Why are there foodbanks?

sketch-1577233161543.jpgThis might be someone’s meal today, tonight, next week. They may be on a low income, on benefits or state handouts. They might be in a refugee camp trying to flee from famine or oppression.

Coming closer to home, in a land that is the sixth richest in the World and where many more billionaires live than ever before, the number of Foodbanks here over the last few years have soared, from a handful ten years ago to more of them than McDonald’s outlets now! There are around two THOUSAND Foodbanks in this country now. Let that sink in. And people using them are only allowed two or three referrals in a six month period. That referral gives them emergency food for three or four days. They are used when someones benefit has been cancelled or delayed. I know about them because I used to refer people into them. I had to jump through hoops to get a referral for them. Often I came up against the arguments about whether they were deserving enough. I would be talking to a decision maker who would criticise the person’s ability to budget a paltry amount of money that the decision maker could not possibly have lived on themselves.

My question again is why are there Foodbanks? Why are the poorest in society forgotten? Why do the rich think it’s OK to look down on the poor? Remember that it is only by luck that we are born into the lives we have.

 

What a faff!

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Faff! Not sure what it means but we are faffing about. Staying at a hotel. Breakfast and lunch for Christmas day, but no evening meal. I have asked about room service, they don’t have any. I know I’m faffing, but I have to eat regularly because I have to take tablets with  every meal. (I know I’m very lucky not to live in the majority of the world where one meal is very rare).

I guess I could have worse problems. Its only when you think about them that you realise how very trivial they are!

Thai

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I took this photo of Thai figures and Buddha in the Thai restaurant we go to. They looked friendly and warm. The way they are placed in traditional dancing poses must give the owner good memories of where she came from. Dressed in beautiful clothes, with high hats. We need more variety in the world. We should not be scared of what is different, whether it’s skin colour, or sexuality or gender or size or shape or mind. These figures show that life is fascinating and fantastic should we care to share it.

Full English breakfast

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We don’t have these very often, but as we had gone out to see the train at Apedale we decided to have a full English breakfast. Apologies to vegetarians, there are alternatives available.

Full English in this case consisted of bacon, eggs, tomato, beans, black pudding, sausages and hash browns with two slices of toast. Sometimes they put in mushrooms instead of black pudding.

It was very tasty… . Washed down with a mug of decaff coffee.

Staffordshire Oatcakes with blackberries and lemon mousse

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It doesn’t look much but I wanted to use up some blackberries and I also wanted to get some vitamin C. I rolled up the blackberries in the Staffordshire Oatcakes. I added a sprinkle of sweetener that I cook with. Then I drizzled honey and lemon juice over the top and heated them in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Topped with half a tub of lemon mousse which needed using up. I’m used to Oatcakes with savoury fillings like cheese but these were sweet and tasty!

Minced pies

Short crust pastry pies, filled with minced fruit with rains, currants, possibly orange or lemon peel, a bit of fat (originally suet, but now a bit of vegetable sauce).  The fruit mixture can be soaked or souced in brandy or rum.

My favourites were the ones mum used to make. The pastry was rich and buttery, but it crumbled as you bit into it. Not to much filling, so there was a good balance to the flavour. Not to sweet. Then served cold with a cup of tea, or when we got a bit older, warmed through in the oven and served with a little glass of sherry.

In our house we would leave a sherry and a mince pie out for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer.

Now there are a plethora of boxes of six mince pies in the supermarket, with a choice of rich butter pastry, or with added alcohol, normal, or with pastry lattice tops. Jars of various types of mincemeat (the original pies apparently had some meat in them, now it’s a fruit mix) are for sale so you can back your own batches of them. We used to give them to Carol singers. Which was OK because we only used to get a few who called. Nice memories. I might make a big pie for my hubby.

Sausage and egg oatcakes.

 

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Tasty with a bit of brown sauce. Local delicacy, you can eat them with savoury and sweet fillings. Try them with jam and butter, or cheese and garlic.

I prefer them hot, but you can eat them cold, or how about with ice cream? You get one of your fibre five a day I think….

Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire food! Lacy and Tasty, floppy and crispy, however you like them.

 

Cheese please?

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Firstly, there are two of us, me and my hubby, middle aged, we need to lose weight, not eat as much food.

But hubby went shopping today, shopping for fruit? Yes, mince pies? Yes.

A two pound block of cheddar… A TWO POUND BLOCK OF CHEDDAR? Why? I need to cut my cholesterol, not raise it and apart from cheese on toast and cheese sandwiches, or a bit grated onto pasta, where can we use so much? Answer, hubby will chop it up and eat it in chunks. Any suggestions? Cheese and curry, fish and cheese?

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Lunch in the mist

I just wrote a blog post about taking my sister out to lunch at the Red Cow at Werrington, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. But I fell asleep and pressed the wrong button, so the description and information disappeared!

I was trying to say the view from the restaurant is wonderful and the food was great. Hot, tasty, delicious.

The leaves that are remaining on the trees are sparkling with copper, gold and bronze, the fields are still green.

Anyway I’m posting this now because I’ve dozed off again three times already.