ChristinaM

I've only tried the chili and chocolate ones, the squirrel ones and the hoisin duck ones. I didn't really like any of them, though the squirrels were ok. The chili chocolate flavour is very clever, you can really taste both flavours but it doesn't work for crisps! Same with the hoisin/duck IMO. Their flavour development people deserve full marks for effort but about 2/10 for achievement

Carl Warner is brilliant. Prints of his work are available from lenswall.com. I got a print of the hot air balloons for my daughter's birthday and was very pleased with the quality and price.

Mmmmmm weetabix Love it. The best way to stop it going soggy is to eat it with very cold milk (and caster sugar) and eat it really fast. Also delicious spread with salted butter and marmalade. Try it with golden syrup. I used to feed it to puppies but found it had too much roughage... with unfortunate results! Tis very healthy stuff - without the butter etc - as it is made with 100% wheat. The new oat one is VILE.

Hello! I can't think of a way to reinforce them but you could get in touch with Kenwood UK (maybe via email), they should be able to provide you with the professional grade equivalent. Or they will know someone who can. ebay is often a good place to get them. try Ebay UK and search for 'Kenwood major'. I get most of my attachments that way as it is so much cheaper, ie stainless steel spare bowl £20 instead of £60 and glass blender £15 instead of £40! I love my Major, it is so reliable and powerful. I bought it about 10 years ago to replace a Kenwood Chef that was just too small/not powerful enough. I passed the Chef on to a friend who replaced a couple of parts and it's still going strong. For anyone having trouble with a Kenwood/Delonghi in Europe, Partmaster sell every possible spare (bushes, motors, switches etc), if you can find out which bit you need any competent mechanic/electrician should be able to fix it for you. My mother was given a Chef as a wedding present in 1963, it finally 'died' last year, I had a job stopping her giving it a funeral with full military honours PS. I have just ordered the new flexiblade thingy for my Major, can't wait!

I've just read through this whole thread and the first thing I wanted to say was that I'm really sorry to hear about your health problems. I hope by now that you have managed to reintroduce lots of cheese into your diet. I try to curb my cheese enthusiasm purely for reasons of vanity (I don't want to be the size of a house!) so I try as far as possible to stick to the highly flavoured varieties, more 'bang for the buck' so to speak! I was amused to see the discussion way back about aged gouda, I am lucky enough to have a great cheese shop quite close to where I live which used to be owned by a lovely elderly Swiss lady. Long story short she was finally persuaded to retire when cutting the ancient goudas became too much for her! We had all watched, for years, as she jumped up and down trying to chisel away at the wretched stuff, half convinced that she would literally die in the attempt. Of course she refused all offers of help! She must be in her 90s by now but still helps out when the new owners go on holiday. They pre-cut chunks of gouda before they leave Ironically the one cheese I have found difficult to get round here (eastern Scotland) is a reliable strong cheddar. You'd think it would be easy, wouldn't you? The best I've found is sold by Marks and Spencer and is called Cornish Cruncher, absolutely yummy. It is one of the few cheeses I will buy prepacked. Nobody (as far as I can see) has mentioned Vignotte which is so wonderful to eat with a ripe pear - or several.

I feel a bit guilty even replying on this thread as I am possibly the world's most lazy person *blush*. Dividend, your original post made me feel very sad for you, you sounded like you were under so much pressure and that life in general was stealing the joy from your cooking, you sounded almost lonely Then I read the rest of the thread....what a lovely lot of people there are on eG I've only just read this so that's why I'm replying so late. I think your urge to cook good, wholesome food is a wonderful thing, I wish I had your energy! On a more serious note, who would ever have thought that something as annoying as breaking your wrist could have such a beneficial effect! You sound like a different person in your last reply and I'm so glad things have worked out for you. At least if you fall into your old ways and worries once the csst is off you will have this thread to refer back to. As a side note, I am finding more and more that cooking is becoming a chore, not so much the cooking itself but the thinking about what to cook, if I have a good idea and can source quality ingredients at a reasonable cost (increasingly difficult in Scotland at the moment IMO) I am quite happy, but otherwise.... The one thing I find helps my enthusiasm enormously is having somebody else in the kitchen with me, not necessarily to actually help, more for companionship. On my own I bore myself

Knives. But I had to think long and hard about that. Can I rescue my antique silver nutmeg grater? That's the only thing in my kitchen that I'd really hate to lose and is not replaceable.

I love this thread! I feel so much better about myself now, so much to identify with... I can't eat M&M's, they commit the dreadful sin of being 'not smarties' - which needless to say I have to eat by colour. Skittles, conversely, do not have to be eaten in pairs because they are fruit flavoured and I don't eat fruit in pairs Those white bits on egg yolks...aaaargh. THE most revolting thing in the universe. To the extent that at age 2 I invented a name for them: they are called 'lawlers' (goodness knows why). And they DON'T disappear when cooked, they just get firmer (I am retching as I type this). Any scrambled eggs or omelets in this house have to be seived before cooking - even after being mixed with a stick blender, just in case. I won't eat quail or whole pigeon as they are too small and it seems unfair on them. Partridge is pushing the envelope but I can just about eat them My daughters all have their own little quirks, eldest won't have any food touching on her plate, and it's getting worse. The other day I had made swedish meatballs and she got hysterical when I said she couldn't have the sauce in a seperate bowl. She's 24! I gave in that time, on condition that she tries to get her head round it for next time. Middle daughter (21) is a chef and also the fussiest person I know. The list of things she won't eat is so long that it's easier to make a list of things she will eat: pasta, prime fillet steak, overcooked chips, mash, overcooked fried eggs, baby corn (but only if it's been cooked in a Thai curry), Yorkshire pudding and gravy, runner beans, spinach, parmesan, mild cheddar, toast. That's about it. She's a good chef and tastes all the food she prepares...go figure! Youngest (18) isn't bad, she hates mince and the summer before last refused to eat anything other than dried mango and sliced chicken breast, I was glad when that stopped. Her fiance makes up for it, he claims he will eat anything as he's very polite (bless) but then starts retching...he also eats only one thing at a time, first potatoes (or other starch), then meat, then veg, except he usually doesn't eat the veg and hides it under his fork/napkin/juice container even though he knows I know he does it Family mealtimes at our house are a hoot

FoF in the UK are delicious, always made to order as far as I can tell - which drives the rest of my family mad! I love them and I'm sitting here drooling but the nearest MacDs is 16 miles away...

Your last sentence struck a chord with me, my daughter (who is a chef) said much the same thing. I disagreed with her and cited norovirus as a possible cause but she wasn't having any of it I think HB is handling it brilliantly, but then he would, he seems like one of life's good people.

Yes, yes and a thousand times yes! That is my most hated word in the English language. It sounds so...grubby. If somebody mentions a 'moist chocolate cake' to me, for some reason it conjures up a vision of said cake with a really nasty soggy dishcloth draped over it

Fascinating thread, I'd never realised how complicated ganache could be! Here's how I do it (disclaimer: totally non-scientific ) Measure equal quantities of choc bits and double (heavy) cream. Put choc in magimix. Heat cream to boiling with one tablespoon fine sugar. When cream has stopped bubbling pour into switched on magimix. As soon as melt achieved switch off magimix. Scrape into glass bowl. place in fridge for ten mins, mixing thoroughly at 5 mins. Mix again. Pipe into plobs on greaseproof paper. Cover with more greaseproof to keep cat off them. Leave overnight in cool room. Next day coat with tempered choc or roll in really good cocoa. Eat. A couple of observations: 9 times out of 10 I'm using Valrhona Manjari and pasteurised double cream. I love manjari and have found it very reliable. I have also tried Caraibe and a couple of types of Lindt, which I don't like. It didn't behave half as well and does not provide such good mouth feel. I have experimented with using lower fat cream, which works admirably as long as I don't forget that tablespoon of sugar. I have also increased the ratio of cream when making a cake filling, that worked really well for a softer consistency. I should probably add (with reference to the cat) that I am not making my truffles available to the public

Hello, I'm new here and your potato question piqued my curiosity as I was sure I had heard of a very low-starch potato so I've been hunting around. There is a new variety available here in the UK (not sure where else yet) called 'Mayan Gold', low starch and very good for mash. There are two other varieties I can find which may be of interest: Russian Banana (described as very low starch) and Purple Viking (described as no starch). They sound like heirloom/curiosity varieties but might be worth seeking out.