nutters and cranks

[Welsh Girls Allotment]

Yes I understand how you young uns' must feel, I am are hardly young - pushing 33 in a few months but my in laws cackled with laughter when I told them I was having an allotment, people my own age just say oh my god, my family are great as my Dad is a full on lottie man growing all their own veg only buying if something he grows fails miserably -which is rarely, I have been explaining recycling to my 3 year old girl and even she gets it so why can't everybody else

www.welshgirlsallotment.blogspot.com

[Muddypause]

...hardly young - pushing 33 in a few months...

Gad, where do people get these ideas from? 32 is middle aged, now, is it? Kids today, huh?

[circlecross]

Even tho I try hard to be reviled and ignored by my hideous wasteful near neighbours, my dh thinks they admire us a bit - certainly we cannot get rid of their kids from our garden who always want to come in and water stuff (even if it has been raining all day), and plant stuff (I had to give them my old seed packets the other day, knowing that the seeds won't come up, just to shut them up) and to make "good mud" (compost).

It's not fair - I look askance at their five bin bags of rubbish compared to my half bag (picky toddler, no green cone), carry my cloth nappy campaign bag over my shoulder, wear my lairy fair trade cardy and headscarf and shove a yelling toddler into his bike seat or buggy, but still they haven't told their kids to stay away from the freaky hippies. Hmmm.

Totally agree witht hte veggie food thing - TVP ugh! TVP chunks in a cheese sauce double ugh! I used to make loads of veggie quiches, as they resembled real food, TVP mince was hideous. Vegemince and quorn better, but have reverted to eating ready available iron source now to stock up growing person inside me.

And I am the ripe old age of 33 - these young veggies don't know what us codgers had to suffer...

[den_the_cat]

thankfully the BF works in agriculture and I have a wierd freaky job anyway so no one thinks I'm any stranger than the others, its just I have to deal with a lot of the public (eugh) and media (ick) and therefore see a lot of the 'cranks and nutters' type stuff being said and done. It would just be nice sometimes to make some of the lifestyle elements a little less marginalised and a little more applicable to everyone - its happening but its sloooooooow.

MMM I think perhaps Aus and NZ were ahead of us here. I never had a problem eating in that hemosphere where a lot of their food tends to be veggie based anyway, and thankfully I grew up in Brighton which is, frankly, cranks and nutters paradise, but in France, Germany etc a non meaty meal is still sometimes hard to come by.

[Andy Hamilton]

but in France, Germany etc a non meaty meal is still sometimes hard to come by.

You should try going to Romaina, it is an alien concept over there. We stayed with a family and my two mates were vegies. We were travelling with a french guy and the mother of the family spoke a little french but no English. We managed to tell her that my mates did not eat the flesh of an animal and she cooked up this wonderous meal. For the first course we had vegetable soup, my mate put his spoon in and held up this curly and hairy thing on his spoon. "what is this?" he asked.
"is no meat, is no meat, it is just the skin of a pig!"
I ended up with 3 bowls of lovely soup.

We then went on a train and the same mate bought a "cheese sandwhich" when he looked inside it was battered pork.

[den_the_cat]

That sounds like an interesting trip!. Romania I haven't done but anywhere in Eastern Europe seems like hard work - Germany and Austria tend to have meat on everything. I once ordered potato salad on the basis it was the only thing I could decipher which was meat free, and it turned up with bacon rashers on it. I always travel with a stash of chocolate and am quite good at buying eggs and veg in small shops using sign language.

ah well, I got a curry from Sainsburys last week that was labelled veg and was actually chicken. And after the Linda McCartney vegan pie fiasco (a muddle in the factory which also made meat pies - so much for having strong Vegan principals huh?) I suspect everything of having a 'trace of meat'.

[circlecross]

I try and forget, but never can quite erase the memory of a tofu sandwich my mum made me in the heady early 80's "what is this veggie lark then" days.

Take a slice of preferably not very soft slightly old bread, if you're feeling frisky apply a thin scraping of MARGE to it.

Put on top a slice of no-frill, real thing tofu

Repeat the bread slice.

Wrap in a horrid bread bag that's survivied a whole holiday in a caravan, and serve to a hungry, walked off feet, probably soaked to skin daughter, and then sit and eat hot juicy scotch pies freshly bought from the baker's in front of said daughter.

It was the vilest thing I've ever eaten, almost on a par with the spinach and cheese Hipp organic jar I didn't insist ds finish.

[Chickpea]

The vilest thing I ever ate was a salad my nana insisted on making me:

Nana "Are you hungry?"
Me "No"
Nana "Shall I make you a huge meal?"
Me "No, thanks I'm not hungry"
Nana "Shall I make you an enormous pile of sandwiches?"
Me "No thanks, Nana, I'm really not hungry"
Nana "How about a salad then?"
Me "Ok then, just a salad" (thinking this will shut her up)

She toddles off to the kitchen, then comes back:

Nana "Shall I put a half a roast chicken on it?"
Me "No thanks, Nana"
Nana "Shall I put a pile of cold cuts on it?"
Me "No thanks"
Nana "How about a big pile of grated cheese?"
Me "No, you're all right, thanks anyway"
Nana "Do you like lettuce?"
Me "Erm, yes" (I thought she was making me a salad)
Nana "How about tomatoes?"
Me "OK, thanks"
Nana "How about cucumber?"
Me "All right"
Nana "How about carrots?"
Me "Go on then but that'll be all"

Remember that I didn't actually want anything to eat at all.

So she comes back with a plate of wilted lettuce, soggy tomatoes, cucumber, and on top of all that several drained tinned carrots.

And I had to eat it all because "I had asked for it".

[Millymollymandy]

Oh now that does sound vile. Tinned carrots! Why are they so unlike the real thing? I never understand that!