Says: “Behold! A weak bit of sun returns!”
Thinks: MAN, who knew it was so SERIOUSLY dusty in here???
Crud.
Disconcerting Discoveries Before the Arrival of Guests…
Ice Cream? Really?
“Yes, that IS an Ice Cream van you hear.”
It snowed in Glasgow today.
And … a half-hour later, it came by again.
Either something is 1) very wrong with the ice-cream van drivers, 2) very wrong with Glaswegians, or 3) the ice cream vans are selling something other than ice cream.
-D & T
You thought Winter was over? Hah!
In Scotland, Winter … lasts. Two weeks ago we had sunshine, birds singing, and temperatures approaching 50°F / 10°C. Today? Snow. Snow that’s not melting on impact with the ground. Snow that’s sticking. So much for Spring.
We hope that it warms up a bit before F & D come to visit … but we’re advising them to pack long underwear and warm clothing. Their “Spring Break” will mean that they’re visiting Winter like they’ve never experienced it, as they’re from California.
-D & T
Links
Lots of good links from the past couple of weeks. Enjoy, in particular, Anonymous shuts down Westboro Baptist Church site — during a live interview and Why Gas Is So Expensive Today (Hint: It’s Not Libya) – Chris Peterson. Do, also, play the poverty game at PlaySpent – it’s not fun, but it’ll give you a good idea of how the poor in America exist, day to day.
Continue reading “Links”
Tea Cakes, with Apologies to Dorothy Parker…
O, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea
And baking‘s a thing that can never go wrong —
And I am Marie of Rumania.
And does this look like a scone to you? Why, no, it does not. Why, you may ask, would one even think that flat-but-lightweight-cookie-looking-thing might be a scone? Because the recipe is awfully close to being the same.
Once upon a time in the Wilds of Childhood, T’s father used to make something he called Tea Cakes. Now, he only made them for Special Occasional or High Holy Days wherein people came over after church, and he needed to Impress Them. (He also used to make his special Parker House Rolls on these occasions as well.) Sadly, he somehow “forgot” the recipe in the intervening years wherein his daughters begged most piteously for these details. (It really is a shame, the loss of memory occurring these days in sixty-four year old men who don’t want to be called on to bake anything.) (Fortunately, the Parker House Roll recipe is in a cookbook and cannot so easily be expunged from memory.) Artful daughter then turned to her friend Google for help. While taking the “advice” of the myriad recipes to be found online would have been easy, T thought she’d first take a stab at reverse engineering the recipe from taste memory. (Yeah, that was going to work. The taste memory is from over twenty years ago…)
The trick about Southern foods – for the Tea Cake is One Of Those Southern Things from T’s father’s childhood – is that many of them were beget by the British. (As was the amusing — solely in retrospect, to be sure — habit T’s father had of saying, “I say!” at the end of his more infuriated repeated requests) In her quest to recreate the airy, sweet cakes, she polluted a scone recipe with a little more moisture than was called for, and more baking powder. The addition of dried cranberries and peel probably didn’t help with the “traditional” taste she was after, but without them the cakes would have seemed quite bland.
The original cakes of T’s childhood were leavened with baking soda, and had that specific bicarbonate bite to them — but they were also plenty sweet. For some reason cream of tartar as an ingredient comes to mind… buttermilk (because isn’t that in every Southern food?), and plenty of butter…
Long story short: these things, though good they are not IT. And so the search continues. Thoughts? Suggestions? Anyone else ever had a Southern Tea Cake? (Mom?)
Memory
Canning is the harvest, distilled. A jar of rich golden jelly holds within it the warmth of the sun on the grapes, the stickiness of juice on the hands, the heat of the kitchen, and the perfection of a single day, captured and sealed in glass.
Most of us consume our preserves without this much ceremony, but today we chose to take a moment of reflection. Today, we opened a jar of jam we’ve been saving for a little over a year. On the day when the Columbard grapes were picked for this jam, the first golden days of autumn had passed, and the deep nights were just becoming slightly brisk. Our friend who picked the grapes had spent the morning with her daughter and sister, and spent the afternoon putting up the fruit as fast as she could — mainly to keep her daughter from eating the rest of the grapes before they could be preserved. Perhaps that night she marinated steaks at her husband’s request, and brought out an array of ice creams to round out his favored meal of steak and potatoes. It was, in all likelihood, another warm, beautiful day in their lives, like so many that had gone before; not worried over or clutched too tightly, but allowed to pass through open, grateful hands, as the days which would come after.
It was a day when the family was whole, and when they knew they loved each other. It was, because of this, a perfect day.
Canning is the perfect distillation of the harvest — a stop-motion snapshot of the sweetness of bright skies and golden sun, the sound of birdsong and jokes, the honest ache of working muscles and sweat-dampened foreheads. Today a spoonful of jam brings back the echo of memory, to which we say hail and farewell — and enjoy again the essential sweetness of a life well-lived.
&tc. And Stuff
It’s the breakfast of champions, kids. And the lunch, and part of the dinner…
It isn’t the pancakes that are so fabulous in this shot, although they were pretty darned good with the cranberry compote that was going to be jelly except someone decided they were bored with their partner being in the kitchen watching the pot and convinced her to turn it off — ahem. It’s not the pancakes, or the slightly out of focus Linda McCartney sausages lightly festooned with apple-plum sauce, nor the pretty stainless steel fork which is the last of a very large retro set, some of which must still be buried in a drawer in T’s mother’s kitchen. No, no, it’s none of those things. It’s the fact that in the background, the sky is a washed-out blue.
That hasn’t happened in a awhile around these parts.
We got about eight consecutive hours of sun two weeks ago, but today’s temperature was actually in the fifties – 10°C – which made it deceptively warmish. (Quite a few were deceived, including the man in pink tee, white shorts and Birkenstocks. He looked to have been deceived by a great many things, however.) A few more days of warmth like this, and some of the crocuses might start to consider wakening. We are DESPERATELY hoping this happens, as the biggest of T’s so-called Littles are coming to visit, and she is trying to special order sunny skies and daffodils for them. This could take some doing.
As a courtesy tutorial for the Littles, we present this tidy little explanation of the United Kingdom. Unlike the gentleman from Stanford who recently visited the University and miscalled the country wherein he was speaking ENGLAND, we are hoping the Littles will make a better showing than this. (Explanations are more needed than you know, as we have acquaintances who believe we live in Switzerland — and last time we were home, someone asked us how things were in Finland. Americans, stop making us look bad with the geography stuff, okay?? Just because it all ends in “land” does not make it the same country!)
The United Kingdom Explained brought to you by C. G. P. Grey on Vimeo.
There. Hopefully you’ve got that now. Not Switzerland. Not Finland. SCOTland. Part of the UK, but not ENGland. ::sigh::
It’s been a busy time. We are enjoying gaining mastery with our Rossini piece in chorus, and the Vaughn Williams is all but polished. Of course, that means Il Maestro had to introduce something new — Belshazzar’s Feast is a cantata by the English composer William Walton. It is so very theatrical,so very bizarre and so, so, difficult that we are doing a lot more snorting and chortling in the ranks than actually singing. We sound AWFUL. It’s hilarious. We plan to record rehearsal next time we think of it — the cries of dismay and the odd pauses where people attempt to come in are priceless. Music composed in the thirties — full of cacophony and general weirdness — it’s good fun, and it keeps our brains sharp to keep grappling with strange music. Or, so we tell ourselves.
It’s a good thing to be able to laugh at oneself… at times, there’s really just no choice!
In “business” news, T’s just shot off another novel to the eagerly waiting editor, who is promising to bump her to the top of the list, as her agent is buzzing to all and sundry that this is a “lovely” one. This is the fastest novel she’s ever written, as it came together in just under five months. She begs her agent not to come to expect that kind of time! Meanwhile, D. has been 
in a bit of a funk for a bit, as his advisers got into a disagreement about how he was to display a set of statistics — ending with him having to rewrite his first chapter and do a lot of annoying backtracking, then present the statistics BOTH ways — but that’s finally over. The cobwebs are clearing, and he’s grateful indeed to be writing on his dissertation again, and making clear progress. He’s also somehow been roped into teaching this week and next, but is taking it all in stride.
As much fun as D’s time in Scotland has been, it’s definitely coming to a close in terms of the University. The BBC has reported that major cuts in both courses and in faculty, in order to raise money mean that thousands of both faculty and students will be affected, and there’s definitely a feeling of uneasiness in the ranks. Protests and sit-ins are becoming routine, and everyone is unhappy. It’s a real shame — and it seems very much to be a sign of the times, as we hear the same news from the U.S.! Friends of ours who are new graduates are not sanguine about finding positions in academia at present — but D. is optimistic that he’ll be able to find a job regardless — just not as a professor. And he’s not sorry about that, as he’s not sure he can deal with any more academia at this point anyway.
It’s a chaotic, turbulent world out there, and everyone seems to be feeling the strain. What do you do to lighten the load for yourself and those around you? At the moment, the hope of Spring keeps us going. How about you?
Links
Another batch of links for you. This batch is heavier on censorship news and freedom of the press type issues, rather than law. Something’s happened with LAW.com‘s Law Technology News Feed, giving me tantalizing headlines but no actual articles. Oh, well.
A few fascinating links in today’s post, not least of which is A Year from a Window in Oslo, Norway. Enjoy!
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The Summer Preview
A certain time of winter comes, and the body simply cranks down into Survival Mode. It’s post-holiday, after the New Year celebrations, and once the glitter is gone, and the thrill of the first snowfall, your psyche is just OVER IT. Skin is constantly dry, and one drinks tons of tea, slathers on lotion, and has a rather grim set to the mouth. Add to it wild weather, various illnesses and relapses, bedraggled hems and soaked shoes, and people just get snippy. Extraneous communication ceases, people do what they have to and sleep in the rest of the time.
(… unless they’re in the Bay Area of California, or San Diego. Then, they revel in the sunshine, and plot where they’re going to plant their tomatoes, the fortunate miscreants.) While our friends in the Midwest and the East Coast are still losing the last vestiges of Snopocalypse II, 2011, and Seattle braces for more snow this weekend (!); while many are reeling from the news that three of the next five winters will be just this severe, *thanks to climate change (and if you don’t believe in it, we don’t want to discuss it); while many hack and cough and hunch over their inhalers (looking at you, Mom and Van), we thought it might be time to play a round of Summer Preview. Feast your eyes on D’s photography from years past, and allow the images to jumpstart your brain into seeing a future of beach scenes, seed catalogs, sharpened mower blades, short sleeves, and giving yourself that much-needed leg deforestation (well, not everyone. Just you swimmers.) and pedicure…
Are you feeling inspired? Perhaps craving grilled vegetables and food on sticks? Salad??? That’s right, drag that ratty fleece blanket a little closer, have another sip of tea, and let your mind go… to somewhere in the world there is a whole color palette that doesn’t begin and end with gray, white, and black. It exists! You will see it again! Honest!
*You hadn’t heard about this Winter Hinterland thing being the new normal? Meteorologist’s long-term predictions seem to point that direction. If that fills you with horror, you’re not alone. Instead of panicking, there should be something (other than buying a lot of thermals, flannel and Thinsulate™) to do to plan ahead, to enjoy winter more (or at all) and to not let months of your life pass you by as you sleepwalk/whine/sniffle the days away. “Teh Interwebs” offer this advice (well, they actually offer a whole lot more – this is what’s useful and doesn’t reiterate too much what you already know):
- Get Healthy. In warmer, drier weather, getting into the habit of drinking plenty of water, getting at minimum eight hours of sleep, and those minimum thirty minutes a day of sustained exercise will really help you, because you’ll have those same habits come wintertime. Some of you are groaning quietly, but consider that exercise doesn’t have to be something boring. You CAN put on music and dance with your cats for a half hour. (Yes, that will make you the Crazy Cat Person, but who can they tell?) In the winter, good health habits will come back to help you, by giving you more energy and helping keep illness at bay. Eat citrus! Drink tea! Consider taking Vitamin D supplements, along with those Five A Day veg/fruit servings you’ll be eating – this will give you some health insurance that you don’t have to buy — and doesn’t everyone want that?
- Get Out. When we moved to Glasgow, our friend India said for us to go outside every single day it wasn’t absolutely pouring, if we could. We didn’t understand what she meant, and tended to stay in when it was foggy or freezing. No more. Getting outside can mean the different between sanity and …well, that other thing. Remember what you knew as a child: walking in the rain – and in the puddles – can be fun. Wind can be bracing (in small doses, with a reasonable windchill). Beach walks — where the sand clings to your shoes and doesn’t involve your legs in a losing battle against mud — are great, too. Snow hikes — wherein you don’t have the whole Little House on the Prairie vibe of Pa getting lost in a blizzard — can be beautiful, as you revel in the silence and the animal tracks. Get outside, even if it’s just a twenty minute walk on your lunch break every day. You don’t appreciate a warm, dry house, a fuzzy blankie, or a cup of tea as much as you do when you’ve been cold and a bit wet.
- Stay in the light. Whether this means burning a brightly scented pillar candle in a dark kitchen at oh-dark-early before you go to school or work (avoid those metal wicks; apparently they contain lead), or sitting beneath full-spectrum bulbs (Verilux or Blues Busters are great), which mimic sunlight, give yourself as much light as you can, during regular daylight hours. (Be aware that they can make you stay up too long, and you’ll need to adjust your light input – by turning them off an hour before you want to go to bed) Strings of lights around the floorboards of a house are marvelous – and make it look like you’ll Never Get Over Christmas. (Never mind, we KNOW you actually packed your decorations away on time this year. Sure you did.) We’re bewildered at how many people are fine with sitting in rooms with 40 watt bulbs in this country. Especially as it’s Prime Reading Season in the winter, splurge on a 120 watt and SEE for a change!
Winter is only a part of the cycle of life and death of the natural world, and fierce and heavy winters will only mean that we’ll enjoy the temperate autumn and summer days that much more. We hope you’ve enjoyed this round of Summer Preview, and that it’s bringing you some anticipation of good things to come. Spring will come again — and so will winter. Next time, hopefully, we’ll be better physically AND mentally prepared!
“May you live ALL the days of your life.” ~ Jonathan Swift
All of these photographs are of flowers at the Glasgow Botanical Garden. It’s a great place to go when the temperatures are down into the low numbers, because it is ALWAYS balmy inside those glass greenhouses. We spend an entire morning there our first February in Scotland, and before the month is out, we hope to do it again!
Links
Another batch of links for you. Enjoy!
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