lifestylesupportguru

Tag: Pot Noodles

They Do Things Different in Yorkshire, Tha Knows.

Acronyms!

A very, very good evening to you all from the Lifestyle Support Guru! I am in a particularly joyous mood tonight because I have at last been vindicated in my food of choice (or my choice of food). Let me explain:
This afternoon I went to see the film God’s Own Country with my very good friend the BFG (Bazza the Friendly Geordie), although her husband, the BSG (Bazza’s Shy Geordie), was unable to accompany her because he was repairing a temperamental toilet. In fact, thinking about it, the BSG always seems able to find any number of domestic tasks whenever the BFG is meeting the LSG – a mere coincidence, surely? The LSG was accompanied by DODO, but not TOFU or TT (the Tiny Tyke), although DODO went AWOL before the film, since he didn’t think it would be to his taste – he’s more of a ‘shoot ‘em up’ type (although a calf got shot in the film, but I don’t think he would have counted that) .
I had considered asking TOFU and TT along because the film is set in Yorkshire, TOFU’s current place of residence and TT’s birthplace, but they still have to earn a penny or two while the LSG and DODO can make merry to their heart’s content! And so to the film and the reason for the LSG’s delight. (Enough acronyms there to please any writer of government leaflets!)

Review

God’s Own Country (a sort of northern Brokeback Mountain but with sheep farmers instead of cowboys, and a couple of cows instead of horses) is a little bit like Countryfile on steroids, with nudity, sex and strong language thrown in for good measure, Do not expect a ‘Morecambe and Wise Tour of Yorkshire’. However, I feel I learned quite a few things from the film, such as how to skin a lamb or build a drystone wall.

Pot Noodles

So where does the feeling of great joy come from, I hear you cry. Well, this is the first time I have ever seen a film that featured… Pot Noodles! Yes, dearest followers, not just one Pot Noodle, but several! A whole bucketful, in fact, which the two young heroes took with them when they went to spend a week in close proximity in a derelict outbuilding on top of the moors during the lambing period.
My only complaint is that there seemed to be a lack of reality in the amount of time allowed for the ‘Pot’ to cook properly – they just poured on the water and started eating instead of allowing the requisite four minutes. I distinctly heard a ‘crunch’ from one of the young men because his Noodles hadn’t softened enough, so to speak. Nor did they have bread and butter, an essential part of the ‘Pot Noodle experience’, but perhaps understandable when eating at a campfire on top of the Yorkshire moors.
So there you have it, Beloved Believers, Pot Noodles on the big screen – is there any greater accolade or mark of respectability, even in a film set in Yorkshire? I leave you with that thought and wish you a very good night.

Domestic Goddess Part 2

Noodles

A very good evening from the Lifestyle Support Guru! Now, although it isn’t that long since I posted about being a Domestic Goddess, I felt that I needed to add a Domestic Goddess, Part 2. As you know, my own speciality is Pot Noodles (various flavours available, although my personal favourite is Chicken and Mushroom, with extra soy sauce), but I have passed a couple of agreeable afternoons this weekend watching others cope with this role and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there are some who are almost at the same level of culinary expertise as the LSG.
First was Frances Quinn who, apparently, was the winner of the Great British Bake-off in 2013 – I was ill at the time, so had to withdraw from the competition. I have to say that I enjoyed her demonstration at the Derbyshire Food and Drink Fair of how to make marzipan bees, although I

bee

think I might have beaten her with my Pot Noodle Poodles if I hadn’t been struck down with a sudden and debilitating malady which prevented me from entering the competition.
Second was Sue Williams, who provided a MORE than adequate lunch (probably ‘Satisfactory’ by Ofsted standards, if ‘satisfactory’ was still a ‘standard’ in their book, but was ‘Outstanding with gold knobs on’ in mine!). Today was not ‘marzipan bees’ or

yellow car

‘noodle poodles’ but pork (her husband said it had gone from being ‘pulled pork’ to ‘sliced pork’ and, eventually, just became ‘pork in chunks’) with a whole range of accompanying vegetables, all of which were rather tasty and wouldn’t have gone amiss as a new Pot Noodle range of ‘Sunday Lunch’. Having spent FOUR hours exchanging gossip and reminiscences, I felt it was time to take my leave before I outstayed my welcome (I’d probably done that after half an hour!) and we then exchanged bottles of wine and air kisses – mwah, mwah, daaahlings!!! We also agreed that younger brother would NOT have been impressed with a bright yellow Picanto as my preferred mode of transport – no taste, Leigh!

My only concern about the whole afternoon is that, unbeknownst to Sue and Will (and me, for a while), I had a little, fine hair trapped behind one of my contact lenses which

contact lens in eye

was causing me to think that I was having some sort of hallucination because it kept making ‘shapes’ in my vision and I didn’t think it appropriate to say that I thought I was about to have some sort of massive brain seizure – apologies to both of you if you wondered why I was constantly winking at you, but I was just trying to clear my eye! You’re probably, even now, saying to each other, ‘Bit worried about the winking; do you think she’s a bit of a swinger?’ The answer’s ‘NO’ – not at my age!

So, there you have it, dear followers – some people CAN come close to achieving the elevated state of the LSG! It just takes that little bit of extra effort – and the ability to get a full Sunday lunch into a small plastic pot to which you just add boiling water! Doggie bag, Sue – that’s the secret! Sleep well, beloved believers – on a full stomach!

Domestic Goddess

A very good evening from the Lifestyle Support Guru! You may not have noticed my name mentioned as one of the ‘winners’ in the election, but I can let you know that I shall be working undercover as a secret advisor to the government and all the other parties, but if I tell you what I’ll be doing, I’d have to kill you, I’m afraid, so I shall move on to something else.

Domestic Goddess

Now, as you know, the LSG has skills in many areas, but what some of you may not realise is that I am also a DOMESTIC GODDESS and I am going to help you achieve this status, too. Being a DOMESTIC GODDESS doesn’t have to involve such mundane tasks as cooking, washing up or cleaning the oven. Goodness me, no! All you have to do is get someone else to do it for you (by going out to lunch on as many occasions as possible) or buy a Groupon voucher for an oven cleaner to come and get rid of all the gunge that has somehow gathered inside your oven, even though you use it infrequently (that means ‘almost never’ in LSG-speak). Personally, I blame the cats – I think they may well be secret Michelin-starred chefs.

Now, imagine the scene: you have a professional oven cleaner booked for the afternoon, so what’s the first thing you do? Yes… you clean the oven! You also clean the kitchen itself and, just for good measure, the bathroom – just in case!
The cleaner arrives and you lead him into your sparkling kitchen, show him the oven and he

oven

examines it. ‘Does it have an interior light?’ he asks. You finally manage to stop laughing because this is almost the smallest oven you can buy without it being a Calor gas camping stove, so an interior light would make it look like a floor show every time you open the door!
He opens the oven door and looks inside and you feel a frisson of terror in case he refuses to clean it. ‘Please, tell me you’ve seen worse?’ you plead and he says – slowly – ‘Yes…’ and then there’s silence… until he adds, ‘We also clean carpets,’ as he looks back into the living room where the red carpet has a fine covering of long, white fur as a contrast.

Italian coffee

You offer a coffee and he then asks to use the toilet (relief that you put that little bit of extra effort in) and then you explain to him that you will be doing your Italian homework while he’s working, hoping that this will impress him and make him realise that the LSG is far above domestic chores.
The oven cleaning and the Italian homework finish at the same time – guess which one of us said, ‘Well, I’ve done the best I can.’?
To the undomesticated eyes of the LSG, the oven, once again, looks sparkling – if those bloody cats decide they want to start doing cordon bleu cooking, they can go elsewhere! This oven is not for burning!

And there you have it – being a DOMESTIC GODDESS is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, as long as you let other people do everything for you(except your Italian homework). Pot Noodles for me from now on – or lunch out.
Sleep well, dear followers!