Diary of Lisa Taylor, reluctantly 42 (and a half)

Or.. 'f.ck me I'm forty.. two.. and a half', though can look 38 on a - not so deluded - good day. Or 'How to reconcile a well experienced mind trapped in a still - but for how long? – youthful body.' Don't have the 30somethings angst/problems, neither have the resigned (?) ageing baby-boomers in safe family territory outlook yet. Here's how I cope, one day all sexy women will get old... but never invisible. © Lisa Taylor 2005/6/7/8/9. Jeez.. so much for the 42 and-a-half delusion

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

29 December - Science & Food

For once am at work between Xmas and New Year and what an eye opener it is. If I had thought there would be a modicum of trading... I was wrong. This parrot is truly dead. Nothing doing, nobody ringing, nobody visiting, nobody requesting anything (and no, am not working on a helpdesk, but someone has to water the bonsais - yes plural and no, don't ask).

In fact, I'm the one with the request, since have gone and jammed a large filing cabinet containing amongst other things my long forgotten gym stuff and well, what better time to use one (not gone in a year) than when there's no work to do? So, here we are, in the vast tumbleweed central of huge company X: me, Polish facilities person who is currently making noises like he's trying to open the doors to the safe in a bank - you know when they twist the secret combination dial this way and that way, and one colleague. The one who, on the Saturday of the 'Snow & Bad Weather' afore xmas, flew to Bucharest in Romania - for world readers with scant grasp of geography - only to be diverted to a strangely named (basically I can't remember it but was not the capital and was near the Dead Sea) airport in ... Bulgaria. At 1am. After dumping the passengers there, the Air Lingus plane took off back to London ... with all their luggage. In the morning the passengers organised themselves into lists and took staggered coaches back to Bucharest and thence home to other towns. Apparently this made the front pages of Romanian newspapers.

But I digress. I wanted to tell you of this morning's experiment. Since the fridge is full of abandoned pre-pared foods, I took it upon myself to clear it. Only, before I did, I thought, this stuff looks alright, despite the well past it sell by dates. What if it tastes alright? So here are my first two results, which I hope you'll find as staggeringly suprising as I did. M&S cubed fruit (melons, blackberries, watermelon) sell by date 17 December: just turned fizzy but only slightly so, if you were really thirsty/hungry, you could eat them. M&S low fat probiotic yogurt with redcurrant and raspberry compote, sell by date 5 December: totally perfectly yummy. Have actually eaten all of it. M&S Super Green Soup sell by date 17 November (this was actually mine, had bought two and never really liked the taste possibly because I was drinking it cold rather than go find a microwave): it looks like the ingredients have separated and I don't dare open the pot for fear of releasing toxic odours. But I'd wager that the reason it looks well gone is that I had consumed half of it back whenever, thereby opening the seal then and introducing air. Were it still sealed I'd taste it and tell you how it is.

There you go. Since we'll all go and see The Road (because Viggo is in it) and wonder about stockpiling food for when the end is near, you can have at least a month or two of nice soft foods, it doesn't have to be all tins. So don't be scared of the sell by dates. The stuff won't kill you.

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