Friday 4 March 2011

The Hobnob Challenge

Matthew has a sweet tooth. There is no denying it. I, on the other hand, do not. In Canada, I rarely bought cookies because inevitably, I would eat two or three out of the whole box, and Matthew would eat the rest, in about a week. He has this condition where he will eat whatever is in front of him - no matter what it is. If you have a box of Ritz crackers, he'll eat them. If it's a box of cookies, he'll eat them. This works with everything though, so if you put a bag of carrots in front of him, he'll eat them too.

There is one kind of cookie that I really like though - but because it is British, it's not a cookie, it's a biscuit. They are called Hobnobs and they are these crunchy, oat-y biscuits of deliciousness. One of my favourite things about them is they come in a tube, not a box. For some reason, this speaks to me.

On my first grocery shop (remember, the 4 carts, trolleys?) I bought a tube of cookies. I had two with tea that night - we were playing 'British'. Matthew polished off the rest of the tube (about 20 cookies) by the end of that week. With my first online grocery shop, I accidentally bought 3 tubes (whoopsies). I had originally clicked to add one tube to my basket, but then saw that they came in a double pack for cheaper. So I clicked that into my basket too, and forgot to delete the single tube.  It's a good thing I'm getting better at the online shopping, because Matthew ate all three tubes of cookies - except for probably 6 - in about 10 days. :) Love him! When I brought this up, he got a bit bashful, and decided he would not binge on Hobnobs ever again.

Here's the thing. I have invited some girls over next Monday for tea after our playgroup (yeah, I said tea - when I said coffee, all 3 of them said, 'we don't drink coffee', so I had to say, 'oh, I meant tea!!' even though I really meant coffee...), so I had to buy some cookies to give them. To those of you who might bake cookies for when you have guests, I have to tell you I'm a terrible baker. Matthew won't even eat the cookies I make. :( So I bought some more cookies - a 3 pack this time because I thought they were 3 different kinds of Hobnobs. Turns out, I need to learn to read a bit better because the packaging clearly indicates they are, in fact, just 3 different kinds of biscuits. 




So, Matthew has enrolled himself in the Hobnob Challenge: Can he make it to Monday without eating all three tubes of cookies? Only time will tell...

5 comments:

Alex Thompson said...

Those Rich Teas are my fave

Janine said...

oops...I see that Alex was signed in on my computer. That comment was actually from me. And now you think you have 2 comments, but it's really just one.

Unknown said...

You are so blessed with the variety of quality bikkies. My favorites are":jaffa cakes, (by far the easiest to consume in a single go), hobnobs, plain chocolate digestives, club (don't know if these are still made??), a caramel chocolate wafer thing in a red and gold striped package, Cadbury's plain chocolate fingers, more honnobs, Nice and gingernuts (great for tea dunking - key part of the "English afternoon teatime". The skill comes in knowing the absorption rate before the soaked bit falls into the cup (many variables come into play; blend of tea, tea leaves or tea bags, its temperature, size of the cup, bone china or mug, whether with milk and if so, then if milk is poured first or tea first (the word miffed derives from the acronym milk in first - but I expect you knew this)). People think that tea spoons are placed on saucers for stirring the tea or (yuk!) adding sugar but no. The spoon is for fishing out the soggy yet wonderful saturated biscuit remnants. Gypsies have a tough time "reading your tea leaves" if you are a closet dunker.
If Matthew wants a real biscuit challenge, I bet he is unable to eat a full pack of Jacobs(??) water biscuits without anything to drink, inside 5 minutes.
Is "workers' playtime" still on the radio at 3pm? or "Mrs. Dale's Diary" aka Bridget Jones maybe??
Love and happiness to all,
Jenni.

Unknown said...

I think that the chocolate,caramel, wafer bikkies are called "Tunnocks". Could be wrong? Nah!
jenni.

Gina said...

I don't understand why Matthew can't eat all those bikkies before Monday. After all, he is (and you are) getting a ton of exercise riding bikes all over town. Right? :)