When I was young my Grandma Bates used to buy me a Rowntrees Easter Egg. My parents would buy me a Cadbury’s Egg. And my other grandma, Grannie Phillips would buy me a Black Magic Egg. These eggs were nothing like what is sold over here. The egg weighed 4 to 6 ounces. It was in two halves and the centre was packed with chocolates. The Black Magic egg was dark chocolate and ‘cos I liked it the best I would save it to last. For reasons I can’t quite figure out these type of eggs have never been sold, or sold widely here in the States.

This is my 47th Easter in North America and my 47th lot of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Now, I admit, they are not bad – looking at this pic certainly makes my mouth water ……

Cadbury’s Creme Egg being broken

but rather than buy me 2 doz of them how about being a little inventive and make me some of these:

Cheesecake filled Chocolate Egg

This creme egg does not use Cadbury Creme Eggs as an ingredient; it only served as the inspiration behind this chocolate-covered cheesecake. I’ll take three of these. The recipe is here.

Cadbury Creme Egg Pull Apart Sweet Rolls

The Cadbury Creme Egg Pull Apart Sweet Rolls recipe is by Chocolate Moosey. I’ll take 3 of those. Oh, please add one extra for Club Pres Chuck Whitlock – he loves sweet rolls.

My address is 33701 Simpson Road, Fort Bragg, CA, 95437. Please make sure they arrive before Easter Sunday.

I love food. In case you haven’t noticed I added a new Category, “Food”. Wife Sarah says that the key to dieting is portion control. Which means you get THE glare when one helps oneself to seconds. So, suppose the portion was really, really tiny ………. Check out these pics:

I’ve ordered 712 pizzas just to make sure I don’t hungry!!!!

Tel Aviv-based artist Shay Aaron constructs these incredible miniaturized food sculptures at 1:12 scale   They look almost completely edible.

Blood pudden per Wiki is, “a type of blood sausage …….. generally made from porkfat or beef suet, porkblood and a relatively high proportion of oatmeal.Black pudding pre-sliced may still have a plastic wrap around the circumference that must be removed before cooking.”

Look at those lovelies

Most Americans avoid ’em like the plague. I love ’em. I had two last year. The first at Coventry market and the second just before Christmas from the butcher in the Oxbow in Napa. I confess I had never seen them as a health food but, MuscleFood claims “black pudding – low in carbohydrates, high in protein – has become a ‘buzzword in clean eating.” Bloody ‘ell.

Bruvva Sean in UCK gave me a heads up on the material for this blog by referring me to a piece in the Guardian.

The Black Pudding Mecca of the world is Chadwicks in Bury Market (Bury is close to Manchester):

The Mecca of Black Pudding

“Some smart-arse scientist has just realised what we’ve known for god knows how many years,” Tony Chadwick told a customer. “Lancastrian Viagra, I call it.” “I always knew black pudding was healthy,” said one customer, as she asked Chadwick to pick her a “good one” – a request which draw the response: “We don’t do good. Only very good or flippin’ excellent.”

Fifty coach-loads descend on Bury’s  market each day during the summer months to stock up on the £1.05 puddings, with other devotees travelling far and wide to sink their teeth into a Chadwick original. Trevor Hodgkinson, 64, had brought his wife Elaine up from Norfolk to taste the pudding he loved growing up in Hulme, Manchester. “You can get black pudding in Norwich, of course,” said Elaine, dousing her hot pud with vinegar and mustard, “but Trevor always says it’s not the same, and he’s right. The texture is very different – processed ones are often very dry. This breaks up nicely. It’s delicious.”

She washed it down with a smoothie she’d bought from another stall. “Cucumber, celery apple and lime – I was trying to be healthy,” she said, saying that she was pleased to hear that the black pudding wasn’t perhaps the health disaster she had feared.

“It’s funny, isn’t it? You think of superfoods and you think of berries. You wouldn’t think of black pudding.”

Chadwick believes he is already one step ahead of the diet gurus. “I tell you what’s going to be the next superfood,” he said, pointing to a counter containing white blankets of animal stomach. “Zero calories there. Mark my words, the next big superfood will be tripe.”

Tripe is alright if served with fried onions.

Grinners breakfast

Or you can have it for high tea:

Baked beans with black pudding

Cor them pics make me drool!!!

Some of you may have noticed I have added a new category to the blog – FOOD! At age 73 it’s wise to have a passion besides model trains – mine is FOOD.

When daughter Annalise arrives in town my hands stay glued to the washing up bowl whilst she works her extraordinary magic at the stove. Below are pics of the pig out I “suffered” the week of Christmas.

Caramels being made

I can’t tell you how good these are – we have a few left which I am rationing:

Caramels covered in dark choc with a dash of sea salt on top

The above were for nibblies – heres’s where we get into the heavy duty stuff:

The above was a light meal!!!!

brekkers muffins with almond and lemon strip topping

I can’t remember what was in the muffins only that it was totally delish.

The table – the flower vase in the centre was made by Annalise for Sarah for her holiday present

Boeuf Wellington just out of the oven

The aroma made me drool.

Beef Wellington ready for downing

If that wasn’t good enough have a butchers at the dessert:

Profiteroles stuffed with caramel laced cream – all made from scratch by Annalise

Not one dessert but TWO:

Real christmas pud from M & S in UCK with Roger Thornburns Rum sauce

A brief pause then cheese and bikkies, chocs and coff.

Laser Guided Pizza Cutter

You thought I was joking. Right?

Read the hype …….

“Solving yet another major first-world problem, ThinkGeek ensures you’ll get perfectly straight slices thanks to its military grade laser-guided pizza wheel. Also works as a flashlight for those times when you must cut pizza in the dark.”

I’m buying three. I’m going to give one to the three of my wife’s friends I like the least.

If you REALLY MUST have one go here.

Wife Sarah handed me a piece that she had found which first appeared in the Bloomberg News. The piece, entitled, “Five kitchen gadgets you don’t need,” is VERY funny. The author, Megan Mcardle, has a wicked sense of humour. The write-up on the first four were very good but the write up on the fifth, “Vertical egg cookers,” takes the biscuit……..

“Have you ever thought, “Gee, I wish my scrambled eggs looked more like a long eyeless worm?” No? Until a few years ago I wouldn’t have imagined that anyone might have. Yet the vertical egg cooker exists.

For a summation of its charms, I cannot improve upon this view from The Guardian, ‘this week’s gadget describes itself as a new way to prepare eggs.’ which is accurate in the way that chopping off your legs could be described as a new way to lose weight.”

I sampled the output from one of these devices a few years back, and in case you are wondering, the flavour and texture are every bit as appalling as its appearance. There are certainly things I would less rather eat, but most of them are not legal in the continental United States.

While this machine does not make anything that you would voluntarily eat it does rather make you think. It’s healthy to dwell on life’s questions sometimes, and this one raises a big one, “Why?”

Target Market: People with elaborate and troubling fantasy lives, people who need a relatively inexpensive way to mock up alien parasites for their small budget film.

Actual method for making scrambled eggs: Use a pan. Or, if you really can’t wait five minutes, cook them in a microwave.”

Now in the very dim and distant past I was an auditor – a verifier of truth. My interest was piqued. Did the vertical egg cooker really exist? Was this piece an elaborate hoax? Was it a late April Fool’s joke? For three days I have been conjuring up the courage to find THE TRUTH.

So I punched up google and …….. guess what? IT DOES. And you can buy it on Amazon. I’ve ordered twelve to give away as birthday presents to people I like the least. If you get one from me you’ll know you are in exalted company.

And, and, just to show that I jest not here is a pic of THE VERTICAL EGG COOKER.

Vertical Egg Cooker