Vaguely vegetarian

Sausages, bangers, whatever you want to call them, they're a popular dish wherever you go. Being something of a purist, I tend to shy away from the cheap supermarket ... things. If you look at the ingredients, there may be so much cereal filler in there that you might as well call it a loaf.

However, if you are talking about vegetarian sausages, that is a different thing. While I enjoy meat, I admit that you can find a decent veggie banger.

Er... no. not that one

THAT'S more like it.

We were discussing the merits of vegetarian sausages a while back, and Julie had this to offer on their origin.

Whu...?
It took me a while, but then I realised that Julie was under the impression that these were sausages made from vegetarian animals...

What a sausage!

It's been long known that much of the British sense of humour is based around the use of double-entendres. Many an innocent comment has been countered with, "...as the actress said to the bishop." My own take on this is the modern version, "...that's what she said."

It's truly amazing just how even the most banal and incontrovertible comment can be retroactively altered by one of those two phrases. Best of all, to my mind, is that you can utter the punchline with no real aim, but to prove to the world that you are still breathing. However, the magic then takes place in the mind of the first speaker. Suddenly, their mind is now working overtime, trying to work out what on earth was smutty about what they said. Often, that person somehow manages to take it even further than was intended by the joker. I have often been surprised at the turn of mind that people take - even when I'm barely aware that I actually replied to their original sentence...

Funny how peoples' minds work, ain't it?

Of course, I have now managed to reach some sort of plateau of meta-smuttiness, where I now no longer have to say anything. I may assume a certain expression, but normally, people who know me will find themselves either cringing at what they just said (expecting my input - even if I'm not there!), or slowly, haltingly picking their words with exaggerated care.

At this point, I will state in my defence that I'm not like this all the time, despite popular belief - and any evidence to the contrary. Yes, I do take great enjoyment in wordplay, from puns to well-crafted sentences. However, I'm also a bit of a daydreamer, so when I'm in company and someone has carelessly let free a sentence that couldn't be more open if it had major surgery, I don't always react. In fact, the first I will know of such a situation is the silence of people all looking at me, waiting for my input. And all I'd say would be, "...what?"

As you will have no doubt noticed, I'm not entirely alone in this mindset. Julie, in fact, surprises even me with comments, and even I am not immune to setting myself up...

So, back to last Saturday, that soggy day. It was the first Saturday we had really managed to get together for a while, and we were determined to make a day of it. We had intended to go to Brighton and browse the shops in the Lanes, but the severity of the rain meant that we would have wound up soaking wet, even with ducking in and out of places. Thus it was we wound up driving around Kent - again. It's a great place for a pootle, lots of little towns and villages to stop in and have a cup of tea.

Our ultimate destination was one we have visited many times before. It's a little distant (by British terms, as opposed to other countries, perhaps), but Macknade's Fine Foods is well worth it. It's an amazing food hall, with an emphasis on local foods and delicatessen foods. There is also a great little cafe which usually has soy milk. Furthermore, despite the overly hipster feel of the place, the food is tasty, comes in decent quantities and isn't overly pricey. We've never had more than a slice of cake there (gluten free too!), but it's normally been plenty to keep us going until our evening meal.

Just part of the food hall. The cafe would be behind the photographer.

In the car park, we were sat in the car with the doors open, enjoying a brief respite from the rain, and just watching the world go by. We began picking up on small details around us; this registration plate on a car, that toddler with her panda hat, complete with ears - and a man leaving the shop with a bag in his arms, out of which was poking a number of very long, very thing and very wrinkled ... sausages?

Well played, love. Well played.

For the curious, this is what kabanos look like, although these are relatively wrinkle-free.

A meaty slice of carrot cake.

Julie, by her own admission, isn't an adventurous cook. Much of it is down to her upbringing; her family always went for burgers and potatoes, sausages and chips, etc etc. The exception to this was a massive fondness for a roast dinner and a penchant for fruit cakes. Julie has picked this up brilliantly and makes a fruit cake which is requested whenever my folks come to visit. Considering my Mum's cooking and baking skills, this is high praise indeed.
Mum's cooking isn't haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine or even Gordon Ramsay (for which we are all grateful), but she likes to have a go at most things. In her time, she has cooked everything from steaks all the way to a full Chinese banquet in lieu of a traditional Christmas dinner. Well, everyone gets fed up with turkey after a while, don't they? My mum's specialities are a corking sherry trifle and a lasagne that is so popular, my sister requested two dishes of it as part of her day-after-the-wedding party. I would have said it was funny to see everyone not in the know watching the scrum for a piece of it, but I wouldn't know. I was too busy elbowing someone out of the way.

Back to Julie. As I say, I do like a roast meal cooked by her; the roast spuds are usually pretty damn good. And the cake? Well, you know of that already. However, don't bother asking for herbs or spices in anything. That side of things will be down to me. While Julie likes the taste of them, she doesn't quite have the confidence to experiment herself; the best she will usually manage is a healthy dose of Worcestershire Sauce. Usually this is great - but not in porridge (don't ask). If you ask Julie about her culinary skills, she will usually sum it up this way...

In other words, don't bother asking Julie to get with the fussy green bits and wotnot. Let her bake a cake - she's happy then. (Admittedly, sausages aren't that difficult, but when I do them, I like to get a decent sausage, not a meat-flavoured loaf. My fussiness throws her off)

She's one colour short of a roulette wheel.

It's been a while, so I thought we could treat you all to another Trivial Pursuit-inspired Gem. (for the others, check out 'Trivial Pursuit' in the labels section to the right.)
No preamble to this one, just dive right in and treat it like a cold lake. Once you're in, you won't have a problem and you'll come to enjoy it immensely.

I'll be honest, it was touch and go whether I used the 'facepalm' header for this one, considering how adamant Julie had been about her answer to my hint. However, I knew I was going to have to provide an explanation of sorts, so I ran with the T.P. one instead.
The explanation, for those of you about as familiar with the layout of a roulette wheel as my wife obviously appears to be, is that there are simply no white slots on the wheel. The colour green, however, does make an appearance - or two, if you're using an American wheel. Oh, and apologies to all those colour-blind folk out there. Green and Red? Not a good combination. Sorry.

What makes Julie's final comment a Gem is the juxtaposition of assuredness in the first part, only for it to turn into a fail at the last. Oh well.


p.s. - Remember that Gem about sausages? Well, as I said, they were pork with garden herbs and lemon. And I've just had the last of them in a sandwich with some wholegrain mustard. Rather yummy.

Cooking up an explanation - Spooner-style.

I am a great fan of the good old British sausage. I am a bit fussy though. Silly me, really, for expecting a meat sausage to contain more than 60% proper meat and not various dubious chewy bits and half a bowl of breakfast cereal to pad it out. So, the (relatively) recent arrival in town of a proper pie and sausage shop run by butchers filled me with great delight.
My wallet, on the other hand was Sh***ing bricks.
Last Saturday, we were a little late getting into town and was further delayed in crossing the town centre by the presence of my favourite Blues busker, Slim Lightfoot. Consequently, when we reached this shop, stocks were running low on their early closing day. When I was made a fairly lucrative deal on some lemon and garden herb pork bangers, my mouth and stomach managed to operate my hand and arm all by themselves. A dozen fine sausages were mine.

Unfortunately, Saturday was hot. Damn hot. Not the sort of day you want to be wandering around with twelve bangers in your backpack.* So, all in jest, I said to Julie....

Yes folks, Reverend Spooner is alive and well and currently inhabiting my wife's body.

*Is it me, or would "Twelve bangers in your backpack" be an absolutely brilliant book or rock album title?

Eye love edible geometry

For some reason probably best forgotten, me and Julie were discussing words containing the letter 'I'. It was all going swimmingly until Julie suddenly hit 'stream-of-consciousness ramble mode'. Since there's no way of following what she says in these situations (and even less chance of stopping her, usually), I tend to sit back and enjoy the show.

This time, though, Julie was more than partway coherent and started listing words and using phrases with large amounts of 'I's, until she reached...

Um... quite.