Potato Cakes 

The best potato cakes are the ones that have been sitting in a one of those heating trays behind the glass. Like some of the great wines and cheeses, they actually get better with age. After about four hours the texture gets perfect. I defy anyone to find a potato cake that comes fresh from the fish and chip shop tasting better than one of those potato cakes.  

Coke 

A perfect accompaniment to potato cakes is Coke. Coke can taste very different in different bottles. I swear by the 1.25 litre plastic bottles. A lot of people favour the small glass bottles but I think the glass feels too harsh on the teeth (a bit like scraping fingernails on a blackboard). Drinking from a drinking glass is OK though. The best tasting glasses are not too wide.(The wide glass loses fizz quickly). Its very important to drink Coke at the right temperature. If its too cold its loses flavour. (Ice is Okay though).  

{On the subject of Coke, a friend who works for a leading supermarket told me this:  

The biggest selling item in the whole supermarket is...........1.25 litre bottle of Coke. 

The second biggest selling item in the whole supermarket is.............2 litre bottle of Coke. 

The third biggest selling item in the whole supermarket is ..........2 litre bottle of Diet Coke. 

The fourth biggest selling item in the whole supermarket is Tally Ho papers.} 
 
After a marketing war with Pepsi where the two companies offered 10 % more free, the 500 ml bottle has now been replaced by a permanent 600 ml bottle. I’ve noticed that Big M is also going into plastic bottles. If you ask me that’s crazy. It will bring the brand image down to the crappy level of its pretender competitors like "Breaka". 

Hangover Food 

Everyone has a favourite hangover food. Personally I think sausage rolls are God’s gift to the hangover. The combination of pastry, tomato sauce and sausage mince work like visiting doctors kit bag of pain relief to my reeling head and Kevin Sheedy symptoms. I have also found that chicken (cooked any way but best deep fried) can be useful. Grilled chops can also be very satisfying after a day of hangover recovery.  

McDonalds 

I was at McDonald’s the other day and a guy ordered a Quarter Pounder without cheese. (That is, a Quarter Pounder With Cheese without cheese) You have to wonder why a guy who didn’t like cheese would buy a burger that is renowned for having cheese. Surely a McFeast or two junior burgers would be a better option. My mate told me that when he used to work at Maccas when he was fifteen a guy used to come in and order a Big Mac with no bun. He used to sit there with a knife and fork eating the lettuce and beef out of the polystyrene box. I’ve since asked about other strange orders. One girl told me about this extreme "pickle fetish" where a guy requested his cheeseburger to be totally covered with pickles and then have the pickle juice soaked in to the top of the bun. Another guy requested that every sundae sauce flavour be squeezed into his thickshake. 

Salt Reduced Scams 

Why do companies decide to take the salt out of perfectly delicious products (products which taste completely different without salt) and put a tiny little square saying salt reduced) ? One day you go to eat your can of Heinz Big Red tomato soup and you think, "This soup tastes a bit funny......I wonder if its out of date ? Then you take another sip and you think "it tastes sweet and it lacks flavour". So you either add salt and feel really guilty about doing that or you just chuck it out (which is my preferred option). I wish they’d make it more clear. Do they think we’re not going to notice when we taste the food ? When I’ve been eating the same brand of tomato soup my whole life I notice. 

Next Edition of Food Notes 

See the food diary of a vegetarian who doesn’t like vegetables very much (Chrissy). It will be the food craze of the next century - a bread based diet! I will also publish my food diary (that could be a bit self-indulgent like everything else in here but hey, its my zine and there’s no one paying for this space except for me ) [Oh and of course you’re helping by paying the cover price]. Its important to write these things down because in 10 or 20 or more years time I’ll have no idea exactly what I ate for two weeks in the winter of 1998. Sure I could just keep a diary, but somehow it has a greater chance of surviving if its published.