Costa Coffee - oh dear!

[661-Pete]

I couldn't help chuckling at this little snippet of news; especially as it doesn't sit comfortably alongside this item on the same front page.

Yes I know advertising is advertising, it's designed to appeal to the baser populist instincts of the viewing public - but really! I have half an avocado most mornings for breakfast, they may not appeal to everyone but I love 'em! Alongside half a grapefruit or a slice of melon, toast and various patés, and a cup of (unsweetened) tea, makes a great breakfast. Even if I went back to meat-eating, bacon and sausage would certainly not be on the breakfast table!

There - that's me done with my smugness-snobbery-trip once again. Who else likes avocados - and who detests them?

And should I boycott Costa Lotta? They're a useful stop when I'm on a long motorway drive...

[fausto copy]

Can't stand avocados or Costa Coffee.
Both taste of something that should be used to clean drains with!

[Paulatic]

+1

[mjr]

And should I boycott Costa Lotta? They're a useful stop when I'm on a long motorway drive...

Boycott long motorway drives and then it's much easier to stop at good independent coffee shops. I was in the excellent twenty3c shop on Stony Stratford High Street last week. Bike parking just inside the door, cafe by the front window, bike shop through the partition and the edge of the Redways on neighbouring London Road. +1!

[661-Pete]

Boycott long motorway drives....

I knew someone would say that! If only!

In mitigation, may I point out that when we go to visit my sister in Yorkshire, we usually go by train nowadays. The Senior Railcards help a bit!

[mjr]

Boycott long motorway drives....

I knew someone would say that! If only!

In mitigation, may I point out that when we go to visit my sister in Yorkshire, we usually go by train nowadays. The Senior Railcards help a bit!

It's great when trains work out less than the cost of car use and drivers' time, but even without it, picking "most economical" on route planners tends not to use the motorways as much as "fastest", instead using A roads where they're shorter and avoid towns, so lower speeds and better fuel economy as well as less expensive stops if you pop into one of the quieter towns along the route to stop for food, plus more chance of supporting locally-owned businesses than even the better motorway services like Gloucester and Tebay.

[Tangled Metal]

Live nearish the Tebay Station and visited Gloucester this summer. Local my behind! Since when is the lake district local to Gloucester? Both service stations seem to stock similar product so they can't both be local, can they? Tebay is not local to Gloucester on my road atlas. If it was then we'd have got back from Gloucester in no time instead of the 6 hours with traffic and safety stops it took us.

How does your smugness work with chemicals used in fruit and vegetable production? Don't some of them get into the food chain and may cause cancer too?

[Audax67]

As usual, the Beeb squit about bacon doesn't mention the absolute probability of getting breast cancer, just the possibly-alarming increase.

[Spinners]

And you can chuck Starbucks in with that lot. Overpriced and overrated.

[661-Pete]

How does your smugness work with chemicals used in fruit and vegetable production? Don't some of them get into the food chain and may cause cancer too?

Not very well. We try to avoid Mexican avocados but they're all the same really - consume mega amounts of water in countries where it's a scarce commodity. As it happens, we have a small avocado tree in a pot in our house - don't expect it to ever produce any fruit though! If it ever did, it'd be 100% organic...

But bacon and all other processed meat top them all as regards undesirable chemicals etc...

[mjr]

Live nearish the Tebay Station and visited Gloucester this summer. Local my behind!

I wrote they were better than other services (moto, roadchef and so on) not that they were only selling local produce. Take Aunt Sally home.

[Tangled Metal]

Live nearish the Tebay Station and visited Gloucester this summer. Local my behind!

I wrote they were better than other services (moto, roadchef and so on) not that they were only selling local produce. Take Aunt Sally home.

Didn't make myself clear. Missed the key bit in my mind. I was thinking about the way those two service stations make so much about local produce being used and sold (part of the same company). It was only that your mentioning those service stations triggered my mini rant. No need to take it as targeted at you.

If I'd put in another sentence at the start it would probably have been clearer. IMHO those two are only just better but less honest in that they play on the idea of local produce but supply from around the UK. However at first Tebay was closer to the local produce ideal but that changed with expansion and development. IIRC it grew the Tebay place and developed it then set up Gloucester. Until the initial Tebay development the farm shop stocked almost completely local produce.

[Freddie]

Do you only have half an avocado because you're still waiting for the other half to ripen?

[661-Pete]

Do you only have half an avocado because you're still waiting for the other half to ripen?

The other half is dispatched to an Alternate Universe, where it is presumably consumed by an Alternate 661-Pete ("eteP-166" ?)

No - seriously - I often find that half is enough for one sitting - the other half can wait in the fridge until next day, or else it goes into the salad at lunchtime. A lot depends on the size of the avocado, and on the size of its stone, which varies a lot. Sometimes the stone (disappointingly) occupies nearly half the volume of the avocado, and sometimes it's a lot smaller. There's no way of telling when you buy the things.

I believe the smaller stones are sterile, but the larger ones sometimes germinate. If we discover one sprouting in our compost bin, we rescue it and transplant it to a pot to see what happens. As I said, we have an avocado 'tree' on the go at present: it's currently about 120cm high. It has a crown of dark glossy leaves a bit like laurel. We keep it in a large pot - outdoors during the summer, but we bring it in during the winter. I doubt if it will ever fruit, but it's quite attractive as a foliage plant.

Oh - and ripening avocados. A doddle really. Just put them in a bowl with a bunch of bananas. Even if they're rock-hard initially, they'll be ready to eat within 24-48 hours or so. When they're ripe, keep them in the fridge.

[Mick F]

Can't stand avocados or Costa Coffee.
Both taste of something that should be used to clean drains with!

Not keen on avocados, but I've never even been into a Costa establishment - and no intention of doing so either.