Well, we have long blocks here in the Outback of Virginia, so I’ll be gone for a few days. I’ve packed ample supplies of haggis and surströmming for the journey. I won’t faint for lack of sustenance.
There will be no news feed until I return.
While I’m gone, Dymphna will be keeping watch from the battlements. She’ll crank up the crossbow and upend cauldrons of burning oil whenever necessary — so watch out!
Hope you have a strong stomach!
He’s been eating my cooking for a looong time and has managed to survive. Can’t get him to eat liver, though.
Besides, he experienced four years of English cuisine – now there’s an oxymoron for you.
I can picture the Baron in plus fours and Norfolk Jacket + deerstalker, with cleft stick in hand and hobnail boots tramping the Blue Ridge looking for the lonesome pine……
and the word is ‘nosh’ – British nosh! it takes the ‘oxy’ out of the situation
I think you will find that English cuisine is better than bog standard American junk food.
Living amongst Americans as I do, I find American ‘Junk food’ delicious; Stew is an ex-U.S. Army catering Sgt., we could have done with him in the RN.
(btw, he is addicted to Big Macs – strange….)
MC, My father was a chef in the RN and it is true that the poor old skates were served rather a lot of stodge in their diet – I’m surprised that you haven’t yet had the mandatory heart attack.
Bless you Dymphna, I’ve not laughed so much for a while (I also strongly suspect that you sell your own creations short).
Of course “English” cuisine in 1950s (?) Yorkshire, when the Baron was there (and, I believe, in a public, ie private, school, poor boy) had likely not been challenged by the more flavoursome offerings available in restaurants in the big cities, run by immigrants or their descendants, eg Jews, Italians (many stayed after WW2) and Chinese, let alone the revolution in middle-class home cooking launched by Elizabeth David’s championing of French cuisine, which reintroduced us to garlic (oddly discarded a century or so ago).
Without defending the dubious alleged benefits of multiculturalism in general, the culinary enrichment has continued with the spread of Middle Eastern, South Asian and Caribbean food. Peter, below, has a point about bog standard American junk food, but a really good burger is worthy to stand against any competition from other cultures.
As for Dymphna – a quote from Ammianus Marcellinus:
“… A whole troop of foreigners would not be able to withstand a single Gaul if he called his wife to his assistance who is usually very strong and with blue eyes..”
Alfonse Rispoli: by the way, Ammianus Marcellinus is an excellent croniquer of the late Roman decadence, like people just fun- loving,no time for children,spending time having their hair curled up and so on, welcoming strangers into the country….. does that ring any bells?
Dymphna, funny how people think you cannot stand on your own,eh?. You are the essence of standing on your own. I have been reading your thoughts for a while an they should be put in a book. You are a writer in your own right. The Baron is a writer in his own right. The two of you together, well set off the fireworks. Maybe the world just isn’t ready for you two. But Dyhmna, with her thin kings, almost homilies, sketches of your life, maybe as something to keep by our beds, hallmark, I oft think of Dymphma sayings. Herthoughts about the annoying tree come to mind, I have a catalpa tree which annoys me, but DYmna rises to poetry.
What wonderful things to say! Did someone think I couldn’t stand on my own? Relatives don’t count.
Of course when the Baron is away like this, the number of posts drop precipitously, and there’s no news feed. But then he’d have had to marry another programmer to find someone able to do *that*…the mail gets behind too.
I do think that when one of us shuffles off this mortal coil, I ought to be allowed to go first. He is more robust than I, better able to take the slings and arrows. Moi, there are too many days I resemble Saint Sebastian…
…a famous gay icon, I understand, but let’s not go there.
As a mere 66-year-old, in moderately good health, it worries me that you & the Baron may not outlast me, in part because of your valuable work here, but also, while having no time for people with “Facebook Friends” (how many would attend one’s funeral?), the two of you are part of my life, in a way that, say, Pat Condell or Robert Spencer will never be- even though we may never meet, and I have “real” friends whom I see (mostly sad Leftists like myself). Maybe that’s weird, or sentimental, and we’re unlikely ever to agree about many issues, but I must speak as I find.
Now you and the baron must get over that British cuisine is horrible, it is simply as horrible as I is all around the world. Sometimes we read a menu and wonder…..WHy?¡ Why, would any self repeating chef put those ingredients together. That would be up to him. No reason, just a trial to see who would be stupid enough to eat it, or try it. I have seen some pretty silly concoctions lately. Chefs should stick to cooking.