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Monday, 16 December 2013

My younger son asked me if I was going to make some mince pies this Christmas.  He loves them.  I haven't got round to baking any for a year or two but I knew I had some jars of mincemeat in the cupboard.  I found four!  Obviously I had good intentions in recent years but not seen the task through.  I opened them all to see if the contents were still edible.  Two of them were horrid and two were so/so.  I rummaged in the store cupboard and found the remains of some ready-to-eat prunes so chopped those up, grated a couple of tiny Cox's Orange Pippin apples, added the contents of the two, slightly crystallising jars of mincemeat, sloshed in some brandy and it can sit there until tomorrow when I will have a mincepie baking fest.
Many years ago I used to write restaurant reviews for the local rag.  I always thought it was a bit of a swizz because I never got to go to any restaurants for a free meal but muddled through by reading the menus!  I was reviewing a new Indian restaurant in Farnham and highlighted a couple of promising dishes, one of them listing 'mincemeat' as an ingredient.  The printers misprinted the word and it came out as 'micemeat'!  A bit unfortunate to say the least.  However the little hiccough made its way to feature in the Radio 4 News Quiz programme where they read out howlers at the end of the programme.  I thought that was rather good fun!

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