Looks good Rob Seems I'm going to have to add Dip's mushroom rice to my weekend nosh-up! ;D

I've been thinking of buying a breadmaker for a while now (actually wanted one years ago but they had a dodgy rep back then quality-wise)...how does your compare to the traditional blood sweat and tears way of breadmaking? it's a toss-up for me between the breadmaker and an ice-cream maker, so any advice would be helpful

MSN and Yahoo aren't forums, string...it's a completely different thing altogether. :

I'm not talking about deleting members who have posted and become inactive, I'm talking about the ones who have NEVER posted and never logged back into the forum for a number of months/years...and it doesn't cause problems as there's a button to click on the admin control panel to delete inactive members or members with a postcount of zero or a particular specified number....Owning and running your own forum/site, you really ought to have known that, string. Which forum software did you use? I've owned and admin'd and staffed on a wealth of boards (still do on many) and all have that option. It's certainly no problem to delete them lol ;D

Numbers do not make a forum...members do...active posting members make a forum. "lurkers" "leechers" and "Dead members" bring nothing and do nothing. Never have, never will. ;D

I could argue that having 11,000+ non-participating members on a forum that actually requires you to join to see the recipes rather shows the opposite, string....it means that around 11,000 people signed up, had a look, thought it crap and never returned....do you catch my drift? I'm not implying that that IS the reason, but it's the very reason that alot of boards prune "dead members". So in that respect, no, it doesn't look good...there's a saying which is used alot in the world of forums (or fora lol) better a forum with 50 active members than 5000 inactive ones :/  :

Active members count, dead members don't.....posts on the board make it look busy - there's no point hanging on to a member who's been on the board for 6 months to a year and never posted at all (not even a "Hi!". If they can't even be arsed to post a thank you, are they worth keeping? If they don't want their membership deleting, they'll either post or re-register and then post to keep their account active. Again, it's a very common practice :

Quote from: string28 on May 06, 2010, 06:58 PM
Yes domi but you said it we can cook it better ourselfs so i think that says a lot about supermarket curries.
Thanks anyway for making the point im off to a new challenge now.

Quote from: Domi on May 06, 2010, 06:54 PM

Quote from: string28 on May 06, 2010, 06:39 PM
Thank you Domi i knew we would get there in the end
So in other words we really dont need the supermarket we can do it ourselfs better.
I think the penny just dropped  :
Now lets hope a few more people start cooking the curries at home and we get to find out how to do BIR style curries.  ;D

Quote from: Domi on May 06, 2010, 06:30 PM
but supermarket curries list turmeric, coriander, garam masala etc the same as BIR curries, string...which cost pence a packet....and having checked out some of the prices, ?1.49 is a gross underestimation...BIRs also use cheap ingredients, string if you think they use all the most expensive ingredients you're kidding yourself.

If you were to make a supermarket frozen pizza fresh at home using the same ingredients, I'd be willing to bet that a freshly made pizza base would taste different even if made with the same ingredients, the tomato sauce would taste different freshly made and used immediately....would it taste better home-made? I'd bet that it would....cheap ingredients or no... :

Yes, but it doesn't alter the fact that people still use supermarket products and are able to discuss the merits/demerits all the same lol I can make homemade ketchup but I'll still prefer to use Heinz

Aye but the thing is, string, you were also arguing that using the same ingredients that supermarkets use to mass produce food would still give the same results if made at home in a BIR style, which they wouldn't - which was the point I was arguing so how you can say you were making the same point, I don't know hehehe ;D

As to pictures of curries, I don't mind having a look but sadly I don't have the time nor the inclination to take a decent snap, I'm too busy wanting to dig into it! I by far prefer to read someone's opinion of a dish providing they've actually taken the time to cook it to spec (something not alot of members do) as I don't believe in mixing and matching base and curry recipes simply because the differences in recipes can make an altogether different curry.

I was talking to Razor about this just yesterday in fact as he's doing his own take on a base but worried about the colour (apologies Razor if it was a secret!) I don't really care what a curry looks like as long as it tastes right....and you can't judge a flavour from a picture....if I want to try someone's final curry recipe, I want to try it with their spice mix, their base and their ingredients to get a true taste of their dish.

Quote from: string28 on May 06, 2010, 06:39 PM
Thank you Domi i knew we would get there in the end
So in other words we really dont need the supermarket we can do it ourselfs better.
I think the penny just dropped  :
Now lets hope a few more people start cooking the curries at home and we get to find out how to do BIR style curries.  ;D

Quote from: Domi on May 06, 2010, 06:30 PM
but supermarket curries list turmeric, coriander, garam masala etc the same as BIR curries, string...which cost pence a packet....and having checked out some of the prices, ?1.49 is a gross underestimation...BIRs also use cheap ingredients, string if you think they use all the most expensive ingredients you're kidding yourself.

If you were to make a supermarket frozen pizza fresh at home using the same ingredients, I'd be willing to bet that a freshly made pizza base would taste different even if made with the same ingredients, the tomato sauce would taste different freshly made and used immediately....would it taste better home-made? I'd bet that it would....cheap ingredients or no... :

Yes, but it doesn't alter the fact that people still use supermarket products and are able to discuss the merits/demerits all the same lol I can make homemade ketchup but I'll still prefer to use Heinz

but supermarket curries list turmeric, coriander, garam masala etc the same as BIR curries, string...which cost pence a packet....and having checked out some of the prices, ?1.49 is a gross underestimation...BIRs also use cheap ingredients, string if you think they use all the most expensive ingredients you're kidding yourself.

If you were to make a supermarket frozen pizza fresh at home using the same ingredients, I'd be willing to bet that a freshly made pizza base would taste different even if made with the same ingredients, the tomato sauce would taste different freshly made and used immediately....would it taste better home-made? I'd bet that it would....cheap ingredients or no... :

Quote from: Cory Ander on May 06, 2010, 03:22 PM

Quote from: Domi on May 06, 2010, 02:46 PM

Quote from: Cory Ander on May 06, 2010, 01:24 PM

I can think of a few current members it might apply to though (and, no, I don't necessarily mean me) 

Give it a rest, CA, it's really quite boring now. you're beginning to come across as someone with mental health problems. it's time to move on rather than continue to insult and cause argument only making yourself look like a petty-minded fool.

Culling zero posters wouldn't exactly be beneficial, but it doesn't look good that out of 11,000+ members there are so few posting....and you're going out of your way to get those who DO post to stop...that's not beneficial to the forum at all, is it, Ca??

Nice one Domi....and you think I have "mental health problems", am "argumentative" and "insulting" and look like a "petty minded fool"  :

Yes, I would prefer some members (three, to be specific) to stop posting..as you say, it is "boring now" after all.... :

So, apart from your personal insults, you see absoltely NO benefit to the forum from "culling" members?  Apart from "it doesn't look good"?    

Why even bother to suggest it then? 

I believe someone else mentioned the "culling" or deleting, CA...I was merely adding to the debate. ;D

I don't understand why getting rid of the zero posting, non-participating members who haven't logged into the forum for a number of months/years adds anything to the forum, could you explain the rationale of keeping what is generally referred to as "dead members"  - most forums prune their members it's a common practice, CA.  :

Quote from: string28 on May 06, 2010, 05:39 PM
LMAO here goes!!!!!
Yep you cook it in the bir style but again its the same INGREDIENTS what will change the flavor?
What because you cooked it in an bir style its gonna change it by magic is that what your suggesting?
Oh ive cooked many thing from the forum BIR & TA RECPIES.

Quote from: Secret Santa on May 06, 2010, 05:30 PM

Quote from: string28 on May 06, 2010, 05:22 PM
I mean its the same ingredients what would change the flavour you should elaborate for us Secret Santa.

Sorry, string, not meaning to be pedantic but of course the flavour would change if you used the same ingredients, scaled down to make a single portion of whichever dish and made it fresh a la BIR stylie and ate it as soon as it was prepared, to claim otherwise is wrong IMO and I would expect any member of long standing to know as much.

We've all tasted fresh made curries the day after and noted the difference in flavour. Even home made chillis, spag bols and stews taste different the day after......would different cooking technique alter the final flavour? absolutely yes it would if any of the myriad of posts about technique are to be believed on this board, simply frying an onion for a couple of minutes greatly alters the taste as opposed to caremelising onions makes a huge difference! To claim anything other is wrong... :/

The thing is, if we food nazis haven't actually had a supermarket curry for a number of years, we can hardly comment on their taste or flavour now, can we? It's the same as someone talking about BIR curries and arguing points when they haven't been in the country for ten years...they have no idea of what BIR is like NOW as they only know what they were like THEN and there's been a heckuva lot of changes to BIR :

Perhaps there's been some major improvements to S/M curries that we wouldn't know about lol maybe we've been missing something?