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I don’t give a crap about Big Brother

Tags: crap, Big Brother

So we have a new “Limited Edition” at McDonalds. A Deluxe burger with or without bacon and a side order of Chunky Chips.

As people who know me will testify I likes me some burger. However although my youngest daughter is a devotee of the Golden Arches, I myself am a Burger King fan. Their XL Bacon Double Cheeseburgers are Sublime. They have also introduced a “Dark” Whopper, which I shall sample and review soon.

That said I do go into McD’s more often than BK for two reasons:- 1, When out for fast food I am usually with the afore-mentioned child and therefore it’s her choice. B, Distance. I do not own a car and BK is a good 30mins away on foot and no burger is worth walking that much. Similarly, Maccy’s is also 30mins walk away to either of the two on the retail parks. One is next to BK and the other KFC. There is however a Maccy’s in town, a mere 10mins away but that particular outlet is very poor. The staff are rude, the food either cold and/or badly presented and the restaurant itself is usually filthy. Best avoided then.

Anywho, McDonalds Limited Edition Deluxe with Bacon, and I quote “This great tasting burger is made with a 100% beef, smoked bacon rashes, a slice of mature cheddar cheese, Batavia lettuce, sliced tomato, grilled onions, tomato relish and garlic mayo, all on a lightly toasted ciabatta roll.”

If asked to describe a typical burger, be it a quarter pounder or big mac, I mainly say one word - “WET”. They use too much sauce - it’s usually beyond the capabilities of a typical serving person to order and then serve one sans sauce and not worth the hassle/wait that ensues - and the meat is very greasy. Having been cooked on a hot plate the grease from the meat just sits there and consequently gets included in your burger, and on it if truth be told. You open up the box or paper wrapper and its basically swimming in grease. Not good.

But all hail the Deluxe. Whether I entered the building on the day someone who knew how to cook was on shift I know not, but the damn thing was delicious. Nice and dry, just the right amount of sauce. It even, and I’m not joking here, looked like the picture above. Yes a burger from McDonalds that looks like the photo used to represent it. Joy.

It was the best burger I have had in a long time. If this is the sign of the times I will not begrudge the weekly trips to the home of the Big Mac (thats another issue, mainly for trading standards ‘cos it ain’t in any way shape or form “Big”)

It didn’t fall apart, the ciabatta roll being more substantial than the usual crappy bun and there being a reasonable amount of sauce rather than the soaking mass of crap and fat that usually befall a McBurger. I could actually taste the meat as well. Delicious.

Chunky Chips. Man are these great. I like McDonald’s fries for what they are, French Fries. Not chips as explained in a previous post. These Chunky Chips are Fat Fries and delicious with it. For once they were hot, which is nice, and also crispy and dry. I actually imagined them to be like the oven chips you get at KFC, i.e. crap. But no they are great. I do hope they decide to keep them on the menu.

All in all a great meal was had by me. So now I go through the Golden Arches with a renewed sense of a meal that will be worth eating. Roll on Friday.

Knowing my luck the second encounter will be just as bad as normal!

Tags: McDonalds, Deluxe, burger, Chunky Chips, Bacon

Ice Skating is not a pastime for the fat and unfit person, such as me, with creaky knees, worn out joints and muscles that haven’t been used since childhood.

That is the conclusion I have come to after going Ice Skating last Saturday. You see, daughter the first decided yet again it would be a good idea to have another annual birthday. Why kids and women insist on having a birthday every year is beyond me!

Because I am generally a nice bloke - and to have a quiet life - I was inclined to acquiesce to her request to go Skating. I haven’t done any form of skating, be it Ice or Roller, for roughly 14 years. That performance all those years ago, if memory serves, was diabolical – and I’m being generous here.

Before I go into rant mode and complain a lot, I want to state categorically I had a great time. Even falling over and making a complete TIT of myself was a laugh. The kids loved it, I loved it, Granddad – the kids not mine! – loved it. A great day was had by all. Well worth the aches and pains I feel now, three days later.

Now to make matters worse, both kids have never been Ice Skating. But the little buggers took to it like they were born on the Ice. The boots, albeit the hire ones made of hard plastic and guaranteed to cause much agony and foot deformations, neither hurt nor loosened for the full two and a half hours we were there, which is good. The last thing I want is some lump of crap blue plastic hurting my babies. I say babies which is a daft because they are 13 and 9 – hardly babies. But you know what I mean. Some say I’m over protective, I am, but so what – they are precious to me.

But I digress.

My skates on the other hand were crippling me from the very point of putting them on. I had the right size because the next size up was way too big. Still they hurt like hell. I tightened them as much as I could, for fear of snapping the frayed and weak-looking laces. Loosening on a regular basis was a frequent pain in the arse. This caused the skates to take on angles to the Ice that must only be reserved for severe cornering. This only exacerbated the feeling of torture. I’m not joking; these bloody boots were used in the past as instruments of torture. You could have asked me anything and I would have sung like the proverbial canary, just on the promise of relief by taking them off.

Come to think of it, the skate blades, why oh why are the crappy hard plastic ones they sadistically hand out to unsuspecting patrons, shaped so differently to shop bought ones. Most of the kids there were using their own skates. The boots looked comfortable and were made of leather. Not cutting into your legs or stopping the intricate workings of your ankle bones. The blades were slightly curved along their length and were nicely rounded at the ends. Ours were basically straight and had a saw tooth doohicky at the front. The bottom most tooth pretty much hung down in line with the blade. This is a deliberate attempt to both make you fall over a lot, much to the amusement of the kids, and to stop you getting any speed up. Speed equals stability in my book.

They are there, as I am reliable informed by one of the ‘Ice Marshalls’ (jebus were the feck do they come up with this crap?) to be a brake. This is both wrong and stupid. Much to my chagrin I discovered that, yes they do stop due to digging into the ice, but due to the rather fundamental law of inertia, you don’t. Boot stops, body carries on. Say hello to Mr. Ice all cold, wet and hard. Laughs all round. Why can’t the manufactures make the blade curved and do away with the fret saw on the front? It won’t cost anymore to press that shape out. Still it does make for plenty of laughs for everybody else.

In all honesty if the small people decide they want to go regular I might be forced to scour eBay for a decent pair of proper skates for each of us. That way, it will be somewhat less uncomfortable, easier to do and more enjoyable for me at least.
I can tick off Ice Skating as a pastime the kids like and want to do. I can also tick it off as one of the most damaging to my well being. I feel old at the best of times but waking up still feeling the effects of a bit of exercise three days later really hits home.

“Pass the Zimmer, I’m a broken man”.

So Valentino Rossi stamps his authority and sets his stall out for the 2007 season in MotoGP by topping the timing sheets at Valencia. The MotoGP mob were there at an official FIA test and the fastest rider in the 40 minute session was awarded a new BMW Z4M Coupe, The Doctor (Valentino) looked chuffed to bits. Now, knowing what these sports stars have to go through diet wise; pasta, rice and all things healthy and low fat, if it were me I’d have been happier with a bag of chips.

I love chips me. I do. you can tell because as stated earlier I am rotund, fat, lardy. I’m a fan of the fried potato. So simple; potatoes, fat and of course heat. But why is it so difficult to cook the perfect chips?

Oh, a clarification for all you loverly peoples from the US and A - Chips are what you would call ‘fries’. I know chips to you are what we in the UK call crisps. They are different. I love ‘em both. Crisps is a subject for another time, here we will concentrate on chips.

Anywho, now we have cleared up the semantics of the fried potato let us move onto a bit of a rant. I know variety is the spice of life and I know people have their own tastes and all that but how is it that it’s very hard to find the ideal chip. The ideal chip ladies and gentleman is a chip that is cooked in very hot fat, until it is golden and just on the cusp of going brown on the points and corners. The result is a chip of such immense flavour and texture as to tickle you taste buds into a frenzy of ecstasy. Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.

For instance we have a great chippy not 200yds from where I live - Excel Fisheries - and two ways of cooking. They use real dripping for their cooking liquid which is the fat of choice. So we have the same potatoes and the same frying medium in the same fryers in the same shop. This is where the similarity stops unfortunately. OK so both the following scenarios produce chips which are better than most admittedly but that doesn’t detract from the fact there is a clear gap in the deliciousness of the finished product.

When the gentleman of the shop is on cooking duty the chips. . . well they look and feel as if he has just shown the potatoes to the fat. They are anaemic to be honest. They still taste great for sure, but the visual and textural aspects are sadly lacking. It’s also a suspicion of mine that the fat is not of the high and required temperature to give them a golden glow… even if he left them in long enough that is. However salvation is upon us as most of the time the lady of the shop is on the rota more often than not. She has the fat so hot it smokes, she has the knowledge and fortitude to leave them there potatoes in the fat for a goodly long time, until a golden hue radiates from every stick of spud. Oh heaven.

The way I have described also leaves the chips dry. A lot of chippies in this humble little corner of Lincolnshire produce soggy, wet, greasy chips. My in-laws are in the wet soggy greasy camp. They shun the ideal; crisp, golden dry chip, with a paucity of regard to their taste receptors. Each to there own I suppose, but who’s writing this?

Portion size is another issue that boils my piss. At my local mentioned above we have a medium portion that is enough to fill, but not so much you feel bloated. Some decide that a single scoop is sufficient. They would be wrong. There is a chippy in a village a few miles away that does fish patties. These are a slice of fish sandwiched between two slices of potato and then battered. No chippy that I know of in town does these, they are sublime by the way, so off we go to the village in question only to be confronted with a portion of chips that makes even McDonald’s medium fries look generous. (McDonald’s, and Burger King for that matter, they are not chips they are fries. So they don’t count.)

The opposite is true of the best chippy in town. It’s called Wilson’s and it been here that long that even my Dad went there in the 60’s. The chips are the best made, plus the portion size is massive, I’m not joking here, you can feed two grown men on one portion. It’s the same with the kebabs. Jebus they are big! Trouble is I have no car, the place is too far away to walk back and the food be still hot upon my return, so if I’m in the market for a fish supper for me and the family it’s out of the picture. On my own and out of a tray it is within my grasp. There is nothing quite like ‘Chips and Peas’ in the fresh air, better still if the air in question is cold.

So Mr. Rossi, good luck for the season ahead. I hope you enjoy your Beemer. On reflection a BMW is probably a better prize than a humble bag of delicious Wilson’s chips - then again “How many bags of Chips could you get if you sold the car?”

Crisp, hot, golden and with Salt and Vinegar - Perfect chips

Tags: chips, fat, fried potato, potato, chippy, dripping

Is it me? I love fried eggs, but I’m particular in the way they are cooked but more so in the way they are consumed.

The best way, for me at least, to cook an egg to perfection is a three point plan…

• Point 1: Don’t have the oil - or to be really great, lard - too hot. It makes the white bubble, not good, and produces that brown crap around the edge and underneath, also not good. A perfect fried egg’s white should be just that, white.
• Point B: Don’t, I repeat Don’t, ever, and I mean it, pop the yolk whilst cracking the egg into the pan. Ever.
• Point III: Flick not flip. Flick the oil/lard over the yolk. Don’t flip the egg - this could produce the nightmare situation of yolk sack breakage. Too horrible to contemplate.

We have the perfectly cooked chicken ovum on our plate. Time to eat the treat. Now I have been called weird and strange - on more than one occasion, and to be honest on many a subject * - but I eat my eggs in a regimented and structured way.
( * buttered Weetabix anyone? )

First off, I cut the white off, using straight cuts with the knife. So as the yolk and a little white is left. Then I eat the rest of the breakfast or dinner. It has to be stated here and now that a ‘Full English Breakfast’ is the daddy of all meals, and a personal favourite.

Then, once the meal has been consumed. The Yolk. Slip it onto the fork with care and attention, mustn’t break that delicate membrane keeping all that yellowy goodness intact. One fluid motion and it’s in the pie-hole. Slowly break the seal with the tongue, and let the flavour flood out into the mouth and then I take my time to savour that flavour, for it is a fleeting pleasure. And remember, there is nothing more heart breaking than egg-yolk on porcelain.

And there we have it, the perfect fried egg experience. I have been eating eggs this way for as long as I can remember and today at work, a kindred spirit arose from the mire of philistine yolk breakers. Brian, a gentleman of advancing years revealed his credo of egg consumption. Exactly as above described.

I am not alone.

Tags: eggs, yolk, chicken, Weetabix, breakfast