What is your favourite condiment?

Salt, sauces, mustard, mayonnaise, etc. I guess any flavour added to food at the end, rather than as an ingredient in the cooking or preparing process could be called a condiment.

Do you like a diversity of flavours, or do you have a strong favourite?

Are subtle or natural flavours best, unadulterated by last-minute additives?

Or is the blander the better your preference?

Give me a break Luudy, next you will want to discuss tooth paste, which is mintier? Which one really brightens?.....just kidding.

I can not eat with out the white death-salt.
Very strange, not sure why, but gave it up when on my diet, lost 18 kg.
Put it back on, understand I should be on it and can not.
Not a bad cook but not able to eat good food?
Weird but salt pepper and condiment is found on my food.

Soggy!!

You give ME a break.

If you aren’t interested in the subject, then don’t comment on it!

Sheesh!

Hey, you ain’t seen nothin yet. I’ve got all sorts of new general threads lined up!

Toothpaste eh? Hadn’t thought of that one. But yeah, why not? ( :>/

Thanks Belly. We now have one vote for salt and one for pepper!

<< Not a bad cook but not able to eat good food? >>

Hmmm. That sounds like a bit of a paradox… or a contradiction perhaps?

Exercise. Get into a good exercise regimen and you will have a whole lot more freedom with what you can eat!

My diet is ok but nothing special, but I’m very active – always hiking up hills or running on beaches. So a fairly frequent intake of KFC and fish&chips doesn’t pack the kilos on my midriff! ( :>)

Ludwig it is winter!
I can cook good stir fry and can find a reason to put salt even on it.
But CRIMSON WINTER!
Gets down to about 4 or 5 below now and again.
Re named the rain drenched place foot rot flats.
Never keen on winter.
Eating stews and soup heavy, and all that but can not look at steamer.
Funny lived on stew as a kid, called it the black death!
Each of us swore we would NEVER eat it again when we started work.
Yet we all came back and love it, providing there is enought salt in it.
Mine wins the family praise as best!
Do not tell any one the secrete is two tins of lentil soup as a base to two gallons of every thing you ever thought could go in soup and? salt.

I would not have picked you as one who had destroyed their taste buds with too much pepper, spice & curry, in their youth Luddy.

From the middle ages, until we developed refrigeration we know people had to go out into the woods, & pick all kinds of strong flavoured weeds, & stick them in their food, to help disguise the fact that the meat was rotten.

These weeds, dried became known as herbs, & perhaps spices. People became rich importing ship loads of the stuff to disguise the smell of putrefaction.

Today people who still do this garbage to the good food we have available have become known as chefs. Strangely this is no longer a derogatory term, which of course it should be.

This should become obvious when we realise our current Olympic team had a chef de mission, & look at their success.

I was amused when I saw the sign at the navy cooking school in Cerberus, years ago. It had something about chefs as well. they were probably taught to add weeds to navy food, if they could find any.

Of course to make sure they stayed on track, the sign on the wall, in large painted letters, renewed regularly proclaimed this to be, "THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF TUCKER FCUKERS". Probably to do with those said weeds.

Hasbeen my dad was one of those cooks, he could, cook.
Sister wed one, and bought him home to live, for 4 years he could not.
Tight? he smuggled food out of camp and bought it home rather than pay Bord!
Gee the chooks liked it!

Aaaaaah Haaaahahahahaaa.

Hasbeen, you are a very funny old fart!!

You enrich my life greatly. You alone make my continuance with OLO worthwhile ( :>)

So…. what is your favourite condiment?

Or favourite herb or spice.... or weed?

Luddy, I work on the KISS principle old mate.

Just some nice {salted} butter to cook the stake in, in a very hot pan.

Then some coconut milk to do the veggies in, but careful, not too much, done in the microwave.

Try some sliced mushrooms, in a little coconut milk, done in the microwave, for about 6 minutes or so. Do be careful with the quantity of coconut milk, if your not a regular coconut eater, it is an excellent cure for constipation, if used to excess the first few times.

Ludwig it is your fault!
Tipped the last of the stew out.
Feeding the Myna Birds.
Cooked three whiting after lite soaking in plum sauce baked a spud pumpkin.
Covered the lot in salt pepper and back on track, must be spring.

Haz, you old salt, sailing around tropical islands.

Your fav is coconut milk. I shoulda known!

Mushrooms in coconut milk. Sounds great.

Mushrooms in coconut milk with a copious dousing of white pepper – PERRFECT!!

Aha Belly, the truth comes out….. you FEED the myna birds!

No wonder you have so many of them around your place!!

You really do secretly love them cute little flying cane toads!

Luddy, coconut milk is of course the white creamy stuff, expressed from the grated flesh of the nut, not the water. They now sell coconut milk in tins in supermarkets So now you don't have to go to the high tropics, & grate your own nuts to get the stuff.

Just realised that did not come out quite right, but the mental image is too amusing, for me to correct it.

Hehehe!

Well it’ll probably come as no surprise to you Hazza, but I do enjoy grating my own nuts!

I remember fondly doing that on Hinchinbrook Island some years ago, while leisurely wandering up a wonderful rainforest creek in the nude and slipping off a wet mossy rock!

Erm, I mean, while camped on beautiful Blacksand beach and indulging in the delicious fruits of wild coconut palms! (:>)

Belly, I have no reason, but have just assumed that, like me, you would be on tank water.

If so, how do you feel about your feathered friends dropping messages from the sky, on your roof. I am torn between encouraging the birds, & keeping my water catching roof clean.

I installed one of those down pipe systems, that send the first slug of water to waste. This is supposed to clean the roof, before catching the water, bit I'm not too sure how well it works.

Natures cruelty is on display around here right now as we come into breeding season. The magpies are chasing off last years brood, before they start this years lot.

The last top bird had a flock of half a dozen he ruled over, but the current boss won't allow any older offspring to hang around. This year they raised 3 chicks, which is pretty unusual I think, but the weaker one is unlikely to survive being driven off from its feeding ground.

Belly,
Myna birds? How come a dinkum country boy like you doesn't have chooks?

What do you do with your garden weeds and carrot tops and spud peelings?

chooks are the best garbage disposal units ever although they don't like citrus or pinapple tops/skin and they have trouble with advocardo seeds.

Even if I did not get cackle berries, I would still have chooks, as no putrid garbage.

Feeding leftovers to myna birds?

Would that be at Scagary point, on the western side, in site of Cardwell old mate?

I don't remember a black sand beach, although the deep mud at low tide was very dark. If it's the same place, it had an acre or so of clearing, with a dozen or so very high mature coconut palms. Just behind was a largish creek with a 2'6" high non watertight weir of river stones, making a most luxurious bath, if very chilly to a bloke fresh from Rabaul.

It was probably a homestead site before the war.

My last trip there in about 76, I had my mum & dad on the boat with me. They had joined me in Cairns, to sail down to Townsville, with me. We had lived there for 4 years just after the war. 3 nights out of Cairns, a bath was most welcome.

My mother had never been to sea, even inside the reef, & when we started beating into the 25 knot southeaster, had near hysterics. This led to me anchoring all day, & making passages at night, when the trades dropped about 10 knots, & pulled to west of south, easing the sea. Besides she would sleep much of it.

They had never had a drinking nut, so I shot down a hand of half a dozen, & we had a bar b que lunch on the beach, getting back on board before the sand flies could carry us off to eat at their leisure.

Continued.

The next day, on our way through Hinchinbrook channel, we came across a couple of tourists & a child, who had run out of fuel in their speed boat, & spent the night tied to a mangrove against the shore.

They had used their towels & shirts to protect the child, & were smothered with sand fly bites. She reckoned they had even bitten her through her bikini.

If they had just known enough to drift out 50/60 yards into the channel & anchor, they would have been free of the things.

I assume you were doing your nude thing in daylight, at night I doubt you would survive.

Banjo I love chooks, bloke next door does not!
We clashed over treated sewage being piped in to my place.
So for the time being? not stretching the point.
Have composting heap and use it all.
Madness in my method gentle men, yes tank water feeding the little darlings.
Nothing more to add.

<< Would that be at Scagary point, on the western side, in site of Cardwell old mate? >>

No Haz. Blacksand Beach is on the east coast. It is the first little beach south of Ramsay Bay – the big sweeping northern beach of Hinchinbrook Island.

If you zoom right in with Google Maps in satellite image mode, you will see that the whole beach is dark, as opposed to the white sand of Ramsay Bay.

I’ve been to that little cleared area on the Cardwell side of the island. Macushla I think it is called.

I did the vegetation mapping of the whole island in the early 90s. Lots of hard-slog bushwalking all over the island including up to Mt Bowen and Mt Diamantina.

Yeah I was doing the nude thing in broad daylight. There’s no problem with that sort of thing over there.

.

Myna birds, chooks and Hinchinbrook Island! Not a condiment comment to be seen!!

Isn’t it interesting how some threads evolve, and take us on a journey far away from the original subject!

Here’s an interesting read for you Hasbeen:

http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2012/07/28/learning-after-60-the-big-sail/#mor

Thanks for that Luddy, an interesting read.

My first "BIG" bar crossing was also Wide Bay bar. I had crossed some NSW bars, but only when there was little sea running, as they are mostly too shallow for deep yachts.

With Wide Bay you actually start the crossing about 3 miles out to sea, & are crossing it for about a mile & a half. No coast guard to come out to you back then. I had been advised by some trawler men in Mooloolaba to "go with the big one".

Big waves come in sets. 3 or 4 bigger waves, followed by a fair while of smaller ones. The idea was you did not want to be half way across when a set of big ones came through.

My yacht was a great surf boat, often surfing big ocean waves for a mile or so in heavy weather. On this occasion she picked up the first "big one", & rode it all the way into the deep water in the inshore channel. When we passed a trawler which had started their crossing a few minutes before us, they were cheering. They reckoned later that the entire front half of the boat was out of the water on the wave.

A great memory.

People are often very helpful. Once when I arrived at the Swansea bar, the entrance to Lake Macquarie, I had to wait about 3 hours for the tide to make enough.

I was sitting hove too, in a lot of off shore wind, when an elderly gentleman, in a small plywood fishing boat appeared to see if I needed help. He'd been watching me from his house on the hill. When I had taken so long, he'd gone out to his boat, & crossed the bar, to offer his assistance if required. That was 30 years ago, but I still remember his kindness. It's these things that make life worth living.

We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.

Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

What a weird thread! No one was much interested in condiments. But it ended up going all over the place.

Hinchinbrook Island. All those trips that I did years ago. But I haven’t been there now for about fifteen years. Must get back there soon.