Panic buying

[teaky]

A wikipedia fail perhaps?

 

Orzo is pasta but it is the shape and size of barley and thus given the Italian name for barley.  Perhaps it ought to called 'orzo pasta' to avoid confusion but if it is surrounded by bags/boxes of other shapes of pasta in the shop then it is sufficiently unambiguous.

 

If it isn't pasta then someone needs to have a word with Italy's largest pasta manufacturer.

https://www.barilla.com/en-us/products/pasta/classic-blue-box/orzo

 

There's a picture on that page too that suggests a recipe.  It looks like orzo with olive oil, tomatoes, pine kernels, goats cheese and herbs.  They also suggest substituting it for rice in risotto.

 

[ejstubbs]

6 hours ago, teaky said:

Orzo is pasta but it is the shape and size of barley and thus given the Italian name for barley.

 

In much the same way that butterfly-shaped pasta is called "farfalle".  The same term in the singular ("farfalla") also used for a bow tie.

[monkeysarefun]

Things are looking up here..

 

The daily new-infection rate nationwide has been  down to the low double figures  for the last couple of weeks, but more importantly 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[raymw]

Now its there, nobody will want it.

[cctransuk]

25 minutes ago, raymw said:

Now its there, nobody will want it.

 

You can send some over to the UK !!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[Reorte]

Make something a white powder and make it scarce and there'll be a lot of demand for it!

 

[boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

You can send some over to the UK !!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Curry night John? 

[kevinlms]

14 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Things are looking up here..

 

The daily new-infection rate nationwide has been  down to the low double figures  for the last couple of weeks, but more importantly 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22 new cases in Victoria on Monday, 19 related to a meat works. 

[Gwiwer]

4 hours ago, kevinlms said:

22 new cases in Victoria on Monday, 19 related to a meat works. 

In all probability due to the close proximity of workers rather than the nature of the employment.  A similar thing in Singapore where a large number of new cases has been almost exclusively found to be in shared dormitory accommodation on building sites.  

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Gwiwer

[TheQ]

Just back from the metropolis of 3149 people, where there is a TES and Co. 

No queue to get in,  lots of "old dears" staring vacantly at shelves causing hold ups, before not selecting anything and moving on. 

 

Shortages, 

The only flour they had was in tiny packets,  advertising fair trade,  vegan,  green,  at high prices. 

Decaff coffee only in small jars, 

No oat based biscuits of any type. 

 

Returns to normal, 

Toilet paper...  Some on sale!!! 

Milk back in 6 pint plastic bottles. 

Eggs in large packs 12 /15, not just sixes. 

 

On to the local garden centre, which has always had a food shop / farm shop , as its been confirmed that you can stay open if you are a food shop,  and sell anything you have on the shelves,  they are doing a roaring trade as the only garden centre open. Queues down their car park so I turned round and left. 

 

On the next venture out to collect the prescription I put the form in for today,  I'll  go to the farm shop first at 08:00 , we need spuds and swedes, both grown on that farm, and very cheap. 

 

[ejstubbs]

On 05/05/2020 at 12:05, TheQ said:

lots of "old dears" staring vacantly at shelves causing hold ups, before not selecting anything and moving on. 

 

It wasn't just "old dears" in our local Sainsbury's yesterday morning.  There was one large, heavily bearded hipster type I encountered multiple times who's shopping process involved standing smack in the middle of an aisle with his trolley (leaving much less than 2m to pass him either side i.e. effectively blocking the aisle) and staring at the shelves first on one side, then turning 180° on the spot to stare at the shelves on the other side.  He'd then move about 10ft along and repeat the process.

 

A number of people seemed to be working on the principle that it was everyone else's responsibility to stay 2m away from them - so happily barging past within a foot or two of other folks browsing a particular shelf, but giving dirty looks when they were doing the same and anyone else even looked like they might be thinking of approaching within less than the statutory 2m of them.

 

Basically, self-centered and ill-thought-out behaviour - as so often encountered on the roads in fact.

 

And a good proportion of those failing to observe proper social distancing were wearing face masks.

 

On 05/05/2020 at 12:05, TheQ said:

No oat based biscuits of any type. 

 

I've noticed that oat-based breakfast goods seem to be becoming scarce: half the muesli variants usually stocked seemed to be absent from the shelves this week.

 

On the plus side, more pasta, pasta sauce and loo roll than you could shake a stick at, and a decent supply of eggs.  For some reason milk is no longer available in one pint containers, though, which is a drag if (like us last week) you just need a pint of full cream milk to make up a béchamel sauce.

 

But, yet again, no flour beyond a few sad-looking packs of plain on a bottom shelf.  Fortunately I managed to order a 16kg bag of strong wholemeal from a local mill the other day so I'm set for a while, though the missus is still limited with her cake baking in the absence of both self-raising flour and caster sugar* from the shelves.  I'm intrigued to know where all these people who've suddenly got in to home baking during lockdown and who are supposedly a key cause of the shortages are actually getting their ingredients from!  They can't all be resorting to locally-based suppliers, surely?  (I'm suddenly getting mental images of people getting their "baking fix" from shifty-looking blokes in blinged-up Mercs and with pocketfuls of burner phones...)

 

* Yes, we know you can put granulated through the blender but it's a royal fag, especially when the blender's mechanism gets gummed up with sugar residue.

[Nick C]

35 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

(I'm suddenly getting mental images of people getting their "baking fix" from shifty-looking blokes in blinged-up Mercs and with pocketfuls of burner phones...)

 

I've now got a mental image of someone complaining to said shifty-looking bloke that their flour had been 'cut' with drugs...

[boxbrownie]

Amazing.......we have finally been contacted by ASDA and given a priority pass for booking a recurring slot, it’s only taken 6 weeks......now we can start putting back some of the weight we’ve lost 

‘Odd thing is although we have an account with both ASDA and Waitrose we only EVER use Waitrose for online shopping, only since the lockdown have we used ASDA once when we could get a slot there and not (ever) at Waitrose.

 

Who knows the inner workings of the uncivil surveillance, I mean civil service.  

[adb968008]

Since supermarkets failed us, in store and online consistently, weve moved on. Still no hope of online.. but weve moved on.

 

Local farms shops, bakery, butchers are quieter, more pleasant and not much more expensive. Weve found 3 local shops that give us all our dietary needs, in less time than a Sainsburys door entry shopping queue.

For cleaning stuff, weve gone Amazon and others, whilst everywhere was sold out, we found office cleaning supply companies had loads of stock... who shops in an office supplies retailer during a lockdown ?

 

However were fully covered, eating healthier than ever, and cooking our own much more. Ive never eaten so much veg, fruit and eggs, were even successfully growing strawberries.. 

 

This is turning to a positive experience...Ive actually not spent any cash since Feb 28th.. everything is carded, earning points towards the model railway fund.

Edited May 7, 2020 by adb968008

[melmerby]

21 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

On the plus side, more pasta, pasta sauce and loo roll than you could shake a stick at, and a decent supply of

I've had no problem getting pasta sauce with Asda's delivery service but so far haven't managed to get any dry pasta (3 successive shops) despite listing both large and small packs as they get knocked off at picking time as OOS

We normally buy 3kg bags and needed one just the week the vultures had stripped the shelves  (we hadn't realised that it was happening as the previous week when we hadn't needed any there was plenty.

We did get a 1kg bag at Sainsbury's the last time i shopped but that's gone and we have just one portion left of old stock from the back of the cupboard.

[Gwiwer]

Ocado reported via the various news channels during the week that they see shopping habits "returning to normal" after a period of disruption.  The past three weeks has been quite sane on their website and whilst delivery slots are still scarce and often 10 - 14 days ahead nearly everything turns up.  

 

We have several bags of dry pasta in various shapes and sizes and recently had a bit of a flour mountain arrive so those items are more than adequately stocked for now.  The current issue is the local absence of unsweetened almond milk or soya - everything else you can think of including rice, cacao and the sweet almond milk but not those two.  We have managed to source single cartons at times and have never run dry but it's taken a little effort.  

 

In other news why is it that I can't get 0.4mm (size 20) piano wire when I need it?    

[boxbrownie]

4 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

In other news why is it that I can't get 0.4mm (size 20) piano wire when I need it?    

What else can you do when lockdown for six weeks......learn to play the piano 

[Joseph_Pestell]

8 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

What else can you do when lockdown for six weeks......learn to play the piano 

Lockdown could continue for six years and I would still not be a competent pianist.

[Gwiwer]

21 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

What else can you do when lockdown for six weeks......learn to play the piano 

Curiously enough Former Neighbour (Upstairs), with whom Early Risers may be familiar, is doing just that and recently posted me an interim progress report.  It sounds quite good as a start from scratch.  

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Lockdown could continue for six years and I would still not be a competent pianist.

 

Likewise for me and railway modelling!

 

Mike.

[Reorte]

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

What else can you do when lockdown for six weeks......learn to play the piano 

 

I've got a digital piano I've been meaning to put more effort in to learning. I'm still working though (and will probably be back in the office in a week or two).

[adb968008]

My little ones learning the piano too, plenty of spare time she has.

 

Shes learned riding a bike this week...ive lost a kg helping/chasing her.

Edited May 7, 2020 by adb968008

[Enterprisingwestern]

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

My little ones learning the piano too, plenty of spare time she has.

 

Shes learned riding a bike this week...ive lost a kg helping/chasing her.

 

Must be a big bike if she get a piano on it?!

 

Mike.

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Must be a big bike if she get a piano on it?!

 

Mike.

Your making assumptions there..

 

how do you know the bike isnt on the piano, playing keys with the pedals..

 

;-)

[rockershovel]

5 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Your making assumptions there..

 

how do you know the bike isnt on the piano, playing keys with the pedals..

 

;-)

 

Sounds like a Goon Show episode.