Appearances

Funny how important appearances are to us, really.

On the way home from a shopping expedition, we stopped to fill the car up with petrol. M went to pay while I cleaned the dusty windscreen. He came back to the car, laughing that he was a sucker for packaging. He’d bought a new look Coca Cola.

Anyone else seen this new look Coca Cola? What is it about this style of packaging soft drinks? Is the long skinny can more attractive, or something?

We’d been in the city, braving the hordes of Christmas shoppers. I wanted to buy a gingerbread man cutter. That’s all I wanted, but do you think it was possible to find any such thing? We went to about five different shops but all they had were Christmas-themed biscuit* cutters, trees and angels and the like – no gingerbread men.

Finally, tired and ready to give up, I suggested we go to the bakers’ supplies shop near our home. They were only open this Sunday because it’s Christmas. Of course, they’d sold their last gingerbread man cutter yesterday – but they did have lots of really cute biscuit cutters, in various animal shapes.

Our three year old nephew is dinosaur crazy at the moment, so he might enjoy some Christmas biscuits shaped like triceratops. And his sisters may appreciate teddy bears, giraffes and hearts. (The other shapes are an elephant, a crocodile, and a lion.)

You’d think I’d just be satisfied with plain old biscuits, wouldn’t you? But no, how these biscuits look is probably as important as how they are going to taste.

I wonder if Mum has any gingerbread cutters…

* I think what we consider to be biscuits (biccies) in Australia are cookies in the US. What Americans call biscuits, we’d consider to be scones, I believe.

9 Comments

Iris 17 December 2006

There are definitely regional differences here in the U.S., so I can only speak from my own experience, but…

We make gingerbread cookies. Biscuits are light, bready things made from flour, milk, butter, and baking poweder. I like them best with honey. Mmmmm. Scones are like Biscuits but sweeter. My favorite recipes aren’t very sweet, but I’ve eaten some that are more like the middle ground between a cookie and a biscuit. Oh, and scones are really good with a little citrus zest or currents mixed into the batter before baking.

Now I’m hungry…

CW 17 December 2006

And I bet we say scones differently, too!

jl 18 December 2006

That new look can – i think Redbull did it first, didn’t they? If it weren’t for the dentist forbidding me to drink soft drinks, i bet i’d be choosing the skinny can, too.

Kathryn Greenhill 18 December 2006

Well…when I was a girl…way back in the early ’70s….long and skinny was the shape of softdrink cans.

CW 18 December 2006

jl, you’re not missing anything, I reckon. Coke is waaaay too sweet to be good for us. And Red Bull? I don’t get why anyone would voluntarily drink that stuff. The taste is vile, imho.

Kathryn, they were?? So all these skinny cans are just retro? They only hold 300ml, rather than the usual 375ml. Funny, in SEAsia the usual can size for soft drinks tends to be 300ml, but they’ve gone for short and squat rather than long and skinny…

TB-) 18 December 2006

Hi CW, try stacking the hearts in size and sprinkle with icing sugar…should look good

jl 18 December 2006

Agree, Redbull is foul. The mere whiff of it is enough to make my guts churn. I retch whenever i see anyone drinking it first thing in the morning.

Penny 19 December 2006

I had to borrow Mum’s gingerbread man cutter cos I couldn’t find one either. I must have been too late.

I love different cookie cutters 😉 Shortbread is a neat thing to make for Christmas too.

CW 19 December 2006

Hi tb, I’ll experiment with the heart-shaped cutters once I’ve decided what I’m going to make. Still pondering my Joy of Cooking

Hey jl what are you doing for Christmas?

Penny, which reminds me, I haven’t checked with Mum yet…