Thomasina

That's an interesting name, and it's the name of a very interesting
woman -- Thomasina (Tommi) Miers -- a new TV chef, who is also a
cookery writer for The Times.

She won the coveted title of TV MasterChef in 2005, and more recently
she appeared in a TV series called The Wild Gourmets, along with an
expert in the outdoors life, Guy Grieve. Basically they both foraged
for food in the great outdoors, and then cooked and ate it, al fresco.

Brilliant if you happen to own a fishing rod and a net, and a shotgun
too... and if you get on well with the local landowners.

She wrote an interesting article on shopping for food / what basics to
have in your larder, in last week's Times. Basics such as having in a
tin of anchovies and jars of capers and Dijon mustard.... not what I'd
call basics, but I would agree with her on having these in (except for
the capers which I dislike). As regards shopping, she's one of many who
now shop online for a lot of their food and household items, and who then
shop locally for fresh meat, fruit and veg.

Mrs C and I do one better, in that we shop online for a lot of our fruit
and veg ... a family box of delicious organic fruit and veg (just for
the two of us) from Abel and Cole. We get through all this in a week,
and have to shop for yet more. Our girls always have a laugh at the
amount of fruit and veg we eat ... we eat mountains of it. Abel & Cole
also supply us with veggie-burgers, fishcakes and excellent quality fish.

In her later years, my mum used to have a few lettuce leaves for her
main veg with her meals, and peas too. Not surprising then, that she
suffered badly with constipation. As you can imagine, we don't ... I'll
spare you the details of what my poos are like.

The current health advice is for everyone to eat at least 5 portions of
fruit and veg a day -- a totally arbitrary figure made up by someone, with
little scientific basis it seems. Judging by what some people eat, I think
we must get through 3-4 times that amount.

I've sometimes thought that the health promoters must be sponsored by
the toilet paper manufacturers ... as we get through a lot of it.

Coming back to the unusual name of Thomasina -- this reminded me of one
of the characters in the Beatrix Potter books -- Thomasina Tittlemouse,
who came to the aid of the six Flopsy Bunnies, who were caught by the
gardener, Mr McGregor. Did you read any of her books? I loved them
when I was little, and enjoyed reading them to our kids too.