h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's a very impressive list, Ben. Cream does rise to the top.

I'm closing early today so I can get my staff safely home before the drunks hit the roads. Which means this morning will be frantic. The sad thing is that I'm getting used to frantic.

Is anyone a good interpreter of dreams? I keep having the same dream about the library. I'm giving a tour of the building after renovation. It is always the same buiding in the dream, but it isn't the building we're going to have. It's much larger than the real one will be. I don't know if this means it should have been designed bigger - too late now and we can barely afford what we're getting - or if this is my subconscious telling me that the project is too big for me to handle and I'm in trouble.

Well buildings are often our selves: the house you grew up in is your innermost self, and so on. I used to get a dream where I would go into a room know about in a building I knew well, which I interpreted as being about to expand my activities into new areas.

So my guess is that your professional life is about to expand, and become much bigger than you currently expect.

What is the emotion you feel during the dream?

B

*takes the J clothe off Ben* I thought we'd got it all, but I've just found a sticky patch on the coffee table, which is a good ten feet away from the scene of the explosion.

I've just taken and picture of my roof and sent it to Hypatia, it looks a right dump in the photo, but it's very nice in real life. Well nice ish.

And I've cooked a rather nice vegie chilli concarne, Quorn mince is half price at our local Iceland y'see. Though I had to improvise when I realised I was short on tinned tomatos, and use a tin of tomato soup instead. A refused it, because Quorn mince looks like cat litter (ok that's true!)

I've always managed to Quorn mince by the sons when doing Chilli con Quorn as something we can all eat. The Quorn pieces are really useful to have in the freezer too, to do a veggie version of whatever I'm cooking, for H.

It is really hard to give up smoking around smokers and the only way I could do was to keep my hands busy .....with knitting or sewing. You aren't being unreasonable, Ben, in asking the Stepson to smoke elsewhere.

I only buy meat replacement products when they're half price, a habit I've picked upoff my parents. When they're not and I want to make a mince replacement substance I use tinned kidney beans, grated carrots and whatever veg I have around, or happens to be on cheap. In fact all any veg cut up small enough and friend makes a good mince replacement.

"...and friend makes a good mince replacement..."





B

Oh balls. Ben I can assure I would object to eating all sorts of animal - including friends

I meant fried not friend of course. Or should that be spelt fryed. Or perhaps should that be spelt spelled?

What exactly is Quom? Is it some sort of tofu or soy derivative?

I'm too, nasty cold going around. Matina, some hot tea please.

[T&R]

D'E Quorn is described as mycoprotien, it's derived from a breed of mushroom. But it tastes like meat. What's really odd about it is if you taste some before it's cooked, it tastes like "cooked" meet. Another reason why one can use finly chopped mushrooms as as cheap meat replacement substance.

I think quorn is pop corn gone wrong. Stick to Aberdeen minced beef from the Co-op...recommended.

I much prefer to go to my local butcher for things like mince - and veg as it happens as they now do a range of fresh veg as well as the more typical stuff you find in a traditional butchers shop.
Not had quorn to my knowledge before but I have been to one of those chineese vegetarian restraunts where you wouldn't be able to tell you weren't getting meat if you hadn't read the menu correctly.

*coming in from her apartments* Well, the Amurricans here may be pining for Aberdeen beef before long. I am still trying to get my head around the scope of the stupidity involved in how mad cow got started in the US.

But how can this quom or quorn stuff replace the texture of real meat?

And I see today that a special investigator has been appointed to deal with the case of the outed agent, and that our Attorney General has recused himself. How can an Attorney General recuse himself. If he thinks he's even remotely asociated with the case, shouldn't he resign?

Oh, dream on, Lil.

I think all salonistas should be told why a lemonade bottle was stabbed in Z's flat.

I confessed to snickering unpleasantly at the news that the Americans finally had reported cases of BSE. The only reason the French and Germans didn't have reported BSE cases in the late '90s was that they were not testing for BSE.

British Beef is now almost certainly the safest in the west since the whole industry is docketed, tested, checked, audited and - since foot in mouth - decimated.



I am ambling back through OTD trying to find IM addys. If I manage it, I will add y'all to my IM lists.

Ben

I've only tasted meat twice, and never managed to keep it down, but the thing that struck me about it was how much the texture wasn't like quorn. It's never been the taste that's made me rush for the bathroom whislst telling my host that whilst the meal was lovely I can't keep it down.

It's less chewy, and falls apart more easily in your mouth it's got a simalar texture to sosmix, nut roast, and flap jack. Actually quorn mince is very simalar to real mince, the only real difference is that quorn mince disolves in your mouth a couple of seconds before real mince does, and is completely grizzle free. Many vegetarians avoid it because it tastes too much like meat. Most vegi sausages are flavoured to taste of garlic, herbs, spices, beans, anything but meat really!

As for how the lemonade bottle was stabbed, well A's mother brought him back after christmas with half the contents of a supermarket. One of it was two bottles of lemonade, that were on a two for one offer, so they stuck together with some tape, this was quite difficult to get off, and he was using a vegatuble knife to cut it, and he slipped and cut the plastic bottle. For some reason this was enough to get it to explode.

[-B4-]

Ben, I feel anxious during the tour. I'm proud of the building and know it's a great accomplishment but am afraid 'they' won't like it.

I don't remember ever seeing quorm for sale in the health food stores. We can get the soy-based meat substitutes easily these days. I've never thought they actually tasted like meat though.

Z, I got the photo. Thanks.

The lemonade must have been carbonated, surely? Air pressure isn't that great in such a small bottle, I shouldn't think...

Anywho, I am sick as well. Have been sick on Sunday, with a brief reprive on Monday, and now back with all the stomach illness

I am off today at 1, 1/2 a day at work thanks to the idiocy that is New Year's. Hey, I won't be one to turn down two and 1/2 days off from w*rk.

So, will drop in if I can, otherwise see you all Monday.

Eglon, yes it was carbonated, isn't all lemonade carbonated?

Hypatia, I'm glad you got the photo, I didn't know that Quorn wasn't avaible in the US, is vegtarianism as common over there?

I'm still battling this cold but I am not going to let it ruin New Years for me. I will be hanging with Marv (imagine that), my brother and sis-in-law, and a couple of other friends.