Free Gift Inside!

R.a.n.t. of week 01/18/15

Did that get your attention? It usually catches mine. Who wouldn't want a free gift? Well, I suppose it depends on what the gift is. One of the magazines I'm subscribed too, (Weight Watchers), from time to time sends a renewal letter with a "free gift" inside. The 'gift' invariably turns out to be a recipe for some dish I'm unlikely to try. Oh, a few have interested me, don't get me wrong. But it's hardly a gift I start jumping up and down about. Is this a gift I can re-gift to someone else? Perhaps a White Elephant gift?

This time of the year I also get a lot of emails from businesses, (mostly restaurants), with exciting news they are sending me a gift. This time the 'gift' turns out to be something along the lines of a free entrée or dinner with the purchase of another meal. Can you say coupon? Good, I knew you could. Now, let's not get carried away. When I receive these email and snail mails I'm not expecting to open them up and finding £100 inside, a Tardis keychain or a message from Diana Krall inviting me out for dinner. No, I don't expect that. I expect exactly what I find. So essentially, this r.a.n.t. involves the false promise or false expectation of receiving something I'm going to enjoy.

Still, a gift is a gift and one shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Unless you're from Troy. Then you might want to inspect the gift before you bring it into your city. Talk about a free gift inside!!!

Bap Recipe Below!*

Ingredients
Serves: 10
400g (14 oz) bread flour
3 tablespoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons dried milk powder
225ml (8 fl oz) warm water (45 C)
2 tablespoons butter, softened
7g (1/4 oz) dried active baking yeast
1 egg white
2 tablespoons water

Method
Prep:1hr20min › Cook:15min › Ready in:1hr35min

Place the bread flour, sugar, salt, milk powder, water, butter, and yeast in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Set on Dough cycle; press Start.

Remove risen dough from the machine, punch down and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 10 equal pieces, and form into rounds. Place the rounds on lightly greased baking trays. Cover with a damp cloth, and let rise until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180 C / Gas mark 4.

In a small bowl, mix together the egg white and 2 tablespoons water; brush lightly onto the baps. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until the baps are golden brown.

*Free recipe stolen from: AllRecepes.co.uk

Dining Alone

R.a.n.t. of week 09/22/13

It's time for din-din and the cupboard is bare. Sure, you could just run out to go grocery shopping, then come home and prepare a mediocre dinner. But who has time for all that? Okay, maybe everyone beyond me, but by the time I get home from work it's about 5:30 or 6:00. Usually, I'm very tired and making dinner is not something I'd rather do when I'm tired. So what's a guy to do? Eating out is the obvious next option. If you are like me, eating fast food won't do the trick. Everything seems to be made with Grade F meat (Mostly circus animals with some filler). So something above fast food is the place to be. For most people, it's not a problem, but for someone like me who has a healthy dose of social anxiety, it's not always easy. I just feel kind of funny dining along, even though many friends and family tell me there is nothing wrong with it. (Oh my gosh, Jeff was dining alone last night! Not that there is anything wrong with that). So what are the pros and cons when it come to dining alone? Yes, I forced myself to think of a few pros and cons for when I have to dine alone.

Deciding Alone:
Pro - No committee meeting, long debates or haggling over where to go.
Con - No one to bounce ides off of. No influx of immediate suggestions. I'm a person who is very unoriginal when it comes to thinking of somewhere to eat. Can't even count the number of times I've heard one of my sisters tell me about a new place they've tried and I just scratch my head trying to figure out where they hear about some of the restaurants they've been too. Usually, I'll just resort to going somewhere I've been many times before. As hinted at, I get very anxious about finding a new place and entering, not knowing what to expect.

Sitting Alone:
Pro - A good time to be one with your thoughts, or Iphone.
Con - I always feel like I'm being looked at and judged. "He's dining alone, he must have no friends", "I feel bad for him, he's got no wife or girlfriend", "How sad is that, how pitiful, he's such a nobody". Okay, maybe unrealistic thoughts, but in my own mind I hear those slung in my direction. I told you, I have social anxiety and that's part of it.

Waiting Alone:
Pro - No having to wait for others to finish eating? When I'm done, I can just leave. (Once my bill is paid).
Con - Sitting alone and waiting as my bill is brought to me and/or processed. By the time my food has been consumed, I'm just about done with my thoughts. Mostly because I generally bring a notebook along with me to take notes in, especially when my thoughts are centred towards what I'm going to be writing or r.a.n.t.ing about next.

Example:
This past week I made plans with one of my friends to visit another friend who just started a job in a restaurant. As always, (I say always, I mean in this case), plans fell through. Instead of deciding to not go, because it was something I was looking forward to, I opted to go outside my comfort zone and 'just do it'. Confidentially, it kind of helped I was hoping to have a bad experience so I would have an awesome r.a.n.t. tale to tell, but it didn't quite turn out that way. Certainly, no horror story. And I can't say it wasn't worth writing home about, because after all, I just finished writing about it. So it can be done! I can dine alone. I'm just not very happy with it.