Cream of wheat is basically semolina. And I like it!

carol, I wonder if I ate it now I’d change my mind? Maybe I’ve clung to my semolina trauma too long. I do blame school for most of my bad memories, but I did manage to get over lumpy mash potatoes, so maybe there’s still hope?

Mark Saunders (one of my school chums) didn’t like his chocolate pudding, so he ‘hid it’ under his chair. That didn’t go down very well with the dinner ladies either.....I wonder how he is now?

Is porridge some particular grain? I always have imagined it was just hot cereal, i.e. oatmeal or cream of wheat. Mush is what we called hot cereal, too.

Rolled oats. We eat it a lot in the U.K. It only takes 3 mins in the microwave and you can have it with fruit or sugar, or both. I think some people even have it with salt.

Anything less than kind.

Let's just say that I loathe plain oatmeal.

So instead, I make steel cut oats with date crystals, chopped apples, cinnamon, fresh dates, and piloncillo sugar - no salt needed. We're very close to date farms here.

maddiemo, I know you have a home court advantage but I think any kind of hot cereal can be called porridge. It is most commonly oats but I think it can equally be Irish oatmeal (the kind that takes 30 minutes to cook and has more texture, often called Steel Cut Oats) as well as the quicker cooking rolled oat or instant kind.

"Porridge" is a word kinda like the British use of the word "pudding" - Americans think they know what the user is referring to but the obvious assumption is usually wrong without understanding the difference in definitions there and here.

That sounds nice and kind of Christmassy. Glad you put a link in for the date crystals, I had no idea what they were.

Be nice to know how it turns out if you go for it:)

On The Isle Of Man, pudding refers to any kind of dessert

Not just on the Isle of Man, Elizabeth.

Thanks Elmer, I didn’t know porridge could be applied to any hot cereal. I’ve only ever thought of it as made from rolled oats, and only ever eaten the kind that takes a few minutes to cook.

Yes, quite a few differences in our use of words. Someone described how delicious biscuits and gravy were a while back, which sounded very odd to me.

lol, yes, if I heard someone saying they liked cookies and gravy, I'd be taken aback, too!

Haha, biscuits and gravy. Sounded to you like being offered shortbread cookies with mustard and soy sauce marinade.

Many decades ago, having just finished dinner at the home of our new English friends living in the same city as we were in Continental Europe, we were asked:

Hostess - Would you like some pudding?

Me - What kind of pudding do you have?

Hostess- you can have either vanilla ice cream, some chocolate cake, or a bit of both.

Me - Huh?

Delicious! I guess chocolate cake is often seen as pudding because we do like it with vanilla ice cream, or cream.

DH bought one home this week and I always have it that way. It can seem a bit dry otherwise.

"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you
have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"

I never knew that pudding was anything other than what we see in the USA, like boxed pudding mix, cooked or instant or holiday plum puddings, which, now that I think of it were more of a cake with sauce. My grandma used to make Suet Pudding for Christmas.....blech! Also more like a cake. I just never gave it any thought as to why it wasn't pudding-y!

You can have pudding with your meat if you have a Yorkshire one:)

Do you have steamed sponge puddings with jam or treacle and custard?

Or sticky toffee puddings?

Not just a cake with a sauce.

The word means dessert. Any kind, it's a generic word. Like asking, "would you like a drink" at cocktail hour.

What in the US is "pudding" or to be more specific for something else (including for some that are like cakes) would have a second word - Rice Pudding, Chocolate Pudding, Christmas Pudding.

marzipan, AKA almond paste! Bakeries hide it in pastry and then lie. Any and all almond flavoring, but I love almonds! Go figure

Pudding, worth the read, the article sources the Oxford English Dictionary: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2016/08/pudding-2.html

I am aware, Elmer.

Lucille, what a great site and interesting history of "pudding"! Thanks!

Back to the topic, I loathe blood sucking disease carrying ticks and people that let cats roam freely, killing all of the songbirds. It’s not cute to let your cat roam, I’d much rather hear the songbirds (of which cats kill BILLIONS). If you don’t believe me, look it up.

Lucille, your link was fascinating, and ended up making me laugh because my husband has a mate and they all call him Pud:)

Sorry, back to topic now...

Sitcoms that pass as comedy these days. I abhor them. I work evenings, and I don't watch tv during the week at all. I won't pay the price that the cable companies are requiring for the drivel that they air. Comedies and reality shows.

I use an indoor antenna which pulls in the 2 national channels, CTV and Global. CTV with all the money they have show back to back episodes of Big Bang Theory.

Thank heavens for the computer and streaming.

In the same COVID-19 vein, I despise all the "touchless" stuff. Did you really touch my scalding hot pizza with your bare hands before coronavirus?

Thanks for the shower curtain links here. Definitely getting a different style from those plastic snap ones which hurt your fingers, hurt your neck looking up, and you risk falling on the ladder. KT is so helpful.

I loathe people who believe in and support the Idiot-in-Chief. I don't understand it. I actually don't loathe those people. I loathe their attempts to convince me that I'm just stupid and don't get it.

always1stepbehind - I hate those rings too. I put a Hookless shower curtain in my shower and I will never have the other kind again!

I'll add: really stupid people who tell everyone they're a genius.

People who can't respect someone who disagrees with them. Just because someone has a different point of view does not make them a bad person and certainly doesn't call for nasty nicknames and other immature stunts.

I don't think anyone has mentioned my pet peeve---the never-ending "ask your doctor" commercials for medicines.

Lars, I am fascinated by "date crystals"! I have never heard of them. I first discovered that I enjoyed dates in a date/pecan bar that a friend made, years ago. I would love to try the date crystals in other recipes. Can you buy these in the stores where you are?

I loathe hot weather. The temps are already in the upper 80's and low 90's which usually doesn't happen til June.

I have a fairly long list, but the among the top are runny eggs (I can't even stand looking at them in pictures...every meal these days seems to have a runny, almost uncooked egg on top of whatever and liars, particular the Big Liar.

Chessie, you can buy date crystals on line from Shield's Date Garden. They may seem a bit expensive, but they go very far. I believe they were invented in order to make date shakes. They are especially good with steel cut oats and apples.

I also loathe runny eggs! I also do not like fried or poached eggs.

I've never had sticky toffee pudding, but I think I would like it, especially if it is made with dates. I first heard of it from Absolutely Fabulous.

LOATHE.....WEAK COFFEE!!! The worst!!

Here you go Lars. I haven’t tried it myself, but if Nigella Lawson says it’s good, it probably is. I noticed one of the comments on YouTube said to have it with ice cream (I’m guessing vanilla)

spiders, men who spit on the sidewalk or anywhere, washing dishes

Another eating one... I loathe when people lick their lips then stick their whole tongue outta their mouth after each bite, as if to make sure they dont lose out on any of the taste that may be floating around in the air. It's why I have difficulty watching my 600 lb life or some cooking shows. If I know the bite is coming, I have to change the channel.

I loathe the smell of coffee. Makes me extremely nauseous.

The tenant who lives on the bottom. I've had a few run-ins with her since she moved in a year ago. She refuses to use the green bins.....everything goes in the garbage. I'm the one who takes the trash and recycling to the curb (I asked if she'd do it when I was ill over Christmas) and she said it wasn't her job, the landlord should do it. (No, it's not their garbage). So the garbage buckets are teeming with maggots in the summer as I'm taking them out.

Now we have RATS. Never, ever a problem before. They're digging into the ground to get into the wooden storage area where the garbage pails are. The landlord found 2 rats yesterday.

And just this weekend I asked if she wouldn't mind keeping her 2-litre pop bottles for me (she puts 6 in the recycling every week), as a friend on Freecycle is asking for some for her garden.

She yelled that "it's none of your business what I do with my stuff!!" and slammed the door in my face.

I pretty much disliked her before, now I detest her with a passion.

Thanks, Maddiemo. I had to look up treacle, and it appears that I can use black molasses instead, which I do have on hand. I'm not familiar with the sugar that she used either, but it looks like brown sugar. In addition to brown sugar, I have raw sugar and piloncillo, which is similar to raw sugar but has more flavor.

I really do not like the smell of roasting coffee, but I am okay with brewed coffee, although I don't like that either. Coffee beans roasting smell much worse.

So sorry jas! I hope there's better days for you with regards to tenant mates.

Oh Jasdip, I am so sorry you have to put up with such an awful neighbor.

Jasdip, sorry about your neighbor. Having awful neighbors stinks. Hopefully she will move away eventually.

Lars, we roast our own coffee beans and a relative swears they smell like skunk spray. :)

Fake people. The ones that say one thing and mean another. Snarky know-it-alls. People that don't pick up the dog poop. Let them poop in your own yard. People that let them pee on my flowers. There are plenty of electrical poles for that.

"She yelled that "it's none of your business what I do with my stuff!!" and slammed the door in my face."

Sorry, but my first thought was to tell her to go sit on one of those bottles. Seriously, .I agree with Elmer. She has to be really miserable with herself. So unfortunate to go through life like that. I'm sorry you, or anyone, has to deal with her antics.

Is there any way you can get separate trash containers so you don't have to deal with hers?

I hate people that make my friends (like jasdip) unhappy