Early Risers.

[zarniwhoop]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Thanks Tony. In the US the "grill" heats from under the food. In restaurant service a high-temperature overhead heat source is a salamander.

Some of us are more familiar with a different salamander - Discworld Salamanders  

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Thanks Tony. In the US the "grill" heats from under the food. In restaurant service a high-temperature overhead heat source is a salamander.

Our oven has top, side, bottom and rear heating elements. The rear one has a fan. For most cooking the “fan with booster” setting is used which is basically the fan element plus other elements, just to come to temperature quickly,  then  just fan. 

[monkeysarefun]

14 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

 

. I will also be looking to acquire single malt whiskies from India, South Africa, Germany, Denmark, Finland and the USA (which is the breadth of supply for this one shop I know of. I will undoubtably casting my net wider than that)

It all a tastes like metho to me so I can't vouch for it but Tassie has a few.

https://www.broadsheet.com.au/feature/worlds-best-whiskies-tasmania

[monkeysarefun]

12 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Morning.  wondering about Marmite pizza......LOL, hand grenade!

Google Vegemite pizza and you'll get a heap of recipes, even one of our pizza chains here does a Vegemite and cheese stuffed crust pizza...

[Ozexpatriate]

37 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

In the UK a salamander is an amphibian but I don’t think they live here. 

Yes, they are also amphibians and do live in North America. They also have a mythical relationship with fire (like dragons).

32 minutes ago, zarniwhoop said:

Some of us are more familiar with a different salamander - Discworld Salamanders  

As above.

[simontaylor484]

I never liked whisky but found I could drink IT  mixed with with Drambuie 

It was called a Rusty Nail.

I prefered a nice demerera rum either Appletons or Mount Gay,Brugal, Woods 100.  Lambs or Captain Morgan at a push. 

I used to drink way too much Guinness and bitter then lager on holiday 

 

I haven't Had alcohol for nearly 3 years now as it wouldn't mix with the medication I am on.

I had a bottle of alcohol free San Miguel with xmas dinner 

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Thanks Tony. In the US the "grill" heats from under the food. In restaurant service a high-temperature overhead heat source is a salamander.

Grill in the UK, Griller in Australia, Broiler in the US - at least within my areas of knowledge.  The term "Salamander" is typically used (in the UK and Oz) to refer to a high-heat catering-industry device similar to, but larger and more powerful than, a grill.  

 

Many modern domestic ovens have the "grill" function within the main oven rather than separately at either waist or "eye" level.  Ours does.  It's a right royal PITA because in order to produce something as fundamental as cheese-on-toast the entire oven space is required and the grill elements normally emit acrid smoke for a time because they have suffered spatter from oven use.  I prefer mine to be separate.  And I prefer a salamander just because of the intense heat they produce making for quicker cooking without the food drying out through lengthy medium-heat application.  

 

Now I've said that I fancy cheese-on-toast but I don't fancy triggering the smoke alarm and waking the neighbourhood at  this time of night    

[Ozexpatriate]

36 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Our oven has top, side, bottom and rear heating elements. The rear one has a fan. For most cooking the “fan with booster” setting is used which is basically the fan element plus other elements, just to come to temperature quickly,  then  just fan. 

Mine has just the top element and fan (for "convection" baking, the US equivalent of 'fan'). With the "BROIL" setting, the top element is on full blast.

 

Most ovens I have seen here have a bottom and top element. There are air fryer combination ovens that have multiple fans and side elements as well.

[Ozexpatriate]

13 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

even one of our pizza chains here does a Vegemite and cheese stuffed crust pizza...

I'm not surprised. As a youngster I was sent off to school with Vegemite and cheese sandwiches (on buttered bread) every day. (A Vegemite and cheese stuffed crust 'pizza' is the same flavour set.)

 

Unfortunately in the sub-tropical heat my sandwiches could be rancid by lunchtime and I asked my mum for something else. For many years afterward as a child I couldn't eat butter. When I came to the US I was delighted to learn that people don't put butter on sandwiches here. These days I'm happy to eat butter, but not on sandwiches.

[Ozexpatriate]

7 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

The term "Salamander" is typically used (in the UK and Oz) to refer to a high-heat catering-industry device similar to, but larger and more powerful than, a grill.  

Same usage in the US.

[Ozexpatriate]

9 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

It was called a Rusty Nail.

Still is.  It's like rocket fuel.

 

9 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

I prefered a nice demerera rum either Appletons or Mount Gay,Brugal, Woods 100.  Lambs or Captain Morgan at a push. 

I do like Appletons. Instead of using it with egg nog, I polished off the remnants of an ancient bottle of "Captain Morgan's Private Stock" (a step up from the regular Captain) last night in some egg nog.

 

Living in (what was) the land of sugar cane, rum was a pantry staple in my formative years. It was used annually for the Christmas rum balls and a dish with chocolate biscuits and whipped cream that was made for special occasions. I always liked the way it smelled. 

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[Ozexpatriate]

The family event at the coast tomorrow has been relocated closer to home. I'm glad I'm not asking my son to drive in this mess for a non-deterministic period:

This is a low-altitude pass in the coast range (the summit is about 760').

 

Locally roads are clear. My patio thermometer is right around freezing: 31.6°F. A little more snow is expected overnight and into tomorrow.

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Ozexpatriate

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Feeling a lot better now, and the natural flow test was negative.

29 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

I never liked whisky but found I could drink IT  mixed with with Drambuie 

It was called a Rusty Nail.

I preferred a nice demerara rum either Appletons or Mount Gay, Brugal, Woods 100.  Lambs or Captain Morgan at a push. 

I used to drink way too much Guinness and bitter then lager on holiday 

 

I haven't Had alcohol for nearly 3 years now as it wouldn't mix with the medication I am on.

I had a bottle of alcohol free San Miguel with xmas dinner 

Look out for Cockspur rum, its from Barbados and is like liquid butterscotch.

[monkeysarefun]

5 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

Also interesting that DOC add a surcharge for meals on bank holidays and Sundays. I’m not sure I’ve come across that anywhere else. I know some places don’t do ‘pensioners specials’ and the like at peak times.

Retail and service staff get time and a half pay on Saturdays and double or more on Sundays and public holidays. Some cafes and restaurants whack on a 5'% to 7.5% surcharge to recoup this.

 

Im not aware of any other retail or service sector that does this despite them also opening on the weekend and paying the highter rates -  shops don't charge more on Sundays, nor do clubs etc.

 

To be legal the restaurant/cafe must indicate by sign or on the menu that they charge this which gives you the chance to go somewhere else.

 

Also some call it "discretionary" which means that you can tell them up front you wont be paying it and you wont get charged it but given that its meant to be to recompense the staff that can make you look a bit of a knob  like you hate the workers or something and thus risk getting bad service so thats not advisable.

 

 

[Erichill16]

26 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 and thus risk getting bad service so thats not advisable.

 

 

Or worse and get some of chefs ‘special’ sauce.

 

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

Is it safe to venture back out into the world yet?

I kept a low profile for a while, I don't feel much enthusiasm for winter these days and the pandemic has deprived us of our usual December trips for the past two years. At least we have now got the dreaded festival out of the way we can get back into some sort of order, though for how long I won't speculate. 

As January 2022 is rapidly approaching I think it's time I shook off the dreary feelings and got my brain back into gear. The workbench has been tidied, etches, etc, ordered so it is now all systems go and I look forward to catch up with what's happening in ERs on a regular basis again.

See you all soon.

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I do like Appletons

I was introduced to that by a lady from Jamaica. Anne was involved in running an international sports federation and when this lady was coming over for a meeting she would send me a note of parts she needed for her ancient car. It seemed she had trouble getting certain spares over there but I had a contact in a firm that could get all of them. My time in obtaining the parts would be rewarded with a bottle of Appletons when we met up to hand over the goods.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

I decided to go shopping this morning and to my surprise, the car park was half empty and Sainsbury’s itself was fairly quiet, which was NOT what I was expecting at all. I managed to get enough fresh items to last us until next week, I even ventured into Aldi to get a couple of items that Sainsbury’s didn’t have. Surprisingly, that was fairly quiet too! However, I will still have to go to the Trafford Centre on Friday morning for a few more bits for the weekend, which I just can’t get locally. 

 

After dinner I sat and watched the last 3 episodes of ‘The Secrets Of The Imperial War Museum’ so that’s another bunch of programmes watched and deleted. 

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Unfortunately in the sub-tropical heat my sandwiches could be rancid by lunchtime

We had to leave our schoolbags with our lunch in them outside the room in the playground . In summer by lunchtime the sandwiches were lightly toasted, the bread had dried out completely. Also my drink flask with my orange cordial in it was pretty warm, like the cordial had been made with warm water, I still cannot drink orange cordial as a result. 

 

 Then there was the school milk left out in the sun until playtime.....  

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Ozexpatriate]

8 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

We had to leave our schoolbags with our lunch in them outside the room in the playground . In summer by lunchtime the sandwiches were lightly toasted, the bread had dried out completely. Also my drink flask with my orange cordial in it was pretty warm, like the cordial had been made with warm water, I still cannot drink orange cordial as a result. 

Yuk. I don't remember where our lunch boxes were stored. It might have been like you, outside the classroom. It didn't matter. There was no air conditioning in classrooms back then.

 

8 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Then there was the school milk left out in the sun until playtime.....  

Been there, have the tee shirt. Boys would "accidently" drop and spill their warm milk. There was no crying over it. I still cannot drink milk without some kind of flavour changing additive - chocolate/cocoa, coffee, what have you.

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Got Sydney for a sleepover as one of the nephews has now tested positive for covid so we’ve decided it’s best to keep Sydney with us so as not to risk catching the ruddy virus. 
As a result we went for a longer walk than expected and my ‘lobster’ time got swallowed up and in the end I did a bit of bookwork. Monies have been transferred, bills have been paid and things should be ok…… unless I’ve missed a direct debit payment that’s due between now and New Year’s Eve. 

stop rambling, it’s late,

goodnight.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Erichill16
Remove some irrelevant sentences.

[Coombe Barton]

1 hour ago, simontaylor484 said:

I had a bottle of alcohol free San Miguel with xmas dinner 

What's it like? If you say it's OK I'll give it a shot.