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The Banter Page
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If you're wanting to get something off your chest, make general comments about the server, or post lonely hearts ads, then this is the place for you.
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The real me
(qua Rosie) I've smelt HCN several times, never in large quantities obviously, and it always has that nice bitter-almond smell. Apparently about 25% of the population are unable to smell it at all.
Lincoln
[Softers] Hope you don't, as the memorial for your birthday is already taken by the eponymous president, so you'd die in obscurity. He also had a biscuit named after him, maybe that would be an acceptable alternative?
Rules of origin
I thought Lincoln biscuits were named after the city. Also Nice biscuits. Or maybe I'm just dough-minded. I've taken up baking again - in the past fortnight I've made a massive batch of Belgian buns (not Belgian at all, apparently) and chocolate chip cookies. This week, it'll be lemon cookies and an apple-topped yogurt cake. (Most of this stuff gets shared with neighbours and millers at the windmill on Saturdays when we have shed coffee).
Coooookie!!!!
[pen] I'm always on a search for good chocolate chip cookies!
Yum
[pen] I like the sound of the apple-topped yogurt cake myself. Are there any vacancies for being your neighbour at the moment? :)
crumbles
[KagShuk] This is why I have stocks of butter in the freezer for when I get the urge to put the oven on and create something. It's now a exactly a year since I have seen any of my family IRL, and I've come to realise it's therapeutic to create something delicious from time to time [every week]. I'd never made US-style soft cookies before. Sooo easy. Impossible to get wrong. Soooo easy to eat too.
[Boolb] A friend (a profesh cook) put the recipe on Instagram. She made it sound easy - let's see.
[Rosie the Original] I heard that in certain concentrations cyanide has a tang of garlic.
In any event: Women! Stop stinking out the house/windmill with your experiments in chemical weaponry!
[Stevie] Is food (and specifically patisserie) considered chemical weaponry now?
(the real Stevie, probably) I've never smelt it as garlic, always almonds. A bottle of potassium cyanide has got this smell due to hydrolysis. It's true that some smells can change with concentration. H2S is bad eggs when dilute but The Full Monty is odourless and dangerously toxic.
[penelope] Weaponry for sure, and not just chemical! Haven't you heard of dwarven battle-bread? I think it highly likely that the late Sir Terry got the idea when he cut his lip open on a bit of stale baguette or something.
[penlope] Depends on the stench produced.
I've been out
This week's outing: got my tyres and windscreen wipers changed this morning. Left my thermal cup where I was working on my laptop in the waiting area. *rse. I'm not fit to be allowed out any more.
Never again
I'm definitely not fit to be allowed out. The thermal cup was at home but I have absolutely no recollection of bringing it in from the car nor of putting it in the sink.
In other news, the Netherlands' non-essential shops are now allowed to open for shopping-by-appointment. I have booked a 10-minute slot at the hardware and household goods shop in the village for Friday at 17:15. I need new baking pans, a mop and bucket, and a dog brush. This is going to be like Supermarket Sweep.
Losing your marbles
(pen) Wait till you get to my age. "Now, what did I come up here for?"
Hairdressers open? I'm beginning to look a bit 70's-ish, instead of 70-ish.
In short, yes.
Hairdressers open. My favourite hairdresser now does it from home in Rotterdam but her husband is a Covid denier so I'm not going to go back there yet. I don't know where he's been. And the nearest village hairdresser made a hack of it when I went there in November so I'm not going back there (although it's had plenty of time to grow out). I might have to try the next town over - the historic one with a marina and a few posh shops. They're probably only any good at the windswept-been-out-sailing-all-day look though, and I can manage that all by myself.
DIY
Keep it short enough, and you can keep it short enough yourself.
(Raak) Logical enough but having a good thick mop at my age is something you tend to hang on to and it needs a bit of professional attention.
Anything else, Sir?
I'm never having short hair again. I was mistaken for a boy too many times in my teens when I had short hair and it left scars.
[Pen] Could be worse. When I think of some of the boys who were mistaken for girls (shudder)
yummy, yum,y!
[pen] Yep, I'm always on the lookout for a good soft chocoate chip cookie that has gooey chocolate chips when warm. I';; eat other ones to try, but I'm never satisfied with those. So many places in the U.S. sell some version.

Also good to try different chips when baking. I don't know what all you have over in the U.K., but in the U.S., they have peanut butter chips and butterscotch chips. It can be fun to substitute or mix the chip types.
chip butty
[KagomeShuko] I used odd bits of chocolate I found in the cupboard, chopped it up, and in it went. Chocolate is a staple on my shopping list, but I buy it in odd places and keep trying out the new combinations. Some I like better than others for eating on their own. The remainders of bars of chcocolate that I don't like so much go into cooking.
And yes, I buy discount supermarket own brands...
And I thought I was a bit of a chocoholic.
[Rosie] I think I eat it every day, although only during the week as compensations for having to work!
[Rosie] You not only approve of the term "chocoholic", you use it yourself? I'm amazed. Does that mean I have to be the one to rant about "chocohol"? 8o)
Chocolate is the one thing that mankind has invented that is worthwhile.

Apart from all the other stuff like antibiotics and heart valves and electronics and like that.

(Stevie, penult) Don't forget that despite a basically intellectual approach to life I can be a bit common. When you've disembowelled "chocohol" have a go at "workohol" - dreadul stuff, ought to be banned.
Well the Pope's noted for being a catholic, so if that word's okay for him...
Well!
[SM] Fittingly, your observation has given me an epiphany. His followers must be behind cats being so popular on the internet!
chocolate, chocolate, chocolate
I always try to have chocolate on hand!

I have Girl Scout Thin Mints right now!
(KagShu) Stop it! You exacerbate my cravings!
[KS] Surely any chocolate on hand would melt? It would be better in the mouth. Also, what Rosie said!
mmmm chocolate
I take your random chocolate and raise you one banana toastie. I spent a whole dog walk in the rain thinking about it, and made one for lunch when I got in. (Also made a cheese and onion toastie too - it was cold out.)
I don’t actually like chocolate.
There speaks a brave man. Respect, bruv. Er, can I have your bit, then?
Not a cliché
I'm not that excited by it either
[Rosie] Considering I live in Belgium, there’s quite a lot to go around, so be my guest.
Heresy
I have to admit, I prefer a nice fruity pudding or cake to a chocolate one.
Any pudding, any cake.
Except Battenburg. Marzipan is the Devil's earwax.
Emetic
In that case, pen, how would you describe spinach purée?
[Rosie] Green. Best stirred into a good, strong curry until it disappears.
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