I have pretty much mastered this eating thing. Bar the very very occasional accident food makes the transition from receptacle to mouth smoothly and completely. I like it that way, my clothes like it that way.
Except with a Pot Noodle.
Every single time I eat one I end up with something on me somewhere. The PN I just ate (King, Chicken + Mushroom) has decorated me. I swear I ate it carefully. It’s right in the center of the t-shirt – no escaping this one. I can only think my technique is just all wrong. Maybe I should wear a bib. Or one of those napkins you are meant to tuck in. Getting dressed up for a Pot Noodle? Whatever next…. Posh Noodle?

The Times Online

The new thing in my daughter’s lives is a place called Shakeit Baby. You wander in and ask for a Ginger Cake milkshake. So they drop ginger cake, milk, icecream and ice into a blender, blast it to mush and give it to you. Bakewell Tart milkshake? No problem. Oreo cookies / Any cookies ? Just lob them in. Take anything in and they will blend it. I’m surprised they don’t call it “CaloriesRUs”. So D has bought a present for a friend’s birthday. A blender and some bakewell tarts :)
I think the most adventurous I got when I was a kid was Banana milkshakes. And popcorn! Big pan, little oil, heat, add prescribed amount of popcorn. Look scornfully at almost empty base of pan, examine packet and determine there must have been a printing mistake. Only happened once – it was like something out of Fantasia. Everyone must do that though.
Bacon and banana toasties was a short-lived – yet tasty – experience, as was toffee in various exotic flavours.

Food….. school food. Things I remember:
- always wanting and eating the skin off the custard
- a strange brown and green sponge pudding
- a vile thing called curried eggs
- those funny shaped glasses on the tables that only ever exist in school dinner halls
- watching that no-one has unscrewed the salt and balanced the lid back on
- looking inside the water jug before pouring a drink
- being part of a scam where we forged dinner tickets and sold them cheap
- having to run from classrooms far away to get there as soon as possible
- dumplings. Here I am years later and I still don’t like them.
A place that shaped my tastes for years….

Weird “coffee drink” that has you massaging two scrotal sacs of brown fluid.

Cafe Switch it’s called…..
I have the “True Kick ‘bittersweet & inviting’ with a stronger coffee taste” variety and it tastes of …. nothing. Really. I know I like strong flavours but this is … empty. The smell is exactly as a team of tea-drinking chemists would have made. There’s a Chupa Chups lollipop I like and it’s the coffee type one. That has way more flavour than this bland mug of brown.
Gimmicky crap. Maybe the loss leader promo price was meant to suck me in big style and get me hooked into paying more next week. Douwe Egberts – you just made me think twice about buying anything of yours.

Heinz own the brand “San Marco” and they use that to sell pizza. Nothing great about them, just your average frozen slab in a box. I’ve probably eaten one before, so in the shop earlier, I noticed the “2 for the price of 1″ labels above all these “San Marco” boxes. I looked as I went to grab a couple, then noticed something really strange – the type of pizza. It was a Margheurita which was cheese flavour and tomato. Cheese Flavour?|?. What on earth is THIS about ? A really basic pizza – even a pathetic attempt at one is dough, cheese and tomato. And they won’t even give us the cheese ? And worse than that, what IS the substance being flavoured ? And how many chemicals does it take to flavour – and colour – it ? Surely just grating a block of cheese is cheaper and quicker than cobbling together heaven knows what, making sure the consistency is right, making sure that it doesn’t turn into something strange when cooked at 200° for 18-20mins, making sure it conforms to all known chemical standards and does not interact with any of the undoubted chemicals in the dough / the tomatos / the wrapping, and being sure that it does in fact have some calorific value.
And why can’t we have cheese ? Is it now so scarce they can’t find any ? Are Heinz unable to afford to buy cheese ? Does their Board of Execs not like cheese ? Maybe it’s an EU Directive ? How can we – the mere consumers – know ? And exactly what flavour cheese is it ? There’s more than one sort, oh yes.
I want cheese on my pizza ! So I may only be taking it out the freezer at home and not sitting in some authentic pizzeria soaking up the Italian ambience, but I want CHEESE on it. Hey, I won’t even be too picky by insisting on the top grade Mozarella – just grate enough real came_from_milk_from a_cow_cheese on top of the damn thing.
And whose bright idea at Heinz was it to remove the real dairy experience from the pizza ? And which bunch of idiots all nodded ? Fools.
What’s the betting that when Heinz made this change, the picture on the box was enhanced while the lettering became smaller and ‘blended in’ with the background. Within the law maybe, but deceitful. Or maybe Heinz think they are beyond reproach ? And I wonder if I have enough links to Heinz in this entry yet ?

If it’s not got Cheese on, it CANNOT be a Pizza. (That is surely a law somewhere!)

(I did find this though – www.cheeseontour.com with the extremely funny link at the bottom to the “Ring of Cheese” :) )