General Chat

Hot, hot, hot, - good thing there is no water shortage - flowers need plenty of water.

Just came back from a brilliant traditional type garden party.
The food a wonderful sight for sore eyes - all Mediterranean/Lebanese type food all laid out on large plates.

Had to smile at some of the 'oldies' with their straw hats, shorts and sandals all getting redder in the sun - gosh some of them can down a few drinks. Nothing changes. Least somebody remembered my sparkling water.

Kept being told I'm such a funny lady - well saying it as it is has some good points in the comedy store. Really had a great time ;-)

Well Cup Cakes your making us all jealous I would have loved to have a taste of the Med/Lebanese food don't think I have ever had any Lebanese must look out some . Mind you us Oldies do enjoy ourselves even if we do dress in such a daft way ...Not me of course , in fact scratch the "Us oldies" it's not me I'm talking about :-D

I suppose here in London with the extreme cultural demographics people are used to different types of food. Even the Town Hall orders Lebanese mezza or West Indian food for it's events. Gone are the days of M&S or Tesco packed sandwiches.

Just down the road almost next to Sainsbury's local is a Turkish fruit and veg shop.
Every day they bring in fresh exotic fruit & veg. The queues go out of the door. Sainsbury have now reduced their stock levels.

Thought I'd eaten most things until the day they brought in purple coloured pointed cauliflowers. Flat peaches from Spain are more popular than the traditional round ones.

Fraid I'm an oldie but some might say it is a case of mutton dressed like lamb.
:-)

Wow ! like the sound of flat peaches , what do they do with them sit on them if so I've had a few like that...ok only joking but sound interesting and cauli's would make a difference I know the supermarkets were trying to introduce some exotic fruit/veg's like purple carrots but not seen any must look properly next time. As you say living in London you will be miles ahead from us well esp in H/g haha as the population is extremely high in OAPs here ... I'm sure no one says that your as young as you feel alas I feel like 92 some days :-( .... Only kidding it's more like 89 :-D

Don't mention water shortage!!!!

You know full well, that one is imminent!! :-P

That sounds pretty snobbish ....................

"I suppose here in London with the extreme cultural demographics people are used to different types of food. Even the town hall orders Lebanese mezza or West Indian food for it's events. Gone are the days of M&S or Tesco packed sandwiches."


Although I imagine that CupCakes did not mean it that way ..................... but it does come over as such!

Pity it came over as such!!


Rather like the old lady (85+) who used to always make curried quail eggs for a lunch given every year for the people where I used to work. She always said she made them "because I don't think those people will ever have had them"


Little did she know that three-quarters of them were gourmet cooks, and the remainder were all good cooks, who made an incredible array of dishes for family and friends, let alone for a "garden party"

Not only that, but every one of us enjoyed going out for gourmet meals, and the foods of other cultures.



BTW ................ she kept her quail in cages and runs on her balcony in a high rise apartment building :-D :-D :-D


That was way before all the recent push to keep chickens in back yards :-)




edited once, for clarity

I am amazed that Romanesco broccol/cauliflower (first discovered in italy) were not in a London Sainsburys ... they sell them here, in rural Norfolk ....
Loads of recipes too on BBC Food

Oh, and if anyone wants to try flat peaches ... They are on special at Tescos 4 for £1.00

We have been eating purple cauliflower, broccoflower (the green one), yellow cauliflower and broccolini and other varieties of veges for ages

and then in the fruit section yes we have flat peaches and my favourite "George Wilson Plums" which only do a short season each year.... plus we have feijoas and tamarillos, uglifruit and we have a fruit called a kiwano ... why I don't know it, it is not us that started it is also known as Horned Melon, melano, African horned cucumber, jelly melon, hedged gourd etc.

But the one that intrigues me and we have yet to get is the citrus fruit called the Buddha's Hand.... I guess you could call it finger food. ;-)

Persie

Persie ..............

Horned Melon is GOOD!


I wish they would re-name uglifruit though :-D

It's an awful name for a delicious fruit.


OH has grown Kiwifruit in the veggie patch for almost 25 years, and we've been getting fruit from the female vine for about 20 years.

The best year, we got over 600 fruit from just the one vine. Most years we get 300 to 500 ............ and that doesn't count the ones snitched by the locals!


He also usually grows blue potatoes ............. which create great interest when we serve them at the dining table. They do look rather grey or lilac in colour when mashed :-D:-D


we'll be going to our favourite Farmer's Market this weekend ............. it's about 300+ km north of where we live ............. so about the same latitude as Manchester in the UK, but a heck of a lot colder in winter and hotter in summer (usually at least 40C).

They try growing different fruits and veggies every year ............ as well as the old staples of course.

I love their lemon cucumbers, which come originally, I believe, from India

I won't eat cucumbers and it is no good taking them out of sarnies cause you can still taste it in the butter. I love sushi but one of our chain sushi bars puts a little piece of cucumber in each one, I can get away with taking it out of that but usually gravitate to something else.

I either mentioned on here or FB that I had given my father a packet of golden beetroot seeds. The beetroot tastes like the normal beetroot just looks wrong, and doesn't make those awful stains on white tablecloths etc. :-)

The other thing he grew were purple beans, he brought them into the country from the US in days before our agricultural rules were so tough. They were a prolific grower and a sturdy bean and became green when cooked. We would have beans at nearly every cooked meal when I was growing up. He would sit at the table and cut them beautifully in uniform shapes on a slant.

He would also give heaps away - a girlfriend of mine visited him one day and was sitting chatting to him whilst he was "doing" his beans and then when she went to leave he handed her a plastic bag with cut beans - enough for a couple of meals.

When he moved house we called on of the rooms downstairs the bean room it was where he chopped and prepared the veg.

Kiwifruit - eat a lot of the green ones but don't like the yellow.. and I love cape gooseberries.

Persie

Our local farm and associated farm shop grew and sold Romanesco broccoli/cauliflower one year.. I haven't seen it in there since; perhaps it didn't sell well? Never heard of purple cauliflower before - it looks quite interesting!!! Was it served cold as salad side dish?

You rarely see Swiss Chard sold in the shops - at the Farmer's market where we bought some once, the grower said that it wilts as soon as its picked :-0

Living in an area where there are so many different cultural food heritages, each 'event' must be culinary adventure! ;-) Hope there was something that everyone could eat!!!

We have grown purple cauliflowers...............they look revolting, but taste alright :-)

We had it raw in salads where the colour clashed with the radishes and tomatoes :-(

I think I am beginning to think I'm living in the sticks out here!! not see purple cauli seen purple broccoli and certainly not seen flat peaches :-0
ps Don't think CupCakes was trying to be snooty about London it's a known fact that you would get everything and anything there first ..ok so it's spread to other places I for one didn't know about a lot of the stuff -- but hey the sun is shining lets not nitpick :-D

Nolls - wish I could post you some flat peaches. They are so much juicier and sweeter than normal ones.

When good old NZ silverbeet was in short supply in the garden, my father would cook it up with puha.

Most white people here give puha to their rabbit or budgie to eat.. it is a weed and is prolific. I have told many a person that they have puha in their garden and they would never have dreamed of cooking it.

My father has also been known to stew up quinces put a dash of cochineal in them and serve them with custard and people have thought they were having pears.

Sorry to mention custard Sue knowing you are adverse to it.

Persie

As I was growing up my father grew purple sprouting Broccoli & a white one that looked like baby cauliflowers.

Every November he would sit with his seed catalogues; choosing his favourite runner/broad/green beans, carrots, lettuce, radish, beetroot, seed potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber, sweetcorn, cabbage, sprouts and sprouting broccoli.
Then he would look at what else was on offer that he had not tried. Some of these where complete failures as beetroot should be red and some of his other trials had to be fed to the hens as we did not like them.
My mother liked to experiment with recipes and passed her cooking skills on to me.

I will try anything once.

Locally we have many ethnic eating places, they do not just exist in London

My point is that you do not need to live in London to have tried different foods. Also many of the restaurants Anglicize dishes.

What is traditional about Mediterranean/Lebanese type food?

I do not like highly spiced rich food, neither does my digestive tract so would have had to eat the thing nearest to bread.

"some of the 'oldies' with their straw hats, shorts and sandals all getting redder in the sun - gosh some of them can down a few drinks. Nothing changes"

How patronising !

Flat peaches (doughnut peaches) in Tesco last Saturday,and simply delicious <3

Flat peaches (doughnut peaches) in Tesco last Saturday,and simply delicious <3

Lynda you beat me to that...lolol