Tuesday 10 January 2023

The Complete Chinese Takeaway Cookbook

I've been looking forward to Kwoklyn Wans latest book for a while now, so I'm very excited to find that Amazon Prime delivery have been and it's finally here!

It contains all the recipes found in his previous Chinese Takeaway books with around 50 new recipes to try out and I can't wait to get started...

I've just had a look in the fridge and I have enough ingredients to give the Chicken and Mushroom in Oyster sauce recipe a go...


Needless to say, it was absolutely delicious 😋 and I can not wait to try some more out 😎




Friday 28 March 2014

Barry Cryer - Twitter Titters with Colin Sell

Not long been back from a great evening out at The Castle theater in Wellingborough to see Barry Cryer who (amongst other things) is famous for writing for some of the greatest people of all time from the likes of Tommy Cooper to Morecambe and Wise and you don't get more famous than them!

I have to admit I've not really followed Mr Cryers radio career so I had no idea who Colin Sell is and to be honest when I sat down and took a look at the stage and saw a grand piano standing there, I was a little confused as to what was going on.  When a pianist came on stage (who I later learned was in fact Colin Sell) and started playing background music I was beginning to wonder what sort of show I had come to see as it was beginning to look like a piano recital and when Colin started singing, I really began to wonder what I had let myself in for...

To make my concerns even worse, when Barry Cryer came on to the stage he too started singing which really made me wonder what on earth was going on!

It wasn't long before the singing stopped and the show turned in to what I had hoped, lots of funny tales and jokes about people Barry Cryer had met (and sometimes written for) over his many years in show business.  There were lots of 'old' jokes that we'd all pretty much heard before, time and time again and it was these jokes and stories I had come to hear, as a lot of them are jokes we've all taken for granted and forget that someone wrote them in the first place, and in many cases it was Barry Cryer who was part of a team of people that wrote them.  :)

All the singing wasn't my cup of tea, but it was soon explained that Barry and Colin have been working together on the radio in this way for many, many years and a lot of the audience members were familiar with their work together and seemed to enjoy it.

All-in-all I have to say it was a very different and mostly enjoyable night out - the last of a dying breed you might say as modern comedians use observational comedy which when I was growing up was called Alternative Comedy but it's now so widespread that it's the norm so is just, well, comedy.

Although he's from the same era as Ken Dodd, he wasn't quite up to that standard for me, but it was still a good night out so I've given this show a well deserved 3 stars.




Saturday 15 February 2014

Greggs Kettering Sold Frozen Cream Doughnut

Last Saturday I purchased a sausage roll and two fresh cream doughnuts from Greggs The Bakers in the Newlands Shopping Centre, Kettering. There was no issue with the sausage roll (in fact it was quite nice as I ate it on the way back to my car). The issue was with the so called Fresh Cream Doughnuts.

When I got home I left the doughnuts in the box provided by Greggs and put them on the table whilst I made a sandwich. After eating my sandwich I started to tuck in to one of the doughnuts and immediately spat it out as the Fresh Cream was part-frozen.

As I was unsure whether or not it was safe to eat I immediately contacted Greggs on the Social Networking site www.twitter.com where I was asked to send an email to their customer services. They wouldn't tell me if it was OK to eat them or not so I threw them away and then sent them an email as requested.

On the following Monday I received a reply saying they would look in to it and again they didn't say if it was OK to eat or not and simply they would take 5 days to investigate it and get back to me.

Five days is now up, I have followed their advice on how to complain and they have failed to resolve the issue.

My concern is that not only have they refused to tell me if they were OK to eat but it looks like they may be selling goods that are not being stored properly and they may be advertising Fresh goods that are actually Defrosted goods – or worse, incorrectly stored goods that may pose a health risk to us consumers.