Intrepid

We braved the storm, having checked the radar and noted an imminent lull, and ventured forth to the shop to see if anything had made it across the water in recent days. Good timing, as the wind seems to be whipping up again now.

Delighted to find special requests for 00 Flour and Jumbo Porridge Oats satisfied – so there will be good porridge for brekkie tomorrow and I can feed the awful stuff that I had to buy last week to the chooks. Later on today we’ll make Tagliatelle, the ladies having blessed us with a few eggs and with pasta flour stocks now replenished.

So, that was good.

There was a shock in store for us when we received the bread product that we had asked for: Warburton’s Thins. We are big on these little bits of bread these days – they are extremely useful when we go away with Brunhilde and I cannot bake my own bread –  and also, at just 100 kcals each, they can come in handy on a Fast day. I buy them from Tesco when they are on offer at £1 a packet. They come 6 to a packet and stay fresh for ages in the fridge. Freezer stocks have run out, so Mr L added them to the blackboard in the shop last week. Clearly he was not specific enough.

“Blimey – these are expensive!” he said “How much do we normally pay?”

I told him that we pay a pound and he gulped and said that these were £2.30.

Then he said… “There’s only 4 in a packet!”

Things were not going well.

Then he said… “These ones are fruity!”

I looked at what he had in his hand and said “They’re not Warburtons” but I was wrong, it had a different branding on the front and Warburton’s on the side of the packet. We assumed they’d revamped and re-branded and we’d inadvertently cocked up.

Well, we’d asked for them so we were going to have to take them…

I put my glasses on when we got home and found that we had the ersatz variation; pretend bread – free of everything that makes it bread.

Don’t get me wrong – I think it is great that these products exist for those who have dietary needs and Warburton’s are clearly doing a great job with their range but I think it’s criminal that Coeliacs have to pay such a premium price for a daily staple.  As for me – if I pay a Premium price I want a Premium product. In my (limited, admittedy) experience of gluten-free alternatives they are pretty much uniformly disgusting.

Just to add salt to the wound – they’re two-thirds higher in calories than the ordinary ones!

At this price I obviously can’t bin the bread but it’s going to be a while in the freezer before I get desperate enough to try it. I’ll try to find somebody on a gluten-free diet to take it off my hands.

(Linz – if you are reading this – have you tried them? Are they going to be edible to someone not attuned to the regime?)

Right – I’m away to make my blissfully full-of-gluten pasta dough. Scallops in white wine sauce with that later I think. Fully achievable on the picnic stove, should the power go off.

The weather pattern seems set for now – the charts show another (really evil-looking) depression coming across after this one, though for now it looks like poor Shetland will bear the brunt again.

Oh, that reminds me, the weather station has found a new, though temporary and less than perfect, situation outside. Sanday’s weather has been restarted.

In Knitting News: I am about to close the toe on the 3rd Polyommatus corydon sock to complete a wearable pair. That’s my second finished project so far this month and it’s only the 10th. Lots of time yet to finish off one or two more.