Worm's World

Should I be concerned that B&Q have a new paint, with my name that's very close to the colour I painted my bathroom (mmm Jazzberry ) Thanks to Charlotte for spotting this...

The funny thing about kitchen gadgets is that they're inherently useless. The nature of the matter is that an item that proves to actually be useful will almost immediately lose the label 'gadget', as will anything that has more than one purpose. No-one refers to their frying pan, or cheese-grater as a gadget. However, there's something joyously decadent about owning a culinary device you'll use for a single dish once in a blue moon. Anyhow what follows is a list of the most useless kitchen gadgets in my possession. There's a common theme that they all solve problems that weren't really problems, or were better served by something already in existence. If you bought me any of these as a gift, please accept my apologies, I probably asked for it, full of the anticipation that some tedious culinary task was about to be immeasurably enhanced henceforward. 1. The Lettuce Knife. The theory is that the oxidisation reaction with a metal knife is what causes lettuce ...

Recently, because of the wedding of a friend I found myself back in South Wales, this doesn't happen often if I can help it, but in between the other day and the last time I was there I'd lost my dad and I'd felt more hangs if hiraeth* then I'd care to remember. Anyway, returning to Cardiff meant one thing to me, having lunch at the New York Deli , a small cafe, hidden away in an arcade in the city centre. My sister in law had visited the city and sent me and tagged both me and my husband in a photo of it, I was so choked up by to simple image because the reason I took my husband there when we were first dating, and he was a student in Cardiff, was because my dad often took me there for lunch. I'm not sure she knows this and it doesn't really matter. Anyway, we powered down to Cardiff in enough time to get us there for lunch. We got lost and parked the other side of the city, having never really needed to park in city centre before, and walked through the shiny ...

In case you were wondering, we're having a lovely time in Germany. Everyone should go, they have amazing beer!

What's the first thing you do when your looking at a menu? I scan the menu for little green leaves, or little green v's, * or little green ticks. I'm not a veggie, but my husband is, and it's the first thing I checked for on a menu, even if I'm eating alone. Why? Because I don't really like eating places that don't have a decent choice for veggies. There's a rough ratio I my head, one veggie main for every 3 meat ones. I'm not sure why but that generally seems fair. (I recall finding a pub in LIchfield once with 6 seasonable things on their menu, and 2 of which were veggie. both my husband aand and I were impressed, our eating buddies (also veggies) were not, but we still can't work out why.) It probably boils down to this, in the 10 years I've know my husband, I've found veggie mains easy, fun and cheap to make**, and it disappoints me no end that the same culprits turn up time and time again on menus. If somewhere offering food doesn...

I've been spending a lot of time recently on Pinterest - mainly because I've been party planning a cuban themed party and it seemed the obvious way to do it... Some things worked a treat - the twix cuban cigars especially Pin Mine - Win! Other things however did not quite... Pin - which I actually had to track down the recipe for since originally it was 'pinned' as a spam post 1st attempt -Fail Ok, that's not really fair, I was slightly flustered and didn't re read the instructions properly since re-pinning it, but then I remembered another pin and used the flip side of a muffin tray to bake little cups - and very yummy they were too... 2nd Attempt - Win! What I did find handy using Pinterest for party planning was having a central point to be able to keep ideas and things in one place, in a more visual way then say Evernote of Google Docs.

Thank you everyone for my lovely cards, looking forward to some cocktails and nibbles later, but first CSI and breakfast (always a winning combo) Also, being wished happy birthday by my search engine is both lovely and creepy...

I'm in proper 'Blues Widow ' mode tonight, in a pub in Newcastle under Lyme, which has excellent beer and a bookshelf (I'm reading Bill Bryson Down Under and drinking Timothy Taylor pub landlord in case you were wondering) - but I'm also paying attention, not to Pete, its not like it's the first time I've heard 'Salvation' - but I'm paying attention to everyone else, people are nodding their heads, tapping their feet, swaying slightly to him playing... the audience is enjoying themselves and the applause is genuine, which is easily my favourite sounds of the night...

So the task I started a few weeks ago is finally complete - I've migrated my domain name over to the ever trusty Vidahost - (where SixFourOne & 44Pistol are both dealt with) - and you'll noticed I've done away (finally) with the iframes / shell and everything is under the www.wormella.com domain name I had as a 16th birthday present. It should save a little bit of money - not actually paying for monthly hosting I don't use, and tidy up things a little. I kept thinking it was a useful thing to have, and then not using it - since DropBox / Picasa / Pinterest / Evernote where much more useful for keeping a track of everything I had around. Annoyingly, I have to phone the states to cancel my hosting account - but hopefully that shouldn't be too tricky, it can't be any more problematic then trying to deal with BT... I've messed around with the visual settings on Blogger and I've got something I like, bright lovely colours and it does make it very ...

..please let your weather report be right, I'd like a sunny birthday please =D

I've spoken before about family holidays to Florida, and pancakes especially making an impact, but the really formative memory in my mind is the little things related to 2 successive family holidays to Clearwater beach.  They are, in no particular order: The gravy on a meat dish, possibly meat loaf, at a diner in Scientology laden Clearwater Shopping in publix, where they had calculators attached to the shopping trolleys Having jalapeños on a burger at an Irish-American bar on Island estates drinking unsweetened ice tea from dimpled red plastic beakers Eating front loops and the colour the milk went Eating pop tarts in exciting flavours Running across hot sands with Cubans sandwiches and black coffee for my mother's lunch The marinara sauce on angel hair pasta at a restaurant across the road from the Tropicana Motel where we stayed. Saltwater taffy, blue smurf & superman flavoured ice cream. Key Lime Pie... My birthday card from my mother this year - I remember...

How to write your first cookbook http://gu.com/p/38ngx

Further proof, as if needed, that my husband and I are pretty much the same person We are, however, rather enjoying having identical new phones (Galaxy SII's - his black, mine white) and I think Pete is just glad to have a smart phone that's actually smart...

the skint foodie - blog

Mouth-Watering Cookbooks to Satisfy Your Design Craving

When I was younger I was fortunate to go one some wonderful family holidays, and because my dad needed a special diet we almost always had self catering apartments. This properly doubles the excitement of family holidays and it's probably why I'll still leap at the chance to go to a foreign supermarket. It's always ace, you see exactly what the local people buy, and how they value ingredients, ready made food etc.. Anyway, I spent two very, very happy 3 week holidays in Clearwater Beach in Florida, with a self catering unit. I in fact clocked up a 4 family holidays to Florida, the first to Orlando and we stayed in a hotel in international Drive, the 2nd in St. Petersburg. I've found memories, food and otherwise of them all. From my first holiday, when I was 5 and my dad had been award a bonus I can remembered the following (I should point put nothing of the trip to Disney that was the point of it all) but I can remember food in buckets, fried chicken, ice cream and wate...

At the stafford shakespear festival.... It was called off in the end - but you can't fault the valiant efforts of the cast...

I've just come back from eating alone, it's not the first time, and I doubt it will be the last time. I'm a a premier inn with a brewers fayer attached. I'm here for work so I know I'll eventually get paid back for dinner, and I've already poked around the town - aldershot in this case, not that it would really make any difference to tonights experience I suspect - so I know there isn't really anywhere more exciting for food , well, there was a very nice independent Italian cafe, and the pasta a fellow lone diner had smelt amazing, but alas, it closed at 7 and I wasn't hungry then. Anyway, so I'm resigned to eating at a brewers fayer, and to make my life easier, or maybe ease my lone dining experience, they include a copy of the pub menu in the hotel room. I've already been to tescos, I've got supplies (cider and popcorn for later). If I was with someone, my wonderful husband for instance, part of the excitement about eating out is looking ov...

It's always tricky to start something, especially when it's been a ideas whiz zing around your head for ages, but now you've gone and actually sorted it out your not 100% what to do with this vast expanse of Internet, once you've chosen a background and messed around with DNS settings. I'll start at the start, hi, my name is Nia and I like cooking. Well, in fact, I like food, and learning to cook is the easiest way to get nice food - cheapest too. I also enjoy baking by I'm a little rubbish at making things pretty. Most of all I love cookbooks, the promise they hold especially - ad its from my cookbook collection blog the idea for this blog came  - the name* especially. The more I looked back over my cookbook collection, the more I though about the for I made, or the food I ate out - and somehow neither my 'ooh, look what I'm doing, marvel at my exciting life' personal blog or my cookbook library one seemed quite the right place to  Write about it ...

I've realised my blog looked a little unloved, which isn't fair, because having read though 4 years worth of it yesterday I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed posting in it. With that in mind, and the fact that I've clearly tried to make up for the fact that I've been to busy to write things by filling it with pretty pictures I've been playing around with the dynamic templates on blogger - both on here and on NomBooks I give you Worm's World v7.2 -  What do you think?