Silly Season: Terranova's Pickles

I recently made a couple of batches of pickle cucumbers, which is a family tradition.

Over the years I have obtained a few pickle items, as pictured.

In the foreground is Superpickle a crib toy from the 80's that I bought in NYC when my mother visited from London and passed on her pickle recipe.

The large soft mastachiod Mr Pickle was won by my wife at an amusement park.

On the right is a plastic pickle that was a container for some figures related to 'The Beavis and Butthead Cartoon Show'

When I was assembling the three items to photograph them I noticed that the plastic pickle can be used as a money box so chalk up another part of my collection that was never collected.

This email comes under the heading of newspaper Silly Season.

Terranova47

USA

Hhhh

In Praise of Beef Paste

As we are caravanning I've no access to toys so other things are filling my mind ...  Such as Beef Paste this morning for breakfast!

I saw it in Farmfoods and thought yes! I remember, I used to love beef paste butties as a kid. My Mum made them with thick white bread and butter, altho' it may have been marg - Stork?

Did you eat beef spread butties readers?

Beef paste or spread is basically potted beef of old sold in little handy pocket-sized glass jars. As a kid the biggest brand was Shippams. There was always a thin layer of hardened fat on top. That stuffs delicious!

They did chicken paste as well, which was equally fabtasticle.

My late Grandad, old Jack the postie, liked his beef dripping. Now I don't remember it exactly but I imagine a combination of beef and fat is essentially the same as beef paste or spread. Can anyone confirm this?

Even more nostalgic and the nub of a few jokes is the next spread on my Farmfoods shopping list, Sardine and Tomato paste! 

C'mon Mum, slap it on! 

LIVE AND LET DIET!

I'm currently on a diet with the Missus. It ain't easy and I'm dreaming about food. My favourite foods!

Here are my top ten fave foods - just a small fraction of what I'm dreaming about! Nothing healthy!

1. Pancakes
2. Nutella
3. Prawn puree, in fact any Indian food
4. Pancakes, crispy bacon and syrup
5. Hot sugar doughnuts
6. Beef Olive, Dumplings, braised red cabbage and gravy
7. Steamed Chinese pork dumplings, in fact any Chinese food
8. Golden Cup chocolate and virtually any type of milk chocolate
9. Chocolate covered flapjack
10. KFC

and I'd love to know which are yours readers!

Biscuits on the Base

I saw this old tin on Ebay last year. I kept the pics.

It depicts a fabulous space city on the lid and the sides.

The space base is really well conceived. Do you agree?

It was released by Elkes Biscuits of Staffs, England.

 Do you know them?

Christmas Snacks

Food from Christmas past. Ah, the kitschy nibbles I miss so much, the party food that made Sixties and Seventies Yuletides swing.

Here are a few of my festive favorites.

Vol-au-Vents. Yes, those flaky cups of gooey goodness, vol-au-vents were the fanciest horses doofers around. Puff or choux or flaky - who knows - but oh, was that baked beaker so damn good when it was chock-full of creamy mushrooms, topped with a pastry disc like a school cap. Good God they were tasty. I haven't had one since 1976 and miss them every day.

Celery sticks with cream cheese. My, these simple batons of chlorophyll were mightily snackable when ladened with philly or primula. A flick of salt and white pepper ( we didn't know black existed ) and it was grand to be a vegetarian for those two minutes. How I miss those stringy sticks of green.

Quartered pork pies. The stuff champions are made of, these little slices of sausage pie where always a tasty salty treat on the Christmas paper plate. Packed with processed pork and delicious pig jelly, they could only be improved by a chutney dip or squirt of mustard. Heaven in pastry form.

Crisps, twiglets and nuts. Scattered throughout the house, plastic dishes and steel trays of salted peanuts, marmite-flavoured sticks and plain salted crisps were de-rigeur in our festivities. Always there when you needed a boost in any room including the bathroom, crisps, twigs and nuts weren't just for Rudolph and Santa. For the adults who liked a tipple, there were dry-roasted planets in little ring-pull tubes too. I thought they tasted like carpet.

Mixed Nuts with a nutcracker. For the more serious feeder, larger plastic wood-effect bowls were provided filled with rock-hard Brazils, Walnuts, Hazelnuts and Almonds. The biggest issue facing such earnest grippers was what to do with the empty shells? Ash tray, open fire? Grandma's handbag? Nah, just chuck 'em back in the bowl! 

And finally, the ultimate seasonal treat, a taste of the exotic, from darkest Morocco: a polystyrene canoe of dates stuck together in a long tacky block with a small plastic fork plastered to the top with date glue. Each one had a lethal stone within, which could only be removed by astute tongue action. I really adored dates when Mum decided we were ready.

What were your favourite Xmas snacks readers? 

TYPHOO TEETERS

 

Another sad day for iconic brands from our childhood. Typhoo Tea are about to call in the Administrators.

I remember collecting their tea cards as a kid, along with PG Tips and Brooke Bond.

I've drunk Yorkshire Tea for years now, so I haven't helped Typhoo either.

Will you miss Typhoo Tea?

WILL'S CHOCK O BLOCK WRAPPER 2

Hi Woodsy

Re. yesterday's mystery Chock O Block wrapper post, Reader Lewis thinks that the gold wrapper may be from the back of the McVities captain scarlet chocolate bar set , and I think he may be right , as these wrappers came to me at the same time. 

Do other Moonbasers concur? 

Will O

Cowboy Beans

Over the summer me and Junior cooked outside on a camping stove. 

A simple single ring with a gas canister below. You know the kind, Action Man's Explorer had one! 

We ate beans. Baked beans. I had pepper on mine too. Black pepper.

We had metal plates too like cowboys, scooping up the beans noisily and clattering the spoons down into the empty plates at the end!

All that was missing was steaming black coffee in tin cups from a blue enamelled pot! 

Cooking beans reminded me so much of doing the same as a kid, emulating my cowboy hero shows like Bonanza and High Chaparral.

Did you ever eat cowboy beans from a metal plate or even cold straight from the can?

Comin' Right Up!

There's no point me denying it, I like McDonalds.

I've been eating their fries and burgers for decades. It was a go-to place to take our kid daughter growing up and the plastic Happy Meal toys were collected with gusto. She still has them somewhere. She's 40! 

OK, the plastic toys have gone, a sign of the times, and prices have gone up but the food remains the same.

Now me and the Missus are busy Grandparents, in Thackley and Shipley every week, two eateries have become important stops for quick tasty grub.

McDonalds for their breakfasts - who can resist a sausage and egg McMuffin - hash brown combo? We relish this after dropping the two Grandkids off at two different schools first thing. The coffee is top bean too 

The second is our Granddaughters favourite, which she calls Shipperleys. It's actually the market cafe beneath the famous clock tower in Shipley, where Lil Miss enjoys a small plate of beans on toast and a milky PG Tips! The friendly owner always gives her a KitKat as well, a nice gesture. We all enjoy going in between charity shopping round the town centre. To finish, Miss feeds the pigeons.

Do you like McDonalds or another food outlet or cafe readers?

Modelmaker Makes Plastic Food

I did find this interesting. Looks like a niche in the market that's been filled by this small modelmaking company. What do you think readers?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5ngyq0lr7o 

The Voight in my Head

 We breakfasted at Bonn's Voigt bakery this morning, a chain around the city.

It's an unusual name and immediately made me me think of John Voight, the American actor in Midnight Cowboy and Anaconda Among countless others.

I get the impression many Americans have Germanic surnames. Is that right?

Trouble is I always get Voight's face mixed up with John Savage, that other US actor. Even now I'm not sure who was actually the Midnight Cowboy. Are you?

I know Savage starred in the Onion Field, cos I've got it as a big box VHS video, altho' I've never watched it.

Oddly enough I've seen more VHS at German car boots than I ever do in Britain these days, including my beloved big boxes.

Have you chucked your VHS videos readers?

Cost me a Packet

 I dug this JAWS 2 crisp packet up in the 90s near our house. The dog sniffed it out.

I had a big pile of packets and ephemera like this in my old toy stall.

It's old but not as old as my Golden Wonder Kung Fuey snack bag from the early 70s. I scoffed the bacon and mushroom snacks and framed the empty bag at the time.

The packet is displayed with my Jager Toys Kung Fu doll header card. I think it was a simple hollow plastic 12 incher with a basic cotton karate suit and belt.

Sadly the doll walked.

Did or do you have any interesting crisp or snack packets?

STUCK INDOORS!

 Chucking it down here in West Yorkshire. A regular deluge. No car boots so we're stuck inside. A wet Mothering Sunday in Pontefract!

I'm waiting for Amazon prime to deliver some tractor drivers and getting antsy.

We had a cooked breakfast earlier, so that was good.

Toad in the Hole for tea.

What are you eating today readers?

WHO KNEW!

There's some wacky stuff out there beyond Gallifrey! Look at this for example, Braised Hearts, a site dedicated to the recipes of ex-Dr. Who Jon Pertwee!

Have you followed one of the Time Lords' recipes?

https://braisedhearts.weebly.com/the-endorsement.html

The Smallest FAB1's?

 I've got a thing for FAB1 at the mo.

Remember this Pizza Hut cup lid from the early 90's. I had them all back then. Our daughter was 9 back then so we ate a lot of Pizza and Ice Cream from the Factory!

This FAB lid is from an old auction. Anyone got any more?

The little Rolls above isn't one I had. From Yujin, a Japanese make that released gorgeous miniature gumball-style Thunderbirds toys. Other companies did the same. Have you got any?

WHERE TO EAT ON MEMORY LANE

Nostalgia is a funny thing. Memory Lane. And that lane is full of old eateries from yesteryear. Like Berni Inns and Beefeater.

These were the kinds of restaurant chains our parents went to. For some reason they always make me think of thick chips, steak and peppercorn sauce, although I have no recollection of eating there ever. Warm log fires, large glasses of rum and woollen cardigans is another image I have of them.

Oddly enough I think Beefeater is still going. Its linked to the Premier Inn chain of hotels. Brewer's Fayre too. Maybe I have eaten at Beefeater after all!

Other eateries of yore include Happy Eater, that motorway chain with fab pancakes; Pizzaland, where I had my first slice of pizza ... with coleslaw!; Spud-U-Like - this may still be baking somewhere; National Milk Bars - I went to one for a milkshake in Barnard Castle about 20 years ago.

Can you think of any more long gone food joints?

FOOD FUNNIES 2

Regarding Food Funnies, this New Zealand Dog Food beats all!

Happy, Healthy Holidays to all,

Terranova47

USA

Food Funnies

There are some hilariously named foods and products that never intended to be. Here's one I like, the German chocolate powdered milk drink we picked up when we were there this year,

I give you, SCHOVIT!

Have you seen any comical food or product names?

It could be Wurst: Weinermobile Driver Training

It's been quite a while since this showed up at Nellis. The pictures here are from 2008. And of course I have the toys! LOL

From Vegas Weiner Base

Ed

USA

Have you had a Hot Dog recently .. or should I say Weiner?

GORGO ROCKS UP IN NEW JERSEY FOR THANKSGIVING

Hi Woodsy. I'm taking a break from setting up Christmas decorations and thought I'd show you these two additions to Monster Base. 

First is this beautiful Gorgo set I pre- ordered months ago from a company called Titanic Creations. Even the box is cool, looking like a scene from the movie, and the accessories are numerous. 

I also saw this "Spider -Rex" at Walmart and snapped it up. 

Also, here's a pic of a Thanksgiving dinner plate. Everybody enjoyed it!

Full menu is Roast Turkey, mashed potatoes, Sage and Celery stuffing, Green bean casserole, glazed carrots, peas, coleslaw, Cranberry-Orange sauce, Macaroni and cheese (not the usual addition, but my brother requested it) And Hawaiian butter rolls.

-Brian F 

Monster Base 

NJ USA