Your Views

Keep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions.

To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin).

Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com

If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay!

Type some key words here to search the feedback section

Your e-Mails

Sophie Damoglou Tunnocks Tea Cake Review	Fab website- I just love it! I have had a long relationship with the incomparable Tunnock's teacakes. As children my sister and I would take one out of its foil & dramatically smash it against our foreheads- that aim was for all of the chocolate on the top to smash into little pieces, with the minimum of mallow on forehead. Needless to say tricky & lots of fun, but did (un)remarkably often result in sticky forehead. So in my university years when secretary of Edinburgh University Ballroom Dancing society I KNEW the way to get people to sing up to our society was to entice them with a Tunnock's tea cake. So I wrote a nice begging letter to the factory (down the road in Uddingston) asking them for sponsorship money. They of course did not give us money- but wonder of wonders- they donated 50 catering size boxes of Tunnock's Teacakes. wow! were we pleased or what?! So the society's IT guy and I trundled off to the factory in his teeny 2CV to pick up our treasuerd 50 boxes. I never did get sick of them & still buy them for a treat. By the way, since leaving home to go to university (in the cause of staying slim) I have never walked down the biscuit aisle of any supermarket- ever! So I still love the toffypops, uniteds and trio's of my childhood. However my fiance does not understand this! So for the sake of our future marriage & with the tutoring of ncotaasd I am going to re-ignite my interest in biscuits. Probably to the detriment of my waistline, though. Though I do work for Cadburys, so I dont have much hope really! all the best, Sophie
	Nicey replies: Yes Tunnocks are utterly brilliant really, and they were very nice and helpful when we were writing the book. Be careful in that biscuit aisle, you have a lot of pent up biscuit tension there and it might get a bit graphic if you are suddenly re-exposed to them, especially in a public place.
Leo Graham cracker Review	Hi Nicey I just finished reading your Graham cracker page. Add me to the list of Americans who had no idea what a Digestive was [until I read about it on your web site] but had known about Graham crackers for well over half a century. Graham crackers were a staple of my youthful diet and a treat through middle years and into my 'rusty' years. They are also a staple for my grand kids. They are the ever-ready between meal snack which keeps little ones quiet. Graham crackers come in a couple varieties that I know of. Plain, as pictured on your web page, and with a cinnamon-sugar topping on one side. I personally prefer the cinnamon-sugar ones. I have not seen the apple and chocolate ones you mention... but I have never looked for them either. Graham crackers are one of the three ingredients of Smores, or S'mores. Smores is a contraction of the words some more, as in I want s-more. Smores are almost a 'necessity' while sitting around the evening campfire when camping. Do a web search for more Smores web pages. While the photo [on your web page] of the Nabisco Grahams box shows jam on a Graham cracker, I do not recall ever seeing anyone eating that combination. Graham crackers make a good topping when squished in the hand and sprinkled over a bowl of ice cream. They add a nice random crunchiness to the ice cream and a flavor contrast of grain to milk product. My favorite topping for Graham crackers is about an equal mix of peanut butter and honey. A small round bottom tea cup or coffee cup makes a nice mixing container. I take a few knife fulls of peanut butter and scrape it into the cup by dragging the knife blade across the cup lip. Alternately, you can put a spoon full in the cup, but then you wind up using your finger to scrape the peanut butter out of the spoon, and then the spoon to scrape off your finger. Once the peanut butter is in the cup, I add honey using my eyeball to 'measure' when there is about an equal amount of peanut butter and honey. Then stir it with the knife until it is well blended. You can then add more of either ingredient to suit your taste, or make the consistency spreadable. Once mixed, it is spread atop a Graham cracker. I usually have milk with it, but tea or coffee would do as well... depending on your personal preference. Smooth peanut butter works better for spreading. No peanut pieces for the spreading knife to bounce over. But crunchy peanut butter will work too... if you like the spread layer thicker. Both my kids and grand kids like to dunk Graham crackers in a glass of milk or a cup of hot chocolate. I followed a link from Andy Edward's Music web site to visit your web site. Curiosity question: What kind of tea do you Brits prefer? Unless I am mistaken, if one orders 'tea' at a restaurant here in the US, you will get black pekoe as the 'standard tea'. However many places now bring a bread basket style container with an assortment to choose from. Just curious if you ordered a 'cup of tea', what kind it would be. Is there a 'standard tea' which is usually served in the UK? Warm regards Leo Spokane Washington USA
	Nicey replies: Hi Leo, Thanks for that very informative mail about Graham Crackers. We had smores explained to us the other evening by an American girl, whilst we were down in London for the evening. We repaid her kindness by forcing her to eat a several things she had never encountered before including Jaffa Cakes and Tunnocks Wafers. She seemed to enjoy it although she couldn't finish the Tunnocks so I made her wrap it up again and pop it in her bag so she could have it in the morning. As to what tea we drink, well that really comes down to brands, but you are essentially right about it being standard tea. All the leading everyday teas are blends of various black teas from India, Sri Lanka and Kenya. These are carefully blended to give each brand its own particular taste, although they are all broadly similar. The leading brands are Tetley, PG Tips, TyPhoo, Yorkshire Tea and so forth. The supermarket chains also have their own blends with Sainsbury's and the Coop both being highly regarded. As you probably know all our teas are designed for drinking with milk. I suppose that if you mixed up some Celyon, Assam and Kenyan teas in the right proportions you could create something fairly close to any of our well known brands. The trick is to blend the tea to suit the water. It was common to ship water from Manchester to the tea plantations in India so the tea could be blended correctly before it ever left there. If you ever visit the UK you simply just have to ask for 'tea' and that's what you'll get. A couple of Digestives wouldn't go a miss either.
Kevin Becken	Dear Nicey, At last, a site that really demonstrates what the web is for. Congratulations. I discovered it today, a good friend passed on the details. Anyway, I am after some advice, as I am at a loss as to what to do with my aberrant daughter who simply refuses to listen to sensible advice on the etiquette of bisuit eating. The problem manifests itself with complex biscuits, such as penguins and yes, even extends into jaffa cakes. She has also been known to do it with crunchie bars too. Despite my determined efforts to explain to her the chemical design of these biscuits, and that the designer intended the subtle mix of textures and flavours to complement and contrast, to work in harmony, to add up to more than the sum of the parts, she insists on eating the things sideways. For example, with a penguin, she will nibble and dissolve the chocolate first. Then carefully detach the biscuit layer from the filling using teeth, then eat the cream filling, and finally the second biscuit layer. Similarly, Cadburys mini rolls - chocolate, cake, filling, completely distorting the flavour and mouth feel at each stage. Whilst I fully appreciate the challenge and dexterity she masters, despite my admonishments, threats, attempts to educate her calmly, demonstrations of how it should be done - she merely thinks it funny. What can I do to improve this erratic behaviour? Thankyou
	Nicey replies: There is not a lot you can do, it's a stage she's going through, she'll grow out of it during her mid thirties, perhaps.
Tricia D Arnott's Mint Slice Review	Dear Nicey, How lovely to see the Arnott's Mint Slice — remembered fondly from childhood and beloved to this day — reviewed as Biscuit of the Week. I feel I should share with those new to the Mint Slice one method of gaining maximum pleasure from these lovely biscuits. Turn the biscuit upside-down and nibble around the edge underneath to create a gap between the chocolate around the edge and the bit that covers the mint filling. Use your lower front teeth to prise the disk of chocolate away from the mint filling. This can be eaten straight away or saved for later. Scrape, lick or suck the mint filling off. Lick the chocolate off the back of the biscuit. Eat the biscuit in little pieces. (This is a good dunking opportunity.) If you haven't already, eat the chocolate from the top. Hours of pleasure!
Audrey Starkey McVities Milk Chocolate Digestive Review	What an interesting site and nothing but pleasure! I can almost taste the biscuits as they're discussed.  What about views on dunking and more importantly, HOW to dunk properly.  I like McVIts milk chocolate digestives, two together, choccy side in, and DUNK, the choc just oozes out.  So yummy!
	<< Previous | More >>