Thread 18 - TalkLair: "That's no moon. It's a space station!"

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 17)

We've had our heatwave - is this it for the summer? All is lush and green in our LairGarden, flowers are blooming, berries are ripening...

In the TalkLair, all the windows are open, the Pimms is chilled, the MN massive salad is ready to serve. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch, 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…

Oh and put them on the baking sheet as balls, then flatten with the bottom of a tumbler.

There are all sorts of things that I "miss out on" - though it doesn't feel like missing out - because I absolutely gag at glacé cherries, marzipan (I'm not a big fan of almonds generally, but marzipan is just revolting) and "peel". Oddly, my sister is the same, as was our dad. I don't think he influenced us on this, so maybe it's inherited?

Christmas cake in our house was eaten entirely by Mommie Dearest, who - having gone heavy on the glacé cherries and peel - slathered it in marzipan on the basis that you had to do that "otherwise the icing won't stick". Punchline? She never once iced the cake!

Seems fine to me. I much prefer the marzipan to the icing.

#teamGonners. Marzipan is disgusting stuff.

My mother was also the only one of us who really liked Christmas cake. She stopped making it after, in her words, "I made the cake, and it weighed four pounds. I weighed myself after Christmas and I'd put on four pounds. And none of you eat it..."

(I do now always put a tiny Christmas cake in her stocking. M&S usually do a miniature one)

Also #teamGonners. Marzipan is an abomination and should be consigned to the depths of hell.

Love almonds though.

#teamBint here - give me all your marzipan and I’ll eat it. Also the cake with glace cherries and nuts and peel in it. I never make it nowadays because all the Americans I know seem to loathe fruit cake and the stores don’t sell the proper (British) ingredients anyway.

Imho, marzipan is the Work of the Devil and so are glace cherries. You can have it all, Brit!

I'll join you in the cake corner, Brit. And bring a Christmas pudding.

I'm Team Marzipan ❤️ !

Marzipan is Food Of The Gods, especially this stuff: https://www.lakeland.co.uk/42484/niederegger-dark-chocolate-marzipan-loaves

I once went to the Niederegger factory shop in Lubeck, and they had a half-size model of a Formula 1 racing car on display, all made of marzipan.

No one in this house likes marzipan, or so we thought. It turns out that when I make Christmas cake (without glade cherries or candied peel because I’m not a fan of either) and make the marzipan, we all enjoy it. Admittedly I don’t add almond extract and I do add orange zest so it tastes nothing like shop bought marzipan but the year I just iced the cake without marzipan is the year the cake hung around uneaten for weeks.

I am drooling at the thought of marzipan loaves draped in dark chocolate...

But I have to share with you, only a fifteen minute drive from here, Lenny the life-sized chocolate moose.
https://www.lenlibby.com/pages/lenny-the-moose?srsltid=AfmBOoooyoHkPAC0fEADZSt028AyKy3IeyY0gZOY05sGWlYGxM1OyfGx

On the one hand, I applaud the ambition of a life size chocolate moose but on the other, that’s a lot of chocolate that can’t now be eaten. Although edible and American chocolate often don’t go together.

And obviously I’m now contemplating whether this could be taken further to create a life size moose from chocolate mousse. I suspect a lot of gelatine would be involved. And the moose may need to be lying down.

I could make a brave start on that chocolate moose if it was - say - Lindt, or even Bourneville, but I'll pass on American chocolate.

In bizarre news, MrG had an email this evening from the local hospital trust asking him if he still wanted an ophthalmology appointment. I was bewildered as he's waiting for a gastro appointment (where an "urgent referral" = at least 52 weeks before they even offer you an appointment - at the local hospital, whose gastro department is responsible for the whole shit-show) and I was planning to query it with the GP's surgery when I remembered ... the local optometrist referred him more than two years ago!

As the problem is ingrowing lower eyelashes, permanently fixable only by electrolysis (I'd say "Thanks, but no thanks" to that on the inside of my eyelids!) I'm tempted to cancel it. Because when you're 83 years old with Alzheimer's, and you can get rid of the occasional itching with eye-baths and drops, is it worth the drama?

Suppose it's all about the current level of discomfort. You'd think not, unless MrG is keen.

I have a minor ophthalmology story. I had to wear glasses from the age of seven, and when I first got them, my eyelashes fouled on the lenses, and the optician trimming them so they cleared. In adulthood, I have repeated this anecdote to every optician I have come across. Without exception, they have all said, oh, no, you must be mistaken, you were just a child, no optician would ever do that. But I remember what I remember. I remember my Mum saying, what a shame about my lovely long eyelashes.

Seven years old, that would have been 1960.

Don't know about opticians, but mymum used to trim mine for the same reason.

It is true that much American chocolate is indeed shit, especially Hersheys. American Cadbury’s is owned by Hersheys and is shit too. On the other hand Dove dark chocolate is quite edible, as is Ghirardelli’s, which I think is made in California. Their hot chocolate is good too (Swiss Miss is… a miss). We can also buy some European chocolate, especially Lindt, but sadly not Green and Blacks. The moose is quite impressive in the, er, chocolate flesh and that company and another small producer near here make their own chocolates, which aren’t nearly as bad as the mass market stuff.

Im team marzipan, too, although it's too sweet for me now. A good number of years ago, the Co-Op had OOD blocks reduced to 10p and I bought half a dozen blocks. I'd have a big bite and suck it for ages, like a boiled sweet.

Niederegger marzipan is particularly good as it's not that sweet and doesn't have a fake almond flavour, when paired with the excellent unfussy German dark chocolate coating it is <chef's kiss>.

I used to work with someone from Lübeck. He'd always come back from trips home with a big box of said marzipan chocolates for our group. We were all very sad when his grant ended and he moved on to another lucky lab.

Hershey's chocolate is vile.

Agree about Hershey's.

One of the most disgusting things I've ever tasted was a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. It had a distinct flavour of vomit and one bite was more than sufficient.

They add the vomit flavour on purpose.

Blimey, why???