acknowledging how much I've learned from people and how much they are still present with me? Somedays that feeling of living on the shoulders of giants helps me to look forward. Also, I love this bit from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, and repeating it here also feels like a blessing: "Each lifetime is the pieces of jigsaw puzzle. For some there are more pieces. For others the puzzle is more difficult to assemble - but know this. No one has within themselves all the pieces to their puzzle. Everyone carries with them at least one and probably many pieces to someone else's puzzle. Sometimes they know it. Sometimes they don't. And when you present your piece, which is worthless to you, to another, whether you know it or not, you are a messenger from the Most High." (You don't have to believe in the Most High anything for this to work for you, but you do have to know that we all have meaning)

 

[traumatised sideboard]

Mrs Tunnel should be glad we're not mumsnet or you'd have put all your ducks in a row, packed your bags, scooped up Tunnel Dog and left the bastard.

 

[MaineCoonMama]

@Into_the_tunnel Happy Birthday from me and the gang! I love my occasional sightings of Tunnel Dog and I'm flattered that you guyses love Susan. She's a real character.
*Cher's voice*
"Welcome to Burlessssque"

 

[Shesaidwhat?]

Hope you’re ok @MaineCoonMama sending love & to you too @LennyBriscoe .

This is my first Halloween in my flat so I’ve decorated it to advertise sweets are available here children but I didn’t realise until today the woman three doors down is really religious so if you don’t hear from me after tomorrow it’s because I’ve encouraged Halloweeners to her door and she’s beaten me to death with her bible .

 

[MaineCoonMama]

Not even off topic because she looks like a pretzel.

 

[Into_the_tunnel]

We had a pizza of sadness today.

It was like the friends episode when Rachel asked for the anchovies to be chopped up in the sauce as well as on the top.

Except our anchovies were chillies. I thought I had picked them off the top. But they were in the sauce too.

Pizza. Of. Sadness.

(don’t ask why we had a chilli pizza if we don’t like chillies- a combination of lack of choice/hanger/general annoyance at the world and meh).

This was my ( we don’t tell the dog that). I miss him lots. He was quite like a pretzel here.

 

[kachoochoo]

hiya! forgot to watch this thread when it started and was wondering where it had gone. d'oh!

love to everyone who needs it, everything's shit isn't it?

mr kcc's dad's funeral is on friday. the one colleague I spend the most time with lost his mum 2 weeks ago. I'm thanatophobic. and I swtg if i hear anything more about funerals and death, I will explode.

 

[traumatised sideboard]

My cat is also being a dickhead and constantly screaming at me. The food she's been eating was discontinued so I've been frantically scouring the internet for hypoallergenic food and there are some interesting options out there, including delights such as venison and rabbit with blueberries and reindeer chunks in unspecified sauce. She's starting to look a bit spherical and I can't tell if she's actually getting chonky or if she's just fluffed up for winter.

This morning I got an email from my physio (who I saw yesterday) to tell me he's COVID positive so now I've got to go for a PCR test tomorrow. Trying not to worry about it or catastrophise but with the new variant and the possibility of re-infection I am terrified about the prospect of potentially having to spend ten days in complete isolation again. If I start posting lists of every one of my favourite foods at all hours, you'll know I've caught it.

 

[KebabGirl]

Kebab Cat trying to be a pretzel on my legs. She looks almost cute here, do not be fooled.

Yesterday had a delightful post bike ride snack - panzerotti. That's a fried calzone, mine was salami, prosciutto & njuda along with tomato sauce, mozzarella and fresh basil.

 

[traumatised sideboard]

I don't have any friends or go anywhere so I will sit at home with my familiar, stirring an enormous cauldron and casting hexes like I do every day. It's supposed to rain heavily tomorrow but I've been reading the M&S thread and now I really want a pumpkin loaf so I might go out for some kind of pumpkin, or if I can't find one any kind of gourd will do. Cucumber loaf sounds refreshing.

 

[traumatised sideboard]

Megapost covering all bases:

Maybe this is Jack logic but fruit jam isn't that far removed from like an onion jam so in theory it works. I might try it again myself with a different jam and a fancier peanut butter and report back, there's potential there.

Jack Grealish does nothing for me. His hair is absolutely tragic, it's so off-putting but on balance it's not worse than kumquat, reverse rat's tail or turbo-mum.

The pasta I cook most often is wholewheat fusilli but I think my favourite is penne. Unrinsed tinned hoops are the most nostalgic form of pasta.

Thank you everyone for the well wishes and the beautiful Tunnel Dog, it is very much appreciated.

 

[Jay-cloth Cow]

This is great news and testament to your hard work and the value that you bring to the role. I hope this post gives others who are struggling hope too. Let us know what you buy with the vouchers, maybe a four or five slow cookers perhaps?

Thank you! I also hope it helps others who might be struggling - I was the lowest of the low and am now really happy, CBT did wonders for me (Jack should do it I think) and made me reevaluate my whole thought process, which led me to getting the confidence to get a new job, after over a year of being told I was thick, not a team player (cos I refused to cover a colleague in the US when she was on mat leave for 12 weeks which would have meant me working 9am to 10pm every day) etc etc. In my new (well not so new now, been there just over a year) job, my manager keeps telling me I'm the one who holds the team together with my work ethic, intelligence and attitude - it's mental really how one person can make you feel worthless! I've already spent my voucher bought my best friend a spendy elemis skincare set for her birthday that I wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise, and a dehumidifier

 

[traumatised sideboard]

@EllaEm87 I hope your presentation went well. Sorry, no cake, you know the rules.

Slopbot doesn't do subtlety. He'll be blasting this blower all night.

I made a meatball marinara sub with one of my pretzel rolls for dinner but didn't take a picture because I'm a greedy goblin and hoofed it immediately. It was, of course, the best ever.

 

[Falkor]

Oof, nothing makes your heart stop like turning into the village in the van and seeing 406 come belting down the hill on her own, no other sheep in sight, BAAAAing loudly. Sped home, grabbed some sheep food, jumped on the quad and went back down there. She's not particularly tame and is quite wary about following me even when Nibbles is with her, but she followed back up the hill a little way and then went on strike. So I went on because I could see some sheep on the ridge and thought it might be the rest of mine, although if it was they'd come a long way down from where I put them out. Shouting and rattling the bucket only produced one answering BAAAA and Nibbles came trotting out of the flock (turned out to be a neighbour's ewes), which was a huge relief, because my first thought when I saw 406 on her own was that Nibbles had died.

Nibbles and I, followed at a distance by the neighbour's flock, walked back down to where I'd left 406 and there was much happy BAAing as they were reunited. Those ewes only got put out today, so I'm guessing somehow my two got mixed up with them and 406 got separated and confused. Went down to the other end of the grazings where the other 20 were still happily working their way through the remnants of the bales that got put out for the cattle before they went off to winter indoors, so all's well that ends well.

And I have toffee cake from the local bakery

 

[traumatised sideboard]

Those lakes are stunning. The river I live near is just full of murky weeds, shopping trolleys and those bikes and electric scooters you can hire. A few weeks ago I walked past and there was a pair of trainers floating along so obviously it had been recently visited by Kate Bush.

While I'm worrying about having contaminated my COVID test kit by not sanitising my hands properly or getting my test kit mixed up with someone else's, here's Sideboard Cat behaving very reasonably and sending her love to the cabal. She did karate kick me in the throat earlier but that wasn't her fault (I picked her up and accidentally kicked something over which made her panic).

 

[HotesTilaire]

Urgh I am in a flare and just here moaning I suppose. Been sleeping all day again and up all night. I’ve gone on a Netflix rampage recently and done all of Rick and Morty, most of BoJack Horseman and some other similar ones which weren’t as good. I’m also so fed up of being too weak to clean that ai’ve booked a cleaner, which actually feels like a relief.
So annoying as I was out and doing things just the other week.

 

[traumatised sideboard]

Hotes you take that back about chocolate raisins I will not stand for chocolate raisin libel.

I managed to find the very last orange-skinned squash in Morrisons this morning (obviously left behind for being, frankly, hideous) and made the pumpkin loaf. The chaos while making it was unbearable, I used almost every single piece of kitchen equipment I own. The cake is naked because I will have to freeze half of it so I'm making some maple buttercream that I can apply to individual slices instead.

 

[MaineCoonMama]

This is the infamous Blue Lake near my old man's house. There's also a pink lake on the road out of town and a gorgeous sinkhole which has been turned into sunken gardens used for weddings. My mum's memorial stone is also there so I can visit her for chats. This is the actual colour of the lake, photos don't do it justice.