Welcome to the 'A Kick at the Pantry Door' restaurant. We have your favourite table ready and waiting and a selection of tasty and unusual dishes for your delectation and delight (but do bear in mind that the kitchen closes shortly as the Chef needs to go to his second job, rodding out blocked sewers). We have a few choice 'nostalgedy' stories for Starters, some meatier ones for your Mains, a selection of 'curmudgeonly rants' or keen observations (you take your choice) for Dessert, and something unspeakable to go with your Coffee and Mints.
Philip Whiteland tickles your fancy (it's not a crime yet) once again with this compilation of stories, often with a food-based theme, from today and yesterday. Pull up a chair and tuck in!
Available at all Kindle stores: A Kick at the Pantry Door - see the book
Here's a little nibble at one of the Starters:
"This is going to be one of those
stories that rambles around a bit. The
reason for this is that my mind went on a sort of Wainwright's Walks of its own
when I was considering what to write.
Therefore, I thought that it was only fair to drag you along on this
mental march, so that you could see where I'm coming from… or, possibly, going
to.
The original intention was to
write about childhood eating habits and oddities, and it still may finish up
there, so if that subject happens to be your abiding passion, stick with me,
but it could be a bumpy ride.
You see, whilst thinking about
what odd things I used to eat as a child, I suddenly remembered dog
biscuits. Now, before I go any further I
would like to (a) exonerate my parents on the grounds that at no time did they
ever feed me dog biscuits and (b) say that the following was not my idea, nor
was it my fault, and the author takes no responsibility for any injury or
ailment that may be caused by any attempt to replicate these scenes.
My childhood friend, in my
pre-school and early school years, was Elaine, who intermittently came to stay
with her grandparents who lived two doors away on the corner of Cambridge
Street and Anglesey Road. By bending
down and peering under both our hedge, and that of Lizzie's next door, I could
just about make out whether Elaine was in residence and in her garden. If that was the case, then in all likelihood
I would finish up spending time in her garden as she had more interesting
things to play with, and more room. It
was she who introduced me to the delights (or otherwise) of dog biscuits. Her grandparents had a dog, a Border
Collie-type if memory serves me correctly, that lived in an outdoor kennel and
which had all of its food stored in the shed alongside. Hanging out in the shed was a perennial
pastime for us and we were inevitably tempted to sample the dog's biscuits in
their various sacks. After all, if the
dog could eat them, presumably so could we.
Elaine claimed to have done this on many occasions before, but I'm not
sure whether that was just bravado, although she did have good teeth, and a
glossy coat (sorry, sorry). We started
small, with the occasional nibble of Terrier Meal (not recommended) but it
wasn't long before we were onto the hard stuff, in the form of Bonio (not bad
but a little bit more of it than you would really want) and Vims, whose pink
colour and triangular shape made them irresistible even though your taste buds
kept telling you that you must be joking.
Oddly enough, I often have a particular type of crispbread nowadays in a
pathetic attempt to con myself that I'm a healthy eater, and every time I'm
reminded of the texture and flavour of Bonio, perhaps we were ahead of our
time...."
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