Take a clove of garlic...

Yesterday after work when I got in to my dad's place (after this week, I definitely wanted to make sure that I was out of town. You can't make me work if you can't fiiind meee...), I went to grab down my mother's recipe box because I wanted to see if I could find her gingerbread recipe. The cake, not the cookie. You know, the stuff you have with hard sauce. Now, I know very well that I could find three hundred (or more) recipes for gingerbread with hard sauce just via cooking's magic pixie -- that'd be Google, these days -- but I just thought that I'd see if I could find the family one before I started looking for ones from other people's families.

Or other people's research kitchens, I suppose.

That's Mom's box on the top left of the slightly-less-pointless-than-usual  photo, by the way. It's kind of... how shall I put this... butt-ugly? No, I should be politer. How about dated in design? At any rate, it's absolutely stuffed with recipe cards, to the point where you couldn't fit another in if you tried. Some are just commercial advertising cards, but the vast majority are either in my mother's excruciatingly neat handwriting or her mother's excruciatingly neat handwriting.

It must have run in the family, the excruciatingly neat handwriting, but it certainly skipped me. I always said that my mother didn't really know what to do about a left-handed child.

Anyway.

When I went to reach for the box I was somewhat surprised to find a stack of cards on top that showed no indication of the maternal line. Turns out that they were recipe cards from my paternal grandmother that my uncle had kept at his place.

Hmm.

I'd never really seen any of my grandmother's recipes. Oh, I'd had her cooking, of course, but for whatever reason -- very possibly Grandma Ol's tiny, tiny kitchen was high on the reason list -- all of the teaching side of grandmotherly cooking when I was growing up came from the maternal side of things. When I showed interest in these newly (to me) discovered cards, Dad mentioned that there were also some small recipe books.

Guess what I did last night?

Let's just say that I haven't quite made it to Mom's box yet.

Looking through Grandma's cards was interesting (there were an awful lot of wine-making recipes there, Grandma...) but almost more interesting was the stack of recipe pamphlets. You know the sort of thing: some advertising geniuses decide that the way to create demand for their product is to prove that it can be used for anything. Some products work better than others, obviously. The good people of the 1960s Kellogg's book did all right, because cereal's pretty easy to use in baking. The earlier Atora Beef Suet book from England was a bit disturbing. Apparently the better way to health is to put a spoonful of beef suet in your hot milk at night? And it cures consumption? Who knew? The Reynolds Wrap guide to barbeque cooking was kind of hilarious (for a handy cooler for your party drinks, line a wheelbarrow with Reynolds Wrap and fill with ice. Yeah, you'd like that kind of overusage, wouldn't you, Reynolds?), and the book in the front introducing the brand new product of shell-less sunflower seeds is pretty close to already becoming a family joke between my father and me. Basically, you take any recipe you can think of and ADD SUNFLOWER SEEDS!!!

There were a couple of actual historically interesting pamphlets in the stack, though. The one you see labelled Milk in the photo didn't have a date on it that I could easily find, but it had to have been fairly early since it described storing milk by putting it in a scalded jug, covering the jug "tightly" with a plate, and then storing the jug on a shelf inside a basin filled with cool water. You have to make sure that you replenish the water regularly, of course. Another pamphlet, this time from the Alberta Government, told housewives how to use the new method of freezing to preserve foods. And don't think that you were just sticking things in your refrigerator freezer (or "zero unit"), folks. You were preparing things in large quantities -- including making syrups and brines -- to take to commercial cold storage lockers. In waxed cardboard or tins. Some cold storage lockers may even offer the new plastic containers, ladies, which are more expensive but can be reused.

Every town used to have its own cold storage business, you see. The town I grew up in had one. The building's now just a regular store, but my father can remember when you used to go down there to pick up the meat or produce you had put away earlier in the year. According to the pamphlet I was reading, you paid about $12 a year for a locker able to store about 180 lbs or so.

Life's changed a bit, wouldn't you say?

I get a kick out of reading old recipes and could probably natter on about changing ingredients and changing tastes, but my wrist -- oh, I don't think I told you about my wrist. Tomorrow, maybe -- is telling me that I've been typing long enough for now. Besides, after a week of not having time to post, and a week before that of Oh, Never Mind (yes, that's last week's official title), the blog's probably going into shock at the thought of having to carry all of these words.

Thought I'd leave you with the recipe that I took today's post title from, however. Drawing by Yours Garlicky, a few years ago. It's from an old herbal. Try it if you want to, but I think that maybe I'll pass this time. Having earworms is bad enough...

Funny money

I'm sorry, but today's photo isn't pointless. I'll do better in the future, I promise.

I mentioned a few days ago that Dirty Moe finally found a new home (my father's been keeping me abreast of its travels around town, which I kind of think is funny). The fellow who bought it paid cash -- yeah, that surprised me too -- so since I've only just this weekend managed to make it into town (and not yet to the bank) I currently have more of these fellows to the left on hand than I'm used to.

Boy, is that an understatement.

As you can see, it's not all about the Benjamins here in Canada. That'd be kind of weird, seeing as Mr. Franklin doesn't have a whole lot to do with our north-of-the-border history. Unless you count the United Empire Loyalists having to leave after the Revolution, I suppose.

The fellow you're seeing in the photo is Prime Minister Borden, whom I'm just going to link to because I don't want to turn this into a Canadian history lesson. And... um... frankly, I don't remember too much about him. In fact, I'll probably go back to that link later and read it myself. He's been on the hundred for quite a while now (how long? Well, why not make this a completely linky post? Read this, if you're totally into the history of banknotes. I understand that there are people out there like that), but he's wearing a fairly different face these days.

It's the first of our new funny money, you see.

Funny money, Dee? Yep. I know that the Americans already like to kid us for our "Monopoly money", but this is funny money on a different scale. Like Australia (who've had it for years) and Mexico, we've started going polymer.

It's plastic money.

It's... different. I'm not against it at all -- not a monetary preservationist, me -- but it's definitely different. It looks different, it feels different, and it's going to act differently. It'll last a lot longer, true, but I can't help but think that it'll be a pain in the youknow for businesses for at least a while. Think of all the bank machines and counting machines that will have to be recalibrated. And for smaller businesses? Well, handling the Dirty Moe stack has shown me that (at least when it's brand new) it may cause one pretty significant problem.

Static.

It sticks together.

Not a great thing when you're dealing with stacks of hundreds. Or stacks of any denomination, for that matter.

Ah well. Not really my problem to deal with in the end. And I'm sure that by the time they roll out the new twenties (this is happening in stages. Hundreds last year, fifties next month, and twenties... sometime. I can't remember) they'll have most of the kinks worked out.

As I said above, I have no problem with new money. My mother, on the other hand, did. Or maybe she just got nostalgic, I don't know. When I was a kid she had a whole piggy bank full of silver dimes that she'd saved when the Mint stopped making them out of silver. When loonies (for those not in the know, our dollar coin has a loon -- the bird -- on it. Led to an inevitable nickname) came in, she collected one dollar bills until they were gone. Same thing for two dollar bills, when the toonie (sigh. We're so original with our nicknames.  Could have been worse, though. The two dollar coin has a polar bear on it. Beary, then? At the time, some suggested that it should be a Moonie, since it had the Queen on the front and a bear behind...) was launched.

I don't suppose she'd be collecting hundreds now, though. Gets a bit expensive.

Anyway. Which, as my two fans know, means that this post is wrapping up. I'll be saying goodbye to the Sir Roberts soon, since they're much more use to me in their electronic form these days than in all of their plastic glory. It was kind of neat to have met him, though.

I wonder if I'll be feeling the same by the time I'm carrying plastic Queens in my wallet?

A little bit of history

Today's photo features a former guard tower from Camp 130, a WWII German Prisoner of War camp on the site of the present Barrier Lake Field Station.

Prisoner of War camp in Alberta, Dee?

Yep.

We had, according to this list, several. And if you want more information I'll point you here so I don't have to bother with a bunch of quotes.

World War history isn't exactly my strong suit. I'll leave it to those with more of an interest/background in that sort of thing. Really, I was just looking for a reason to post the picture...

I'm going to look at some of the Illustration Friday entries now. Have a good war read, if you decided to follow one of those links. If not, have a good whatever else.

Lapel poppy

Everyone in Canada should know what this is.

Most everyone in the UK would know too, although the ones they distribute are in a different style. People in New Zealand and Australia would probably recognise it, even though they'd likely associate it with ANZAC Day more than the 11th of November.

For those not in the know, it's a poppy.

And why have I got a very obviously fake poppy on my coat lapel? Well, it's Remembrance Day here in Canada. The poppy is a remembrance of those members of the armed forces who have died in the service of their country, and for me (and many others) it's an extremely important remembrance. In my case, it's for a grandfather I never knew. He was a veteran of World War II, and even though he didn't die in battle this is still a day when I think about him and what he did.

I'm not going to go on about the shoulds and shouldn'ts of war because I don't think this is the time or place. The fact is, countries send people to war and some of those people die. Whether or not we agree with the why, we should still appreciate the sacrifice.

The poppy's a pretty powerful symbol, and to be honest I'm not sure why the United States (which is usually very good at picking up on symbols) never adopted it. True, it was originally suggested by a poem written by a Canadian and published in the British Punch Magazine, but the custom of wearing a poppy in remembrance of the lost WWI soldiers was started by an American named Moina Michael. It just seems odd that it didn't catch on in her homeland.

Anyway, if I keep typing I'll be running into the moment of silence so I'm going to stop here. I had more, but I guess I'll just end by saying that I hope you've taken a little time to remember that this day is much more than the excuse for a long weekend.

It is to me.

The things you recall

On July 31st, 1987, I was camping with my family at Crimson Lake. I remember this because at a certain point of the afternoon a man came running through the campground, shouting that a tornado had hit Edmonton.

We thought he'd had too much to drink.

The next thing you know, though, we were all huddled around the tiny black and white television in the camper, trying to get any kind of reception with the rabbit ears and looking on in complete disbelief when we finally did. An F4 tornado in Edmonton. It didn't seem possible.

Obviously, from the way I described it just now, that tornado has become one of my remember where you were when moments. That, the Challenger disaster (I'd had that morning off and had the "pleasure" of seeing the whole thing on the live feed), Princess Diana's death (which I also watched the live news feed of. Insomnia, that time. And surely I don't need to link to Princess Diana?)... there are a couple of other things on that list, but I'd imagine you've got the gist.

What I want to know is why the remember whens in my life all seem to be negative.

Unfortunately, I was too young to remember the moon landings or the '72 Canada-Russia series. Actually... sporting events don't usually do it for me anyway, so even if I had been old enough to notice anything about those hockey games it probably would have only been a remember when in that I'd be remembering the weird behaviour of the sports fans around me.

Now, of course I can remember what I was doing when I found out about certain family events (both positive and negative), but what I'm talking about here is the kind of thing that when you hear mention of its anniversary on the news you automatically know where you were when it happened. Collective memory, I guess. Culture remembering.

And you have to admit that it's generally the disasters that stick in the brain.

So, on this anniversary of Black Friday (and I'm in full denial that it was twenty years ago) I'm asking for a little assistance. Remember for me. I want to see if I can recall at least something personal about some events that didn't involve death and destruction.

Good luck with that. I have a feeling that it's not the easiest challenge in the world. Either that, or I'm even more of a pessimist than I already knew I was. And that, my friends, is a slightly more than depressing thought.

When I say Ides, you say...

Beware, probably. How many of you have had at least a fleeting thought that today is somehow ill-omened or at least unlucky?

Ok, now how many of you are under delusions of Caesarhood?

Shall I tell you what the Ides really are?






You better have said yes, because I'm going to do it anyway.

Originally, when the Romans were using lunar months, the Ides were the days when the Full Moon fell. That's it. No bad luck, no nothing else. The Kalends were the first day(s) of the month and marked New Moon, the Nones marked First Quarter Moon, and the Ides marked Full Moon.

Things changed rather a lot when the Romans later decided to fix their (at that point) effed-up calendar and make it more reflective of the solar year, but if you want the details on that kind of thing you're better off going someplace like here instead of expecting me to type it all out using my somewhat selective memory of my university Classics courses. In fact, follow that link anyway. It's got loads of interesting information about all kinds of calendars.

I like calendars, you know.

Incidentally, if you can remember the word Kalends you stand a better chance at getting the a's and the e's in the right order when you spell calendar. Just saying. And if anyone's looking for a handy Latin proverb (and I know you are) why not try Ad Kalendas Graecas? It means At the Greek Kalends, and is pretty much the Roman equivalent of when pigs fly. The Greek calendar didn't have kalends, you see.

Which means they didn't call their calendar a calendar either, but if you start thinking about things like that your brain may start to smoke if you're not careful.

This is your brain. This is your brain on non-calendar calendars. Any questions?

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Here's your warning that I may have something to be cranky about soon. Wheat's in the mood to move furniture, apparently.

Actually, rather than coming across as a total snot I'll say that I can understand why he wants to do it, but if he starts moving things around you have to know that I'll end up moving things around too and the end result is that I won't be getting my filing cabinet back (or at least back where it belongs). That's a tragedy, you see. The filing cabinet (beside, not inside) is how I hide from the rest of the people who work here, and if I lose my place to hide then people will know I'm here and that leads to people expecting me to TALK to them.

I mean, really.

If I wanted to speak to people I'd go home.






And talk to the voices.
The voices are very lonely at the moment, after all, being left home by themselves all day.
Wheat, I'm not sure I can deal with not having my filing cabinet...