Filed under: food | Tags: Fox's Biscuits, irunbecauseilovefood, Mini Melts, review, Rocky bars, Rocky Rocks, Viennese
School dinners in my time were of the pre-Jamie-makeover variety: deep-fried, chips with everything. After two days at secondary school, my Mum switched me to packed lunches and off I went every day with my tupperware box containing a round of sandwiches, some fruit and one Treat. Sandwich fillings were typically Heinz sandwich spread, corned beef & tomato, cottage cheese & cucumber or – the horror! – egg mayonnaise. Fruit was a satsuma or an apple. No wraps, hummus, couscous or mango in my day.
So, The Treat was something to look forward to. Perhaps a little bag of crisps or a couple of bourbon biscuits. Mmmm. But a Rocky Bar was the absolute pinnacle of treats. A chocolate biscuit that was more chocolate than biscuit. You knew it was going to be a good day if you got a Rocky Bar in your lunchbox. Even if it was double-maths first thing.
So it was with a degree of excitement that I accepted an offer from Fox’s Biscuits to review their new “sharing” bags of Rocky Rocks and Mini Melts. Happily for my workmates, I decided to take the sharing thing literally…in return for some feedback of course.
First up, the Mini Melts – little versions of Fox’s Viennese biscuits with a chocolate filling and also a double chocolate variation. The press release reads:
“Ladies, you know as well as we do that great things come often come in small packages – and nowhere does this phrase ring more true than with new Fox’s Mini Melts: a luxurious range of sharing bags chock full of only the finest melt in the mouth biscuits.”
These went down well in the office: “Oooh, I love these,” said one; while another said “These are nice!” The double chocolate ones weren’t thought to be particularly different from the regular ones – and the boss wasn’t that impressed – but overall, they went down pretty well.
Next up were the Rocky Rocks Crispy Crunch, “mighty mouthfuls of chocolate covered crispy wafer with crunchy biscuit bits”.
Unfortunately, these were accused of being in breach of the Trade Descriptions Act. “They’re not crunchy or cripsy: they’re just fluffy,” said one of the girls, “it’s like something’s missing.” Another said: “Eurgh, puffy and tasteless.”
Finally, we moved on to the classic-looking Chocolate Rocky Rocks. I had high hopes for these. So did the press release:
“Rough and rugged, chunky and crunchy, Rocky is the biscuit for those who want to tear off life’s wrapper and fill their face with all the enjoyment they can get.”
“Ooooh, now you’re talking, these are lush,” enthused one colleague. “Definitely the best,” said another. And I had to agree: they brought back all the right memories about school packed lunches.
So, the small print: RRP is £1.89 for a 125g bag, and there are probably about 15 biscuits per bag. I’d assumed they’d be quite a lot more expensive than the regular sized versions, but a quick visit to Ocado suggests not: the regular packs of Viennese biscuits are £1.69 for 150g and 9x20g packs of Rocky bars are £1.59.
The difference, of course, is that you eat more. Would you sit down and munch your way through four or five individually wrapped Rocky bars? Probably not. But I can pretty much guarantee you’ll go down half a bag of Rocky Rocks on the sofa before you’ve got through the movie trailers. Each little biscuit contains around 40 calories so we’re talking 300 calories if you share them with a loved one; 600 if you’re a little piggy.
Or, to put it another way, a 30-minute run or a 60-minute run respectively!
Filed under: food | Tags: biscuits, food, Fox's, Mini Melts, review, Rocky Rocks
Many thanks to Fox’s rep at Cow PR for the opportunity to review Fox’s new “Rocky Rocks” and “Mini Melts” products. I’ve decided to crowdsource some feedback for a full review by sharing them with my colleagues.
So far, my favourite comment is: “Cow PR?! OH MY GOD that’s the best name EVER!”
Filed under: food | Tags: food, gardening, salad leaves, tomatoes, vegetable bed
I never thought I’d be remotely interested in gardening. Then again, as an adult, I’d never had a garden until I moved in with Phil last November. Neither of us has the faintest clue what we’re doing, to be honest, but we’re actually having fun trying.
This is the garden when Phil first moved in, (frankly it was quite encouraging that we couldn’t do any worse than the previous residents):
And this was it a few weeks ago:
Despite killing a fair few shrubs soon after purchase, waging an ongoing battle with slugs and becoming slightly phobic of frogs (is there a word for that?) we’re doing ok I think.
Since then, we’ve also built a vegetable bed (Phil actually did the hard work, this is me lining it before we shoveled in some soil and some shit of the equine variety)…
…and now I properly understand why people like gardening: you can grow food! And, as you all know, I love food.
After plonking a few unpromising-looking seeds into the soil (what exactly is sowing? and what’s a drill? and just how many seeds do you put in at once?) a few weeks ago, I harvested our first little crop of salad leaves yesterday to go with the first few tomatoes. And they were AMAZING – soooooo much tastier than the stuff you get in a bag.
Filed under: food, half marathon training, Reading Half Marathon, running, skiing | Tags: half marathon training, how to train for a half marathon, Reading Half Marathon
- Get yourself a new job a few months before your scheduled half marathon.
- Start commuting on busy trains with Other People instead of driving yourself to work with no one else in the vicinity.
- Pick up several colds that hamper training, just as you should be ramping up the mileage.
- Attempt Janathon, but don’t worry about too much running, nooo nooo – try kickboxing, aerobics, spinning and weights.
- Go to Russia about five weeks before the race, and contract a stomach bug that wipes you out for nearly a week.
- Attempt a mid-length run on a good day (just under eight miles should do it) and convince yourself you’re going to cruise another five.
- Two weeks before the big event, embark on a ski trip to Austria. It’s only 357 days since you last strapped your feet into those instruments of torture they call ski boots, attached yourself to two planks and threw yourself down a mountain with gay abandon. Your knees, previously injured in skiing and running incidents, will be absolutely fine.
- While away, ensure you partake of all the regional specialities and carbo-loading opportunities – and I do mean massive breakfasts featuring bread, cheese and salami, sausage sandwiches for lunch (or sometimes just cake for lunch actually) the odd pint at the end of a hard day’s skiing, a five-course meal every night and half a bottle of wine.
- Upon your return from the ski trip (one week to go!!!) head out for a long run (actually 7.5 miles will be fine) and don’t worry a bit if your legs feel like leaden weights and your knees appear to have been replaced by those of an 85-year-old. You’re just worrying over nothing….
Such has been my training programme for the Reading half marathon this Sunday. Oh dear. Oh very dear.
Those sausage sandwiches (the Austrian "bosna") were good though...
Filed under: 5k, food, gym, running | Tags: beef Stroganoff, Cafe Pushkin, Moscow, running, Russia, treadmill
I spent the first part of this week in Russia with work – Moscow this time for a summit with clients and their Russian agency. It’s a long way to go for a day-long meeting, and you seem to spend another two days getting there and back, but I’m awfully lucky to be able to say I’ve been.
On the second night, our colleagues had arranged a pub crawl with a difference, taking in the Metro, a seedy little bar full of men where the vodka arrived in tumblers, Red Square/Kremlin walls/Lenin’s mausoleum and a traditional cafe with local snackage to accompany more vodka. We ended up in a smart restaurant – the Cafe Pushkin – where I had beef Stroganoff. Proper Russian, me.
I confess I offloaded some of the vodka on my colleagues as I really struggle to drink neat spirits, and took it reasonably easy on the wine. I even bailed early so I could get some much-needed kip while some of the others ended up in a bar snorting sambuca. I felt very smug the next morning, and went to the hotel gym for a blast on the treadmill before pick-up.
(For the record – 5k challenge in 27:15, compared to 27:05 the previous Saturday in the UK).
Unfortunately, I have not been rewarded with good karma. Instead, I’ve been struck down with a horrible tummy bug. I made it into work yesterday, lasted an hour and gave up to come home to bed for the rest of the day. Today, I’ve worked, but haven’t left the house. Phil’s cooking curry and drinking beer, and I couldn’t be less interested in consuming either, let alone in getting up off the sofa.
I deduce from this two things:
1) next time, I might as well stay out.
2) this half-marathon training really isn’t going too well.
Filed under: food, Janathon, recipes | Tags: fairy cakes, food, Janathon, lurgy
Is there a Janathon lurgy doing the rounds? If so, I’ve succumbed to it too. Felt peaky on Wednesday, slightly worse on Thursday and awful on Friday morning. Decided to work from home yesterday to avoid the cold air and more germs, and didn’t leave the house all day. So, 28 January was the first day of Janathon that I didn’t do any form of activity that could be even vaguely classed as exercise (although I’m not 100% sure if my walking to work really counts either).
Instead, I had a surprisingly productive day working from home, and then made chocolate fairy cakes…
Luuuurrrrrve de cake
Filed under: food, gym, running | Tags: food, gym, interval training, paella, running, treadmill
Day 16 in the Janathon house…over half-way then Janathoners.
After a really rather tasty paella-cum-risotto (didn’t have any paella rice) complete with the biggest tiger prawns you’ve ever seen in your life from Costco, I slept like a log. Turned out, the paella (followed by bagels for breakfast) was ample fuel for a reasonably hard gym session.
I took a leaf out of Phil’s book and opted for ten-minute blocks of exercise:
10 mins cross-trainer
10 mins interval training on the treadmill (8-13km/hour)
10 mins bike
10 mins weights
10 mins abs
10 mins stretch
We’ve signed up for an initial three months after our trial over Christmas. Just gotta make sure we use it once the novelty factor wears off. The spa currently provides a more than adequate incentive, but it’ll still be tough to get there regularly after a day’s work and an hour’s commute home.
Filed under: food, gym, spinning | Tags: beef, cars, cross-trainer, food, gym, spinning, swiss ball, toy story
There was some energetic playtime involving cast members from Toy Story 3 and Cars with a six- and two-year-old on Sunday afternoon, but unfortunately it didn’t really make up for eating our bodyweight in beef during the course of Saturday evening (steak and chips) and Sunday lunch (roast beef and all the trimmings).
So, having driven home from Leicester via Rugby, we hauled ourselves and our heavy tummies to the gym. I started off with ten minutes on the cross-trainer, then did my own little solo spinning session on one of the old aerobikes in the main gym for about 25 minutes, followed by a little bit of Swiss ball action. Short and sweet.
Janathon activity: gym-based
Time: 40 minutes
Filed under: food, Janathon, walking | Tags: AudioFuel, commute, food, Janathon, London Underground, walking, wine
Didn’t get around to blogging yesterday evening; I was drinking wine and eating curry. Was also feeling quite weary – mentally after all of four days of work; and physically after the onslaught of exercise that my poor body is not really used to.
Nevertheless, I had extended my very wet walking commute with another walk at lunchtime – from the office down to Strand, along to Covent Garden and back via Holborn, which I estimate being another two miles, at a reasonable lick. The novelty of working in central London hasn’t worn off yet, and I’m always surprised at how close together everything is. In fact, I am reminded of Audiofuel’s Underground Calorie Map which gives you some indication of the relative distances involved, if not the actual distances:
Janathon activity: 6 miles (walking)
Time: approximate 90 minutes in total
Filed under: food, Janathon, running | Tags: Christmas cake, gym, Janathon, running
After the tortuous personal training session yesterday, it was with some trepidation that I eased myself into an upright position this morning. My worries were not unfounded. Taking things from the top, my shoulders, arms, wrists, back, stomach muscles, glutes, quads, hamstrings and calves all ached. My poor stomach muscles were the worst; even sneezing was extraordinarily painful.
I ambled over to the gym, dumped my bag and managed a short run around the lakes. Slower, if that’s possible, that roughly the same run on New Year’s Day.
However, I am feeling reasonably pleased with my post-Christmas efforts. Did some sort of exercise on six out of seven days last week, and started the week with another little jog. So I rewarded myself this afternoon with a massive wedge of my Mum’s Christmas cake – what a belter. A lovely, properly stodgy fruit cake containing plump fruit and roughly half a bottle of brandy, which my Mum dribbles in over a period of weeks before Christmas, all topped off with a good thick layer of marzipan and soft icing. Oooooh, it’s good.
So, back to work tomorrow. I fear my Janathon efforts will drop off a bit once the commute starts again, but I will be getting my four-mile walk in every day. Anything over and above that will be a bonus. To be honest, I don’t think I could keep up with the washing generated every day by two Janathoners on an ongoing basis. There’s damp kit everywhere.
Distance: approx. 2.5-mile run
Time: 28:08 mins
