Anything that doesn't involve potatoes and/or coleslaw counts as foreign food in Ireland :-) The reason I asked in the first place is that I have a "Panini Grill" which does great toasted sandwiches, but I want to take advantage of the lunchtime panini market. My personal preference for fillings seems to be miles away from what other people want/expect, for which information I'm very grateful.
[Phil] I'd suggest going round a few of your local coffee shops just before lunch time and see what they have most of on their shelves. You can be sure they've done the research. The only difference about your trade is that you could probably go a little dryer and saltier. Mind you this definitely sounds like 'teaching your grandmother'.
[INJ] This assumes that supply = demand. There are at least two canteens that I've encountered that would run out of certain things very quickly on a daily basis and never increase their order of those things. You could even ask 'Do you have any more X?' and they would say 'No, they always sell out really quickly'...
[Phil] Geez, Phil, are you running a pub or trying to make your eatery some sort of 'up-market' restaurant with fancy names for ordinary dishes? Surely a panino is just a bread roll into which, like a couple of bread slices, you can insert anything you damn well like? What's wrong with marketing a 'Salad Roll' or an 'Egg and Bacon Roll'?
[Dujon] In order: Yes and no; yes; and nothing. I just found the article interesting I'm revamping my menu, with an eye on relaunching the food side of the business to create some lunchtime trade in the area. Everyone's feedback has been very useful. We already do sandwiches and toasted sandwiches, but I've found that people charge a bit more for something that doesn't come in traditional English white or brown bread; more importantly, people seem willing to pay a bit more, for something that doesn't really cost any extra to produce if it's in, say, ciabatta rather than two slices of fantastic, locally baked bread.
[Phil] Sorry if I sounded a bit abrupt. I do understand your viewpoint and, if that's what your customers want and are prepared to pay for, then I wish you all the best. You wouldn't be a businessman if you didn't explore all avenues in order to satisfy your clients. I like your comment on locally baked bread. Around my neck of the woods we have a plethora of bread varieties marketed in bulk to those of us who see bread as a staple. It's probably a couple of decades ago now, but at that time I noticed a severe decline in the quality of bread on offer. After testing just about every 'brand' available I gave up on bread for a goodly time (they all tasted 'plasticy' to me). I'm a slow learner and not very observant at times, Phil, but then I realised that there is a small local bakery in our small local shopping area which is a mere 400 metres from Maison Dujon. My bread now comes exclusively from that wee shop. I suppose I'm saying that fresh is good. Do you intend to bake your own stock - or can you coerce one of your local bakeries into doing so? Ullage is always a problem when it comes to perishables so I'd guess you'd have to build in a wastage factor when pricing each product.
Between them, Greggs and Tesco have all but killed the traditional baker in the UK, so loaves that actually taste of something are now 'premium products' with price tags to match. See, for example, this place that opened round the corner from the flat we just moved out of.
[Dujon] The other issue is price. The large, white tin loaves that I get from the bakery are £1.54, from which I can get about 5 sandwiches per loaf. I can buy frozen ciabatta for approx 30p each. I do like the thought of the local baker making my bread, but I'd need to be doing serious volumes for them to make something specially for me, I'd imagine. Maybe when I've a few minutes on monday I'll have a natter with them.
Don't get me started on bread. There are two sorts of supermarket bread here - the 'baked elsewhere' kind, which is passable, and the 'baked-off in-store', which is good if you eat it within 20 minutes. After that, it doesn't even make good toast - it's way too dry. But we also have two bakers in the village - one of them is excellent, if you like a proper wholemeal loaf - which we do. Sadly our breadmachine is a little under-used, although I do a lot of other baking. If I can stand to have the kitchen full of smoke, home-made naan bread is a real treat.
I'm not bread's biggest fan. As a student, I find a loaf too big, as I'll buy it when I fancy toast, and then come back to it a few days later to find it completely unusable. I wish they would do mini mini loaves, with 6 slices each.
[FGZstar] If you're only using it for toast then freeze what you dont use - already sliced. Most toasters will toast it ok from frozen. When working away from home I make bread on Friday or Saturday and then slice whatever's left after the weekend and freeze it for Mrs INJ to use, a slice at a time, during the week.
You can toast from frozen in less time than it takes to grill bacon - but it would take a little longer to just thaw the bread, unless you use a microwave.
Freeze a loaf in pairs of slices? Then you can hammer them (in pairs) into the toaster slot and put it on the 'barely stiffened up' setting to *just* thaw it to the perfect state for wrapping around your bacon sandwich.
I freeze thinly sliced granary loaves from a good local baker, and I generally find I can 'peel off' individual slices whenever I need to, although I do sometimes need to use a knife to split them apart. Individual slices defrost in around 20-30 minutes if you just separate them and lay them out on a plate, and 30 seconds in a toaster does the trick too. The key part of my technique is using thin-sliced brown bread which lets me split slices off while the loaf is still frozen solid - but if you can find bread like that it does save the faff of splitting it into sections before freezing.
I keep bread (from Waitrose, Sainsbury, or the baker up the road) in the fridge, and it stays as fresh as when it was bought. Why are people keepng it in the freezer?
What INJ said. I/we usually use about 1/3 to 1/2 of a loaf while it's fresh, then after a couple of days freeze the rest and eat it gradually, interspersed with other varieties of bread. We seem to have a reasonable variety of good bread here, although it IS expensive. As long as the loaf wasn't squished, the slices snap apart fine, and can be toasted from frozen or a tiny zap in the microwave if you don't want to wait a few minutes for the slices to thaw naturally. I have a bread machine and make about a loaf a month or two, usually when it can be taken to family sunday lunch, because it does not keep as well as store bought and I find it very difficult to slice a loaf myself, so the slices are too large
In other news, I think our summer might be over already. not that we really had much of one, but still, it was warm for a couple of days there.
I freeze my bread which works fine for us. We buy a toast sliced wholemeal or granary bloomer or raised tin made by a local artisan baker. We mostly use it for toast although I sneak the odd sandwich. I find that this quality product, cost about £1.40, freezes much better than factory bread.
I buy bread about once a week. None of it comes wrapped in plastic. There's only me eating it, but I eat a lot of bread, so it does occupy quite a lot of space in the fridge. I also got a panini press a few months ago, which is excellent for a warm meal when I can't be bothered actually cooking.
Went on holiday in December. Had an accident. Broke my back. Spent 2 weeks in Swiss hospital. Came home. Had operation. Back at work now. 'S'life, innit?
[Kim] That'll teach you, old egg. I do hope that you're not now wheelchair bound. If not then a couple of months and the surgeons' knives have served you extraordinarily well. Good luck.
Aye, best wishes Kim. As an aside, I've just seen real flu for the first time - the windy miller is just starting to pick up a little after three days of eating nothing, drinking very little and being unable to move out of bed. He ate half a strawberry this afternoon. It's terrifying.
[Kim] oh my. I hope you make a swift and full recovery. [penelope] Yes, it is; I'm sure you're keeping a close eye on him, and I hope he recovers soon. I've only had it once, and that is more than enough. I lost about three weeks in a haze of coughing, vomiting and other unpleasantness. I had a lot in reserve so wasn't worried about not eating :o) .
[pen] My sympathies to the windy miller. I caught the 'flu for the first time in about 40 years and it completely floored me. I am just beginning to get back to normal now. I have had more days off work sick this year than in the previous 10. On the up side I have lost nearly a stone (6.5kg in netherlandsspeak) which has a beneficial effect on revitalizing my wardrobe!
Thanks all. Today might be the day he actually eats something other than chicken broth or yogurt. Luckily I only work part-time and I can spend some time at home. And the washing machine is now mended... a household of flu and having to wash things by hand for two weeks wasn't much fun.
Oooh, yeah. Grilled chicken (in cubes, on a wooden skewer) marinaded in spices, yogurt and lime juice, served with a satay sauce... I think that's one for when the windy miller has his appetite back.
(Softers) Of course - life goes on as normal. Not sure where to park the dragon. The former licensee, a young woman from New Romney, is the only purely English person I have met who can pronounce the Welsh "ll" properly. She'd lived in S Wales for a short time. All you need is to have heard it.
It's the end of the working week for me, and the beginning of Pig Week. Does anyone have plans for the weekend? The windy miller is slowly getting back to form, and we will be going to the mill together tomorrow morning - for the first time in three weeks. Not sure what we'll do in the afternoon. The weekend will also include laundry and ironing. And possibly a bastardised version of Robert Carrier's Normandy pheasant, using Dutch cooking pears instead of apples.
Off up to Leeds for a friend's birthday party on Saturday and staying over. Unfortunately it's fancy dress, themed on 'Songs from the Shows' (she's keen on amateur operatics). So we're in 'South Pacific' mode, though Mrs INJ insists on wearing another skirt below the grass one and didn't seem at all impressed by my idea of a coconut shell bikini.
[INJ] I'm sure you'd look rather fetching in one. [pen] Long weekend here, working part of it, mooching around catching up on sleep otherwise, hoorah! And I got a haircut today. Ever so much fun to be had.
Excellent time had by all - reunion with a lot of old (in both senses) walking friends. On the costume front - we looked pretty good, but were upstaged by Sally Bowles.
Anyone got any news? I'm having a slow morning. I might go into the office this afternoon (magazine deadline coming up, profs to interview tomorrow and Monday and I ought to at least try to sound intelligent), am thinking about how to approach a new one-day-a-week role I've been given (which means the windy miller and I can afford to have a cleaner - hurrah!) and am looking forward to visiting Blighty over Easter - a long-overdue visit, postponed because of the windy miller's illness.
[penelope] Not really. The weather is pleasant here and a few weeks ago I planted a vege garden. Tonight is cool and clear, but I'm not away from the city, so I can't see many stars.
I believe you. If it's a proper sprain, not just a bad twist or wrench, then it can be worse than breaking it, as tendon typically won't heal as well or as quickly as bone.
I object, I object, I object - it's 20C here this afternoon, yet only the 2nd April. That's just not right. My blood's not yet adjusted to warmer temperatures, and I'm all pink in the face.
[Rosie] Back down to 13 degrees today. And the windy miller and I gambled on the 10% chance of no rain - so went to Antwerp to shop at the Sunday market - and won. And saw English morris dancers holding up very well in proper clogs against some nancy German upstarts who were all wearing white sneakers. Lightweights.
It's warm but very windy here. We had to tape a bit of cardboard over a fireplace to prevent the cat from climbing up the chimney (as an interim measure before we get our hands on a fireguard). The way it's flexing in the wind really does bring home how silly an idea a fireplace is if you care about keeping any warm air in a room!
(Softers) 20.9°C in the grounds of Plas Huws, an approximately once-a-year event (for April). You wanna live somewhere warmer. (rab) Can't fault your reasoning, even if you had a fire, but there is the trouser-singeing radiation.
27°C in Melbourne yesterday. About the same today. Parents fly out to Perth and thence back to Scotland tomorrow. Sister and family arrive on Tuesday. 2am arrival, bloody inconsiderate if you ask me.
(G III) As it's only early April you must have been exposing parts of the body on which the sun don't normally shine, and if you got away with it, good for you.