Food meme

Carrying on from yesterday's tale of foodie delights, here's a food meme nicked from nhw - I've changed the formatting slightly because Blogger doesn't seem to offer "strike through" as an option.

Bold type shows foods I've eaten, normal type things I haven't but would consider, italics foods I'd never eat, and those items which are asterisked are foods I've eaten but probably wouldn't bother with again or would actively avoid!

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea*
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari*
12. Pho
13. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich*
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese*
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche in ice cream
28. Oysters*
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut*
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (but only as in "kaolin and morphine"...)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho*
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail*
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Back home

In the last month, while I've not been blogging I've been a) going through the somewhat labyrinthine annual reporting cycle and doing lots of other things at work; b) knitting - photos sometime... c) preparing for going to Canada d) going to Canada...

But I'm back now. The cat has decided she's still speaking to me (bringing her back two rabbit-fur mice may have helped there...)

First, a picture taken inside the most beautiful church I think I've ever seen... As a complete Victorian Gothic junkie...


But while I was away, Lixie tagged me with this... (I've seen it in various versions but this is the one passed down to me...)

The Rules

Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What I was doing 10 years ago

Indexing official publications in my old job; starting my City and Guilds qualification in Embroidery and feeling completely lost at it; learning to dye, a transforming experience...

2. What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order)

Empty suitcase; order new printer cartridges; phone lost property office at Montreal railway station again; finish baby jacket for Baby A; declutter entire house. The last item has been on a standing list for at least the last 10 years...

3. Snacks I enjoy

Cashew nuts (roasted salted)

Macadamia nuts (ditto)

Cold pizza

Salt and vinegar crisps (which ought to be in a blue bag; anyone remember Tudor crisps?)

Rainbow Drops

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire

Pay off the debts of family and friends...

Travel around the parts of the world I've always wanted to see...

Buy a flat in Nancy; a cottage in Northumberland; a house by the beach in Toronto...

Open a shop which would sell beautiful yarn and handmade pieces by people who could charge what they ought to, and still get buyers...

Bend public transport gently to my will, so it becomes possible to travel everywhere without driving...

I guess I'd also leave my job - a year ago that would have been top of the list...

5. Places I have lived

Whickham, Gateshead

Chester-le-Street, County Durham

Cambridge

Paris

London

Loughborough

Waterbeach

5-6 people is ambitious, given that most of the blogs I read have already done this: so, tagging.... Diviknitty and pigwotflies, but only if you're up for it and haven't been tagged a gazillion times before...

Tagged again

.. this time by Mary

Four Jobs You Have Had In Your Life:
1. Classifying pottery fragments in the Auvergne
2. Au pairing a Hell-Child in Paris
3. Ferrying a wonderful study group from here around Cambridge
4. Cataloguing government documents, including scratch 'n' sniff posters from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Honestly.

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over:
1. Diva
2. East of Eden
3. The Blues Brothers
4. Withnail and I

Four Places You Have Lived:
1. Chester-le-Street, UK
2. Paris, France
3. London, UK
4. Cambridge, UK

Four TV Shows You Love To Watch:
No TV - but from memory...
1. The West Wing (current total addict of the DVDs)
2. Hill Street Blues
3. Inspector Morse
4. Moonlighting

Four Places You Have Been On Vacation:
1. Puget-sur-Durance, France
2. Florence, Italy
3. Carrollton, near Dallas, US
4. Grillon, France

4 Websites You Visit Daily:
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk
3. http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog
4. http://the-panopticon.blogspot.com

Four Of Your Favorite Foods:
1. Duck confit
2. Melted mozzarella
3. Well-made chili
4. Pork from here

Four Places You Would Rather Be Right Now:
1. Anywhere with heat - the boiler broke last Friday
2. Provence, in summer
3. In a pub with friends and a log fire
4. See no. 1 again...

So, I'm going to tag Jan and... now I find the other two I'd have tagged have already had this one... Jan, over to you...

Photos of some knitting will follow sometime! In fact, photos of some knitters:

This was at the Regal in Cambridge last week - we had a short-notice gathering. Carol, Lil and Rosie (L-R). And a scarf I was working on at the time in the foreground; came out nice....

And the other side of the table...

Niamh, and Rosie again from the front... The lighting had got somewhat 'atmospheric' at that point and people were having to concentrate...

I have close-ups of the scarf, but Blogger's only letting me post two photos tonight. Ah well...

I got Memed...

Thanks, Hazel!

Ten years ago
In the first lot of doing-up-the house; getting used to being married and living in a village; working in the same company I'm in now but doing a different job...

Five years ago
Finishing the first stage of embroidery City and Guilds; finishing the house renovations and enjoying having a Real Kitchen.

One year ago
Adjusting to living as a single person again (ongoing...); joining UKHK and marvelling at What Was Out There; teaching evening classes.

Five yummy things
Confit of duck; dessert wine; Heron Farm's pork and sausages; home-grown tomatoes; a can of Coke drunk very quickly after a truly evil meeting.

Five songs I know by heart
Country Life by Show of Hands; Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen; Rat Trap (and more or less everything else) by the Boomtown Rats; Love Minus Zero/No Limit by Bob Dylan; The Queen and the Soldier by Suzanne Vega.

Five things I would do with a LOT of money
Pay off my mortgage and that of anyone I know; Put enough aside to make sure my parents are OK in whatever circumstances; Open a savings account and put enough in it to cope with everyday emergencies like the roof blowing off; Buy a flat in a small city in France; Find a good charity for the rest.(if I've assured the above, anything else is Up to Me. Catholic sense of guilt/responsibility? Moi? Surely not)

Five places I would love to escape to
Someone else's head, just to see what it's like... otherwise... Flat in small city in France; Cottage on the beach in Northumbria/Norfolk; Serious Penthouse Flat in London; Friends' ranch near Dallas

Five things I would never wear
Anything made of an animal I wouldn't eat; Anything made by a company I distrust; Boob-tube; 4" heels; Digital-display watch (it'd just take me too long...)

Five favorite TV-shows
Don't have a TV; but based on ancient memory, DVD and watching other people's occasionally...
The West Wing (complete obsession at the moment but have only got to end of series 2 on DVD; I'm in the queue for series 3 from the library); Hill Street Blues; Inspector Morse; Messiah (have only seen The Harrowing); Blackadder

Five things I enjoy doing
Knitting; Hardanger embroidery; Being obsessively picky about spelling and grammar; Cooking when others are around to eat it; Sitting in pubs ranting with friends

Favorite toys
iPod shuffle; Nikon Coolpix 5600 camera; Swallow casein needles; Clover forked blocking pins; Raleigh Carlton Dutch town bike

Five people who get this meme
I'm just too new to this; anyone who reads this, please pick it up if you'd like??