It is still regrettably common in the MSM. Our TV show is thus constrained and it drives me nuts. I feel like we're letting down the viewers…

Actually in numerous instances, they can grow enough food on their own land, but they only grow one crop and…

You hope there are follow-on ads, but maybe not. The key selling point of consumer PR…

Satiation is impossible for teenage boys, I think. Mine say it doesn't matter how much they eat (usually unrefined wholegrains etc) they are never full nowadays. It's sad the mournful look of a teenage boy who can never feel his stomach is full…

Heh. So if there's an average adult consumption x, then a family of 5 will need anywhere from 3x to 8x, depending on the age of the…

All very nice, but given the rate card for a whole back page is probably in five figures, I wonder how the ad department feels…

Spooky... I have just finished turning that very chocolate, plus a darker one into......fudgy chocolate mousse – hope my dinner guests aren't reading this already.....

Caught flounder last night in Wordsworth Street ;-) and that was good shown the frying pan briefly with lemon and butter.

Someone has just reminded me that I also enjoy pistachio halva with strong black coffee...

The dark & orange pieces! Or dark & oozy scrumptious peppermint!!

I binge (up to half a cake) once a month or so…then I’m satiated for another few weeks…

It's about the only sweet stuff I eat -…

Indeedy!
I plead momentary brain-fade, caused by over- indulgence of... Whittakers Peanutbutter chocolate-

(the white&rasberry is also very good.)

Whittakers info. You are safe.
FAQ'S

[sigh of hopeful relief]

pretty sure they don't – it was Cadbury that got caned for that

Oh surely not! I'm heart broken! That's my favouritest chocolate, especially considering I rely on care packages from my mum to get any.

(NB: aside from eating the fish, I have nothing to do…

This is the only NZ farmed Salmon to eat – none of the rubbish additives, the fish swim in swift-moving currents, the meat is paler and with hardly any striation because they're fit little buggers. Good enough for the Japanese royal family so I'm told.

We stand behind our produce, our recipes and uncompromising service.

and the legal fineprint buried in the…

We have done – and probably about to do – some stupid things.

Koi Carp. I thought they were put in drains to keep them clear of weeds. Then the drains flooded and took them into the Waikato. But this says otherwise…

Butterfish are delicious, but notoriously picky in taking a bait (there are weird things tried...) They are not shoal fish in my experience, but that experience is limited to Kaikoura & Moeraki & environs.

So long as it's not carp.

I presume that is a skite....

And without any proper testing on the animals so affected...

seals are really good at harvesting penned salmon-

Plummeting! – the low down on salmon

Might have to stay with whipped cream and intense chocolate icing for the choux.

Well, I trust you actually meant ‘deep red orange’ colouring…otherwise the salmon-farmers are getting the mix wrong...

While wild-caught salmon are much better eating, their stocks are still kept up by
by captive hatching, and later release – and all wild-caught…

In Oamaru (at the farmers' market) you can obtain some of the best traditional eclairs, made by a German-trained baker (his other wares are pretty good too-)
The cooked batter is crisp; the custard is perfect, with just a hint…

Pfft. Doughnuts is where it’s at.

New technology makes previously unobtainable cupcake reserves economically viable

Thanks Joe, I recall this from last year, now you mention it. Lots to digest. The regional variation was one thing that came to mind, which I see is covered in the larger report to a degree.…

*’bait or any fish, including my reserved-for-family-only smoked- silver-bellies…

I have nothing against the scheme – sounds really…

Did you find it is at the wrong angle too huh?

This seems worthy of a movement.

First question, can we come up with a decent way of calculating a genuine 'living wage'? Because this government has no idea what that means. In fact, they seem to believe…

In fact If the Living Wage people have a window sticker for businesses adopting this movement I would tend to use them rather than those which would rather pay less than the minimum wage if they could.

Nah, for me ,this debate has…

Certainly, I am wearing my black hat this morning.

Me, I like to buy food, it is part of the pleasure of cooking and the further (or may be the lower) I can go on the food tree the better

Like catching your own whitebait and then sharing…

beautiful

Wit goes a long way.

That was my comment over at…

Oh. That'll be why people were looking at me like that.

What I meant and didn't express very well was that I think the Twitter community will sort it. And probably not by means of rigid rules, but by social…

It’s…

It's surprisingly good in a Sichuan- or Chongqing-style hotpot, especially in a super-spicy broth. As is frozen tofu, though with that you've got to be careful. When you freeze tofu it turns into…

Wow, you got a much more interesting Lotusphere than me. But…

I bought a can to celebrate the first piece of software going live. That shit was narrsty.

They do cook up in a way that ordinary breadcrumbs don't, especially in deep-frying situations, but they are a bit more expensive. Otoh, they're cheaper than the mostly horrible crumb-coatings that people buy in supermarkets. I tend to stick to bags…

#totesanad

It's actually quite nutritious, you know. Mash it, boil it, roast it, put it in a stew, put it in a sandwich, serve it on toast.

Spam is also cheaper than a food bag. Not as cheap as a food…

People doing stuff for gifts probably doesn't need to be #hashtagged – but if you are in the business of organising/solicting twitter traffic and are being paid to do so then maybe this fact ought to…

Some of us used to make a living out of it. If it wasn't for spam, my children would have starved.

ETA: I was blocking spam, for the record. But if there was nothing to block ...

People who don't have enough time to cook. "Time Starving" are people who don't even have enough time to eat. "Can't eat, tweeting", is "Time anorexic"

I'm all for letting Twitter sort out its…

Which is why I stopped reviewing books in ANZ...

For reviews overseas, they actually pay money as well as the book copy.

Apart from that, I guess it was nothing like Parliament?

We are turning into a nation of food nutters: pages and pages and websites and words devoted to creating dishes that require expensive imported ingredients (panko breadcrumbs grrr) but the…

Okay, well for context then, here is the response I posted there:

Thanks Alastair,

As far as I can tell the ASA seems to be quite specific…

@scooptechlab is…

Hi Dylan,

FWIW I think twitter is a glorious place to have a debate. And a place where doing so works remarkably well. I expect John Drinnan…

Goodie bags are an odd thing — although they…

They were more personalities – radio hosts, fashionistas and socialites.

hopefully that looks more quote like than my previous attempt.

I struck this on a certain PR gig I did. Marketing set up a “launch” and invited thought leaders, celebrities, fashionistas and the like. They spent a lot of money…

When I was a young 'un, it seemed outrageously wonderful that I could see movies for free and keep CDs that I was reviewing.…

Same goes with almost every review – even with restaurant reviews, it's the magazine (generally) not the author paying for it.

We're smart enough to be able…

The irony there is that it's not uncommon for editors to hand over review copies of books and tell their poor reviewers that is the payment.

Breathe slowly and deeply.

I have no skin in this game, but the one thing that I think…

Quite. Hosking was pocketing $60,000 a year to say good things as a SkyCity "ambassador" and didn't disclose that until…

I'm picturing the scene in Zombieland where the hero confronts a zombie-clown (and he's terrified of clowns).

Edit: Oh shit, that just gave me a Saturday night flashback.

There's a HUGE difference between being paid by the Casino and casually mentioning how much you like certain restaurants there while on TV; and getting sent a product to review.…

I arrived very late on a Saturday night after flying for half my life and tottered down to one of the restaurants in the morning to find it being haunted by people in…

I was being a picky bugger I admit.
I was once given a media player to review, (back in '99) a 32meg device that would store two or three songs…

It was always entirely up to us as reporters to find a good story. There was never any pressure on me to come back with something friendly about the company who paid -…

Only when they seek to be. I hoped that my tweet "I'm trialling #myfoodbag for a week" was about all I needed by way of disclaimer (on my personal twitter, about a product I'm not being paid to endorse), but of course if someone chooses to wilfully…

Even if it isn't…

Oh I disagree. It’s worse to hide that.…

The reciprocal obligation is a very strong one, hardwired into human brain circuitry (according to Kahneman and others). It's very well known in psychology, and it's certainly…

And that does tend to…

And that's actually why it works. He had a crack, came up with something that looked like a top-notch restaurant meal, and proudly showed it off to his Twitter friends.

Oh, but we could have had a live in studio cooking demo...

"How's that lamb coming Jesse?"
"Hahaha, it's great Greg, I hope you like it rare, and by rare I mean raw"…

As an IT reporter I got to travel all over the world to numerous events. Generally speaking these were described…

It was actually pitched to Seven Sharp, but they didn't see a story in it. Fair enough.

Me too. It's rare for me to make a curry or a pasta sauce that's not at least two meals' worth.

This was the crux, mostly, of the Twitter-splosion that happened on…

Or, to simply do nothing.

If that's pay, what about journalists who get free tech toys worth much more and write and tweet about them? Or the reviewer who gets a ticket of about the…

They put them on horses don''t they?

If I can add my thoughts on the Gourmet Food Bag (designed for 2 people, 4 meals each week rather than 4pax x 5days as RB tried)...

Day 1's "asian style" foil wrapped snapper was delicious,…

It's only $8.95 a serve if you're feeding four, or $7.16 if you're feeding five. It's a little pricey, but would probably still fit in the "budget meals" category of many popular cooking magazines etc.…

Actually that would be a pretty good expansion, when I used to live alone in the city it was a huge pain in the ass cooking for myself. Hard to shop easily for one, hard to find…

As you note, it's this combination that works. $179 for five 'family' dinners seems to be right on the high side of things, but if there are people with that kind of money in NZ (there clearly are), then…

I think a good next step would be MyFoodBags for bachelors and bachelors-at-heart. Easy to prepare snacks for guys wanting to wean off takeaways. I asked the founder she says it's not completely out of the question.

On the issue of not being home enough to justify something like this: we've had a similar experience with Ooooby. They do cheapish fortnightly fruit and vege deliveries, which are great (and not bad at all for the price) but we find we need…