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June 05, 2005

A Nice Cup of Tea and a Kimberley

Read a delicious article on biscuits this week. It mentioned a new book that had just been released on the subject. Biscuits that is. The book is called "Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down" and its chapters detail various types of biscuits from the droll digestive to the addictive Jaffa. Most alarmingly this new book makes an outragoues attack on my favourite biscuit - the Kimberley. Oh my beloved Kimberley, your taste is unreviled. Kimberley biscuits are probably the only product I'd endorse if asked. Please, please ask me to endorse them. I'll take my payment in the form of Kimberleys. Ahem. Where was I? Ah yes, the blasphomous biscuit book! It says, "Half the world claim some Irish lineage. If they really were, then they would possess the genes that enable them to enjoy the Kimberley biscuit. The Kimberley is a keystone of Irish teas and sit downs." Who could resist the soft mallow centre of a Kimberley? Who I ask you? Who? Had I of known of this book at the time I first headed off to the States I would have brought a packet of them with me to put hear say to the test. One thouroughly Irish thing that is inextricably linked to the biscuit is tea. Tea is my heroin. God, I couldn't get through a day without at least six cups and thats a conservative estitmate. And I never really grasped just how odd it is to have the whole nation drinking tea constantly until I visited my writing comrades in America. My first stay was at Ned Vizzini's apartment in Brooklyn. When I got there I went straight for the kettle. And what a kettle it was. You switched it on and then it just boiled and boiled and boiled. There was no stopping this kitchen appliance. It simply didn't turn itself off when it got to the boil so when the kitchen looked like a dense morning mist had descended on it then that was the sign that you should probably plug it out. Now Ned only had Green Tea in his abode and if theres one thing I can't stand its Green Tea. If you can't put milk and two sugars into it without it tasting horrible then its simply not tea in my books. Luckily I'm always prepared for tea misfortunes and I'd managed to smuggle some genuine Irish tea bags into the country. By the end of the week I had Ned hooked on the stuff. So much so that he insisted I mail him a box of our tea bags when I got back. It was then off to Washington D.C. to stay with Marty Beckerman whom recently deceased Gonzo legend Hunter. S. Thompson once called a "morbid little bastard." In Marty's the kettle situation was much worst. They didn't have one. What a shock that was to the system. I spent the whole week boiling water in a big pot to feed my addiction and it would become scarily apparent to Marty just how much tea I actually drank. "Jesus Liam! More tea!?!" Ah yes, its true what they say. The simplest pleasures in life are a nice cup of tea and a Kimberley.

Trains, Buses & Automobiles by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (page 6)

Posted by LiamG at June 5, 2005 10:32 PM