What a Tosser
Jif Lemon Day, as my friend Viv calls it, is upon up again and I must admit that although I have both lemon and lime juice in my fridge, it is unlikely that I’ll be using it today. We will be having pancakes for dinner, but something a little more substantial than lemon and sugar is required for a main course. There seems to be a peculiar notion in this country that pancakes are a sweet dish, whereas there are so many possibilities to stuff them with savoury fillings. To this end, I’ll be making chilli later and we’ll be having that in pancakes, topped with cheese and sour cream. The plan was to have chilli with rice on Monday and use the matured and slightly drier leftovers for the pancakes today, but the perpetual chicken* has made everything slip again.
*lasting a record 6 days (8 elapsed thanks to a Chinese New Year takeaway on Friday and an indulgent Rugby pizza on Sunday)
We are constantly being conned by advertising, however savvy we think we are about such things. Whether it is the latest must-have gadget or the game that everyone is playing or some new fad or other that a year ago we wouldn’t have been seen dead in/with, but now the Jo Celeb has endorsed it, we must have one too. Yes, we are all suckered in to that herd mentality of believing the hype somewhere along the line. I don’t give a stuff about celebrity endorsement (I don’t even know who half of them are anyway) and if everyone is wearing/doing it, I’d rather not be, so I do not fall for such things. So how did I get caught, you ask? Simply this: believing that buying bags for a vacuum cleaner was an inconvenience, at least, a greater inconvenience than getting covered in dust every time I have to empty a bagless one.
I have noticed that the leftovers bandwagon is trundling along nicely at present. All the big foodie blogs are writing about how to use up your leftovers, as if the idea of doing so was some amazing, new and previously unconsidered discovery. As far as this household is concerned, NOT throwing away food is the norm, as it was when I was growing up. Maybe the odd, almost empty jar of something that has been lurking at the back of the fridge or cupboard gets tossed out occasionally, but otherwise it is only packaging and bones that end up in the bin.
