Seven days into the new year and I have already had a guts full of the happy smiling holiday makers. The pushy driving, the 4×4′s, the arrogance and the attitude. And when a local starts with ‘monkey see, monkey do’ I take a swipe. Speeding, tailgating, overtaking on a solid white line, in traffic that is crammed tight with other idiot drivers. And all this whilst driving a vehicle boldly branded with the offending companies name. Something’s one cannot fail to miss.

Three years ago I spent four very unhappy months in a hospital bed because some nameless taxi driver felt that the rules of the road did not apply to him. And I take great exception to inconsiderate and discourteous drivers who believe they can do what they like, when they like.

So think again sunshine. I for one will never do business with The Venison Company. You do not seem to understand that you stick out like a warthog’s ball on a starry moonlit night and that you are actually in the business of servicing the public. The image you present is all wrong.

And that’s me
in the corner
I am afraid.

There is nothing more time consuming and frustrating than finding, placing and training staff. So why is it so difficult? One would have thought that with the number of restaurants closing their doors one would be able to pick and choose, if not find the right people for the jobs that need to be done.

As a start we have set up and are offering free classified adverts for both employers and employees.

We have been having a problem with squishy prawns and I decided to experiment and show the wife what is squishy, what is not and why it shouldn’t be.  So on Saturday afternoon we defrosted a box of the wife’s ‘ head still on the…’ prawns and took out half a dozen of my deep frozen pre-peeled and cleaned prawn tails. Then on Monday morning she cooked them up and I triumphantly pointed out the difference in texture.

She countered by turning, glaring at me and saying “Yes!” “They inject them with medicine. You get maling (which is Thai for it is carcinogenic)” Apparently everyone in Thailand knows this and I assume she is saying that the prawn meat has been treated with formalin to give it that nice tasteless and rubbery texture.

Question: Who is right? Who is wrong? And if not, what is it that makes the difference?

The next experiment will be between one type of  prawn frozen in the shell and another type of prawn that is also frozen in the shell. We use one and a half boxes in a day and prawns left over night in a fridge whilst not squishy are definitely softer and I assume, on their way.

Cosequently we have been doing a lot of prawns for breakfast and I would like to try and establish how to manage the nasty little things and what a reasonable shelf life for a refrigerated prawn is? Does anyone know?