Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Porcupines
The recent story about not wanting fish to be too fresh turned out to be a porcupine, or at least a hedgehog. The man from Hastings assures me that the fresher the better, with the exception of skate, which, for some reason he did not expose, needs to stand for a day or so before eating. He was confident that this applied to neither cod nor plaice, these being the subject of the previous conversation.
Oddly enough, considering that the econuts have suddenly started on about bottled water, I have been thinking about buying the stuff. The problem being that the scums and stains from hard water are rather unsightly when drinking feeble tea without milk, as I do. So story 1, was that buying large bottles of the cheapest bottled water from Mr S, at say 50p for 2 litres, was a lot cheaper and simpler than messing around with water purifiers. To this one has to add the cost of a clean kettle (and the label to tie to the handle instructing prospective users not to use it for tap water) - and we learn that the thoughtful Mr S does these for £5 - a good deal less than most hardware stores. So, at 2 litres a day (less tea than I have been doing over the last year) one comes to £105 for 200 days. BH then starts waving the Brita flag and we start to take some interest in that, worrying the while about what chemicals Mr B is putting back into the water to replace those that he is taking out. We learn from his web site and others that the whole subject of water is fertile ground for the healthnuts. Lots of articles with long words about the healthy way to clean and consume one's water. The upshot of which it seems that the best gadget is something which filters the water - a process with the fancy name of reverse osmosis and which just takes out without putting in. (I am reminded of the seive stacks we used to use for breaking down tar macadam and concrete. Coarse at the top and fine at the bottom, these last being so fine that they looked more like a very thin sheet of copper rather than a seive. Very expensive they were said to be too. At which point Mr G reveals all in a few keystrokes. http://www.retsch.com/ seems to be the place for the finest German seives. Prices on application but I would guess that a seive is at least £100. Presumably the water filters use a miniturised version). In any event, this gadget costs £500 or more, depending on how many hundreds of gallons a day one wants to purify. They don't seem to come in tabletop version. So no question of that. Then, luckily, we find some weasel words on the Brita web site about how they replace bad ions with hydrogen ions which sound much healthier than sodium ones. So maybe the Brita premium jug will have it at £35 plus £30 for a years supply of the magic potion plus £5 for the new kettle and 5p for the label. Watch this space.
PS I guess I should say that I think that the econuts do have a point. It does not really seem very clever to be selling lots of differant kinds of bottled water when we have reasonable water coming out of the tap. Particularly since, I believe, it is largely a fashion thing fuelled by clever advertising rather than any real concern about the quality of said tap water. And the hard water sold around here is supposed to be very good for the heart.
The kitchen has been close to the heart this week, another topic of conversation being the unit which contains the sink, the refridgerator and the washing machine. This unit, acquired from Peter Jones perhaps 15 years ago is now showing signs of its age. The carcase needs further maintenance (one panel has already been replaced with a fine slice of pitch pine which will probably now last a lot longer than the rest of the thing) and the veneer on the worktop has worn away from the front of the sink. Only a matter of time before the water starts to soak into the chipboard substrate and the end will be nigh. After a not very helpful visit to John Lewis, a very helpful man at Leatherhead B&Q almost sells us a replacement unit. At the last moment, credit card twitching, we notice that the proposed replacement in only 600mm deep - compared with our existing 660mm. No B&Q do not do 660mm and he was not allowed to say who might. Beyond that fact that the name might start with an I. So end of valiant attempt. Next thought is to visit Mr King in Tooting and buy a bit of stainless steel (96cm by 9cm) to slap around the affected bit of worktop. So off we go. Bit of stainless steel costs £7.50, cut to size with no ragged or sharp edges, nice bit of sticky plastic protecting the satin finish, the only catch being that it was around 1mm thick, rather thicker than I had intended. Turned out to be a real swine to bend around the top edge of the worktop, the resultant job being rather less neat than I had hoped, despite the intervention of sundry bits of timber, G-cramps and rubber hammers. But I now know that panel beaters do indeed earn their money. Next problem was drilling the fixing holes. Despite the box saying something about tungsten tips, the drilling was more a case of melting one's way through the stainless steel and the resultant hole was a bit bigger than intended. Countersinking seemed to go a bit quicker although the countersink bit I used will not be much good for anything else now. But new shiny edge to the worktop, covering up the hole in the veneer, is now in place. Screws held into the chipboard (never very confident about the screw holding ability of chipboard, even the high density stuff said to be sold by John Lewis) with unibond and bath sealent along the front of the steel to keep the water out. B for attainment and A for effort I think. We will see how long it keeps the subject of kitchen replacements off the agenda.
Tried the corned-beef pasties from Cheam yesterday for the first time. Not unlike the ordinary eating pasty experience - that is to say, starts off well but one has had enough of the thing by the time one has finished. Somehow the hit from the spice on the mouth seems to grow as one gets through the thing and by the end the whole effect is very spicy. Also, in this case, the texture of the hot corned beef and onion did not seem quite right in a pastry envelope. Too smooth; too much like hot fish paste and one missed the various lumps and bumps of a proper pasty. So it will be a little while before we try that again.
Oddly enough, considering that the econuts have suddenly started on about bottled water, I have been thinking about buying the stuff. The problem being that the scums and stains from hard water are rather unsightly when drinking feeble tea without milk, as I do. So story 1, was that buying large bottles of the cheapest bottled water from Mr S, at say 50p for 2 litres, was a lot cheaper and simpler than messing around with water purifiers. To this one has to add the cost of a clean kettle (and the label to tie to the handle instructing prospective users not to use it for tap water) - and we learn that the thoughtful Mr S does these for £5 - a good deal less than most hardware stores. So, at 2 litres a day (less tea than I have been doing over the last year) one comes to £105 for 200 days. BH then starts waving the Brita flag and we start to take some interest in that, worrying the while about what chemicals Mr B is putting back into the water to replace those that he is taking out. We learn from his web site and others that the whole subject of water is fertile ground for the healthnuts. Lots of articles with long words about the healthy way to clean and consume one's water. The upshot of which it seems that the best gadget is something which filters the water - a process with the fancy name of reverse osmosis and which just takes out without putting in. (I am reminded of the seive stacks we used to use for breaking down tar macadam and concrete. Coarse at the top and fine at the bottom, these last being so fine that they looked more like a very thin sheet of copper rather than a seive. Very expensive they were said to be too. At which point Mr G reveals all in a few keystrokes. http://www.retsch.com/ seems to be the place for the finest German seives. Prices on application but I would guess that a seive is at least £100. Presumably the water filters use a miniturised version). In any event, this gadget costs £500 or more, depending on how many hundreds of gallons a day one wants to purify. They don't seem to come in tabletop version. So no question of that. Then, luckily, we find some weasel words on the Brita web site about how they replace bad ions with hydrogen ions which sound much healthier than sodium ones. So maybe the Brita premium jug will have it at £35 plus £30 for a years supply of the magic potion plus £5 for the new kettle and 5p for the label. Watch this space.
PS I guess I should say that I think that the econuts do have a point. It does not really seem very clever to be selling lots of differant kinds of bottled water when we have reasonable water coming out of the tap. Particularly since, I believe, it is largely a fashion thing fuelled by clever advertising rather than any real concern about the quality of said tap water. And the hard water sold around here is supposed to be very good for the heart.
The kitchen has been close to the heart this week, another topic of conversation being the unit which contains the sink, the refridgerator and the washing machine. This unit, acquired from Peter Jones perhaps 15 years ago is now showing signs of its age. The carcase needs further maintenance (one panel has already been replaced with a fine slice of pitch pine which will probably now last a lot longer than the rest of the thing) and the veneer on the worktop has worn away from the front of the sink. Only a matter of time before the water starts to soak into the chipboard substrate and the end will be nigh. After a not very helpful visit to John Lewis, a very helpful man at Leatherhead B&Q almost sells us a replacement unit. At the last moment, credit card twitching, we notice that the proposed replacement in only 600mm deep - compared with our existing 660mm. No B&Q do not do 660mm and he was not allowed to say who might. Beyond that fact that the name might start with an I. So end of valiant attempt. Next thought is to visit Mr King in Tooting and buy a bit of stainless steel (96cm by 9cm) to slap around the affected bit of worktop. So off we go. Bit of stainless steel costs £7.50, cut to size with no ragged or sharp edges, nice bit of sticky plastic protecting the satin finish, the only catch being that it was around 1mm thick, rather thicker than I had intended. Turned out to be a real swine to bend around the top edge of the worktop, the resultant job being rather less neat than I had hoped, despite the intervention of sundry bits of timber, G-cramps and rubber hammers. But I now know that panel beaters do indeed earn their money. Next problem was drilling the fixing holes. Despite the box saying something about tungsten tips, the drilling was more a case of melting one's way through the stainless steel and the resultant hole was a bit bigger than intended. Countersinking seemed to go a bit quicker although the countersink bit I used will not be much good for anything else now. But new shiny edge to the worktop, covering up the hole in the veneer, is now in place. Screws held into the chipboard (never very confident about the screw holding ability of chipboard, even the high density stuff said to be sold by John Lewis) with unibond and bath sealent along the front of the steel to keep the water out. B for attainment and A for effort I think. We will see how long it keeps the subject of kitchen replacements off the agenda.
Tried the corned-beef pasties from Cheam yesterday for the first time. Not unlike the ordinary eating pasty experience - that is to say, starts off well but one has had enough of the thing by the time one has finished. Somehow the hit from the spice on the mouth seems to grow as one gets through the thing and by the end the whole effect is very spicy. Also, in this case, the texture of the hot corned beef and onion did not seem quite right in a pastry envelope. Too smooth; too much like hot fish paste and one missed the various lumps and bumps of a proper pasty. So it will be a little while before we try that again.
# posted by Jim @ 11:16 PM 
