Thread 15 - TalkLair: “I Can't Lie To You About Your Chances, But... You Have My Sympathies.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 14).

Autumn seems to have gone straight into winter. It's cold, wet and windy. In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them). The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics.

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

I eat healthy food and utter shite. I've been eating more sweets than usual recently but I'll grow sick of them soon.

I had no idea there was so much mularky around seed oils. I thought if you're allergic steer clear but maybe that's difficult because so many vegetable oils are seed oils. But for people who are worried about them but not allergic surely going with lard, butter, etc is just as unhealthy as anything in a decent seed oil? Which leaves olive oil which is just luverly.

@MouseMinge I eat healthy food and utter shite.

Arf! AKA a normal diet.

Amusingly, my left knee went very wonky and painful yesterday afternoon and so (obviously) I blamed this on having had an acupuncture needle in my left ankle that morning. Then I remembered that correlation does not imply causation, and it was perfectly fine this morning! Shortly after I noticed this, this afternoon, it obviously came back. When I told myself not to be so bloody ridiculous, it went away again. Can you self-certify yourself as losing the plot?

I don't suppose anyone has any good ideas for a Christmas pressie for a pregnant DiL? We don't usually exchange Xmas gifts, but in the circs...

I don't think I'd be of any use to you with that, @duc748

I forgot an important update from yesterday. I had battered cod roe for the first time in well over a year and it was pure joy! I've been wanting some for a while but it's the first tim Snoop and I have gone for a chippy lunch in ages as well. Or a chippy supper come to that. I worried that I might be expecting too much and it would be a let down. It was not. I can't wait to have another one v, v soon.

This afternoon I bought some brioche baguettes that are about 12 inches in length and this evening I had one, not all at once because it's way too much for me to eat at once, covered with Kerrygold and damsan jam because I'd been fancying it but wasn't convinced that normal bread would go down well and that even brioche might be a bit difficult. It wasn't. My stomach is overly full which means about an hour of unpleasantness but it was worth it. Between today and yesterday I have eaten like a queen!

My healthy meal today was a light supper of spring greens and cabbage in a light creamy sauce with plenty of salt and pepper. Lush.

I only really bake for birthdays and visitors but in the past I have frozen cake in slices. I generally use gelato recipes for ice cream and up the fruit content and lower the sugar content (a bit more than I should sometimes which means it’s icy) but the vanilla I made for 99s for my mum’s 99th birthday was utterly lush.

Mostly my baking is a pita bread a day for lunch (made in the air fryer).

I have really got into pitta-making after you mentioned it, @artant . But in the oven. Reheating them in the microwave is a game-changer! I bought some wholemeal ones in M&S (oddly, half the price of the white ones) the other day, and I do prefer my own.

Hooray for cod roe @MouseMinge!

@artant how do you make the ice cream? Is it a machine or by hand?

I’ve given myself the most ridiculous injury. I was squeezing the last bits of lick e lix out of the tube for Kasper and managed to slice my finger on the edge of it. He is totally unbothered.

Ice cream machine. I used to have the type that needed a bowl to be frozen but never have the freezer space (indeed one if the good things about home made ice cream is that I can make small quantities which means I only need to find a little bit of freezer space). One with actual freezy powers was a ridiculous indulgence but I do love it even though it doesn’t get used that much.

Kasper is a picture of unconcern there! Hope finger healing is speedy. I grated my thumb the other week; small wounds often hurt much more than seems reasonable.

I make a no-churn ice cream which is not at all healthy - a can of condensed milk and an American pint (so 16 fl oz) of heavy cream and some vanilla essence beaten with a hand mixer about 3-4 minutes until it hits soft peaks, then frozen. You can flavour it with all sorts of things, and my most recent is dried cherries soaked in brandy. Chocolate is achieved by mixing 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder with the cream and condensed milk. Small helpings!

Small ridiculous injuries - I can totally see me doing similar with lick-e-lix or a wet food pouch - hurt far more than they should.

It's been a while since I've had a paper cut but I dread it happening again and it almost certainly will!

Most ridiculous injury:

Donkey's years ago, living in shared student house. Somebody had left the kitchen in a mess, including bits of cooked pasta stuck to the worktop. These bits of pasta had then re-dried on the worktop. In a furious temper, I went to wipe them up - and ripped a long tear on the side of my hand on a jagged shard of unmoving pasta.

It did cause me a small amount of amusement when friends asked "What happened to your hand?!" and I said "I cut it on some pasta," then when they checked "Raw pasta?" I could reply, "Nope, cooked!"

That's a serious result with the pasta, Kuc!

I was holding some papers at the front door when the wind suddenly blew in and whipped them up and I got a paper cut on my septum. That was sore.

The most stupid injury I can think of at the moment was managing to cut my hand on a toenail while putting my socks on.

Kasper looks content that he has received an appropriate blood sacrifice.

I’ve mislaid the cookbook (but could easily wing it) but I used to make a no-churn brown bread ice cream from a Sarah Brown recipe. It was basically brown bread crumbs baked with brown sugar, mixed with double cream and put in the freezer until frozen. Ridiculously indulgent but unreasonably delicious.

Anybody else looking at Trump's nominated cabinet and seeing the Joker in the Lego Batman movie, assembling all the villains from across time and space?

The most ridiculous injury I can think of is my dad and a tub of Häagen-Dazs. He didn't get it out of the freezer soon enough and drove the handle of a spoon into the palm of his hand and up into his wrist.

He turned with a wry expression and sort of waved his hand and we all laughed and said it looked very convincing... he can be a bit of a japester.

That sounds both ridiculous and horrifically painful!

Someone I used to work with once broke his finger putting in his socks. He was generally unlucky though so it kind of seemed inevitable really.

JFC, SinnerBoy, that sounds awful!

A couple of weeks ago I pulled some muscles between my ribs by reaching out to pull the car door shut...

I once broke my little toe putting on a pair of knickers!

@SinnerBoy as in, actually pierced his hand?!

@SinnerBoy Holy forking shirtballs!

@SinnerBoy OMG! I feel a bit sick.

@Kucinghitam it's a cavalcade of clowns. I'd say unfunny clowns but clowns aren't funny and neither is that cabinet.

Yes, everyone, the spoon spiced his hand.

For sure, but we really can't afford to look at it like that, can we? Like it or not, Trump is POTUS, and the rest of the world will have to deal with him and his guys, not all of whom will be fools. Is Lammy still the Foreign Secretary, by the way? Those quotes about Trump will haunt hm again.

He is. They've had an allegedly amicable dinner, Lammy, Starmer and Trump but I'm guessing Trump sees them as idiots and losers. And far left communists to boot.

Farage is loving it and was showing off about his friend Donald at PMQs the day after the election. I reckon he thinks Trump could make it so that he's PM. He might well be able to do that but I doubt he'd bother his flabby arse doing anything like that because there's nothing in it for him. The UK is just a few golf courses to him. He showed his disrespect when he was last over with the way he acted with and around the queen. I'm about as far from a royalist as it's possible to get but she was the head of state and also an elderly woman who he left hanging around because he couldn't be bothered to be on time and pushed ahead of her at some "her are the fancy troops" type thing. I wonder if he'll be invited back? I doubt the royals will want anything to do with him but will have to suck it up if it's politically expedient to kiss his bumhole.