How to deceive your cat...

It's that age-old problem, of how to get worming tablets into your cat. But now there is an easier way! In fact two easier ways, depending on the tastes of your cat. First, take your worming tablet. Then surround with either (a) cream cheese or (b) Marmite (I'm assuming here that Vegemite will serve the same purpose, but haven't tested this out on Rustle yet...). Feed to cat. Watch in delight as cat eats the whole lot with no fuss.

Works a treat. Except my little sod got wise to the fact, and licked off the Marmite, leaving the tablet at the bottom of the bowl. Which curiously she went back to eat later....strange. Anyway, satisfaction guaranteed. Or something.

Looking forward...

...to curry tonight! There's something about a good takeaway curry to raise even the most downcast of spirits, worn down after a week of getting up at 5am. Not sure who'll get the honour of catering for the occasion - probably Jesmond Road Tandoori, which does a mean tandoori chicken starter...

How £800-worth of biscuits can get you a seat on Concorde...that's an awful lot of packets!

Pizza pronto

No matter how great your food tastes, it can be ruined if you have to wolf it down in the space of 5 minutes flat. Discovered this yesterday, after making what turned out to be a fabulous pizza (feta cheese, tomato and spinach, with a few drops of Encona hot pepper sauce). My dad rang, and that disrupted my perfectly planned timetable for the pizza to the oven (6.38pm), pizza out of oven (6.48pm), pizza finished (7.10pm), Rach out of house to pick up Pippa and go see Rob's gig (7.11pm). It all happened in that order, but I only ended up with 5 minutes to eat the pizza, and I was still late by the time I'd got across the city. I suppose I could have left some of the pizza for later....but I was just too hungry.

Oh well. Moral of this tale: either have the willpower to let the answerphone do its job, or try and lead less frenetic lifestyle. Not sure either is possible...

From cheese to cheesecake

Now I thought I was obsessed with cheesecake, but MurrayHill 5 is off the scale. Scroll down the page until you get to a lady called Deb's account of her battle to bake Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake. Marvellous. She describes it so well that you're actually in the kitchen with her, willing it to go right...

Why does processed cheese taste good?

I know I should hate it. And that I should be out scouring the land for farmhouse extra mature cheddar aged in oak and tenderly wrapped in leaves by nymphs at midnight. But I have to confess a sneaking liking for Crema bel Paesa cheese spread. In fact I had two of the sneaky little wheels for lunch on some olive and onion bread. Mmmmm. Oh well, better send back the foodie credentials....

The slide into degeneracy...

I can't help it...I made myself a wonderful home-made pizza for tea, and followed it with some strawberries, but now I'm gazing longingly at the packet of Iced Gems sat on my desk at work. It's funny - my two obsessions seem to be the aforementioned Iced Gems and Tunnocks Tea Cakes. Why is it when you reach the age of nearly 30, that you start harking back to the things you loved as a kid? Hope it doesn't get worse as I get older - I have this image of me in my bathchair aged 105 demanding that young flunkeys unwrap me a teacake...they'd better be good-looking young flunkeys, mind...

I'm quite tempted to order the South's favourite marshmallow snack over the internet. Apparently, the Moonpie, which originated in 1917 in Chattanooga, is a "graham-like cracker, marshmallow covered with chocolate, vanilla or banana flavors". Looks like a squashed Tunnocks teacake sandwich to me, which can't be bad. Anyone know what they taste like?

Sometimes all you want is curry...

Went to Cafe Spice on Chillingham Road last night, to indulge that end of weekend "I really need a curry" feeling. Not as good as Valley Junction (some of the dishes other folk on tables around us were eating were a bit too highly coloured for my taste) but it all tasted ok, and for the bargain price of £7.95, you couldn't really grumble. But then after a flying the powerkite on Tynemouth beach for an hour, I could have eaten anything...

Ever wanted a traditional Sunday lunch but couldn't be bothered/didn't have time to cook one? If you move to Northumberland, you could always get a takeaway...

All the fun of the fair

After this little lot, you'll need an antacid just in sympathy...

The idea of deep-fried dill pickles is just a bit too stomach-turning. Although it's good to see that the Scottish delicacy of deep fried chocolate is taking over rural Ohio...

Yet more sandwiches...

It seems to be the month for sandwich-related postings. But contain your excitement - a scientist has discovered the "perfect" cheese sandwich. Pickle (yay), tomatoes (not bad) and apple (weird, but good) can all enhance the taste. It's official!

Finished Nigel Slater's Toast, by the way. Incredibly good - go buy! His childhood explains a lot about his style of cooking, and the things he loves. I guess we're all programmed to some extent by what we eat before the age of say 10 or so. I just wish I could remember all my childhood, especially the food, so clearly.

It's a scandal...

Would you let your kids eat this stuff? It's hard to believe that nutrition is taken so lightly in this country, or that we're so blase about what we let kids eat. Every week in the supermarket it's frankly quite terrifying to see the stuff that's pitched at children - everything from Barbie spaghetti hoops to the latest branded sweets and crisps. And if that's what they're eating at home, god help them when they get to school...

I've probably linked to this before, but it's so relevant in this case: a comparison of two school lunch menus - one French, and one American.

Mind, I don't remember school dinners being any better as a kid in Cambridgeshire. Granted, I only had them for a year, before my wise mother launched me on a lifetime of sandwiches (generating my cheese and pickle fixation in the process). But I do remember some awful sloppy puddings, and grey mashed potato. Secondary school was no better - it was a cafeteria selling chips, and the legendary giant haystacks (kind of like chocolate krispies, but a lot more dense).

Uninspired...

after a dull and uninspiring shift. After staring at the computer for eight hours, it's time to go home, and dream of more interesting things....or more likely, sit on the sofa with the cat, a cup of tea and a bag of iced gems.

Apparently, if you keep a jar of home-made chutney in the fridge for 34 years, it's still edible. I'll get back to you on that one in 2037...

Biscuits, schmiscuits

Finally! The answer to the problem that has been bugging us all for years. Why, when you open a packet of biscuits, are the top ones always broken? Apparently it's

"down to interactions between moisture in the air and moisture in the biscuit which take place while the food is cooling down after being taken out of the oven."

So there. Still means you have to eat all of them though - do you find that broken ones are more or less appealing? Me, I like the unbroken ones best. But perversely, I tend to break off pieces of (a whole) biscuit when I eat it. Hmm. Probably says something about me, but I'm not sure what.

Cheese and pickle rules the world!

The world of sandwiches, anyway. They are dead right, of course - it is definitely the best filling. It was me and my brother's favourite sandwich as kids...and we still have it for lunch probably 80% of the time. You never get bored with it, as long as you vary the bread. The cheese has to be a nice mature cheddar or a crumbly white such as Lancashire, Wensleydale or Cheshire. Danish blue will definitely not do! Pickle - well, obviously Branstons is a winner, but Nigella's spicy apple chutney is probably my favourite. Sorry Mum. You made all that effort with cottage cheese and tomato (eurgh), tuna and cucumber (not bad) and egg mayonnaise (smelly, but not bad either). All we really wanted was cheese and pickle.