Wordless wednesday, guess how i'm feeling

The one where I post some old poetry from the 80s

OK so my cop out, I wrote this when I was 18 or so, the world was a black and white place and I KNEW what was right and what was wrong.. Obviously now I'm a grown up (haha!) I'm no longer so sure, but despite that, and while many of my teen poems (more later if you are good!) have aged very badly, I still rather like this one. (I've copied it as I originally typed it on my typewriter! LOL all the punctuation is original!)

Tiger Tiger (with apologies to William Blake)

Tiger Tiger, shining bright,

Tell me what you see tonight,

Do you see the blood red moon?

Hear the guns they'll bring here soon?

Tiger do you smell the sweat?

Hear the rustling of the net?

See the glinting of their eyes?

Crouch so low and purr them lies.

Tiger how you loved to run,

Sniffed the moon and heard the sun.

Now you lay in aching fear,

Sense the hunters coming near.

Tiger never fear a man,

They weren't here ere you began,

You roamed the earth and paced the sun,

Don't fear man - just fear the gun.

Tiger hear a shot rings out,

There a beater, here a shout.

Crouch a little longer yet,

Stiff and cold your bones are set.

Tiger swipe with glowing paws,

Tear the men-shapes with your claws,

Kill a million; drink their blood;

Feel the bullet; taste the mud.

Tiger proudly on a wall,

Your head displayed for one and all.

The snarl that killed one hundred soldiers

Looked much better on your shoulders.

Watching the BBC show, Lost land of the Tigers, last night made me remember this poem. and @verymuchreality made me brave enough to blog it

Wordless Wednesday : It's September

Wordless Wednesday

Wean me gently, a poem about breastfeeding..................

This is a poem by Cathy Cardall it was brought to my attention by @radicalactivist -  and I love it and wanted to share! (it made me all weepy at the end)

Wean me gently

I know I look so big to you,

Maybe I seem too big for the needs I have.

But no matter how big we get,

We still have needs that are important to us.

I know that our relationship is growing and changing,

But I still need you. I need your warmth and closeness,

Especially at the end of the day

When we snuggle up in bed.

Please don't get too busy for us to nurse.

I know you think I can be patient,

Or find something to take the place of a nursing;

A book, a glass of something,

But nothing can take your place when I need you.

Sometimes just cuddling with you,

Having you near me is enough.

I guess I am growing and becoming independent,

But please be there.

This bond we have is so strong and so important to me,

Please don't break it abruptly.

Wean me gently,

Because I am your mother,

And my heart is tender.

The one where everyone was surprised...

I am not a vegetarian.

I have been, for about a month, but it’s not for me. Fair do’s to those of you that are. I know many reasons why I should be a vegetarian, kindness to animals, saving the planet, health etc etc. But I am not one. My teeth and my gut as designed for an omnivore, I enjoy meat. I have killed animals with my bare hands (yes really) and I have visited slaughterhouses, and battery chicken sheds (yes really). I try to ensure my meat is as ethically sourced as possible, but I don’t do without it.

Just ask a chimp! Fruit and leaves are all very well but there is nothing like a freshly ripped apart colobus monkey, still twitching and bleeding, to really get the old saliva flowing! (I haven’t actually ever eaten colobus, just to keep things straight and true )

(Warning disturbing images)

Any way now you know the background.

This lunchtime I did the unforgiveable (and the predictable) and tweeted what I had for lunch. I had no idea it would provoke such a flurry (ha ha McFlurry?) of replies.

Here is the tweet

“had the vegetarian option at mcdonalds. i've never done that before”

Now the main reaction was surprise, not surprise that I’d chosen it (though given what you now know about me you may find that surprising) but surprise that McDonald’s even had a vege option.(I am based in the UK BTW – no idea if other countries have a similar menu)

For years I’ve visited the Wimpy bar and been a fan of the Spicy Bean Burger- first served in 1985 - (no where near as much fun as odering a Bender in a Bun though), and lots of other burger places have a vege burger option, either Quorn or bean based, so it was now my turn to be amazed, amazed that so many vegetarians seemed not to know of the option.

@fashionpony said “Is there a vegetarian option? Who knew”

@linedwards said “what's the veg option....?”

@thinkbabytweets said “there's a vegetarian option at mcdonalds?!?”

So a discussion ensued.

Now it may be that due to the way this junk food is cooked, no part of it (even the fries) is really ’vegetarian’; as there is mixing up of the products before, during and after cooking, but at least it’s a start. Maybe as consumers vegetarians should CHOOSE to eat at places that don’t seemt to cater well for them, demand what you want, show theses places that there is MONEY to be made from vegetarian consumers. Stop preaching (and no not specifically you dear reader, but pressure groups and the like) and start buying!!

And now, what was the Deli of the day actually like? Well it was bean based (not Quorn or Soya based) but very tasty. Crispy crumb coating covering a “spicy veggie patty made from a blend of chickpeas with coriander and cumin,” served in a bun with lettuce etc. It was really not bad, considering there was no colobus.

NB apparently the Vege option at McDonalds is “Not available in the Tyne Tees or Anglia regions.” I wonder why? Get in there and start asking!!

How old is too old? (or 'sniff it and see')

Every now and again on Twitter someone says they have chucked away a yoghurt 3 days past the 'use by' date, or asks if bread 2 days past the sell by date is OK to eat or........well you get the idea. They want to know if they can safely consume an item of food that seems to be saying  

NO! DON'T EAT ME, YESTERDAY I WAS FINE 

BUT TODAY I AM FILLED WITH POISONOUS BACTERIA 

THAT WILL KILL YOU IN AN INSTANT 

WITH PAIN YOU CAN ONLY IMAGINE 

or something like that anyway.

I am old enough to know that expiry dates are a fairly new invention. Yes young people you read that right, we have not always been told when food is 'past it's best'. For hundreds, indeed thousands of years we used our own judgement! We looked at things, smelled them, touched them and decided 'is it still good'? (* when I say 'we' I do not, obviously, mean me! I mean the human race, I'm not thousands of years old, or hundreds come to that!)

And in some cases we still do. While supermarkets may wrap your vegetables in a plastic bag with a sticker proclaiming 'use by 9 Feb 2010' your local green grocer is unlikely to do the same, my local green grocer sells cucumbers, they are long and firm and green and that's it! I have to fondle the cucumber and decide how fresh it is! Is it soft? getting limp? then I'll ask if it's discounted or buy a firmer one! (are you all right? some of you appear a little flushed?)

Likewise my butcher does not put 'use by' dates on his pork products, i have to admire his loins and decide if they are fresh, are they greenish in hue? Do they smell? If not, I'm happy, a pink fresh loin is most women's dream, as are his sausages and his faggots! but I digress.

Until 1973 no stores in the UK used best before dates at all! And it was Marks and Spencer that began the trend purely as a marketing technique, to show how 'fresh' their food was! Of course all other food sellers leapt on to the bandwagon to be sure and keep up with the new trend.

It's true that some foods nowadays are hard to see. How can I tell if a tin of beans is 'fresh' or if a carton of orange juice is? and the simple answer is of course that I can't, like the rest of society I rely to some degree on labelling of the packets, but wouldn't it be easier to tell me when it was packed rather than a use by date? When I bake a cake I estimate how long it will last (bad example - 10 minutes in my house) by the date it was baked and then I use judgement.

When I open a loaf of bread and it had a patch of mould on it, I tear off the blue bit and toast the bread! I only throw away the whole loaf if it's more mould than loaf or if the flavour is totally tainted. Marmite can disguise a multitude of tastes.

And yoghurt is gone off milk! As is cheese, it can't go off! Sniff it! how does it smell? I've often eaten yoghurts 2 weeks past their 'use by' dates with no ill effects at all. And cheese can usually just have the mould cut off - after all cheddar is often already 24 months old by the time you buy it! So why would another month make any difference?

But I'm not alone, I am aware that many of you eat food that you have judged to be OK. Just remember it's a skill, learn it, pass it on, don't be afraid, trust your instincts.  My good friend Donna on Twitter sent me this handy link to get you started.

And don't come crying back here if you get sick.


Remember that this advice is just from a boring old person, not anyone clever and don't take risks with the elderly, the very young or the infirm. (No testing mouldy yoghurt out on your granny!)

PS   A website called Love Food Hate Waste perpetuates the myth by saying NEVER eat food past the use by date, which is just silly IMO. They even tell you 'if it looks fine, still throw it away!  I still say that for cheese and many other products this is ridiculous.


If you would like to buy some out of date food to practice on - look here for some cheap deals. Yes indeedy, an online retailer that specialises in old food!

I get all critical

So last night I went to Zizzi  in Brighton. A beautiful location by the Marina, and as Zizzi is a chain you know that the prices are reasonable and the food OK too. We initially sat outside, after waiting 5 minutes for a waitress to notice us by the ‘Wait here to be seated’ sign, and show us to a table. We rapidly moved inside to escape the wasps.

The service was slow. Very slow. The waitress was helpful and polite but struggled to understand my Canadian friends' orders, because the waitress herself did not have English as a first language.

The mussel starter was spicy and interesting, enough mussels to share, and we all enjoyed them. Zizzi have a strange policy of selling you bread rather than providing it, free bread is something I expect at a restaurant, so we chose a mixed bread starter to share as well. The bread was….bread, some with olives, or olive oil, handy to mop up the sauce from the mussels.

Main courses were chosen and once ordered (helloooooo waitress?....) arrived promptly, with fresh parmesan if required, a nice touch.

My lasagne was tasty but sloppy, far too sloppy and the pasta was so soft as to be totally unnoticeable, in fact maybe it was the worlds first pastaless lasagne! There were, of course, no discernable layers to the lasagne. Garfield would have wept. My good friend Alison over at Love, Laughs and Life after the Big C makes a far superior lasagne.

My friends man had a pizza, which looked fine, if a little dry. He didn’t complain but men rarely do in my experience.

My friend had the Ravioli with pesto and pine nuts and it looked by far the best choice (although even then it looked a little oily). It was a classic ‘I wish I’d ordered that’ moment.

Drinks choices for the teetotal were limited. No ginger beer which is never a good sign in my opinion, and as usual glasses of bottled orange and apple, no ‘freshly squeezed’ options. (California has spoiled me) I settled for tomato juice (and wasn't offered tabasco or Worcester sauce as additions) and my friend had an Appletiser.

Desserts were better, more interesting choices and nice combinations. I had Pannacotta with fruit, my friends had cherry and almond tart and Zabaione respectively, and both were nice, but the zabaione proved too rich to finish (to be fair I think I could have finished it!), while the cherry tart was the best option, leaving us all wanting more.

So for £20 a head we had pleasant meal, not great, not terrible. The service needs to snap to it a bit, waitresses should be there when I need them, not hiding out the back somewhere, they should be watching tables, not me having to hunt for them. (my friend had to get up and walk the restaurant to find someone to request the bill!)

Here’s hoping you enjoyed my first ever restaurant review. I don’t see a career as a food critic but maybe it’ll help someone in their choice of eating places..

Special offer vouchers for Zizzi available at http://www.zizzi-offers.co.uk/