Tag: food

A lot of things are hard right now. But I appreciate that Spring has come and I can enjoy a cheese & pickle sandwich and a fake beer for lunch in the sun. All to the sounds of the birds singing... and, somewhere behind me, the dog excitedly demolishing a pile of pine cones.

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Dan, a white man with a goatee beard and long hair, sits at a wooden picnic bench in front of a sandwich, crisp packet, and can of Lucky Saint.

It could be worse, right?

In sympathy for our flood situation, my sister baked and posted us a big batch of her fantastic raisin & oatmeal cookies.

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Dan, a white man with a goatee beard and blue hair, sits next to a large box of cookies, about to eat one.

I've eaten like six of them already. Turns out I stress-eat. Who knew?

I think my "six seven"-obsessed younger child was in the kitchen with a biro earlier. How do I know, you ask?

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Close up of a bunch of bananas. The numbers 6 and 7 have been drawn on them in ball point pen.

Boxing Day breakfast (of champions (of leftovers)).

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Four Yorkshire puddings on a side plate, each with one or two chipolata sausages sticking out, smothered in gravy, alongside a small quantity of sage & onion stuffing.

I asked the younger child to "help" me calculate how much Yorkshire pudding batter to make for this Christmas dinner.

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Dan, a white man with a beard and blue hair, wearing a WordPress-themed Christmas jumper, beats a bowl of batter.

"Well," he began, "I'm going to want FIVE Yorkshire puddings, soo..."

Second "surprising Finnish confectionary" is Vihreät Kuulat Jaffa Cakes. I ran vihreät kuulat through a translation tool and apparently it means "green balls", which doesn't tell me much.

Knowing it was neither lime nor apple (which were also available in the supermarket I visited) I had to try them, but I couldn't place the flavour. They were tasty, though. We finished eating them before I looked it up.

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A box of Vihreät Kuulat Jaffa Cakes. The cross-section cutaway shows a green jelly within the biscuit, and alongside are pictures of spherical green jellies.

Turns out it's pear flavour, which apparently I have a blind spot for (back in 2013 at an "eat mystery food in the dark" restaurant I failed to identify that I was eating poached pears for dessert).

Now I need to be on the lookout for actual green balls.

Buying a bag of Haribo in Finland, I shouldn't have been surprised (given the country's love of salmiakki) that the black ones were liquorice flavoured.

And yet somehow, when I chucked a handful onto my mouth, I was.

(Not in a bad way. But definitely in a surprised way.)

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A bag of Haribo ClickMix, opened, held on a white hand.

I'd never put much thought into it before but a slow cooker is basically the opposite of an air frier.

They're both relatively small (compared to an oven) hot boxes for cooking food. But an air frier uses the small space to contain as much energy as possible in thir vicinity of the food, while the slow cooker aims to maintain as low a temperature as possible until the food finally cooks itself out of boredom.

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A seared shoulder of pork rubbed with spices sits in a syrupy cider mix atop some sliced white onions in a slow cooker pot.

Anyway, this is going to be pulled pork in like 8-10 hours. 😋

The cheese scones from
My local supermarket
Are hexagonal.

It's not for packing.
Their film-covered rectangle
Leaves corner gaps.

Are perhaps they made
In honeycomb baking tins?
Baked by bumblebee?

Or else it's branding.
A visual identity.
Trying to sell more.

A six-sided scone
Does not taste better to me,
Nor warm up faster.
The butter doesn't care
For the shape of your scone,
Mr. John Sainsbury.

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A crumbly hexagonal cheese scone, buttered, on a blue-and-white plate, with a single bite taken out of one half.

Maybe I'm just hungry, but this morning's breakfast bagel with brie looks especially scrumptious, right?

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On a floral plate atop a wooden surface z an open sesame bagel contains an Escherian 'endless staircase' of sliced brie.

Went to Wagamama. Accidentally made the "Order of the Beast".

(Plus a similar side, for those who read binary.)

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Wagamama restaturant placemat on which the waitstaff has written my order item numbers: 110, and 666.