The Bluestocking Women’s Pub: definitely full of ludicrous halfwits who refuse to get a grip (with unionised gerbils)

[MyrtleLion]

Welcome to The Bluestocking: convivial by design, opinionated in the best way, generously stocked with excellent food and drink that complies with whatever it’s meant to comply with, and any calories, gluten or alcohol are entirely virtual.

Staffed by impeccably trained, unfailingly polite gerbils who run a tight bar with plenty of enthusiasm and good intentions. Quick with the drinks, but terrible spillers spellers and liable to turn an idle thought on existential existence into a full blown musical with Busby Berkeley routines. You have been warned.

All women welcome, just in case that isn't obvious. Men can go to The Staunch Ally round the corner.

Previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5477133-the-bluestocking-your-local-womens-pub-warm-friendly-and-not-at-all-unusual-in-any-way

"Scouse" is from the German Labskaus, a word brought in by sailors. Stew is still called 'lobscows' in North Wales Welsh. (It's 'cawl' in South Wales Welsh, originally meaning just the veg and herbs in the mix - but then meat wasn't eaten that frequently by ordinary people until relatively recently).

I've eaten German Labskaus in Hamburg, where it's a sort of meatloaf - I found it revolting, personally.

It's interesting how the look, or even the name of a food can put you off trying it. I love Cullen Skink, the hearty smoked mackerel soup originating from the north east of Scotland, but for years the name put me off trying it. Once I did, of course, I became a convert and it's often my first choice from the menu when I'm in Scotland. I believe the soup originated from the town of Cullen and skink is the old norse name for a shin of beef often used to make broth, but evolved to mean any type of broth.

Good morning all, I've barely swallowed my last glug of the first cup of tea of the day and already I've learnt some etymology - skink, scouse, coddle from caudle...
Everyday a school day, and an early start, at the Bluey!

Coddle was made with the only things poor inner city Dublin people could buy - so no unobtainable fresh veg, no costly fresh meat, just rashers of bacon, sausages, potatoes, onions - the kind of things that corner shops stocked.

If we didn't have meat, my mother would sometimes make a stew with spuds veg and sausages, which imparted lots of flavour to the dish but gosh it looked ugly! Boiled sausages are not a pretty sight😝

I lolled at bad mullet, it's exactly what he has.

Not sure about the Canterbury shorts, I only ever see him in the winter, in wellies, flat cap and (more recently) a tweed coat several sizes too large that he is clearly supposed to grow into.

The basic skint person dish in East Anglia (and probably much of Southern England) in the middle c20th seems to have been mince and taters, with cabbage. The mince was cheap and bulked out with onions and possibly baked beans.

My mother used to jolly hers up with mixed herbs and Worcestershire Sauce, and serve it with the option of Heinz tomato sauce.

Now and then I get a craving and make some.

Shepherd's pie was also bulked out with baked beans. My mother was a dab hand at making cheap food taste really good.

I thought of you on the way to work this morning Edith. Huge Fendt negotiating the back streets of the nearest town! Fortunately it was light by that time so I was able to ogle without going into the gutter.

When I think back to last year I was frustrated because I couldn't "knit the knit stitches or purl the purls" because I didn't know what they looked like! And everyone was so helpful!

I'm still rubbish at frogging and then picking up stitches. I would rather unpick each stitch even if it's rows and rows. I hate dropping stitches because I'm still not great at picking them up. Sometimes I will just start again.

It was the same in Fife.

I tend to eat a lot of mince these days. Easy to batch cook and freeze and then I just add whatever I happen to have in the house when I cook it through.

I've been trying to increase my protein and iron, so the mince does the trick.

A favourite meal when I was a kid was Irish Bake. Onion, cod and cream of tomato soup baked in the oven for forty minutes. I add mushrooms and changed cream of tomato to tomato and basil because I don't do dairy. Cheap, quick and nourishing.

My dad added onion to mashed potatoes when he made it. He was a great cook and made all our birthday cakes but only ever cooked spit roast chicken regularly. My mum did most of the cooking and it was sausages, fish fingers or Dale steaks (cheap minced beef shaped into steaks but they tasted better than burgers) with peas, beans, sweetcorn or carrots and oven chips.

I learned to cook for myself when I left home but hated cooking for family. The thought that I would be solely responsible for people dying if I didn't cook was unbearable. Fortunately my partners have always been great cooks. The Walrus allows me to cook braised red cabbage and trifle (separately, we're not in an episode of Friends) at Christmas. He chases me out of the kitchen the rest of the time.

I bought him a Thai cooking experience for Christmas which he's doing a week on Sunday. He's very excited about it but also worried because he doesn't know how he's going to cook the week's omelettes (his normal Sunday morning activity).

@MyrtleLion - has anyone told you about putting in a safety line in your knitting? Basically you thread some fine yarn or cotton through the stitches on your needle, and if you have to rip the work back, it stops when you get to the thread, and you just pick the stitches back up off the thread. It can be an absolute life-saver. I am knitting a baby shawl at the moment - I'm going to donate it to a Woolly Hugs online craft sale - and I'm knitting the lace edging, so I'm using a safety line every few rows, so I don't end up having to redo hours and hours of work.

If we ever asked dad what was for dinner, he used to say lob scouse and buttered candlesticks, @Chersfrozenface - and I didn't know until I read your post why he said lob scouse and not just scouse - thank you!

I have just written next week's menu, and done the supermarket order, and I really need to think of some different meals. I know there are plenty of interesting things we cook and eat, but whenever I sit down to do the plan, I can never remember any of them, so we end up having the same few meals on repeat. If I was organised, I would write a list of all the meals we do, so I could refer to it each week - but I am not that organised, ever!

Thank you for the safety line post. I will try that for this project.

I would suggest you sit and write down all the meals you know, but not with any intention of cooking them next week. Just list the meals you know how to make. Add to it when you remember, oh yes and I can make steak and chips (for example).

Then you have a list you can refer to.

I would probably then turn this into a spreadsheet with the dates of when I last cooked it, but then I'm probably autistic.

We have roast (chicken, lamb, pork, beef) and roast vegetables every meal four times a week then either stir-fry chicken in tarragon butter with sour cream or pan-fried sea bass, salmon or sea bream and fried spring or winter greens on Fridays. We have sardines and boiled eggs the other two nights.

As I don't ever have to cook, I do not complain.

Actually we could probably all list the meals we know and you'll find yours in there and ask us for recipes for the ones you don't know.

Steak
Lasagna
Chill
Mince and potatoes
Bolognese
Irish bake
Stir fry chicken/pork/her with vegetables and a variety of sauces
Roast dinners
The stir fry chicken in sour cream mentioned above
Pan fried fish
Baked salmon in caper and fennel butter
Baked white fish and bacon in a mustard dressing - this used to be our emergency dinner (because we always had bacon and frozen fish fillets) frozen white fish fillets with streaky bacon, laid flat in a shallow baking dish and drenched in a Dijon mustard dressing (I can get the full recipe) and baked in the oven for 20-25 minutes.
Pasta bake

Anyone else?

Those look wonderful - thank you @MyrtleLion!

You're welcome. It's relentless trying to find interesting food to make for the family. No wonder I just stopped.

Anyway sorry for the Typos!!!

Chill should be chilli

her should be beef (no, I don't know either!)

And there's always ready meals, pizzas, burgers and fish finger sandwiches.

I do a lot of slow cooker casseroles at this time of year. Never to a recipe but I have trusted combinations of ingredients. Can usually get a spare portion or two for the freezer, and any leftover sauce either gets liquidised for soup or used as the basis for a pasta bake.

We The Walrus actually does the roast in a slow cooker.

I'm going to Hobbycraft to buy buttons for the cardigans and 4ply yarn. Is 45 minutes enough time? I have a hospital appointment afterwards.

45 minutes in Hobbycraft? hmmmm... it'll be a bit tight, but you should come out with the buttons, yarn, and a few other other 'necessities'😂

Hope the hospital appt goes OK.

It's an ultrasound on my foot to see why my big toe won't bend on command.

I'll try and resist the necessities... I may fail...

I’ve got Hobbycraft on my list of things I will be able to do once I’ve got the wheelchair. I do have my suspicions that dh will try to wheel me swiftly past all the yarn! 😂😂😂

Thought I’d just say hello. I’m working today and am in the middle of a ten hour shift. Just wolfing down something to eat before recommencing. And I need to do a food shop tonight, so it’s a disappointing, slim pickings, sort of affair.

@MyrtleLionin the days when my grandchildren were very small and I did a lot of knitting I used to find a crochet hook the easiest way of picking up a dropped stitch. Have fun in Hobbycraft! My UK granddaughters love a trip round there.

Re cooking - I rarely think about a week’s menu in advance but occasionally if I read a new recipe I want to try I’ll buy something specially for that. Mostly I don’t use a recipe because I’ve cooked meals for over fifty years now and I know what works. DH and I have reduced our meat consumption over the last few years, mainly because he’s not much of a meat fan and wouldn’t thank you for a steak (“too chewy”) though he’s fine with burgers and sausages and chicken, but he prefers fish and vegetarian meals. We probably eat meals without meat three or four days a week. We went food shopping yesterday and the supermarket had chowder fish (random trimmings) for $8 a pound, so I bought a pound of that and made a fish chowder with sweetcorn in it for dinner last night and will reheat for dinner tonight. It’s always even better on the second day. I do like meals that will do for two days!

Other meal suggestions:
Minestrone (can be made in a huge vat; it's a meal in itself though nominally a soup)
Salmon baked with parmesan and garlic (wild garlic season is almost upon us, and I have access to a wood full of the stuff)
Chicken (or pheasant) breasts wrapped in bacon (helps moisten pheasant, which can be very dry)

You will need to get one with passenger-operated brakes, I think...

I’m a little surprised at the idea of going to Hobbycraft for yarn, @MyrtleLion .
It must be that I’m a yarn snob, well I know I am. If you have a local “wool shop” they could introduce you to expensive yarn and, while you’re there, show you how to drop a stitch and then pick it back up again.

Using a crochet hook for stocking stitch ought to be easy to someone who already knits as well as you do, and garter stitch is just one step harder. There’s nothing to beat an actual person standing next to you showing you what to do and then watching as you have a go, much better than a video.

If you send me a PM with where you live I can suggest such a shop, or maybe a knitting group to join?