Posts from 2017

THE FREAKY TRIGGER ADVENT CALENDAR OF XMAS SANDWICHES – Dec 23 & 24: IN CONCLUSION

Twas the night before xmas and all through the hut, we/the eaters were judging what works in a buttie

• Bacon is bad not good in this particular context
• Even if cranberry is not your thing, BBQ sauce is probably worse

TFTACOXS – December 22: Pret Festive Winter Salad

What is a ‘sandwich’? The concept of an ‘open-faced sandwich’ suggests a structural flexibility beyond the ‘things between two pieces of bread’ definition; yet several fooderies this year have chucked out the whole concept altogether and put out FESTIVE OFFERINGS that can in no way be described as a sandwich AT ALL. One such is Pret’s Festive Winter Salad, £4.95 and consumed in the traditional way, with a maroon plastic fork at an office desk.

TFTACOXS – Dec 21: miscellaneous M&S remnants (and you can’t have miscellany without M and indeed S)

The dirty lunchable secret is that M&S — while good at snacks in general — are quite bad at sandwiches and have been for a long time. They aren’t awful: this I know bcz I’ve eaten 1 x metric fvcktonne in my years on this earth. But they’re not worth going a long way out of your way for.

TFTACOXS – December 20: the pret xmas vegetarian miracle

(posted for magnus who lost his password):
Pret have invented the finest Christmas vegetarian sandwich. Ever. Of all the turning points in world history, the introduction of this sandwich is surely going to be one of the best remembered – a miraculous innovation that, like penicillin and handrails, simply made things better.

I remember the moment I discovered it. It seemed impertinent if anything – a cheese and pickle sandwich in the Christmas range didn’t fit my all-too-narrow view of the festive menu. But there it was, and Pret and Christmas have pleased before, so I tried it.

The Freaky Trigger Movie AND TV Polls 2017

Hi I am Veronica Mars. You might know me from my mid 2000’s TV show Veronica Mars where I navigated the class structures of Californian High School and solved crimes every week whilst being snarky to people. Or you might know me from my 2014 crowd funded movie Veronica Mars where, despite having grown up, I went back for a ten year anniversary to my Californian High School to ostensibly give everyone the opportunity to catch up with all the old characters that hadn’t been murdered, and solve another crime whilst being snarky to people. Anyway I am here to illustrate that the line between TV and Film is wafer thin these days and so it is high time that Freaky Trigger ran a TV Poll AS WELL AS a Film Poll. And I am here to introduce that idea, solve a crime and be snarky about people. Or at least Sight And Sound who apparently think Twin Peaks: The Return is the second best film of the year…

Thank you Veronica. And welcome to the third annual film poll and the first TV poll. The rules are simple – rank your top twenty in both categories IN ORDER and send your vote to ftfilmpoll AT gmail DOT com.

TFTACOXS – December 19th: Brie & Cranberry Wars part Deux

Previously on Brie & Cranberry Wars…we saw our intrepid reporter tackling sauce with curious geometrical properties, incisoring through predictably chewy bread and carefully measuring the thickness of sliced cheese leading an ultimate stalemate…

As with all cliffhanger resolutions, first we must switch scenes to somewhere completely different.

TFTACOXS – December 18: When Is A Christmas Sandwich Not A Christmas Sandwich?

For this entry we are approaching the fuzzy boundary of the Christmas sanger, where taxonomy begins to break down. I’m not talking about Christmas wraps, burritos, salads, pies or even pizzas, which have all been declared legitimate. I’m talking about the Tesco Finest Pulled Beef and Aged Red Leicester sandwich (with – this is crucial – BBQ sauce). Is this a nice sandwich? Certainly it is – red leicester (aged or youthful) is a rare and undervalued sandwich cheese; the pulled beef is reasonably flavoursome and juicy and the BBQ sauce appropriate. It wouldn’t become a regular choice but I was happy to try it.

TFTACOXS – December 17: Subway Deluxe Feast

(posted for Dani who doesn’t have a password yet): Subway Deluxe Feast. Subpar. There, done. What? You want more? Sheesh. It’s a bit tricky to review any Subway sandwich as my fully-customisable sandwich isn’t necessarily your fully-customisable sandwich and that’s OK. Except if you choose to add sweetcorn, because that’s clearly wrong. So, if at the end of this review you wish to dash out and try one for yourself, for comparative purposes this is how my particular “sub” was constructed:

• Hearty Italian bread
• No cheese
• Several off-white chunks the menu calls “butter marinated turkey breast.”
• Two rashers of bacon that were somehow both soggy and crisp
• Standard salad offerings minus sweetcorn and jalepeno
• Cranberry sauce.

The only thing, in my mind, that sets this apart from the usual Subway offerings and makes it “festive” is the addition of the cranberry sauce. This cranberry sauce weirdly smells like BBQ sauce. Maybe the lady at my local Subway branch, conveniently located in the reception of the hospital I work at (and therefore providing a palatable alternative to stealing patient dinners) got mixed up between the two DESPITE the recent switch to clearly labeled and coloured dispensers. It looks red though, so I am going to assume it’s just an overly-sweetened version of cranberry sauce.

Without a clearly defined cranberry sauce tang I am not sure this should be called a Christmas sandwich. This sandwich should heavily feature next time one of the national shite-rags publishes a story on their website that is essentially a rehash of an AMA on Reddit. “Subway employee reveals what you should NEVER order.” This, this is what you shouldn’t order. You’ve been warned.

TFTACOXS – December 16th: The Laziest Sandwiches In Britain

Yes, I’m aware of the ironing of posting a complaint about laziness two days late – away with such carping – this post is one of stern rebuke to the chain that has made least effort in their Christmas sandwich range. I am talking about CAFFE NERO.

I have spent a lot of time in Caffe Nero this year. Too much time. It is the only chain coffee place in my South-of-Croydon backwater, and it’s also the coffee shop at the base of my work building. In fact I’m writing this very entry in Caffe Nero, and abusing its hospitality mightily by doing so. I go there to write stuff for work when the office environment is too distracting, and that puts me in a good position to expose the half-arsedness of the Nero Christmas experience.

TFTACOXS – December 15th: Brie & Cranberry Wars

IN THIS BLEAK MIDWINTER frosty wind may well moan, but it has been drowned out by the chorus of complaint surrounding the high levels of cranberry in this year’s festive sanger selections. As we saw on door 13, the dread red has infiltrated even the humble falafel wrap in the name of Christmas theming. Is the EU trying to deplete its cranberry mountain prior to Br3x1t? Is a shady city dealer trying to rig cranberry futures on the fruit exchange? Are we living in a poorly edited Doctor Who Xmas Special wherein those who consume the pervasive substance are subject to mind control by forces sinister?

As a devoted correspondent I chose to answer these questions by seeking out the cranberry directly – not once, but TWICE. By choosing a sanger with cranberry at its core design rather than shoehorned in, perhaps the result would be better? To maximise my chances of success, I opted for the canonical pairing of BRIE and ventured out to my two most loyal food haunts (i.e. the two closest shops to the office): Pret and Sainsburys.

PRET brie & cranberry baguette with toasted pistachios and wild rocket: Filling and stodgy, with plenty of nutty base notes from the pistachio. The cranberry was not overwhelming, but lacked flair. It could have easily been replaced by something superior, e.g. a sweet garlic chutney. The baguette itself was standard Pret business: soft enough not to break your dentures but substantial enough to provide structural integrity.

SAINS brie & cranberry ‘good to go’ sandwich: A simple effort with plain white no-nonsense bread. Some decent wodges of brie here, nice thick slices which feel like good value for money with every bite. The cranberry sauce was a bit runnier than usual, more like a jelly than a jam but with a weird non-Newtonian consistency. If the alien infiltration theory had any merit this would be Exhibit A (“but Doctor, the sauce is dripping upwards…”).

It’s hard to pick a winner – both feel like solid 6/10s. Sains had more cheese, Pret had the bonus nut element. Perhaps I should find a tie-breaker elsewhere? Or is this the addictive power of pure cranberry pulling me into its sticky grasp? Why are those men in the car outside wearing black sunglasses in December? Why is this sparkly light coming out of my fingertips? To be continued…