Whatcha Eatin'?

[Sheol]

By some combination of gifts and purchases we ended up with 4 calendars this year. One with Jelly Beans, one with chocolate, one with licorice, and a regular one with just images.

[AlSymerz]

One of the few I did see in stores this year, which I didn't really consider a proper Advent calendar, had little wooden blocks in it. They were kind of Christmas shapes, like a green triangle for a tree and a small star etc but they were pretty poorly done for $30.

 

[Sheol]

In Sweden we have this tradition dating back to 1960, that there's a radio and a TV calendar each year. One episode airing each day. Different stories for TV and radio. I don't know how popular it is now a days but back when I was young and there only was 2 TV channels available (both state owned) this was a pretty big deal! Back then you could only see cartoons (Tom & Jerry) for a short 5 min segment each week in a sports program aimed at kids. Kids these days, I tell ya!

 

[AlSymerz]

I remember having only two channels to watch as recently as the 80's. In the city there was 3 commercial channels, one government owned station and in some areas a multilingual channel, but in the country we had only the government owned channel and a mix of the 3 commercial ones. Who chose the mix for commercial TV I don't know but it was pretty terrible. Wasn't until about '89 that the government forced TV stations onto the UHF band that regional areas started to get a choice of all the networks the city had. A very large part of the country still only has access to 2 tv stations.

[blaaacdoommmmfan]

I forgot cutlery for my lunch. So I bought some cutlery and had some supermarket sushi. Probably wouldn't have gone for it but remembered how much I liked it when I had some for my niece's 10th birthday celebrations. (Quite mature tastes imo😁)the XL biggest  pack was worth it as had most fish on it. I liked it alot. Wasabi,sliced ginger and soy sauce was nice extra. I'm hoping I don't have food poisoning in morning. It was good though and I preferred it to supermarket sandwiches😃

[AlSymerz]

Nearly anything is better than supermarket sandwiches!!

 

[blaaacdoommmmfan]

On 12/11/2021 at 12:57 AM, KillaKukumba said:

Nearly anything is better than supermarket sandwiches!!

 

 Definitely. 😂Thinking of those sandwiches just makes me feel ill. Saying that it's the kids birthday Saturday coming up and we've ordered alot of these. I've already said if there's loads spare I don't want them. Fortunately in-laws can't get enough 👏👏👏 And the Mrs thinks there amazing. Which I don't understand 🤨

[FatherAlabaster]

Just popped another tray of baked mac and cheese in the oven. Cheddar, swiss, and gruyere, topped with crispy fried jalapeno bits. Making a bechamel always takes twice as long as I think it will, an inverse of Zeno's "Achilles and the tortoise" paradox which will surely end in my death of old age, still in the kitchen, stirring away.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

The part that cracks me up is they had to write down the recipe.

[AlSymerz]

4 hours ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

 Definitely. 😂Thinking of those sandwiches just makes me feel ill. Saying that it's the kids birthday Saturday coming up and we've ordered alot of these. I've already said if there's loads spare I don't want them. Fortunately in-laws can't get enough 👏👏👏 And the Mrs thinks there amazing. Which I don't understand 🤨

Not that we've had to do it for a long time but kids party for us was always fairy bread which was a slice cut in triangles and spread with 100's and 1000's (not sure if that's what they are called overseas, they are pretty much just tiny coloured balls of sugar). It's an easy kids party food and even older kids eat it, some even secretly love it but wont admit it.

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

You've got to be fucking kidding me. We call those sprinkles btw, those are rainbow sprinkles we also have chocolate sprinkles. But we put them on ice cream not on fucking Wonder Bread.

[AlSymerz]

Sprinkles for us are longer, 100's and 1000's are tiny balls. they pretty much taste the same but there is an obvious different texture.

We put them on ice cream too, but putting them on bread is cheap and easy and when it comes to party foods for kids cheap and easy is the best option. A bunch of party pies and sausage rolls, pre made at the shop because only an idiot hand crafts for a kids party, fairy bread, cheezels, chips, a few bags of mixed lollies, an ice cream cake from the supermarket and a dozen bottles of lemonade. Kids party done and not a kid will go home sad, unless they missed out on a prize in the pass the parcel game. Make it red lemonade and half the kids go home so hyped up they'll never forget the party as long as they live!
 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

I've never looked that closely at sprinkles tbh, didn't even know they came in different shapes & sizes. My stomach hurts just from reading that hypothetical party menu. Not quite sure what a party pie is, do you mean like mince pies? In the states people would assume you meant pizza pies because meat pies aren't a thing over here and kids sure do love them some pizza. I had a couple of those little palm sized pies when I was down there because they sounded like they'd be good, but they weren't.

My youngest will be 8 next month and you can be sure he will reach adulthood without ever having had a kid's birthday party. I have taken him to a couple of other kids' birthday parties, but I don't host parties, especially kids' parties. The prospect of having a bunch of giggling screaming kids over and get them all sugarred up to wreck the place and annoy me has never sounded appealing. I don't even go to grown up parties if I can possibly avoid it. The only weddings I've ever been to were my sister's, my daughter's, and my own, and all 3 of them were torture. I prefer to socialize in small groups with people I know and hopefully like and have a little something in common with, not with random collections of strangers. But kids are the worst. I like my own kids and their kids (most of the time) but I hate everyone else's. Which is funny because everyone tells me how great I am with kids and how much kids like me. But I think that's just because if I'm stuck at a gathering I'll go hang out with the kids and run around and play with them so I don't have to make small talk with their idiot parents. So I guess being a big kid myself I do like kids in small doses, but it doesn't take long til I'm over it and just want them to go away.

[AlSymerz]

It's not a hypothetical menu, its almost the standard menu for any kids party. Party pies are small pies just the right size for kids to bite into and wear most of at a party. A pie is a sack of something that resembles meat covered in sauce which is similar to ketchup. Together they are often referred to as mystery sacks with some dead horse. Anyone who calls a pizza a pie here is rightly laughed at. But then from my perspective anyone who eats pizza should be laughed at too.

We've never had a party for our kids, we gave them a choice, dinner out with close family or a party with their friends and they always chose to spend it with their family. Birthday's have never been a huge thing for us.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Well if the party in question is hypothetical (you're not actually planning a kids party in the near future are you?) then it follows that the menu for this hypothetical party must be hypothetical as well. 

Americans, especially in this northeastern part of the country are pizza crazy. In some parts of NYC there's a pizza shop on every corner, sometimes multiple pizza shops on the same block. I don't eat a lot of pizza myself, partly because I'm trying not to be a fat bastard so if I'm only gonna eat one meal a day I don't wanna waste it on fucking pizza. And partly because when I do occasionally have pizza I find that I generally won't want to have any again for a few months. But it's hard to find anyone here in the states who really strongly dislikes pizza, even most picky eater kids who hate almost everything will usually eat pizza. Which is why it's perfect for little kids' parties. 

[Sheol]

I don't think I've been to a birthday party for anyone above 10 years old that didn't feature a Princesscake. It's pretty much a staple in Sweden. If there's a grown-up party odds are high that you start off with a Smörgåstårta first. For kids it's usually icecream or just a regular cream cake with jam between sponges.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_cake

 

http://swedishspoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/DSC05617-1024x683.jpg

https://www.thelocal.se/20191113/swedish-word-of-the-day-smrgstrta/

 

[AlSymerz]

9 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Well if the party in question is hypothetical (you're not actually planning a kids party in the near future are you?) then it follows that the menu for this hypothetical party must be hypothetical as well.

I'm not planning any party, but it's still not hypothetical it's happening all over the country every weekend. It's like saying that on Christmas tables all around the country there will be platefuls of seafood, ham, chicken and turkey. Or on Australia Day there will be BBQ's all over Australia burning lamb while drunken idiots think they understand what they get a day off work for. For many people those three things are traditions, there is nothing hypothetical about them because they happen exactly the same way every year.

 

4 hours ago, Sheol said:

I don't think I've been to a birthday party for anyone above 10 years old that didn't feature a Princesscake. It's pretty much a staple in Sweden. If there's a grown-up party odds are high that you start off with a Smörgåstårta first. For kids it's usually icecream or just a regular cream cake with jam between sponges.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_cake

 

They kind of sound like what used to be a fairly standard birthday cake for Australia years ago. They weren't the sort of cake that you'd make and take to the park for the party, although many did, but at home with the family for sure. The main difference between Princess cake and our sponge cake seems to be the marzipan. I've been making multi-layered sponge cakes since I was about 6 years old.

Interestingly I read that wiki page and saw the "See Also" link about the  Frog Cake a broadly similar Australian dessert. I had to click on the link to see what that actually was. I did recognise the picture but not sure how broadly they are made here. We also generally wouldn't call them a dessert, they'd be a snack.

 

[Sheol]

I think very few Swedes would have a birthday party at the park outside, usually it's at home, maybe out in the familys yard if it's summer. 😄

Great, now I'm craving cake, damn you!

Also, what would be the difference between a dessert and a snack?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Dessert is a sweet confection served as the last course of a meal. A snack is a light meal or an item of food eaten between meals, it can be a share, a part or a portion. Never cared much for cake myself. I prefer a muffin, cookies or brownies maybe. I have brownies at all my hypothetical parties. Unfrosted, nuts optional.

I guess when it's 20 below half the year in North Bummfuck Sweden having your birthday parties in snow covered parks would not be practical. In warmer climates people that want to have larger parties will often choose to have them in a park if they can't fit that many people in their house or yard. There are usually picnic tables and BBQ grills 'n shit available for this purpose.

I bet you could do some mean sleigh riding at the parks in Sweden though. I do enjoy one decent snow each year so I can take the kid sledding on the closest hill. Maybe even make a snowman. 

[blaaacdoommmmfan]

On 12/8/2021 at 12:40 AM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I had to look up advent calendar. What the hell would you need one of those for? 

Are advent calendars not a thing in USA then goatmaster. You open a door for each day in December up to Christmas day. All the good ones have chocolate or better behind the door. One had whisky but it was very overpriced. Bit of rip off in my opinion. 

They are for kids mostly. The advent calendar I bought was alot cheaper than buying the product in a selection box. I got twice as much  

 

[Balor]

2 minutes ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

Are advent calendars not a thing in USA then goatmaster. You open a door for each day in December up to Christmas day. All the good ones have chocolate or better behind the door. One had whisky but it was very overpriced. Bit of rip off in my opinion. 

They are for kids mostly. The advent calendar I bought was alot cheaper than buying the product in a selection box. I got twice as much  

 

Advent calendars are definitely a thing in the US.  I have one for my cats!

[FatherAlabaster]

They're definitely a thing here, I had them occasionally growing up and we get one for my son every year at Trader Joe's. An excuse to have a little piece of chocolate every day while he's counting down to Opening Stuff Morning.

2 minutes ago, Balor said:

Advent calendars are definitely a thing in the US.  I have one for my cats!

We tried that last year but unfortunately they didn't like the treats too much. So picky.

[blaaacdoommmmfan]

19 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Not that we've had to do it for a long time but kids party for us was always fairy bread which was a slice cut in triangles and spread with 100's and 1000's (not sure if that's what they are called overseas, they are pretty much just tiny coloured balls of sugar). It's an easy kids party food and even older kids eat it, some even secretly love it but wont admit it.

 

In Holland and Belgium they have 100s and 1000s on toast for breakfast. Probably called some thing else but there essentially the same.  When my sister brought us a load of different favours one Christmas morning from Holland we all thought it was very strange. We'd all only put them on ice cream before. But now  I think there good on some bread or toast with plenty of butter.The 75%cocoa ones were a favourite that day.  Though not had any for few years now. There low economy food for my guessing and I think they taste good . I remember googling how much sprinkles cost.  Bulk was very cheap but we decided against ordering a 20kg bag that day. No commitment 😂

[AlSymerz]

2 hours ago, Sheol said:

Also, what would be the difference between a dessert and a snack?

That picture of the 'frog cake' is more notably called a cup cake down here, they aren't very big, maybe about 30-60mm high depending on who makes them and about the same size round. Given every bakery and snack type place sells them these days they are the sort of thing someone might eat with a cup of coffee or tea. As GG said dessert is more an after meal thing, there is nothing stopping someone having a cup cake for dessert but generally it would be considered a snack or even a kids cake. We often used to bake a batch of 25 or so cup cakes and send them to school on the kids birthday so the school had the party and not us.

12 minutes ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

In Holland and Belgium they have 100s and 1000s on toast for breakfast. Probably called some thing else but there essentially the same.  When my sister brought us a load of different favours one Christmas morning from Holland we all thought it was very strange. We'd all only put them on ice cream before. But now  I think there good on some bread or toast with plenty of butter.The 75%cocoa ones were a favourite that day.  Though not had any for few years now. There low economy food for my guessing and I think they taste good . I remember googling how much sprinkles cost.  Bulk was very cheap but we decided against ordering a 20kg bag that day. No commitment 😂

Never had 100's an 1000's on toast, I don't have a problem with the idea but I can't say I've ever even thought of doing it.

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Wow, seems just about everyone here knows all about these advent calendars except for me. I thought Advent was a religious term like Lent or something so I looked it up and apparently Advent has something to do with preparing for the birth and also for the second coming of Christ. That could explain why I've never seen or heard about an advent calendar, I've tuned out and ignored all that religious horseshit since I was a little kid. Advent doesn't really come up in conversation that often for us confirmed atheists.

 

I DON'T GET IT: Where did advent calendars come from?