Crepey continuum

[Cremolafoam]

Over here!

MI, DS is also enjoying the social side of school. With girls as well as boys I think some may be accompanying him and his friends on the MaccyD's/cinema trip on Friday to celebrate his birthday!

Crem, the carpet fitters managed to just move our bed when we had our carpet fitted

yum. This is better than the jewish food chat.
MI I expect you have a delicious sardine pasta recipe up you sleeve but will tell you mine anyway...

Sweat (yuk!) some thickly sliced onion in olive oil with a little chopped red chilli.
Add some capers and the sardines. Break up roughly with fork. Add pinch of saffron that you've steeped in half a cup of boiling water. Heat through. Add chopped flat parsley and lots of black pepper. Serve with rigatoni / penne.

The secret to non yucky sardines is to buy skinned fillets in olive oil (from waitrose natch). No bones. no slimy skin. No tomato sauce. You couldn't get them for a while round here. When they reappeared dh came home with 24 tins

BTM sadly giant bed IS the size of the room. Takes 4 people to lift it unless it is taken to bits. I need an ikea kids step to get onto it-
All the bedroom furniture is enormous due to grandparents living in grand Georgian farmhouse and then us inheriting it and foolishly buying a small cottage instead of a stately home.

Woo I got home early and am now chomping fresh ravioli with puttanesca sauce( mmn the smoked anchovies are yum) and watching masterchef. My money is in Helen, mum of 3 being a mnetter

oooh. MI. Forgot the best ingredient! Toasted pine nuts added at the end.

I must dig out that ancient saffron.

The deceptively if accurately named Cornish Pilchards are very nice. And although pricier than some sardines, still damn cheap.

Crem, am liking the sound of your bed.

Am now feeling peckish. Are pilchards sardines then?

Yep. Or much the same.

These are posho fish in posho tin and all. Not Common Pilchards

Am now thinking about Bob the Builder's cat. It was called Pilchard, wasn't it? The DC had a Bob computer game...

And in S&B news, my bikini purchases for DD are a hit. And they were all cheapies from Asda and Tescos. But then DD would look good in anything - not a wobbly bit in sight (apart from the bits which should wobble)

The rule in our house, when I was growing up, was that sardines had to be in olive oil, and pilchards in tomato sauce. Pilchards were served with salad for Sunday tea. DH has them mashed and grilled on toast. Sardines were for parties, where they were halved, deboned and served on fingers of toast. Quite the hostess, my mother. Once she got so drunk before the party that she was throwing up as the guests were arriving.

Other features of the 1970s buffet table: rice salad, served in a ring mould, with peppers and olives in it. I think it was called Greek rice salad. Chicken wings in breadcrumbs, salmon mousse (made with tinned salmon - great recipe), lots of salad (green, tomato), mini jacket potatoes with a mayonnaise and sour cream dip. Oh and a cold smoked sausage - a huge one from the Polish deli in town. Roll mops if it was family. "French" bread, with butter and the cheese board (Cheddar, Danish Blue and Boursin - Brie hadn't arrived by then). Tinned fruit salad with a fresh kiwi fruit added, chopped very small. Oh and she used to serve something which involved tinned pineapple and mandarins, cocktail cherries, marshmallows and sour cream, all mixed up together. I think I was the only person who ever ate it.

Wine was never served - there was beer (Watney's Party Seven), martini or cinzano, gin and tonic, whisky and soda (from a siphon - we had to check it before guests arrived as a dead wasp fell into someone's drink one year when it was squirted) or dry ginger. And little tins of "fruit juice" - pineapple for Auntie June and a few cans of orange for anyone who didn't fancy alcohol (most did).

Hahahamrs s makes me think of one time in London at cafe des Amis Covent Garden. Tables v close together. M&d visiting me & db in London so out for naice meal( I was still a student). Anyhoo tables vv close a la francais. Dm eats her starter. ( Moules) Suddenly looks v green and throws up on plate . Couple next to us too engrossed in romantic evening to notice. Mother just gently places napkin over plate and NOT ONE PERSON in packed restaurant notices! We as a family are not only horrified but in hysterics laughing.
Classy we are. Classy in the Big Smoke!
We are forbidden to ever mention it EVER AGAIN!

We didn't have buffets in our house. That would have been deemed too modern and racy.

Oh I sometimes wonder how we survived the 70s from neglect. My parents partied away the whole decade , drank and drive regularly and we were given leftover Schnizel & Gateau Diane for breakfast.

It must have been a very quiet and ladylike vom, Crem!

We were dead modern, Stropps, clearly. We moved to a large old, semi derelict house when I was about 4, which was my Dad's "project". We had no roof on half of the house for about six months, because he wanted to do all the work himself (modernise it, which involved ripping out an inglenook and replacing solid wood doors with painted chipboard or mdf jobs) with some mates, rather than pay a professional. When the roof finally went up, it lasted for about two years, before it collapsed over the dining room, and it had to be done Properly by Someone Who Knew What They Were Doing. After my Dad died, my mother couldn't bear to think of anyone else living in it, so sold it to a developer, who knocked it down and built nasty Executive Homes on the land.

Oh yes, the drink driving. "I'll be fine. I've only had ten pints of beer."

MrsS, it sounds like Abigail's Party round at your mum's house back in the day. Did she waft about in a kaftan proffering nibbles?

I love an anchovy..... DD1 and I are addicted to those marinated ones you find in the chiller at Sainsburys. Like tiddly roll-mops.

She used to slap my legs to make me dance if she thought it looked like I wasn't enjoying myself.

Mrs S that's appalling !
We were made to do turns on the piano for the Rabbi. ( also fond of my mothers mandarin pavlova)

My parents either had full-on dinner parties or - more usually - "drinks parties" involving frankly ludicrous quantities of spirits and a minute bowl of peanuts. And there was so much smoke you couldn't see from one end of the room to the other. My bro and I were simply banished to a bedroom with a bottle of lemonde and the few leftover peanuts.

Aaaaggh. You're stirring terrible memories of the '70s for me. I'm having flashbacks as I'm reading your posts...

• my dm's bright orange volvo estate. She would drive around at speed with 4 children sitting in the boot
• cheesey footballs
• non-ironic cheddar and pineapple on a stick, stuck in half a pineapple, skin side up to resemble a hedgehog

-silverskin cocktail onions

• creme de menthe frappe
• maraschino cherries
• my dm's macrame projects (macrame owl shaped wall hanging anyone?)
• roald dahl "Tales of the Unexpected" on telly on Sat nights. They'd go out and leave me in charge of my siblings and I would scare myself shitless watching it...

Am off for a lie down.

Like Strops, DB and I were most certainly not welcome at "dinner parties".

Unless the house was on fire we were forbidden to make an appearance.

We didn't even get lemonade and peanuts.

Actual lol @ OQC. Dear god, yes macrame. That's enough to give anyone nightmares. I used to get through so much string. And being driven around sitting in the boot.

CV, the dog was allowed at the party but we weren't. Does that make you feel better about the lemonade and peanuts?