Jamies Italian - shocking spag bol

I've been to Jamies Italian  in Bath a few times now, and despite the overall feeling that you are on a conveyor belt in a rabbit warren, the food has always been very good and accessibly priced. (so the chavs can eat posh)

Having said that, I had never eaten a spag bol there until recently and what a mistake that was!

Dont get me wrong - I love spag bol LOVE IT! - I cook it at home every week, I order it in lots of restaurants all over the south of England and even sometimes buy the microwave ready meal one from M&S which actually tastes half decent considering its a ready meal an' all.

I know that spag bog can differ from place to place, and I would have forgiven slightly over or undercooked, or even a slightly bland taste but this one was just about as bad as a spag bol can get - I mean absolutely everything was wrong with it:

1. Baked- It looked more like a pasta bake. parmesan cheese had completely melted all over the pasta by the time it arrived in front of me. Well, I assume it was parmesan since I didnt actually see it go on.

2. Too Hot - I peirced the cheese layer to find that the pasta inside was 'microwave' hot- a lot like the kind of steamy heat you get when you over microwave something and you have to let it cool down for a few minutes so you dont burn your tongue.

3. No taste - Obviously it tasted of something, but 'no taste' for me, means that it lacked any of the usual zing you get from a well cooked sauce. Since I might have burned my tongue on the first mouthful, I let my friend try the pasta too, 'thats very bland' she agreed.(believe me, thats the first time she has EVER agreed with me!)

4. 'al squishy' - nowhere near 'al dente' and a bit stuck together by the heat and melted cheese. like you get in a pasta bake straight out of the oven. eesh!

So, given that this was just about as bad a pasta as it could be,  the Italian half of me complained and sent this dish back from whence it came. (the english half of me was a bit embarrassed of course) The replacement arrived 15 minutes later, frustratingly with the same problems as the first, except this time the pasta was cooked 'al dente'. Still looked like a pasta bake, had no taste and was much to hot to eat straight away. This pasta wasn't even as good as the M&S ready meal FFS!

So I sent that back too.

Good job the starter was excellent otherwise I wouldnt have eaten! ( stop whining! ). The waitress was very helpful, attractive and polite as usual too... oh and attractive.

Maybe Jamie is just spreading himself a little too thin, making a little too much money and doesnt have time to make sure all his restaruants are up to the job. sigh!

whatever!

Honey - a cure for allergies?

Yes darling, if you have allergies, apparently honey can be beneficial. It makse sense to me that if you eat honey that is local to your area, it may help prevent your seasonal allergies since bees use the pollen from local plants and eventually it ends up in your honey.

and i quote: 'Thousands of people swear by it, saying that a spoonful a day, preferably starting well before the pollen season, has transformed their lives.'

from an article on the Telegraph website:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/5135837/Honey-the-sweetest-cure-for-hayfever.html

Wooden chopping Boards kill bacteria

I have always loved real wood, especially English oak, ash, beech and maple to name a few.
I have long thought that my wooden chopping board was self curing to a degree but only recently did i try to find some evidence to support that idea.

And I quote:  'EVERY now and then a scientific finding flies in the face of conventional wisdom. And so it was with an accidental discovery By microbiologists at an American university that wooden cutting boards kill food-poisoning bacteria that survive very nicely on the plastic boards that have been widely promoted for years as safer than wood. '

from this webpage: http://www.woodworkforums.com/f11/wood-kills-bacteria-775/

and another web page here:
http://www.rhtubs.com/wood-bacteria.htm

How we get to the next Ice Age

Really bored of hearing people refer to 'climate change' or 'Global warming' , but everyone seems to agree that the planet is getting warmer and that our climate has been changing since as far back as scientists can tell.

This is my very simplistic explanation how a warming planet leads to an ice age.

Bearing in mind that the amount of Methane in our atmosphere is only 1.7 parts per million (trace), and that a more proportional combination of Oxygen an Methane would be highly combustible, its is interesting that our atmosphere, rather than being explosive, has remained relatively stable for millions of years on earth, its chemical composition supporting life (as we know it) - despite the fact that the planet has been exuding billions of tons of C02 and methane for millenia.

Note also that methane is approx. 23 X more powerful than C02 as greenhouse gas.

So. as earth warms up the permafrost and methane hydrates melt, simultaneously cooling the oceans and releasing methane into the atmosphere.

Methane + C02 causes atmosphere to warm up (greenhouse effect).

The cooling oceans disrupt jet streams that move warm weather around planet (we in the UK are very grateful)
A cool sea absorbs more C02, which causes it to become more acidic.

An acidic ocean destroys sea life, and planktonic algae (the source of Cloud Condensing Nuclei)

So, obviously,  Less clouds = less rain = less trees.
Less trees= less Oxygen and more C02.
Less Clouds = less moisture in our atmosphere and less cloud cover to stop the warmth from escaping into space.

No clouds+no jet streams = No more warm weather

Hello Ice Age.

simples!