Marmite's Very Peculiar Chocolate and 2 others

So sorry I haven’t posted for a while; my real man and I have been romantically sharing a bout of ‘flu.  Sadly the experience was somewhat marred for me by some very scary chocolate lurking on my bedside cabinet and looking at me  …

Marmite Very Peculiar Chocolate

As the many hundreds of avid readers of this blog may remember I have been looking for this very peculiar chocolate for some while and eventually found a bar in, of all places, Miss Selfridge. Until today, however, I have not felt strong enough physically, mentally or emotionally to try it.  

However, having at last tasted a bit here are my thoughts …

~    There was nothing to be scared of.

~    On opening the pack I was surprised (I’m not very observant) to find milk chocolate.  I had just assumed that Marmite would be paired with dark chocolate and perhaps the colour of the wrapper may have encouraged me in this delusion.

~   A Marmity whiff exited the packet on first opening.    

~   With my first piece I could taste very little but the bar is slim (to put it politely) and the squares are small,  I then shoved in 3 squares together and could taste medium quality milk chocolate with tiny salty crystals which certainly went well with the chocolate but I could not in truth say tasted of Marmite.

~   The 100g bar of chocolate cost £3 and I think you can get either a lot more or lot better chocolate for this amount of money.  On the other hand it is an interesting and by no means unpleasant novelty and I might take some back to the islands next time I go; frighten some Americans who are notoriously Marmiteophobic.  ( *** I urge you to see below for another brilliant phobia.)

2 Other Peculiar Chocolates

This morning, it being Easter, I gave my darling a little something in the chocolate department …

I only bought it for him because he is a joiner and good at construction but, having read the warning on the packet, he decided to just eat the contents of the flat pack un-assembled. Probably he is not the only one as it says this on the packet ...

“IMPORTANT NOTICE: The makers of the amazing Flat Pack Chocolate Easter Egg^TM offer no warranty either explicitly or implied as to the success of your endeavours when attempting to assemble this product.  As you can imagine, working with chocolate is not easy and requires a high level of skill.  Therefore your chances of complete the task to a satisfactory standard a rem in a word, slim.  We've never managed it.”

A third bar of chocolate that deserves a mention here is one that my sister gave me to eat on the bus back from my visit to her on Mersea Island.

This one reads  ...

“Get a triple feel good hit from the coffee, white chocolate and ark chocolate! Don’t blame us if you can’t sleep at night, however!”

This is very yummy, the contrasting white and dark chocolates are made even deliciouser by little crunchy bits of what may well be instant coffee granules.  No offence, if I am mistaken, whatever they are I approve!

***  My niece Holly recently delighted me with news of a phobia, Anatidaephobia I think its called, which is the fear that wherever you are in the world and whatever you are doing a duck is watching you!  

Please click here to tweet this, it might help someone!

Hopefully now I am back on my feet I shall be creating some leftovers soon and will let you know what then ensues.

Spicy Hot V8 Vegetable Juice

~  Menu  ~

Tuna, Mayonnaise & Lime Salad

Spicy Hot V8

First of all I wish to have speaks about V8 Spicy Hot Vegetable Juice.  It is made by Campbells and ranks pretty high on the list of things I love about Tortola; just after friends and sunshine and about level with rum, except I can get rum in the UK, and this is my point. 

V8 juices are sold in most supermarkets in England and British people, generally speaking, enjoy spicy flavours yet I have never seen this delicious, spicy version anywhere in the UK.  I once wrote to Campbells asking where I could buy it but they just wrote back saying they were glad I like their product and sending me some discount vouchers to use in the USA so of no use to me.  So I’ve decided to bang on about this on Twitter and the like till I get a result! 

Anyhoo – we are on our boat, have been for a couple of days now.  When we climbed aboard there was an enormous booby on the dinghy davit.  Not that sort of booby, you foul creatures – this sort …

He seems a thoroughly decent sort of chap and almost let me stroke him.  We have been away from the boat for 10 months and I think he has made it his home.  Sometimes he flies past looking puzzled but still quite friendly.

Our boat is a 40+ years old fiberglass sailboat, 36’ long and its claim to fame is it was built for Dr. Spock – the child psychologist not the Vulcan with pointy ears.  We haven’t sailed it for years but my Geordie lad has done her up a treat inside and she is our floating home. 

This year we haven’t got a car so provisioning is difficult, to say the least.  This being the case for lunch we had everyone’s standby – Tuna.  I mixed it with mayo, carrot, red onion and baby tomatoes and served it on lettuce which I’d sprinkled with fresh lime juice.  Pretty good actually, especially offset by the spicy V8.   Another thing about this wonderful drink is it stops me partaking of so much wine at luncheon.

Not much to write home about but there it is!

On our last morning at our friends’ house, as a big thank you, I made them eat Marmite!  This is a fearsome thing to Americans.  

Bob had once tried it on a teaspoon (of all things) and hadn’t been impressed.  

I scraped some abstemiously onto their lovely hot toasted and buttered homemade bread.  They both tried it.  I don’t think Bob liked it because he mentioned that he couldn’t see any reason to put such a thing in his mouth ever again.  Roberta said she thought it was quite … pleasant.

I think the loveliest thing about living on the boat is night time.  We have a comfy bed in the pointy end with a large hatch directly above us. I can think of few things more delicious than lying there looking up at the stars (no light pollution here), the boat rocking gently and making gurgly water noises as the warm tropical breeze caresses out naked bodies and, if we’re lucky and the tropical breeze is in the right direction, the sound of crickets and tree frogs from the shore.  Yummy to the max.