Food & drink

I'm a dedicated reduced price fresh food buyer and pay an average of 25% of full price at supermarkets for ALL our meat, ready meals, desserts, dairy, deli food, hot chicken, fruit and veg, bakery etc. I get some things 90%-95% reduced. Regularly go evening shopping weekdays when I'm at home and sometimes after 2pm on Sundays (a lot more competition than on weeknights) as I have done for the last 20 years. We eat well, but our food spend for four averages £35-£40 a week for about £150 as priced so I must have saved at least £50,000 since 1999. I know when and how all the supermarkets large and small do their final reductions, which are best for different lines and a few other lesser known tricks of the bargain shopping trade. The down side is I often spend an hour or more waiting around while the different departments do the reductions. 


99% of Use By stuff is fine for up to a week after recommended date if kept refrigerated though I freeze a lot on the day purchased. We keep two freezers full of reduced food, try to use it within a year but never throw anything away. Yet to be ill from any food, ditto my now grown up children. It amuses me to hear people say they can't buy something reduced in price at 7.30pm because it has to be eaten that night. Becomes toxic after midnight !

Best Before dates I ignore completely and buy soft drinks, crisps, cakes, cooking sauces, tinned food, chocolate etc in bulk at boot sales, markets and a few shops and warehouses that specialise in expired date goods. 

Helps fund my theatre musicals obsession.

I'm extremely squeamish about expiry dates, but I almost never waste food because I only buy food for the next couple of days at a time. The exception is soft fruit, which seems to go grey and hairy at least a day in advance of the best before date.

Absolutely not, they are one of my favourite ingredients. But I'm sure there'll be some who share your lemon aversion. Is it only lemon or other citruses too?

Because I don't mind it, I never think about the presumption of putting a slice of lemon in drinks but you are absolutely right. They should ask if you want anything in it. I suppose even worse for you are places that have a communal jug of water for everyone to use, and it's got lemon slices floating in it - I've seen variations on this, e.g. orange slices or mint leaves. My favourite bar in Edinburgh, Under The Stairs, your glass of tap water comes with a slice of cucumber in.

As I find lemon such a fresh and zingy taste and aroma it surprises me someone wouldn't like it but we are all wired differently. My dad couldn't bear the aroma of freshly sliced/peeled oranges - again, for me a lovely aroma but he found it nauseating.

I like bananas but the smell of a ripe one, or of the peel that's been thrown in a bin nearby, makes me heave. In an office I used to work in, the team knew to throw their banana peel in a bin outside the office. A previous colleague claimed the smell of bananas actually made her immediately throw up. We didn't put it to the test.

Interesting you mention those two things, I know someone who hates oranges like I hate lemons, and someone who hates bananas (although that's due to her having to take a banana flavoured medicine as a child). Weird how some of us end up with these inexplicable aversions to things. And yes you're right on the water, I often have to go up and ask for water without lemon. I imagine there are people who aren't keen on it being cucumber flavoured as well.

I resent paying what they charge for cocktails I’m afraid. On a very rare occasion I’ll have something rum based like a Mai Tai. They’re terrible value though, I can finish one in two swigs.

My favourite cocktail is a negroni. Last year in Dubrovnik we were sitting in very much a locals bar out of the centre called 'Wind' (you couldn't imagine that in Britain where you might as well call it 'Fart' or 'Belch') - the reason for its name was it had a nautical vibe, right next to a marina.
We soon tired of the local beer and rather rough wine but the place was too basic to advertise any cocktails. However, on the drinks list was gin, Campari and sweet vermouth so, emboldened by the barman's very friendly demeanour, I asked him to make up two. I had to explain what to do as he'd never heard of the drink, but for the princely sum of around £3.50 it was excellent - so good we had another!

Oh I love a Fray Bentos and occasionally have one as a treat when they are on offer for £1. Of course mo meat hardly just gravy and pastry but that pastry is the best bit especially the soggy stuff underneath. I eat a whole one.
I'm sure when I was a kid one of those fed a family of 4.

A whole one - as in, the 'family'-sized one? I have a great image of you lifting a big FB pie to your face (even though I realise that's sloppily impossible) and eating it like a big biscuit.

That said, I did know someone who would eat whole sponge cakes in that way.

Yes the moist underside of the puff pastry lid is luscious. Even when it's, as usual, risen unevenly - often one side is way higher than the other.

If anyone is ever in Lochinver in the Assynt region of the NW Highlands, go to the Lochinver Larder and go pie-mad. They do a whole range of pies, savoury and sweet, and they are all packed to bursting and absolutely delicious. But you don't even have to go there, they do online orders.

Side-note - ooh blimey. I have one post to reach 999. I told myself that as per the last board I'd bail at 999, I like the incomplete feel of it. I'd better choose it very carefully.

I love lemons. I don't know why they put them in drinks because they barely make any difference to the drink at all, but I do often eat the slice of lemon afterwards.

I used to love bananas — and especially banoffee sundaes — but they make my IBS flare up and it's not worth the pain. I believe that pearoffee sundaes are a thing that can work but I've yet to find one.

As someone who hates them, take it from me, they do make a difference. Especially in water as it doesn't really taste of anything, so the addition of something is noticeable.