A Life of Crime and Chocolate

I love cream on cornflakes.

heyjude said:

The word for someone who eats no meat but DOES eat fish is a pescetarian. /lesson for the day

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That's neat. I didn't know that either. I'm an Aquarian...but I usually put a teabag in it first.


Ah, the great Pie Controversy. Savoury (spelled with 'u') pies are, of course, a stalwart of British cuisine, which has become a staple in most former British colonies as well. Pie shops have made a comeback here in SA and seem to be doing a roaring trade. My hubby is very fond of steak and kidney pie, which he calls 'snake and pigmy' pie. I like a nice chicken pie or a Cornish pastie.

But savoury pies don't seem to be a big hit on the other side of the pond. I think they tossed them out with those crates of tea. (Strange people!) What they call a 'pie' is usually what we refer to as a 'tart'*.


*not to be confused with a floozy.

Well, I finally finished this galley I was reading. One more to go and then I'm done. I probably won't be able to finish the other book before my Winter break is over, but that's fine. I still have to read the book.

onesecondglance said:

Pie is savoury by default in my head.

I believe it may be otherwise in the US.

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Occasionally I am tripped up by the vast cultural chasm between Great Britain and the US.

Pie is sweet. Preferably made with fruit - and made fresh, not with that canned stuff that has "juice" the consistency of hot tar.

I'm a two-crust girl, but only if it's homemade.

Some people insist pie should be eaten with ice cream. These people cannot be trusted. They probably work for the CIA, and are trying to get you to admit to subversive tendencies.

The only legitimate meat pie is mincemeat. Which is vile, but that's another conversation.

(I had steak and kidney pie once while visiting the UK. I took one bite, and thought "Oh, they meant it about the kidney." Hey, I was 20 years old and a TOURIST. I knew nothing about anything at all.)

Silver-Midnight said:

Well, I finally finished this galley I was reading. One more to go and then I'm done. I probably won't be able to finish the other book before my Winter break is over, but that's fine. I still have to read the book.

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Silver, this sounds like a very productive winter break - but not necessarily a restful one!

I hope your cold is passing. Not fun to have to get stuff done when you're ill.

Pescarian, Pescetarian... Tomaeto, tomahto... I

I was at least close.

I have a friend who always eats her apple pie with sharp cheddar cheese melted on top.

OMG Liz, steak and kidney - Yuhhhhm.

I agree on the icecream nad pie, it's custard for me, really thick custard that stands at attention, and it has to be cold custard to hot pie, can't be hot custard.

Mince meat pie are ok, but I like chunks of flesh in mine, ones you have to really work at to get through, other wise the experience is gone too quick.

Pies and sausage rolls, 2 of the greats.

OK I think this is so funny. I'm having a plagiarism issue with a book I published in 2000. I don't have any left so I'm thinking the kindle thing and Createspace to get it out in front of said plagiarists book (my story is a chapter in his book taken right from mine). So in talking to my co-author I find she has a few boxes of the second printing she found when she moved. I figure, OK, I can slap them up on Amazon and get rid of them while I'm formatting the kindle & createspace thing.

So the thing to selling on Amazon is it has to be on their list of stuff or you have to be in that preferred seller thing at $39.00 a month (not doing that.) So I look for my book on there, and it is there. Other sellers selling used copies. But the prices are nuts, like it's a collectors edition or something. Look at this link.

I mean it's self-published. Granted the story itself is bizarre, I don't know it just tickles me. Think that will be good for sales? Obviously mine will be a lot cheaper.

lizmonster said:

I had steak and kidney pie once while visiting the UK. I took one bite, and thought "Oh, they meant it about the kidney."

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Of course! That's some tasty offal right there.

I always say "if you're going to be a carnivore, eat animals. All of 'em."

French Maiden said:

OMG Liz, steak and kidney - Yuhhhhm.

I agree on the icecream nad pie, it's custard for me, really thick custard that stands at attention, and it has to be cold custard to hot pie, can't be hot custard.

Mince meat pie are ok, but I like chunks of flesh in mine, ones you have to really work at to get through, other wise the experience is gone too quick.

Pies and sausage rolls, 2 of the greats.

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Sausage rolls are a real favourite of many of my pupils. They love making them and at the end of the lesson I end up with a row of little ones (sausage rolls, not pupils) on my desk. Some of them are really delicious - especially when the pupil has taken the trouble to season the sausage meat with herbs or spices. The one I really could not eat was made with mustard pastry. Far too much mustard - made my eyes water.

One pupil made an apple and custard strudel type thing. She used puff pastry which rose to abnormal heights and looked like a prehistoric monster when she took it out of the oven. I love pie making lessons because of the variety of ingredients and the ingenuity of some of the pupils.

Shakesbear said:

Sausage rolls are a real favourite of many of my pupils. They love making them and at the end of the lesson I end up with a row of little ones (sausage rolls, not pupils) on my desk. Some of them are really delicious - especially when the pupil has taken the trouble to season the sausage meat with herbs or spices. The one I really could not eat was made with mustard pastry. Far too much mustard - made my eyes water.

One pupil made an apple and custard strudel type thing. She used puff pastry which rose to abnormal heights and looked like a prehistoric monster when she took it out of the oven. I love pie making lessons because of the variety of ingredients and the ingenuity of some of the pupils.

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Sausage rolls are great fun to make. The boys love helping - They dont do any of the meat part though as they understand it's the 'germy' part. They get to dump the ingredients in and help egg wash the rolls.

I dont use sausage meat, I use a mix of 500gm beef and 500gm pork mince. I put oyster sauce, sweet chilli sauce, soy and woustishire (sp) sauce, mixed herbs, salt and pepper in mine, an egg and 1/2 cup breadcrumbs to bind. After rolling in puff pastry and applying egg wash I put sesamea seeds on some and poppy seeds on others.

I always use puff pastry. Even when a recipe calls for short crust.

French Maiden said:

Sausage rolls are great fun to make. The boys love helping - They dont do any of the meat part though as they understand it's the 'germy' part. They get to dump the ingredients in and help egg wash the rolls.

I dont use sausage meat, I use a mix of 500gm beef and 500gm pork mince. I put oyster sauce, sweet chilli sauce, soy and woustishire (sp) sauce, mixed herbs, salt and pepper in mine, an egg and 1/2 cup breadcrumbs to bind. After rolling in puff pastry and applying egg wash I put sesamea seeds on some and poppy seeds on others.

I always use puff pastry. Even when a recipe calls for short crust.

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I haven't made sausage rolls in ages. I use beef mince, generally. I also do a thing that's basically vegetarian Haggis (which I prefer, even though I'm not vegetarian, to ordinary haggis), sliced mushroom and mozzarella cheese wrapped up in puff pastry, so it's like a kind of haggis sausage roll.

I'm at home sick right now so my food today will be takeaway. I was supposed to go over to Fife to have dinner with the family but that didn't happen. However, got a little surprise today. My latest blog post for work got 25 likes on Facebook, which doesn't sound a lot but our usual count is like 3 at best! And people have actually commented on the blog itself, which doesn't happen usually.

I got an email late last night from one of my beta readers who I had not yet heard from. She said she'd been putting off reading it, because she was afraid she'd hate it. (This is what I get for having nice friends!)

She said she just started it, and now she is hooked. She's asked me for a PDF (I'd given her an epub so she could read on her Nook) so she can print it out and comment in writing. Which is terrifying, in a way...but it also means she is excited and engaged. How big a compliment is that?

Ob. food: Banana bread for breakfast. I should have put nuts in it, but it's pretty good nonetheless.

oooh, I love haggis. I have fond memories of Scotland when I was a kid and enjoying Haggis.

lizmonster said:

I got an email late last night from one of my beta readers who I had not yet heard from. She said she'd been putting off reading it, because she was afraid she'd hate it. (This is what I get for having nice friends!)

She said she just started it, and now she is hooked. She's asked me for a PDF (I'd given her an epub so she could read on her Nook) so she can print it out and comment in writing. Which is terrifying, in a way...but it also means she is excited and engaged. How big a compliment is that?

Ob. food: Banana bread for breakfast. I should have put nuts in it, but it's pretty good nonetheless.

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Thats awesome Liz, it's a massive compliment.

Babana bread is fantastic, I like it for breakfast under the grill with a shaving of butter melted on top. Soo goood.
Nuts would be a great addition to it, add some really nice textures. Blake is unfortunatelly allergic to nuts (both tree and peanuts), so we dont have have them in the house period.

This might sound yuck, but I put blackberries in banana bread once when I was making it, and it turned out pretty good! Poppyseed as well (there was a type of cake in CZ called Makovnik, which was basically poppyseed, and was greatly improved, I found, by the addition of banana.)

That's good Liz, I mean that is what betas are for right? And it's good shes all into it.

I for one just had an offer from my hubby to go out to breakfast (brunch?) so I'm taking it. We will have grandbaby in tow.

French Maiden said:

oooh, I love haggis. I have fond memories of Scotland when I was a kid and enjoying Haggis.

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First time I had it was in Edinburgh on my honeymoon. It was the end of October, windy and cold. We'd just finished climbing the crags and had some in a pub. Best meal ever. Wasn't too thrilled with the neeps, though.

tarak said:

First time I had it was in Edinburgh on my honeymoon. It was the end of October, windy and cold. We'd just finished climbing the crags and had some in a pub. Best meal ever. Wasn't too thrilled with the neeps, though.

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Neeps just remind me of school. See we got haggis neeps and tatties quite a lot, and actually we got neeps quite a lot for school dinners, but they were always watery and half cooked and just generally not very pleasant. But then to be honest, the tatties and the haggis were pretty ropey at school too...

There was a butcher in the town over from me who claimed to make haggis like the scots do. My mum's scotish and although she's never made it here in Oz we had it a lot when we were over in scotland.
So we gave this guy the benifit of the doubt.....it tasted like Ocean fish cat food.

French Maiden said:

There was a butcher in the town over from me who claimed to make haggis like the scots do. My mum's scotish and although she's never made it here in Oz we had it a lot when we were over in scotland.
So we gave this guy the benifit of the doubt.....it tasted like Ocean fish cat food.

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Yuck! My Dad's scottish and Mum's given up trying to find a butcher that makes haggis. She's learnt how to make it herself from scratch. Very tasty. Stinks the kitchen out though.

tarak said:

First time I had it was in Edinburgh on my honeymoon. It was the end of October, windy and cold. We'd just finished climbing the crags and had some in a pub. Best meal ever. Wasn't too thrilled with the neeps, though.

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The crags are always really cold. I think it was July a couple of years back when I last went up them and ended up with a cold in the middle of summer time!

And Haggis? Don't like it. At school we had a Burns Supper one year, the full haggis, neeps and tatties, and I only had the tatties. But then I am a fussy eater...

I just can't get past the whole "blood pudding" thing.

My husband, on the other hand, grew up on a farm, and they didn't have much money. They utilized ALL of the animal. As an adult...he doesn't eat much meat, and when he does, he chooses the good stuff. He's not squeamish like I am, but there are parts of his childhood he chooses not to revisit.

My new job involves some culture shock. They are primarily a hardware company, and the staff is mostly men (about 90%). They find out I'm a software engineer, and they start looking at me sideways and using the small words. They seem to see software as some artsy, "girly" thing, which is hilarious, since demographically software is mostly men as well. I have to say, I don't mind being seen as a weirdo - it means I have to worry less about how I act.

Also, the big rack of circuit boards right outside my office door is totally cool.