Things I have learned so far in Edinburgh

[kaberett]

1. Baking flapjack counts as LashHours (i.e. time contributed to the collective).
   
2. Lashings gets through a truly alarming quantity of oats. (We've been here since Friday. We've consumed one kilo so far.)
   
3. Writing fic can, under some circumstances, be counted as LashHours.
   
4. Squid Soap is a thing in this world.
   
5. The Edinburgh Red Cross branch does not loan shower chairs, only wheelchairs.
   
6. Kissing the Witch is amazing and you should read it.
   
7. Lentils are not routinely safe for people with serious nut allergies, and carrot-sweet potato-ginger soup is very popular with Lashers, not least because it is Lashings Orange. (Thank you highfantastical for providing the impetus on this one!)
   
8. If you provide Lashings Orange nail varnish, They Will Come.
   
9. It is absolutely hilarious to barrel downhill, and watch people's expressions change from "oh it's a wheelchair" to "HOLY SHIT TAKE COVER", especially because steering is accomplished by invisible-to-onlookers tweaks of how much pressure each finger on each hand is applying to the push rims.
   
10. That one essay I wrote for GCSE English Literature on the subject of morality and justice on the Discworld? Was fannish meta.

Comments

[sorrillia]

(1) Baking flapjacks? Oh, right, you people mean something different than pancakes by that. Which I need to actually try making properly one of these days, since the packaged ones noldo brought me once were tasty, even if our attempt to bake them ourselves was kind of terrifying and then got horded and eaten by physicists.

(2) Hmm...how many people were responsible for eating that many oats?

(7) Is mildly surprised that tree nuts and lentils would be linked. Allergies are weird. Also, that soup sounds wonderful, and like something I should make, at least if it avoids the too-sweet and not filling enough failure mode of most of my attempts to make orange soups.

Other numbers possibly should be replied to, but only when I'm on a less weirdly broken internet connection.

[noldo]

I tried baking them again after you graduated, and they were a lot better, but also got eaten by physicists who weren't me. Different physicists.

I imagine the oats got eaten in the form of flapjack?

[sorrillia]

I should get you to tell me the right way to make them some time. I suppose I can find a physicist to feed to continue that tradition. (Does the Robot count, since it majored in it?)

[noldo]

If I ever get around to visiting you, I shall manufacture them for you and we can feed them to Robot, who probably still doesn't eat as much as it ought, and who counts as a physicist by my standards (if I do, anyone does...).

[sorrillia]

That would be neat. It has discovered the wonders of free food, so now it only fails to eat as much as it ought when that is insufficiently available. Which is still somewhat often.

[steorra]

I have a serious peanut-and-walnut allergy. Lentils themselves are fine for me, but are sometimes cross-contaminated with nuts, so I need to read the label. I would count that as "not routinely safe", though I don't know if that's what kaberett was thinking of.

[kake]

Lentils aren't necessarily safe for gluten-free people either. My box of Puy lentils has a warning on it to this effect (which I noticed the night before I was due to cook lunch for a gluten-free friend — luckily I could just substitute beans instead).

[sorrillia]

Ah. I hadn't been thinking of cross-contamination. Which I probably should've been. (I have a friend with very severe celiac who can eat corn, but generally can't eat cornmeal-containing products because most cornmeal in the US has wheat contamination even if the label doesn't note this.)

[naath]

the Guardian explains at tedious length how to cook nice flapjacks. It has worked for me in the past (although I didn't actually take all the advice and just grabbed the oats I had to hand).

Flapjack can also be made using honey (rather than golden syrup) which tastes a bit different when you're finished. 'course you can put all sorts of other stuff you like in too.

When Americans say "flapjack" what sort of pancake do they mean?

[kaberett]

Flapjack I have made so far includes apple-cinnamon and ginger-apricot; I have plans for heather honey-rosemary-sea salt at some point, but as I'm currently cooking for a house full of vegans, it seems impolite to do that ;)

[naath]

That sounds tasty! (but non-vegan)

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

OMG A vegan household that caters to allergies! Sounds like my idea of heaven!

[sorrillia]

Thanks for the recipe. I am not entirely sure if I can get golden syrup here (or would know what it was if I did), so I might just use honey.

Hmm...trying to figure out how to answer that without saying "normal ones". Buttermilk pancakes usually:
http://www.marthastewart.com/318689/best-buttermilk-pancakes
or
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/buttermilk-pancakes-i/
seem reasonable examples?

[sorrillia]

Wikipedia seems to think it means "a thick small pancake, generally around 10 cm in diameter", which seems odd to me, as my canonical flapjack would be more like 25 cm in diameter: just the right size to completely cover a normal dinner plate. (I'd call a small, thick one a "silver dollar pancake" probably.) But size isn't really relevant to my definition: anything made with approximately that dough, maybe with blueberries thrown in, is a flapjack. Whereas a crepe or an oatmeal or potato pancakes or something definitely isn't.

[naath]

Ah, the fat kind. I think I'd call such things a "drop scone" or maybe a "Scottish pancake". Whereas I think a "pancake" (unqualified) is more a crepe.

[sorrillia]

*nod* I only think of a crepe as sort of a pancake by technicality: an unqualified pancake is a flapjack.

[carthaginians]

approve v. much if you post said fannish meta because DISCWORLD.

also please do take photo of you barrelling downhill at north bridge because that is a wonderful mental image ♥ ♥

[hairyears]

Excessive consumption of rolled oats in Golden Syrup... Isn't that some kind of parkin offence?

[squigglefish]

Heee, Lashing trip report! < Just read it out to flippac, we have all the goodfeels :3

To go with the format others are using to respond...

1. Eeee, flapjaaaaaaaacking win
2. OM NOM NOM OATS :3
5. FAIL :(
7. Noted, thanks :)
9. eeee, that's brilliant :D

3, 7, 8 ? These are reeaaally making me wish there was a way I had the time and spoons and appropriate location to come and Lash :D (I've got the hair, at least ;P)