Mind if I listen in at least?

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Patty, can I bounce off your words?? I want to listen in too! I love English comedies, Keeping up Appearances, Fawilty Towers (the best!), Monty Python, Benny Hill and the Goodies. Does that get me good points??? Ya'll??? Lisa

Welcome Patty and justmeLisa!! I can see I'm going to get a lot of practice with my tea-parties. Cucumber sandwiches, cream tea and Victoria sandwich, plus a pot of Earl Grey. Now, which flavour jam do you prefer? Strawberry, raspberry or perhaps something else? Very genteel, we'll have to curl our pinkies.

Hi there Patty and justmeLisa...no one minds at all...you're very welcome.I think most of the 'regulars' from 'that other place' are finding their way here.I made loads of trades last year with U.S.A and many of my seeds are now germinating.....but I was very jealous of the plant exchanges.....I hope that us folks in the U.K will be exchanging plants in a few weeks......hint hint !!

Marigold.

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I would like to listen in too, if no one minds. When I get over my fear of flying, I would like to fly to England. While doing my genealogy, I discovered that I have quite a few Quaker ancestors who came to America from England. I can just picture myself roaming through the old cemeteries over there.......... :-)

Anyway, if it's not too complicated (red tape) I wouldn't mind sending plants to the U.K. It would be kind of neat to know that something from my garden WASN'T afraid to fly and was now growing in England!

Sorry, Patty and Indashade, but U.K cannot trade plants with U.S.A and vice versa....only seeds....What I was getting at was that I envied you guys the plant exchange forums that you have and I would like to see something similar here.I have hundreds of seeds from generous gardeners in U.S.A that survived the long journey and are now happily germinating for me!
Indashade...I live next door to a cemetery (it almost put me off buying the house) and you're right...it's full of history...the oldest part of it is very creepy though.
Marigold.

Hello All, I have a friend in the US, we have have sent seeds back and fourth for a while now, but plants is a no, no, costoms people will jump all over sender and reciever, if, they catch you.

Alan

That's too bad-- I'd be happy to share my stuff with all of you across the pond.

I DO collect Wade porcelain.............. :-)

IF they catch you!!

I get plants sent my way from the US with all soil washed off the roots. they are sent in wet kitchen towel with a product to promote root growth. The last batch I recieved were so rooted into the tissue I planted the whole lot.

cuttings are fine also

Mark

Victoria Sandwich uuummmmmmmmmmmmm

it's like a giant cup cake cut in half with butter cream put in between the 2 halves. quite often the butter cream goes on top also.

butter cream is a mixture of icing sugar and butter mixed until smooth

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I have relatives in the US, Canada, Belize and England so I get to here 'em and understand them. I can understand creole no problems.

what did get me one time in the US was when my cousin asked if "I would like some whoop ass" LOL

Mark

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Yes, if ya'll (?) are gonna spend time here, you'd better learn the language. Gardening terms which might be helpful:

compost/soil (US: dirt)
garden (US: yard)
lupin (US: lupine - lupine in English means wolf-like)
seed tray (US: flat - a flat in English is what you'd call an apartment)

Cooking (you don't seem to have a clue what things are called in the kitchen):

cornflour (US: cornstarch)
plain flour (US: all-purpose flour)
cake tin (US:cake pan)

We're supposed to be metric for weights and measures and temperatures, but oldies like me still work in ounces, pints and fahrenheit.

Mark - do you make Victoria Sandwiches often then? The correct old-fashioned (well, sixties cookery books) recipe is:

Cream 4 oz butter with 4 oz caster sugar (don't know what you call that over there). Gradually add 2 slightly beaten eggs. Fold in 4 oz self-raising (US: self-rising?) flour.

Divide between 2 7" sandwich tins, cook at 350F for about 20 mins.

When cold, sandwich together with jam (preferably raspberry, as no-one likes the pips), and dust the top with caster sugar.

I use butter cream for the middle, and icing sugar's better than caster (too crunchy). Better still, jam and cream for the middle.

The basic recipe is the weight of the eggs (taken to be 2oz) in butter, caster sugar, and SR flour. For a bigger and fancier version, make it with 3 or 4 eggs, cover the outside with butter cream or whatever.

I expect you people in the US will be laughing your heads off by now. What sort of size cake is that? See, another BIG difference. I have a US cookbook - 6 eggs here, 10 eggs there! 10" cake pan! Just look at that recipe for Hershey Bar Cake on another Forum here. (What's a Hershey Bar?)

This message was edited Friday, Mar 9th 6:25 PM

Cream tea is basically scones and jam with a pot of tea. The scones should be buttered with a large dollop of homemade jam and a generous helping of clotted cream on top of that. I expect it is exccedingly fattening.
Then we talk about afternoon tea and high tea as well. These things are very difficult to explain!!
High tea is just an ordinary meal at tea-time and it includes a savoury. Afternoon tea is scones, with maybe a sandwich and some fancy cake. Definitely no savoury with an afternoon tea.
I can see we'll be having regular sessions to learn each other's idioms.

Northerner
is cream tea with a skown or a skawn? and is the table posie in a vayse or a vaws?
just my wicked sense of humour. remember to keep the little finger pointing out at 45 degrees

Mary
everyone here in Northern Ireland make the Victoria sandwich the same way.

Dave is gonna think we are all crazy

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patty

make on tomorrow . It wont last once cut!!

Mark

Well, not a 7" once if you're used to a 10" cake! But, I remember now, on TV they're always eating a HUGE container of ice cream or popcorn or pizza that we'd expect to serve several people. Do you really do that?

justmeLisa - The Goodies? Benny Hill? Your television seems to be stuck in the dark ages. Are these in black and white or colour? Mind you, we had Benson over here just a few years ago. Luckily, I was able to explain to my son that I'd seen it first time round and the young man being obnoxious was now a middle aged alien (well, shapeshifter) in Star Trek.

Yes the Americans like our comedy programmes but none of them mention the best ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES,now it would be torture if they have not seen it,cos we know how funny it is even the 20th repeats get 10 million veivers watching.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine, that is Mary. I watched the original Star Trek when I was a student and I was babysitting for a family with three little boys. They sat in a row watching Star Trek. I'd never seen it before. Still have a soft spot for it.

Mary-I don't remember if the Goodies were in color. I think they were. I am 39 now and I used to watch them when I was about 16. Benny Hill came on when I was around 16 too. Dad and Mom would not let us watch Benny Hill, but we used to sneak a peak at the first chance we got! I do love "Keeping Up Appearences" I think Patricia Routhlage (spelling) is one of the best actress I've ever seen! She is soooo funny. So with that in mind, lets all take out our hand painted periwinkle Royale Dolthan(?) china and have biscuits with a doily. Lisa

The china's Royal Doulton. I have a few of the figures. My mother was an excellent cook. She loved having her friends round and making fancy sandwiches and even fancier cakes for them. She used to make lovely sponge cakes and drop scones. She made home-made jam as well. I remember my Dad driving around trying to find a good pick-your own strawberry-growing farm. It's all just fast-food these days. Lost some of the quality of life maybe.

There is only one Star Trek worth watching - this new stuff is just silly and so unrealistic!

My family are all good cooks, Northerner, don't worry. Three of them (boys) have phoned or e-mailed from university to ask how to make chocolate cake. They're far more adventurous than I am. The youngest insists on cooking his own birthday party food - it's a treat for everyone else. He makes his own pasta, pizza bases and hot soufflés. Unfortunately, he's not into gardening, so when he does collect seeds for me, they either come unlabelled, or 'Big Red Tree' (I'd shown him a picture of Delonix regia, and said I wanted seeds, so we knew what it was).

Mary-Ya'll don't have Hershey bars?? It is a chocolate candy bar. Hershey is one of the U.S. top makers of chocolate. WOW! I thought the whole world had Hershey bars (smile). But then ya'll have all that fine European chocolate there, yummmmy!I was the one that posted the Hershey recipe. I am a chocolate junkie. I have some questions for you...What is a sandwich tin and what color is castor sugar? Is castor sugar white granulated? I would love to make your Victoria Sandwiches. Also what are pips? Thanks a bunch, Lisa

I have all of my Mum's recipe books Lisa. I've got no-one to cook for. My Dad liked his food plain and simple. He'd boil an egg for himself and I'd hear our smoke alarm going off! He used to forget about the pan and it would boil dry. I needed a new set of pots and pans a few years ago and my Dad insisted on a new pan as well. I ended up going to get a good set for myself plus a second set in the Sales for my Dad. It meant he could make his little tins of soup to his heart's content and still feel he was independent. When people get old and full of aches and pains like my Dad they just don't feel bothered with cooking. I used to take him out once or twice a week to somewhere nice and we'd have a nice meal. The change of environment did him good, it encouraged him to eat - he'd very little appetite because of his kidney problems. Unfortunately if he ate more, so did I! Really ought to think of going on a diet...
A sandwich tin is just what you put your mixture in for going into the oven. With Victoria Sandwich it is round and there's two of them. Size depends on amount of mixture. Caster sugar is white and is very fine and dissolves easily which means it is more easily creamed than granulated sugar and is good for making cakes.
My Mum's recipe books are fairly old so measurements will need to be modernized, i.e. measurements in ounces. I expect I can see my way to letting you have a few recipes. It sounds as though Mary is a very good cook, better than me.

Thanks Northerner, Castor sugar must be what we call powdered sugar. What are pips? Lisa

Mark,
i did say "if you get caught" not that i would be guilty of any thing like that, of course.

Northerner,
I am a trekkie, like all of them, waiting for the next one too.

Mary,
That cake sounds great, ok, but whats the differnce between that and a sponge, and i dont mean a bath sponge either, is it the same thing.

And be honest, how many of you actually sit in the garden, under a parrasol drinking tea, eating fancy cakes with your pinky (little finger for the US readers) sticking out. cos if you do, i have come to the wrong place, i just sit under an umbrella with a mug of coffee and a ham sandwich, and the only thing that sticks out is my belly when i have a sandwich to many.

Alan.

I can see I'll be lurking around this forum quite a bit - the sense of humor is so different and refreshing - I love it :) I was reading through this laughing out loud with a big smile on my face. Thanks to all for sharing.

Alan,

Technically, a sponge cake doesn't have fat in. For a sponge sandwich same size as above:

Put 3 eggs and 4 1/2 ozs caster sugar in a large bowl, stand this over a pan of hot water and whisk until light and creamy. Remove from the heat and keep whisking. Fold in 3ozs plain flour very lightly. Pour into 2 7" tins, bake at 375F for about 20 mins.

This doesn't keep for as long as the Victoria sandwich (doesn't make any difference in my house), but you can add a tablespoon of melted butter with the flour if you like. I think it's then called a Genoese cake.

Lisa,

The pips are the seeds. Oranges have pips, some things have pits (dates).

Caster sugar has grains, like granulated sugar, but finer. It mustn't be confused with icing sugar (that dissolves easily in water to make glacé icing for the top of the cake).

Or you could melt a Hershey bar. Our main chocolate bar would probably be Cadbury's, or Galaxy. Why did we have to call our Marathon after your Snickers? What sort of name is that?

Alan,

I can outdo you. I once sat in my potting shed (posh name for a 'room' at the back of the garage about 6' x 3' where I keep tools, pots & general rubbish), with my coffee, because it was windy outside but lovely and sunny!

This message was edited Saturday, Mar 10th 1:09 PM

Mary, have you got a kettle in your potting shed.

Alan.

Don't be silly. There isn't room for a kettle. Think of it as a coal-hole and you'll get a more accurate picture.

Besides, I like my coffee made with milk.

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Sorry, I'm not a gadget person. I prefer it the hard way. I did get a video last year, but I can't often be bothered to put anything on.

In England, a coffeemaker is usually a wife, I think.

I've got 3 coffeemakers. One of my Mum's and 2 that I won in competitions in magazines. But I prefer tea. My Mum won a tea-set once, a prize in our local supermarket.

Mary, i have.

Alan.

this is an excellent thread with really good to and frowing between us and the US.

all those on the other side of the pond just dont know how great it is over here. maybe that's why so many come to the UK every year.

Fatless sponge is no way as good as a fat sponge. we talked about this so much yesterday I went to out to the local homebaker this morning and bought a Victoria sponge with extra butter cream. there's only half left for tomorrow.

you just cant beat coffee made with all milk. that stuff sitting in the coffee maker all day is gross and way too strong

Borg rule!! agree or you will be assimilated

I resisted the temptation to post early on this thread and I am so glad I did. I have enjoyed the camaraderie! Do you people over the pond know what you are doing to this homesick English girl? Girl! That's a laugh! The last time I was a girl was the last time I was able to do a handstand up againt the wall. Tried to do it a couple of years ago and my arms just gave way....LOL. My kids thought it was funny anyway. I have to say I am a good cook. My father, God bless him, died just before I came to the US 4 years ago. He was a chef in the R.A.F., also Irish, and taught me all the little tricks of the trade. There is an awful lot of things I miss but there are lovely shops in Virginia where one can buy English foods, even clotted cream. But I do miss fish and chips and my monthly visit to our local pub for roast beef - since I cook every day it was nice to take a day off, especially on a Sunday. Naturally I miss my home and my garden and was looking at pictures the other day, I Had almost fogotten the details of the garden and how beautiful it was. But I have the mountains now and that's compensation enough :-) As for Bennie Hill - can't stand him! Give me Only Fools and Horses, Men Behaving Badly, Ballykissangel, Ground Force and Changing Rooms!!!

I would love to have the gaul (spelling?) to wear something like Lawrence wears

Mark