Hymas winter kitchen menu.

[Lorns]

A slow cooker is electric silly! It's like an electric casserole dish. It's rather economical actually. You can do anything in it apart from a fry up and a whle chicken or Turkey.

[Nick Harvey]

And for a really slowly cooked turkey, place it in the bottom oven of an Aga for around thirty-six hours.

Oh, the memories of the smell of Christmas Eve in my youth!

[Lorns]

And for a really slowly cooked turkey, place it in the bottom oven of an Aga for around thirty-six hours.

Oh, the memories of the smell of Christmas Eve in my youth!

My nan and Grandad had an Aga. I love them. The whole family used to congregate in the kitchen around the table. It was so warm and homely. I want one of those when i get a bigger house and real coal fire with a chimney. It brings back such fond memories. The hassle of cleaning the coal fire and lighting and stoking it wouldn't bother me in the slightest. It takes me back to a time when the family was a secure unit with real family values.

The adults used to play poker while the kids polished the brass

What happened?

[Sput]

I'm sure we used to have one that wasn't electrical. Oh wait, that was a PRESSURE cooker. Same thing I'm sure

Oh and Lorns, you'd have to BUILD the fire in between cleaning and lighting it! Now that IS a pain.

[Pete]

i used to have a gas aga in my big old house. fabulous machine.

I bought rice doused in curry sauce from "Let's Wok" this evening. It so far holds the award for "only thing i've actually tasted this week"

[Lorns]

I'm sure we used to have one that wasn't electrical. Oh wait, that was a PRESSURE cooker. Same thing I'm sure

Oh and Lorns, you'd have to BUILD the fire in between cleaning and lighting it! Now that IS a pain.

Oooh no not at all. I used to love making firelighters out of newspaper and chopping the logs. Mind you i'd have to give up work to fulfill this desire of going back to the old days. I'd love to be self sufficient like y grandarents were. I'd like a vegetable patch and chickens. Fruit trees and gooseberry bushes.

Here's a confession. My grandad hd a huge coal cellar and he had loads of coal delivered ( he was a miner). I used to get in there and root about amongst the coal looking for diamonds. I was led to believe under certain weight the coal produced diamonds. I used to emerge as black as your hat and still deny i'd been playing in the coal cellar.

[Nick Harvey]

Oh and Lorns, you'd have to BUILD the fire in between cleaning and lighting it! Now that IS a pain.

I'm not so sure.

I actually used to enjoy the building of the fire in the old dog grate in the same house as the Aga.

When we were renovating, the surround for that fireplace came (in exchange for a bottle of vodka) out of one of the old bedrooms in the hotel in Southgate Street, Gloucester, which was being converted into the Severn Sound radio station.

Amazing what you can pick up if you're in the right place at the right time.

In th depths of the winter we never had to light it each day, we just piled some damper logs on last thing at night and it stayed in till morning.

[Sput]

But that "will it/won't it" when you're trying to make the bugger get started! That's the worst bit.

[Nick Harvey]

Not if you've had a bottle of red the night before. You just breathe on it!

[Sput]

So you DO have powers! Fire breathing harvey! Can you also do lightning from your fingers or do you need some nylon trousers for that to work?

[all new Phil]

He can shit Maltesers as well.