Archers thread #171: Harvest's nearly over – but will George ever reap what he has sown? Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd have been delighted with a hand-painted squirrel tray for your 40th, as shown below, or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please! We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

All I have to say about current storylines for now is that I want the George Alice crash stuff to come to a resolution, sooner rather than later, and I also want to hear very little indeed of Alistair, Denise and Paul maundering on. More of Jakob would be very welcome. His brother can come back any time too.

I now declare this thread open for business!

@SlenderRations , my comment was about diary-substitutes.

A vegan cafe is fine if you are somewhere with a demand for vegan food and drink. A small rural village probably doesn't have the demand.

'All-day vegan breakfast' doesn't have the same appeal as 'All-day breakfast with organic Tom Archer pork sausages'. An all-butter croissant sounds a lot more appealing than a plant-based one.

EBearhug
vegan cakes are ok but I’ve never had one that can be described as decadent
Oh, I have. A rich, moist chocolate affair, made for someone's birthday on a yoga retreat. I did have the recipe at one point, but I don't think I have any more.

This is the one I have used, and it is very good:

Vegan chocolate courgette cake
1 hour 25 min

Ingredients
Makes: 1 (23cm) cake
250g plain flour
350g caster sugar
85g cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
300ml almond milk
125ml vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
250g grated courgettes

Icing
75g dairy free butter
4 1/2 tablespoons boiling water
375g icing sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180 C / Gas 4.
Grease two 23cm (9 in) non-stick springform cake tins. Line bottoms of tins with parchment.
In a large bowl, sieve together plain flour, caster sugar, 85g cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
Add almond milk, vanilla extract and vegetable oil. Mix well. Add grated courgettes and mix until all is well combined. Divide the mixture evenly between the two cake tins.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until an inserted cake skewer comes out clean. Leave the cakes to cool for 5 minutes in their tins then carefully remove sides of the springform cake tins. Run a palette or rounded knife on the inside edge of the cake tins first to make sure the cake comes out neatly. Cool completely.

Once you are ready to ice the cake, prepare the chocolate icing. In a bowl, melt 75g of dairy free butter with the boiling water. In a separate bowl, mix together the icing sugar with sieved cocoa powder. Add the melted butter to the sugar mixture. Blend well until you have a smooth icing.

Assemble the cake by placing one cake on a serving plate. Spread some chocolate icing over the first cake then top with the other cake. Ice the cake all over with the chocolate icing with a palette knife. So it does not get too messy you can place some long strips of baking sheet around the edges of the cake while you ice it. Leave to icing to set (around 20 minutes).

Oh yes, I'd completely forgotten that there wouldn't be any milk for the tea and coffee. That's a 100% no from me. I have drunk soya and coconut faux-milks in coffee. They're bearable if you have something not very milky like an americano, awful in a milky drink and undrinkable in tea.

Fallon might drop the idea when Harrison is chucked out of the force for beating seven shades of rainbow out of George ( probably some time in December, the rate things are going). It needs dropping.

Do we know who will use the charging station?

In my (limited) experience of EVs people who live in suburbs or country areas are able to charge them at home, while people who live in inner city areas without a garage have nowhere to charge them.

So I am guessing it won't be used much by Ambridge residents who will, mostly, be able to charge at home. This suggests the target market would be people travelling who need to charge midway on their journey.

If so, this may help Fallon as many of the travellers might not realise there is another, non-vegan, cafe at Bridge Farm which they might prefer. (I'm not sure where the charging station is in relation to the village or whether people might go for an explore while their EV is charging.)

The Kitchen Cabinet or the Food Programme at the weekend was discussing what constituted a good square (vegan) meal

What’s in dairy free butter? Is it veg oils?

In terms of veggie and vegan food - the best is when they aren’t trying to recreate a meat eaters dish. That’s why Indian food works well. And carbs aren’t a substitute - a massive plate of mushroom risotto is not a good veg meal!!

The charging station is at Hollowtree, which is off a lane behind the village proper, with no immediate path from it to the village green, pub, shop and so on. At one end it comes out onto the road to Borchester just beyond Manor Court to the north of the village, and the other end reaches a road to Felpersham on the far side of the Stables from the village.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archers/wallpaper/ambridge_1024.shtml

This is the internet version of the map they have on the wall at the studio they record in.

I have a feeling it was TKC but maybe it was someone who usually appears on TKC but on a different programme. @MereDintofPandiculation

What was the verdict?

No idea, I wasn't listening. It was on in the background. I heard baked beans mentioned.

@MereDintofPandiculation , I suspect I heard it but wasn't listening too.

Didn’t Fallon have the plastic-free wedding so I suppose we have seen signs of her being green but this seems extreme.

Why would you cut out more than 90-95% of potential customers who, while they might compromise and go to a vegan cafe, wouldn’t make it their first choice? I find oat milk in coffee just masks the taste of the coffee and makes for a very synthetic-tasting drink. I’ll drink it if I have to but I would happily drive passed a vegan cafe.

It's all a bit sad, but while I know people who will happily drink a glass of milk at breakfast or tea, two or three hundred millilitres of it, I don't know anyone who drinks a glass of oat or almond milk in a similar way, even those who are vegans. I have a feeling they just are not all that palatable really, even with all the additives to make them more pleasant.

The problem with these ‘milks’ is that they aren’t generally nutritionally strong (especially when compared to milk). So to me they are a substitute for those who don’t want to drink milk but still want something in their tea/cereal etc

remember when rice milk was all the rage!

anyway, if you are opening shop at what is effectively a service station you need to offer to as broad a market as you can.

Agree about the comments about the nutritional content, but I haven't checked recently.

The tea room needs to be a destination in itself. Somewhere to go for a coffee or hot chocolate, a chat or meeting, cooked breakfast, afternoon tea or an indulgent treat.

I can remember we used to go to a 'retail destination' on a Sunday, or possibly a Saturday, and on the way home stopping at the Little Chef with a glorious view.

The EV charging station doesn't seem to be on a major route, unless it's on the same road as the Bridge of Doom.

I drink oat milk like that, but usually put a slug of ginger syrup in it.

I used to drink tiger-nut milk (Horchata de chufa) but Brexit put paid to that.

But I don't drink oat milk in coffee because as soon as you turn your back on it for 5 secs, all the oat separates out and sinks to the bottom and you're left with a watery coffee on a layer of sludge.

PedantScorner
The EV charging station doesn't seem to be on a major route, unless it's on the same road as the Bridge of Doom.

The EV charging station is off a lane which is off a road too small to be given even a B-number on a map.

Just like the busy by-pass where the Little Chef used to be then.

So she needs to be targeting two sets of customers - the same customers as the tea room who she wants to keep there as long as possible and the ev chargers who will be there for short periods but if she gets good reviews it could encourage people to use that charging station

i really don’t think vegan is going to do it

Hang on - if Justin knows then how long until Natasha finds out and goes apeshit

Brad is staying at home and going to a local uni. With all his potential. I'm glad to not lose the character, but he really should be aiming higher. Hopefully he can go somewhere else for a masters and doctorate.

“I’m done” Yes Clive, you and me both. I can’t bear to listen to this storyline draaaaging out any longer.

I’ll watch this thread to find out if and when the truth about George ever emerges but don’t think I can carry on listening to the repetitive nonsense. Brad must be the 5th or 6th person to comment that George doesn’t seem himself!

I'm so bored of this.

And why is Brad hanging out with George? He knows George is bad news. Does Brad have no friends?

I used to drink tiger-nut milk (Horchata de chufa) but Brexit put paid to that.

Oh, you rotten swine, @MereDintofPandiculation! I had completely forgotten about Orxata (Catalan spelling) - the most delicious drink! And now I shall become obsessed with finding it.

I hope Clive's "I'm done!" presages some real trouble, ideally for him but also for Emma, Will, William (obviously) and anyone else involved in this ludicrous nonsense.

Even the scriptwriter is aware it's all on a loop: we get things like Clive saying he can't keep saying the same thing over and over, or that George goes on and on and is as bad as his mother, or that he's told George and he's told him that those kind of people (meaning Alice), they get off all the time 'cos they've got money.

When they are reduced to the characters in a story telling their audience that they are being repetitive, it's got pretty dire.