Good morning truants and delinquents, welcome to… a fuck ton of days missed cause I felt like I should take a break, this covers Friday 8th August to Monday 11th August essentially.
Why did I take a break? Well, I was trying to write something a bit more meaningful on Friday after having done a placeholder day on Thursday and… I just could not, no matter what kind of topic I wanted to tackle I could not find my rhythm, flow, or prose, tossing ideas into the void and feeling frustrated at what I was producing.
So rather than forcing it, I decided on an impromptu break. Going into my weekend with the goal of enjoying myself and not thinking about writing which I definitely feel I needed.
It might be that I had been getting burnt out with the idea of writing this series each day, even though I had a topic I could have written about on Friday by the time the evening rolled around, my focus was just not in it.
Taking a break was good, and finding some time to relax helped a lot in not feeling as stressed… and then I found the window in our bedroom had cracked leading to an awkward moment of texting the landlords to try get that sorted but outside of that the weekend was great.
I also finally got my first pay from my contracting role, that let me build my savings nest egg further, contribute a meaningful amount to the bills account once more, and treat myself to a few small things. Additionally I have been planning the last bits of my cosplay for my convention in less than a month’s time, so, hopefully that all comes together.
It does feel a little bad I missed two milestones due to taking my break, missing both the sixty day mark and going past the two month milestone of being made redundant. It… feels weird to think of such a life changing event feeling simultaneously recent but also having a specific time behind it.
Anyway, I want to post something today, and even if my review topic is another loose one, I want to share something I did that made me happy.
I had never made a cake from scratch in my life until last week, with a friend of mine helping me out with this recipe:
Even with my friend helping me out with each step, the recipe is incredibly easy to follow and made a delicious cake. Plus decorating the top with chocolate pieces in the shape of a rabbit made it look really cute as a caramel bunny cake.
Initially I did want to do more for missing so many days, but, I guess my heart is still not as in it as I want it to be. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review all the same, please stay hydrated and cool in this weather.
Good morning lorems and ipsums, welcome to Day 58 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
It has been another day where my writing headspace was hard to find, so I write this at a little past nine in the evening here to primarily fill space and get a review out there – I promise the weekend should be more productive as my brain settles down from some of the changes I have been forcing it through.
Today’s review builds on yesterday’s review, as it was not just the disappointing jalapeno bites I ordered from Papa John’s:
(only just remembered this as I was getting the article ready: look at this stupid ass cut pattern they did as well, I have got six total slices, two of which are massive)
My order did, in fact, actually include a pizza. Shocker, I know, to order a pizza from a pizza place, but it is a weird quirk I have when it comes to such places in that I tend to judge them not on their pizzas, but on their sides, hence my immense disappointment at my side of choice yesterday.
Any pizza place can deliver pizza, but it takes a special pizza place to make non-pizza things work too, take a shot every time I have said pizza thus far to get really wasted.
It was a simple pizza, chicken, ham, and pepperoni, one of the most basic combos you could get. Whilst my experience with the jalapeno bites was disappointing, my experience with the pizza was… just fine I suppose?
There is no such thing as bad pizza, it is almost an impossibility to have pizza be bad, but my pizza yesterday was exceedingly middle of the road, especially when compared to what I am able to get locally that scratches both the greasy itch and the higher-quality itch. Papa John’s was just… fine. Nothing special. It served as a perfectly passable pizza.
But that further dispels the feeling of positive nostalgia I had towards them, in my side of choice being disappointing and the main event being nothing special either. In a way it helps me feel less bad about not being able to order it easily where I live currently, but it also brings me down a little as my companionship pizza place of choice has let me down…
…that said I did buy like four pots of special garlic sauce as part of the order and have not had any yet. That shit tasted like liquid gold back in the day so I am curious to see how well that holds up.
Thank you for reading this truncated and somewhat rushed Redundancy Review. Normal service should return upon a relaxing weekend full of things to review.
Good morning gourmands and culinarians, welcome to Day 57 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
The title of today’s review is supposed to be read with a small hint of irony, given the fact there are no illusions about the fact I love food, having written about going to different places to eat and enjoying a wide variety of food types.
Though today’s review is a triple threat of food based topics, as I am currently writing this from my parent’s place on their stupidly powerful internet that I wish I had since they are currently away and someone needs to feed their axolotl.
Hi again Dottie, you might not know me as well as I knew my previous axolotl, but I still love you all the same. Axolotls are wonderful creatures that I really hope more people get to be familiar with, in terms of the widely-recognised leucistic variety that most people have as pets, to the wonderfully bizarre creatures that inhabit Lake Xochimilco.
I do still miss my old axolotl Cedric, even two years after the fact of her passing away suddenly she still lives in my mind, to the point that her name is now my official default for all axolotls. Feeding her was a delight as I had always fed her by hand, she would instantly spring to attention once I opened the tank and dangled the cube of bloodworms in front of her, though sometimes she would knock it out of my hand to come to rest in between my fingers.
I always liked it when she did that.
And yes, Cedric was a female axolotl with a male name. Dottie is a male axolotl with a female-coded name so it all balanced out in the end – even if the metaphorical implications of my parents having a transgender child and two successive axolotls with gender nonconforming names are not lost on me.
But outside of feeding amazing amphibians, there is a food topic from yesterday I want to discuss: I did a full meal where everything was shallow-fried, partially because my partner wanted me to make some panko-breaded chicken I had made a week or so back, and partially to challenge myself on frying different types of food & using a low oven to keep food warm whilst other pieces were frying.
It was… definitely an experience. Not pictured in the frame is a baking sheet ready to smother the pan in case I somehow managed to cause a grease fire, which I thankfully did not – singed myself on the oil a couple of times but nothing too damaging or severe.
Growing up I never really had access to fried foods at home due to the lack of appliances at my parent’s place, so this is all a pretty new experience to me. The final plate included the homemade panko-breaded chicken, breaded mushrooms, mac & cheese bites, hash browns, and half a homemade mozzarella stick (I did make two but the other one kind of exploded/melted in the oil).
In the last couple of weeks I have been trying to push myself in terms of trying new things in the kitchen, and outside of using a pan to shallow-fry stuff something else I struggled on in the past was the three-stage breading process, with I have got a little better on with this style of breaded chicken.
Knowing how to bread stuff properly leads on to my review topic for the day, and rather than the usual “Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury” piece, I took the opportunity of having to visit my parent’s place today to order from the local Papa John’s, specifically grabbing their cheesy jalapeno bites as they were my favourite side back in the day… the operative word in that sentence being “were”.
For a bit of context, I never really defaulted to Papa John’s when it came to takeaway pizza chains, always preferring either Domino’s or Pizza Hut, but it was my brand of choice when it came to hanging with friends and was even one of the meals my partner & I had during our first time together, leading to us have a nostalgic connection to the place…
…and upon trying these jalapeno bites for the first time in around a year, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.
They were… not even mid honestly, I would even go so far to call them bad compared to what I remember them being. In my recollection the jalapeno bites used to be these long, thin, strips of green jalapeno with cream cheese stuffed inside before they were breaded and fried, with my memory of them being what started my love affair with jalapeno poppers.
But these were… some kind of weird green pepper that I do not even think is a jalapeno with a miniscule amount of cream cheese. They did not have the specific jalapeno flavour to them and I actually struggled to finish all ten of these bites when before they would be gone before the pizza box had even been opened.
Especially considering the price of £6.89, which does not include any dip by the way when so many other sides do include a dip by default, and what is available from other takeaways not just as a side but as an actual main option for a similar price, the rose-tinted glasses for PJ’s have shattered hard for me, and I doubt I will want to order again.
Again, this review took far too long to write. My headspace for writing lets me finish articles at least, but getting it done within the span of an hour like I can usually do is oddly difficult for some reason.
Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review all the same. Go indulge in some actually decent food when you can, and especially share a meal with friends when the opportunity presents itself, those are some of the best moments you can have in life.
Good morning terraformers and landscapers, welcome to Day 54 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Yesterday was a seriously good day for me, like… it was the first day in a while that I felt extremely relaxed without the assistance of anything that influences my mood. I had a good burger brunch at Wimpy, I came home and played games with friends including an utterly cracked time at the Arch-Tempered Uth Duna Free Challenge Quest in Monster Hunter Wilds (that is a mouthful), and finished off the day with a lovely takeaway followed by a long cuddle session with my partner.
It was genuinely the first day since I lost my job that made me feel complete again. Frequent readers of the Redundancy Review will be familiar with my usage of the phrase:
“I feel as if my world has collapsed.”
Which was how I felt for the majority of the time that I have been writing the review. My sense of familiarity had shattered with the loss of my job and my worldview has been shifting & changing since that point to accompany that.
In that regard, I feel I have grown a little more cynical than I was before. For all my struggles with burnout & stress in my previous roles, I had always tried to see myself as an optimistic idealist who was willing to go the extra mile: putting in more time, saying yes to almost anything, and pushing myself beyond my limit to get the job done.
And in return, I got hung out to dry by a board of investors I only knew the name of through stalking the company on Companies House. All that effort and dedication yielded a great amount of personal development, but I still had to start from scratch until this contracting role came across my plate.
But I now accept myself for being more cynical, as this is most likely not going to be the first time I see a company heading into the shit in real-time. No matter where the wind takes me I will still give it my full-effort, just without dedicating my heart and soul to a role knowing it could all fall apart as fast as it came to me.
In a way, I have finished grieving for what I had in the past, and with that grief being processed I am starting to rebuild my world bit-by-bit, working towards the person I want to be again with a newfound sense of purpose & belonging.
It has helped me come to terms with my love-hate relationship with routine as well, along with redefining how I want to feel on a daily basis. Up until now, I had been aiming for a “happy medium” in a way, seeking out stability rather than letting myself experience intense emotions. In hindsight, this led to me suppressing a lot of how I felt on certain days which then led into intense negative emotions coming out more than anything.
Highs and lows are all part of life, and instability is not inherently a bad thing, especially if troughs are outweighed by the peaks. It is okay to be sad, and letting myself process this sadness is what I should be aiming for rather than trying to recover back to a middle point.
All this thought has reminded me that I had a severe mental breakdown in November last year due to work. The stress and strain of my new role slash responsibilities weighed down on me heavily to the point that I had no amount of focus to actually do my job, leading to me being put off work for a week to recover. That week was spent doing not a whole lot of anything, my main goal being to wake up and stare at the wall for a bit.
After that point, my craving for the happy middle point started, and that I feel did more harm than good for me. I should have let myself feel sad, to reckon with my stress rather than wanting to hide it away… I also probably should have taken more than a week off and more like a month, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Now I am in an entirely new chapter, and so long as I keep track of myself, however hard that might be, it is whatever I write in this chapter that will become my truth.
That was an intense amount of self-reflection, if still in my signature rambling style, but now it is time for the review, and well, doing a food review yesterday was so nice – I just have to do it twice! That is right, it is time for another episode of…
Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!
Though with a slightly different flavour this time around, as for the majority of these review subjects it has been me going to a sit-down location and having a meal. This time we are venturing into as yet unexplored territory but one I have been meaning to branch out into for a while: a takeaway review.
For a bit of background, there are a large number of what I refer to as “kebab burger pizza houses” in the UK. Takeaway establishments that do not really specialise in anything and instead offer everything.
You want a greasy pizza to forget a long week? Done.
You craving a low-quality burger to fill you up after a train journey? Sorted.
You require a doner kebab to soak up a night of boozing? No problem boss.
And there is a local joint simply called “Hyper” close to me that completely reshifted my perspective on how good a doner kebab can be.
A large doner kebab from Hyper sets you back £9.49, and as you can see from the pictures, they certainly do not skimp on the portion size or the salad, though it is what lies underneath the salad that makes this particular kebab stand out.
Whatever Hyper do to their doner meat makes it stand out beyond compare to other doner kebabs I have had… minus Shawarma King in Glasgow but they are in a league of their own honestly. It is perfectly seasoned, the shaved strips of meat do not disintegrate once they are placed onto the naan, and they remain perfectly juicy throughout – the addition of hot chilli sauce and garlic mayo only making it more of a greasy, heavenly treat.
The fact they use naan instead of the standard pitta bread that most kebab burger pizza houses do also deserves a highlight. Perfectly crispy, able to hold up to much more pressure and ingredients than a hollowed out piece of pitta, making the bread an integral part of the experience rather than just serving as a doner delivery device.
Pictured also are the sides my partner and I decided to get alongside our meal: chicken strips and mozzarella sticks. For all the praise I heap on Hyper, the reason chips are not pictured here is because the chips they serve are mid-tier as fuck, and often leave us dissatisfied more than anything else.
That said, the sides are perfectly serviceable but nothing entirely special to write home about either. No awards to be won by either but still delicious all the same.
Expect more takeaway reviews in future, enjoying good food is a major part of my life and I want to be able to share the joy I experience in trying things both new and old on this page.
Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. I hope you enjoy a sleepy Sunday wherever you are and the impending Monday blues do not get you down too much.
Good morning hyperboreans and ice climbers, welcome to Day 53 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Birthday party for my friend went extremely well yesterday, and I am going to include a picture of the picnic-ish spread I put together below.
So the bread and coleslaw are homemade with everything else being from the three for £8 deli/picnic section of M&S which made for a pretty diverse range of items included on the table. The bread went down an absolute treat as well, pairing perfectly with a bit of salted butter or a splash of my special “bread dipper” oil, vinegar, and oregano mixture.
The Magic: the Gathering section of the night went by incredibly fun as well, despite the bodge job format we created being a little jank with good pulls opened by all – even if the main hangout bit only lasted three hours due to my energy levels plummeting off a cliff the moment the game ended.
Which leads into how I am feeling today, that being extraordinarily relaxed without having imbibed any of my CBD gummies to reach this state of zen, and I honestly do not know what specifically to attribute it to.
Is it the fact I exhausted my social energy after a somewhat hectic week?
Is it me being comfy in my own space when a week ago I was up in Scotland?
Is it just my mind finally giving me a break and letting me rest without feeling guilty about it?
It could be any of those factors, but the main point is feeling relaxed and not having any major stresses coming in my direction currently.
Times like these do give me a chance to think though, and in something that feels hard to do in today’s climate, think towards the future. The world is in a fucked up place for a lot of different reasons, which makes it hard to make plans for the future when everything feels hopeless.
But even as it does, I still find myself wanting to move forward. To find a better tomorrow and work towards it, especially as a trans person in the UK. It seems like every day the ruling class wants to fuck us specifically, and every day I will find a way to continue living my truth and my best life – be it through pushing myself further into social deviance, looking for ways to support those who need it, or even just stubbornly refusing to bow to pressure and keep existing out of sheer spite alone.
As someone who once did not think she would find happiness and had a limited life expectancy beyond the age of twenty, I consider each day of life I have lived past the point I thought I was done a gift. Through hardship, doubt, and pain, I will keep moving on and writing this story.
No matter what.
But, now it is time to come to the review, and this time we return to one of my favourite topics. That is right, it is time for another exciting episode of:
Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!
When it comes to my food reviews, I have gone here, there, and everywhere thus far but one of the most common threads between all of my food reviews is the humble burger. I have had cafe burgers, restaurant burgers, and fast food burgers, but there is one place in town that I have a particular soft spot for that I have not talked about until today.
Yup, I am talking about Wimpy today.
Wimpy is a well-established fast food burger chain in the UK, claiming that they were the first to serve hamburger based meals all the way back in 1954,having celebrated their 70th anniversary last year as part of this history. It was only fairly recently that I have started going to Wimpy, and in the beginning I did initially have misgivings over the prices.
It eventually found a spot in my heart, and it is a place I return to for simple comfort whenever I need it.
Went out to Wimpy today for an early burger breakfast/brunch as I had found myself craving their specific brand of food, with me ordering a meal of Double Original Quarterpounder Cheese with chips and a coffee thick shake.
The thick shakes I have a particular fondness for, as the price of £4.50 for the amount you get in a glass and how incredibly dense they are, lasting well into my meal and beyond. The hit of coffee in this particular one is also fantastic, providing a much-needed burst of caffeine into my system early in the morning.
Shortly after ordering, my food came out.
Now, you might be wondering, why does this plate scratch an itch for me? On the surface it does not look anything spectacular, and in all honesty, there is not much glitz or glamour here. The chips are your standard fast food fries, crispy with a little hit of salt, and the burger is two patties with a processed cheese slice each, shredded onions & lettuce, and the special sauce in a floury bap.
But that is exactly why it satisfies me so much, because it evokes so much simplicity. It reminds me of food from a burger van at a local fun fair or school fete BBQ, the most no-frills meat imaginable prepared plainly brings me an immense amount of comfort due to that oddly nostalgic feeling.
It is a vibe I get whenever I visit Wimpy’s, especially later in the day when they turned the music on and it is a nonstop roll of hits from the 80s whilst I eat food that reminds me of simpler times, the perfect mood to set up for the day of relaxation I have had today.
That will cover everything for today. Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review, I hope you have a good day wherever you are and can take it easy this weekend.
Good morning revellers and ravers, welcome to Day 52 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
It is a good friend of mine’s birthday today, and considering the last two years I have not been able to celebrate their birthday properly with them, I am putting a fair bit of effort into hosting a party of sorts for them.
Went out and bought a bunch of picnic snacky bits, got plenty of drinks, and even made a loaf of bread which is going to be the subject of today’s review… yes I am reviewing something I baked myself, I have thoughts on how it went and also it is my website I can blow my own trumpet if I want to.
We are also going to be doing a small Magic: the Gathering event with some Edge of Eternity pre-release kits I picked up a week or so back. Considering the time we are starting it is not going to be a proper sealed event, so we are doing a sort of bodge job Commander sealed instead, which should be pretty fun.
Sent off my first invoice for my contracting work yesterday as well, which gave me an idea of how much my labour is actually paying me and… being honest, so long as I can keep my stress levels in check, I can see myself comfortably seeing out the end of this contract which would give me plenty of time to see how life will change in the meantime.
And at the very least, I now have a very decent nest egg to take with me to my convention trip in September, which considering that has been my goal for the majority of the year should be an extremely good time to relax, cut loose, and be a big nerd for a weekend.
So, as mentioned previously, my review subject today is the loaf of bread I baked for my friend.
On pure looks alone, this has honestly turned out incredibly sexy. It has a perfectly crunchy crust on top and whilst the bottom is a little craggly and overly coated in flour, for a first attempt I think it turned out pretty good.
The basis that I used for making this loaf was a Basics With Babish video where he goes through Jim Lahey’s No-Knead bread technique, mixing together flour, water, yeast, and salt before leaving it to ferment for twenty-four hours to make a very inflated and sticky dough.
Despite the fact it rose a lot within the bowl during the fermentation process, it did turn out flatter than I anticipated, which I am not sure to attribute to the technique I used, the overly long fermentation time, or not properly folding/proofing my dough after I had taken it out of the bowl.
That said, after cutting a tiny piece off and sharing it with my partner, I suddenly understand why everyone says that homemade bread ruins all other breads for you – it was absolutely delicious for how simple of a technique it was to get together.
It was definitely a good first foray into bread baking as well, and considering one of my goals this year is to make a ciabatta loaf, I think I made the right first step.
Thank you for reading this bread-based edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax this weekend and enjoy some good food.
Here’s the video I used for my bread loaf as well:
Good morning statisticians and actuaries, welcome to Day 51 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Being a writer can suck sometimes, especially when you have self-esteem issues.
I am someone who obsesses over the view count on my articles however small they currently are. I still want to write every day, as both practice and to keep this living record of how I feel post-redundancy, but, seeing low view counts definitely do hamper my enthusiasm sometimes.
Especially when WordPress fucks up and I have an article that is currently displaying zero views on my dashboard, despite having testimony from a friend that they have read it.
A thicker skin is something I definitely need to develop if I want to keep at this, or just, internalising that it is okay that my journey being written down is enough, and whether it is one person or one-hundred people who read it, I still wrote my story – even if it is glory-free.
It is not even notoriety I am after when it comes to pursuing writing. I am a homebody who likes nothing more than quiet nights of video games, pizza, and cuddling my partner, fame is not something I aspire to. Do not even really want to say fortune is something I aspire to either.
But, I would love to be able to make my way in this world with writing as my profession, even more so in the GenAI age where companies are implementing this useless technology into anything they can think of all the while promoting an anti-human sentiment. GenAI does not democratise art, only allowing those with a resentment for the creative process to “make” something of themselves.
I still strive to make my personal brand of writing based on vulnerability and openness. Utilising emotions that a machine could never hope to understand to write a continuous tale of navigating a world dominated by slop.
Unrelated, one of the working titles I had for this series was “Jobless Journal” which better fits what I am using it for, but also would fit worse considering I am employed as a contractor right now – plus Redundancy Review matches alliteratively with the website title which is so good considering alliteration is my favourite literary device.
Anyway, I am getting distracted, and I need to do the review which was sort of requested by my friend Aaron again but not really, so I am not adding it to his tab with me.
After I compared the M&S British Sparkling Apple to Apple Tango in yesterday’s review, he asked if M&S had their own equivalent to Orange Tango, a drink I have a much more positive opinion of due to it being a bit more natural as far as processed soft drinks go in it having real sugar.
So, I went back to M&S today to see what they had on offer, and saw cans of “Brazilian Sparkling Orange” in the same spot I had found the other cans, so decided to give them a go.
Same price as the apple cans at £1.25, and whilst the intensity of the orange flavour is lesser compared to how intense the apple flavour was, it is still cool, refreshing, and way more natural tasting than other orange-flavoured soft drinks on the market.
What is definitely the positive common theme amongst the two M&S cans so far is how clean the flavour is compared to how reasonable the price is for a quick soft drink hit. £1.25 can get you a 500ml bottle of any leading fizzy drink at a corner or convenience shop in the UK which will hit the spot, but would nowhere near the satisfaction that the 330ml M&S gives for the same price.
If you are somehow passing by an M&S foodhall on a hot day, I definitely recommend any of the cans I have reviewed thus far. There is also a Sicilian lemon can to try but I think I will hold off on drink reviews for a day or two.
Thank you for reading this rambly, ranty, and refreshment themed edition of the Redundancy Review. Take the time to relax and walk away from the screen if you need it, nothing good comes from staying glued to a monitor if you are frustrated.
Good morning muscovies and mallards, welcome to Day 50 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
My legs have finally seemed to recover from the walking and travel done over the weekend, but my brain is still in a state of fogginess – potentially due to the start of the month being on the horizon meaning my estrogen is due to start spiking any time now.
Not going to stop me from doing the mental check-in segment of the review though, especially as I have come to realise that these segments each morning act as me trying to perform rubber duck debugging on my mind in real time.
Outside of a few stomach-based complications, I felt incredibly relaxed over my time away. From sleeping for almost twelve hours on Friday in to Saturday to feeling at peace as I wandered around Glasgow by myself, not worrying about my commitments or responsibilities let my mind ease off and give me space to think about what that means.
I tend to heap pressure on myself a lot for a wide variety of reasons, seeing myself as a provider to the people I love and that if I can not provide to those people then I have failed. In the case of monetary provision it leads to me pushing myself to the limit at work and ignoring the signals of my body to rest so I can continue to provide to whoever needs it, and in case of preparing meals for friends (one of the main ways I feel I can express love), everything needs to be perfect or else I feel like I have let both myself and others down.
There is some positive sentiment I can extract from both of those flaws. My ability to go beyond the limits of my body means I can get stuff done even during the most intense struggles, even if it means a longer recovery, and my mental obsession over making food perfect has yielded massive improvements – I once did a roast beef that turned out so rough that I have committed to never failing a joint again, and thus far I have not.
But feeling this pressure to succeed all the time makes me neurotic to some degree, especially because it is mostly self-imposed. My friends want to see me happy, and hopefully they do not concern themselves too much on how successful I am.
One thing I want to try to get my mind out of this state is finding more hobbies to explore. I am going to be attempting bread baking on Friday as part of a friend’s birthday, but I feel I need something else to get me out of the cycle of working, gaming, eating, sleeping – as much as that cycle does give me some mental relief from how I feel some days.
Routine is a double-edged sword for me in that regard. I crave the stability of routine for having something that gets me out of bed on time to stop me wallowing the day away, but at the same time, routine can get old very quickly for me which leads to boredom or chasing dopamine through various different means.
Life will change, I just need to be ready to be the one to make the change.
Another simple review topic today, discussing a recent find in the fridge section of Marks & Spencer (M&S) that took me by surprise due to its strong flavour at a reasonable price.
When it comes to apple-based sparkling drinks my pick of choice is usually Apple Tango, which whilst satisfying does come with the caveat of tasting a little artificial due to it being sugar-free with the ability to taste the sucralose a little. This led to me being blown away by how strong of an apple flavour the M&S can has, with each sip reading very clearly as apple.
Additionally, whilst M&S positions itself as a more luxurious choice of supermarket in the UK, there are plenty of products that are a similar price to alternatives but provide an overall nicer experience – with this can definitely being one of them. It is just £1.25 for this 330ml can from my local M&S, with a 500ml bottle of Apple Tango being available for a similar price elsewhere.
The smaller volume provided by the M&S can is more than made up for with the flavour, along with carrying no artificial ingredients like sucralose, being simply made up of sparkling water, apple juice, and natural acids.
It provides a refreshing kick on warmer days, and I am definitely going to be buying more.
Thank you for reading the Redundancy Review today, I hope you can relax with your favourite drink of choice wherever you are, and that the Wednesday hump day is not bringing you down too much.
Good morning backmarkers and wooden spoons, welcome to a rare double feature for Day 47 & Day 48 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Do not expect this to be a common thing, I mainly wanted to enjoy my remaining time in Scotland yesterday and did not have the energy or wherewithal to write an edition on my overnight coach home… where I got stuck next to a drunk and could not actually sleep at all… which meant I was very knackered upon my return home, conking out for around three hours before waking up now to commit to a review.
But not just any review, a rapid-fire series of reviews based on a bunch of things I did up in Scotland from stuff I ate during my travels up to things I found on my way, intentional or otherwise. No mental check-in today either because I am fully relaxed and just wanting to talk about a bunch of things all in one go. Ready?
Let’s go.
Arctic Coffee – Café Latte
A soft spot in my heart for getting a bunch of coffee down my gullet that is both economic and easily carriable in public places. Purchased for £2.35 from a Tesco Express, it kept me going on my early start journey to Scotland over the several hours I was coachbound.
Admittedly drinking one of these in one day (like I so often do) is probably not the best idea with its absurdly high caffeine content of 50mg/100ml, which makes it a higher caffeine concentration than most energy drinks currently on the market. Was it very much needed for close to ten hours of travel? Oh yeah, just not one I can recommend in good conscience for mimicking my methods.
M&S – Chorizo and Cheese Pot
Rather than buying a sandwich to carry on with me or risk rolling the dice on whatever might have been available at the extended stop location, I decided to buy a three for £8 deal on M&S picnic/deli snacks and carry those in my backpack as small things to munch on considering my hunger during travel can be wildcard unpredictable sometimes.
Though I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed by the chorizo and cheese pot. The chilli cheddar had a decent amount of kick to it but outside of that the chorizo was just passable really, it needed some kind of oil or marinade to really wake it up. Asda provides a similar product which is chorizo slices with manchego and I remember scarfing that down in no time at all. I will likely not buy this pot again.
M&S – Antipasti Medley
The antipasti pot however I will definitely buy again. Whatever the various foodstuffs were marinated in gave them an amazing flavour, and when it comes to deli olives & vegetables this pot managed to include one item I have an insanely soft spot for: marinated garlic cloves.
Something about marinated garlic gloves in a deli context just makes my brain go all happy. I am someone who loves garlic in general and being able to eat a whole clove packed with the flavour of what everything else was soaked in scratches a psychological itch that left me thoroughly enjoying each bite as I continued up north.
Happy Chippy – Pizza Crunch & Chips
One of the few things I requested of my brother as part of my visit was that one night we go to a Scottish chip shop and I try something I would not be able to find down south. Whilst the prospect of deep-fried haggis sounded… interesting, the moment he said the phrase “pizza crunch” to me, my curiosity was piqued.
It is exactly everything I would have dreamed of from a Scottish chip shop – a deep fried half mushroom pizza. Crunchy, crispy, and salty in a way that stimulated all of my taste buds, I could not have asked for a better welcome present to a country I need to visit way more often.
Stereo – Crimson Zero Mocktail, Buffalo Cauliflower Wings, and Double-Cooked Chips
Stereo was a place I had not even heard of twenty minutes before I patronised it, initially only looking it up as I was needing to find a place to go to the toilet and like any self-respecting trans woman in the UK, the prospect of going into a public bathroom terrifies the shit out of me. Stereo not only provided much needed relief with a gender-neutral loo, this vegan LGBT bar provided an incredibly wholesome lunch for a reasonable price of £21.75.
My cocktail was an alcohol-free drink called the “Crimson Zero”, containing Giffard AF Bitters, apple juice, sugar, and Franklin & Sons Ginger Ale. Considering I am not someone who imbibes ginger ale on the regular, this surprisingly hit the spot for me, providing a much needed cooldown after pavement pounding across town for a pee.
The star of the show was the Buffalo Cauliflower Wings though, florets encased in a delicious beer batter, drenched in a tangy buffalo sauce, and served with the sleepy hit of garlic aioli. It was a pleasant surprise to find something so delicious and filling as an incidental to my quest, with the salty chips just adding to the spectacle. I will definitely return to Stereo in the future, with full intention.
Heavenly Desserts – Cookie Blast Milkshake and Lemonade
After finishing my lunch and concluding my quest for shopping, there was one thing I wanted to cap off my Saturday excursion: a milkshake of some description. My first port of call in the St. Enoch’s centre did not have any milk in, so I took to Google maps to see what places were nearby that could scratch that itch. Ideally I would have wanted to find somewhere a little more independent, but considering the aesthetic of this place, it was a good time regardless.
The presentation really stood out to me here, as the tall and skinny glass is not something I have encountered when it comes to ordering milkshakes at a restaurant before, usually getting a wide brim glass with cream coming out the top. Though when I think back to that situation along with how far I had walked to get to that place, they could have served it to me in a paper trough and I would have gulped it down happily.
Lemonade added both to act as additional hydration and to fulfill the bisexual stereotype of having two completely different drinks to satisfy two cravings at once. For £10, I could have done a lot worse for myself in wanting a sweet treat, but I definitely want to explore more independent offerings next time.
Shawarma King – Large Mixed Shawarma Wrap
My final port of call for food before starting my travel home was a recommendation from my brother that paid off in spades. Before I had settled on my pizza crunch on Friday I wanted to try a doner kebab from Scotland, which led to me being told about Shawarma King – a multi-award winning kebab house just a stone’s throw from the city centre.
As someone who has frequented various kebab/burger/pizza houses in my home base of Shrewsbury, including one that completely reshifted my perspective on how good a doner kebab could be, I went in with fairly high expectations…
…and came out completely blown away.
This was my first time having a proper shawarma kebab as opposed to doner meat, and the quality difference was noticeable from the first bite. The meat was flavourful, juicy, and not at all tough, complimented by the soft wrap it was all wrapped up in, the salad and sauce bringing it home for a frankly transcendent experience of what takeaway kebab could be. For £7.50 as well, this wrap offered more than most places have presented for a way higher price, and I will return to experience the euphoria once more.
Outside Glasgow Queen Street – Stupid Bit of Pavement That Knackered My Ankle About a Year Ago
When I visited Glasgow about a year ago for my brother’s wedding, I ended up rolling my ankle on an uneven bit of pavement that really put a limit on my ability to walk around which hampered my exploration efforts with a friend of mine. I walked past that bit of pavement this time, and decided to exact my vengeance.
Take that, you shitty bit of nonoptimal infrastructure.
Finish
Eight reviews done in rapid-fire fashion covering various points of my weekend away in the northlands. I think that more than makes up for missing a day.
Thank you for reading this strange edition of the Redundancy Review. Normal service will resume tomorrow with Hololive Tuesday on the agenda once more. I hope your Monday is not too taxing and you find some time to relax.
Good morning phantoms and spirits, welcome to Day 43 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
So the anxiety from yesterday has gone down, but in its place comes a resurgence of my depression – ended up needing a good cry over lunch in place of my usual walk to help things feel somewhat stable again.
I am still here though, and honestly, that is one of the best things I can say in regards to my depression. Been suffering with it for over a decade at this point with me being able to definitively say that the worst of it is still behind me, even with everything that has gone on in the last few months.
Transitioning helped ease a lot of the pain for sure, but also being able to do more things in my life that made me happy and building on the friendships I had let me move on from the moments in my past I am not massively proud of. I am thankful every day for the people who helped me through those days, whether I express it or not, because without them I would not have survived.
But right now it feels like all I am doing is surviving, and not thriving. I mentioned yesterday that my position is “stable” right now, in terms of finances and continuation of my living situation, but at the same time, that stability feels like stagnation as well.
In a way doing this contract role is me attempting to return to my comfort zone, that instead of soul-searching and feeling the pain of redundancy; I took the first opportunity out to return to some sense of normality. It provides continuity, but it does not entirely feel like I am satisfying the part of my brain that wants something new.
I will persist though, at least for the time being. If I am smart with the pay this role is providing, my already robust safety net is built up further which would allow me to pursue potential projects that bring joy to my life, and embrace the lifestyle of an artist that I seem to crave on a spiritual level.
Today’s review topic is actually one that has been requested of me by a friend. This is not a sponsored review as I paid out of pocket to review these two items, but Aaron, this one is for you. I am adding this to your tab of writing work you owe me for though.
KFC have recently added two temporary items to their menu as part of a limited summer promotion: the Zinger Drip burger, and Zinger Drip wings, building on their “zinger” range of items that are supposed to be more spicy than usual. In my opinion the Zinger fillets have no real spice to them at all with the Supercharger sauce being what carries the heat, but the Zinger sauce is a new menu addition entirely.
For this review I purchased a standalone Zinger Drip burger (without my usual addition of a hashbrown for “integrity”, I guess) and a portion of Zinger Drip wings which was a portion of three wings. Normally I would order a meal but my local KFC was out of Tango and there is no way in hell I am risking 7Up roulette.
The items come in unique packaging as well, being a deep black with red accents to highlight the spicier than usual sauce the chicken comes in, though I have issues with the packaging the wings came in, along with the overall presentation of the wings themselves.
Now, admittedly, I messed up the photo I took of the wings and it is out of focus – it still works for demonstrative purposes though as the sauce does not fully cover the wings here, in fact it kind of looks like the KFC staff member threw some hot wings into the box, poured the sauce over the top and called it a day rather than the wings getting tossed in the sauce.
There is a way to improve this though without needing to add additional steps in my opinion: package the wings in a box similar to the burger box. This would allow the wings to be placed in the box comfortably, with the sauce poured over top giving decent coverage to the wings and forming a more even pool of sauce for the underside of the wing to soak up.
The burger is pretty standard by all measures, it is a chicken fillet with lettuce and processed cheese in a surprisingly non-seeded bun. It hits the spot in all the right ways.
But what of the headline addition? The all-new “Zinger” sauce that absolutely coats my burger in a way it does not for the wings? Well, I will tell you… it basically tastes like Buffalo wing sauce.
It is equal measures sweet and spicy, and as someone who is a self-proclaimed spicehead, the sauce scratched my itch for the good stuff to a surprising degree. Long after I had finished my food and embarked on my walk home I could feel the tingle in my mouth, bringing a pleasant burn to my tongue that satisfied my synapses perfectly.
The spiciness may catch some people off guard, I even had a hiccup escape partway through my burger due to it which very rarely happens to me – and I have had ghost pepper sauce before.
In terms of price, the burger cost me £6.99 for a standalone burger with no fries, drink, or side, and the wings cost me £2.99.
For the burger, I think this is an acceptable price to pay and is in line with other KFC burgers, especially if you are craving something spicy but not wanting the glorious mess that is a Zinger Stacker.
However, for the wings… no, I can not recommend them at that price point. Three Hot Wings on their own cost £1.99, so for a whole extra £1 you are paying for the same wings to have a spicy sauce haphazardly drizzled on top with most of it sinking to the bottom of the ill-designed packaging.
That does it for the first requested Redundancy Review segment. Thank you for reading today, I hope you have an easy hump day and can find some relaxation wherever you find it.
Rosalia Rambles 