Possibly the best things i've ever seen

Cupcake Burgers. YES YES YES.

The Chicken Skin Sandwich

I haven't posted anything for a while since my flurry of activity a couple of weeks ago, and I am blaming Sky. I started this blog with the knowledge in my heart that I was having my Sky and broadband installed the following week, thus enabling me to post from the comfort of the prone position, in front of an episode of Man V Food, at home. But alas and alack, t'was not to be, and the bastarding Sky man never turned up. What really infuriates me is that we had a SIX HOUR window during which he could just turn up, so we had to cancel plans in order to sit gormlessly looking out the window and awaiting the knight on his white horse, or rather the fat bloke in his white van. Two weeks on and we are still no closer to actually being able to watch Boardwalk Empire which is basically the whole reason we are getting Sky anyway, apart from the fact I can record as many episodes of Teen Mom and My Super Sweet Sixteen as I like so I can watch them in secret whenever Chris isn't in.

So that's my excuse for not having written anything, I haven't given up, in fact I have a whole library of pictures of us chowing down on DoubleDowns and deep throating Salty Dogs that I am looking forward to disgusting you all with. (I love how when I write 'you all' I know I am writing to approx. 10 people. You've got to start somewhere though, eh.)

In the meantime I'd like to introduce you to one of my favourite websites. This website has got me through some hard times, when I faced redundancy this is where I turned, throughout prolonged illness I knew a URL straight to happiness. Ladies and Gents - www.thisiswhyyourefat.com. 

The most incredible single-subject blog out there, This Is Why You're Fat, with the tagline 'Where dreams become heart attacks', is a library of the most insane culinary creations out there, mainly in the USA (obviously). Hours have been spent poring over 'The Meat Ship', whihc does what it says on the tin. 'The Pork Orgy' is particularly great. And i've been known to actually get turned on by the genius 'Banshi Rolls'- Burger, pANcake, and suSHI rolls: cheeseburger sushi deepfried in pancake batter, with burger meat, deli style american cheese, red onion, and chipotle mayo. I need a lay down.

Before I get back to work, I will leave you with this parting gift - the fried skin sandwich. Feel free to print it out and laminate it. Enjoy.

Uncle Ben can suck my balls.

Lunchtimes at work are a tricky thing. It obviously all depends on where you work as to how good your dining experience is going to be - if you've got a canteen you're pretty much sorted, if you have a break room with a large kitchen you're also alright as you can whip something up pretty easily. if, like me, you have a microwave and a desk to rely on you need to get more creative.

At my last job I was in the centre of a large town, with a Subwee and KFC within spitting distance which is good news for Fat Friday, but bad news for my rapidly expanding waistline. Subwee was usually the caterer of choice for me and my colleagues. In fact one girl would get a foot long chicken and bacon with mayo - hold the salad - and extra cheese pretty much every day. If she was on a diet she would get the same order, MINUS the extra cheese. So still a foot of bread, then. Genius. I'd always get a turkey breast and ham, cos I'm right healthy, like. Rather cleverly, she would also, on 'diet days', go to Greggs and get a big ham and cheese baguette and come back and microwave it, "so I can pretend it's a Subway." Just get a fucking Subway love, you're eating the same amount of calories. But anyway, that was then, this is now. And I am typing this from my desk, where I have just - for the fourth time this week - delved into my drawer and reluctantly pulled out some Uncle Ben's rice. I was actually going to treat myself today, and I bought £2 along in my pocket and was going to nip down to Sainsburys and get some chicken to supplement it, but of course it's pissing it down and the chance of me actually getting off my fat arse and leaving the office is about the same as the Daily Mail writing a clear concise and well informed piece about single mothers. Ie;- nil.

Uncle Ben's rice is the single most depressing thing to have happened to me this year. It is bland and inane, each piece of rice taunting me with its crap coating of 'mexican spice' which is about as spicy as the contents of my Nan's knicker drawer. I'm so bored of eating it that if I were ever to actually be in the same room as anyone who works for them I would happily punch them in the face. I am sitting here thinking up inventive ways of using said rice to actually kill the people who make it, which is neither healthy nor particularly sane, so I have sent off good old Pete in Telesales to nip down the road and get me some of Sainsbury's rip off of Percy Pigs- 'Eric the Elephants' which should hopefully bring me out of my rice-induced rage and restore all balance in the world. Wish me luck.

Lasagne, a bit like childbirth.

Last night we made a lasagne. It was a fraught and most difficult creation due to a number of factors. It started off doomed when we had actually planned to make it the day before, but me being me, I left all the mince in the fridge at work - only realising of course, the very second the train doors glued shut and pulled away leaving me in a face-palm moment. I should have taken that as a sign, to just sack it off and have some nice supernoodles or something, but NO. So I arrive home last night, mince in tow, to find CJSMM at home with the ingredients layed out and away we go. I don't know why we find it so stressful cooking together, but we do, and it's a wonder neither of us got killed. We didn't have milk for the white sauce, so we ended up using creme fraiche, and we dropped half a pot of pepper in it. The butter had somehow inexplicably turned into cheese, which was just delightful. We didn't have cheddar, so we used mozzarella. We destroyed the kitchen with the food processor and each accused the other of having broken it. We hadn't. I think I probably cried at one point. In fact I definitely did.

But amazingly, as it cooked in the oven, and he plonked in front of the football, and I got ridiculously over-excited about having a house phone to play with (this means we are now adults I think. Terrifying thought.), it smelt like an actual proper real life lasagne. We served it with a rocket and spinach salad, and a nice bit of crusty bread from my Dad's bakery (The Wheatsheaf Bakery if you're ever in the area) and it tasted really bloody good. We felt proud of ourselves, and looked on at the fruits of our labour like it was some incredible piece of artwork, like a Picasso on the plate. The situation was all a bit like childbirth, really painful but I've kind of forgotten quite how much as the end result was so bleedin' gorge.

I think i'll have supernoodles for lunch, though.

Katz's Deli

Just while i'm playing with this bad boy, I thought i'd pop up a photo of the pastrami on rye from the uber famous (and expensy) Katz's Deli in NYC,baby. 

We found out about Katz's from watching the ultimate in Food Porn, Man v Food - Adam Richman (google him, the man's a genius) went there on his New York episode. The premise of the show is that he goes around the US of A and stuffs his face in loads of pig out joints, and does food challenges, as well as visiting best places to eat as voted by the locals. Katz's Deli has been going since pigs were invented practically, and it's quite the place. It's been voted as having the best pastrami in NYC so obviously we were going to visit it. It's in Greenwich Village somewhere if I remember rightly, and is also the place where in When Harry Met Sally she does the orgasm scene- so it's pretty famous yaddyaddyah.

We got very overexcited about having been in the same room as Adam Richman and actually in reality we weren't even hungry but soldiered on and ordered anyway. This sandwich was fecking HUGE. The whole place was basically food porn, but I got all stressy as it was boiling hot and and you have to fight for a table AND I was wearing stupid shoes. Oh and the boyfriend actually ate left over coleslaw off of someone else's plate, which was nice. But yeah- if you're in the area, and you're not wearing stupid shoes, and it's not boiling hot, then i'd highly recommend it.


(that's actually a pretty shit explanation of the place - sorry.)

http://www.katzdeli.com/

Oh hi there...

So, I'm new to all this, apologies if the background is hurting your eyes or gives you a seizure etc etc. I've basically decided to finally cave in and create a blog about my most favouritest thing in the world (after maybe my boyfriend but i'm sure he knows it's close) - FOOD. I LOVE FOOD. Which is funny, as I am a particularly picky eater, but when I find something I like, MAN ALIVE do I go for it. It's a long running joke between my friends and family that i'm totally food obsessed - I bang on about where i've eaten on holiday more than telling people what my holiday was actually like for example. On twitter I would say 89.9% of my posts are about food. My facebook statuses (stat-i?) are constantly about sweets. I need an outlet, and here, my friends, I have it. So I am not totally sure how this is going to pan out, or what load of old shit i'll end up posting, but at least it's giving my facebook friends a bit of a rest from me telling them i've just spent the afternoon bingeing on Percy Pigs.

For the record, I live in Brighton, which is right nice. I live with my boyfriend who is also a total pig and we only ever argue about what take away to get, which in the grand scheme of things isn't too bad. We tend to stay in and watch Six Feet Under a lot, because we totally love living on the edge. I'm absolutely mental about the Food Network, and get a bit wet over Man v Food. I have actually been known to touch myself during it. (JOKE. Sort of)

Up there's a lovely picture of me and my favourite dinner - a chicken nugget and chip butty - dinner of champions. If you give a fuck, here's my twitter whatsit and if you're kind it would be absolutely great to converse about Haribo - @Natalie_KateM.