Morning, noon and night
Three random things I learned, or remembered, todayArchive for August, 2007
A peaceful death
NOON
last night our old, well loved family dog died peacefully during the night.
She was happy until the day before.
That is a good way for a dog to die.
I need some time to be sad.
More legumes
NIGHT
I was a bit fascinated by the fact that lupin flour (lupin or lupine being a legume) could cross react with people who have peanut allergy (peanut being another legume).
Here are some more legumes. I wonder how many of them cross react too.
Peas
Beans
Soya beans
Lentils
Fenugreek
Senna
Licorice.
Acacia
Carob
Guar
Tragacanth
I wonder if there are any more that we eat.
I wonder if an individual who has peanut allergy might react after handling lupins or sweet peas?
All the more reason to wash your hands after handling any kind of flower or plant, I suppose.
And to cover any cuts on the hands too.
Scotland’s other national drink
NOON
Irn Bru is the Scottish competitor to Coca Cola. It is made by A.G. Barr of Glasgow. Like Coca Cola the formula for this is also a trade secret. It is known only to two of Barr’s board members and a written copy is held in a Swiss bank-vault.
Wouldn’t it be amazing to create a recipe that was so popular that it had to be kept secret in a bank vault? Or is this all a bit of hype?
Irn Bru does have a unique taste and is quite different from Coca Cola. Rumour has it that barley and seaweed are included in the array of ingredients.
Wikipedia has lots of information.
Disappearing bees
MORNING
Honey bees are vanishing across USA and no-one really knows the reason. The phenomenon is known COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER
Here is the mission statement of the website above which is dedicated to this condition.
“Across the United States and around the world, the honey bee populations are mysteriously vanishing. Honey bee colony losses are not uncommon, however, this sort of disappearence is unprecedented. This honey bee colony loss is due to uncharacteristic bee behavior: bees are failing to return to the hive.
Is it an unparalleled natural rythmic ebb in the honey bee population or a portentous prophetic warning of a failing ecosystem? Solving this mystery could have far-reaching effects.
Their decline should draw focus to the critical role the honey bee plays in our food chain and the impact their loss will have on our ecology and economy. As of now, there are several theories posed to explain what has been termed “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD).
This site’s aim is to keep up with the latest news findings on the rapid honey bee population decline; will provide a knowledge environment for honey bee basics, and will serve as an online community for beekeepers and hobbyists alike to network and hopefully increase the honey bee population through best beekeeping practices.
Heed the buzz! Beware the silence of the honey bee: HoneyBeeQuiet.”
The secret of the drink
NIGHT
The secret recipe for Coca Cola, code-named “Merchandise 7X” is kept under lock and key in a vault in the SunTrust Bank Building in Atlanta, Georgia, the home of Coke inventor Dr. John S. Pemberton and current world headquarters of Coca Cola International.
Avocado hair conditioner
NOON
Here’s another home made hair conditioning recipe I’m going to try.
1/2 of an avocado
1 small jar of real mayonnaise
Mash up the avocado and mix thoroughly with the mayonnaise. Put the mixture over hair and cover with a shower cap for 20 minutes or so. Rinse thoroughly.
I suppose the benfit comes from the protein in egg with the fat in avocado.
Not for egg allergic people or those allergic to avocado. Some people with latex allergy may be allergic to avocado but may be unaware of this.
This recipe has whet my appetite. I’ve found a nice ripe avocado in my fruit bowl. I think I’d rather eat it tonight and do the hair thing another time.
Fragrance free hair conditioner
MORNING
I can remember eggs used to be used as a hair conditioner.
Here is a recipe for this that’s slightly more sophisticated that just breaking an egg over your head.
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp olive oil
3/4 cup lukewarm water
Beat up an egg yolk and very gradually beat in a half teaspoonful of olive oil a few drops at a time.
Gradually beat in the lukewarm water. After shampooing hair, pour all of this preparation on to the hair, massage in and leave for a few minutes before rinsing.
I suppose its OK as long as the eggs are salmonella free and you don’t have an egg or olive allergy!
Fragrance sensitivity
NIGHT
Fragrance allergy is not uncommon and often goes unnoticed. It might not be a true allergy but more of an irritation. But one way or another, the symptoms can be the same as an allergy.
I think I have a perfume allergy.
It Is a pest.
Shampoos and conditioners can be a problem. Perfumed hair lies on the pillow with you all night. You toss and turn, in close contact with the fragrance and may end up with puffy eyes and a cough in the mornings. The cough may be mild asthma.
I am going to explore some home made fragrance free recipes and try them out.
What’s wrong with wild flowers?
NOON
I love orchids at my kitchen window. I love wild harebells by the roadside or in my garden.
But the two don’t mix well.
Sometimes I get so, so mad at people!
The Scottish countryside is beautiful. Some of the less invasive native wild flowers are now becoming well established at the side of the country roads again as farming becomes gentler.
But there is a new kind of herbicide. The wealthy townsfolk, the “incomers” who buy up the country cottages and farms and turn them into manicured mansions, take over the roadside also.
I saw this happening this morning. The wild verges up and down the road outside the new ostentatious gate of the cottage-come-mansion had been claimed by the incomer. Not owned by the incomer. Just claimed. “I am a wealthy man, therfore I have a right to claim the roadside too!” The bluebells, the wild roses, the meadowsweet, the thistles were all hacked out. Kerbs were being put in place, grass was being sown, garish plants all in full bloom were being put in by a posse of workmen. No expense was spared.
Many of these plants will not survive the frosts.
No taste, no sensitivity, no knowledge of nature.
The arrogance of the the incomer.
I think I might gather dandelion clocks and thistledown and willow herb seeds and sprinkle them all around this travesty of a roadside in the middle of the night.
Neglected orchids
MORNING
Here are some of my orchids that have been living at the kitchen window fifteen years or so. They flower year after year.
I tidied them up a bit today, because they were a bit of a mess.
None of my friends can get their orchids to re-flower again.
They just throw them out after the first flowering now, because they have had so little success.
This is because they don’t believe me when they ask me how I get mine to flower year after year.
I tell them: “Put them at the kitchen window near the kettle and then leave them.”
They never follow my advice.
They water them, feed them, prod them, trim them, stake them.
Their orchids die.
You see, they have not yet learned that sometimes neglect can be kinder than nurture.
What was the dream about?
NIGHT
Last night’s dream about the solitary minimalistic home-made meal, the tiny uncluttered sage coloured room, the filo pastry with the red trellis all make sense to me. My thoughts, worries, plans and frustrations were there. I can see that.
What I don’t understand, though, is who the man and woman were who were hosting the meal. At the time I saw their features very, very clearly as if I was there. I might even recognise them if I met them tomorrow.
But I do not know these people.
I have never seen them before.
Who were they?
Were they people I passed in the street last week but didn’t notice, although my brain had?
I don’t think so.
Has my brain created two new people – structured two new faces that don’t exist?
Who knows.
P.S. The photo is from a bracelet of mine – a present last Christmas. It is called “The Dream Catcher.” Maybe if I wear it tomorrow I’ll meet these two strangers!
A dream
NOON
Last night I dreamt a million dreams but can only remember one of them.
It concerned sitting in a tiny room at a tiny table by myself in the home of a man and a woman.
I did not know the couple but I saw the detail of their faces very clearly.
The room was minimalistic. No ornaments, no friendly touches, no paintings. No mirrors. The walls were painted a very, very pale sage green.
Nothing except the small table with two chairs sitting beside a window.
There were other people in the house but they were in other rooms.
The woman brought me a large white plate containing a meal she had prepared. A minimalistic meal.
There was a small filo pastry “purse” containing chicken on one side of the plate. On the other side of the plate was a scoop of mixed vegetables. I can’t remember exactly what was there, but I remember thinking “where are the potatoes?” Being polite, I didn’t ask.
The remarkable thing about the filo pastry was it was crossed with carmine coloured red lines. Like a trelis. It was very elegant.
I asked the woman how she managed to do that.
She told me, but I can’t remember what she said except that she had used cochineal.
I asked her if she used the red dye before she put the filo pastry in the oven.
She said yes.
I then ate the meal alone.
It was delicious.
Ayrshire potatoes
MORNING
All summer I have been yearning for a plate of tiny Ayrshire potatoes smothered in butter.
Nothing else.
Or maybe with some mince.
Mince and potatoes.
I have been yearning for this dish of my childhood for many, many summers now.
I loved Ayrshire potatoes so much, that I would buy myself a little plot of land in Ayrshire so I could plant my potatoes in the sandy soil and nourish them with seaweed, so that my children could taste the wonderful flavour.
They have never tasted proper Ayrshire potatoes.
Oh, I know, there are Ayrshire potatoes in Scotland in early summer. But they are not the ones they used to be.
They are too big. They do not have the Ayrshire flavour.
Doubtless these “New Age” Ayrshires are grown there. But that’s all.
Are they forced? Have they changed the variety? Are they not using seaweed any more?
Most people who grow and sell these modern “Ayrshire potatoes” are too young to remember the “Real Ayrshires”
If there’s an old farmer out there who was born a very long time ago and used to grow the “real” Ayrshire potatoes, please let me know the secret.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Gobbledygook
NIGHT
Q. What is gobbledygook?
A. Empty phrases that make it look like you know what you’re talking about.
With the Gobbledygook Generator you can make your own.
Crystal mark
NOON
The Crystal mark is an award made by the Plain English Campaign.
It has become widely recognised as a guarantee that a document has been written and designed as clearly as possible.
Comments off
Chrissie Maher OBE
MORNING
What an amazing woman Chrissie Maher is!
Chrissie blogs.
But much more than that! Here is what she says:
“I founded Plain English Campaign out of exasperation. I was born into a large, poor Liverpool family back in 1938, and left school almost illiterate. But night school opened the world to me, and I began to see injustices.”
And here is a link to what she has achieved.
Curds and whey
NIGHT
“Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey…………..”
She was eating milk curdled with rennet with the protein rich liquid. Whey is rich in milk protein but is low in lactose.
Whey is used by some bodybuilders as a supplement, but some are unaware of the milk origin of this product. It can cause serious reactions in those known to have a milk allergy.
Apparently.
Another Henry Ford Quotation
NOON
I’m really having a bad hair day.
I need another HF quote.
“When I can’t handle events, I let them handle themselves.”
Henry Ford
07/30/1863 – 04/07/1947
Founder of the Ford Motor Company
Henry Ford Quotation
MORNING
Some of the things said by Henry Ford are great for adding encouragement when things are not going well. I think I need to think about some of his quotations today.
Here’s one.
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
Henry Ford (23)
07/30/1863 – 04/07/1947
Founder of the Ford Motor Company
Squirrels
NIGHT
Just a brief comment really.
This is they grey squirrel now so common in Scotland. They are found even in most suburban gardens that have any degree of wildlife habitat at all.
We also have red squirrels but they are rarer.
We don’t have black (dark brown) squirrels. I had been unaware that black squirrels existed until I visited Toronto in 1984. They were everywhere.
Prior to that, I had many friends who visited or stayed in Canada for a while. Not one of them told me about the black squirrels.
I wondered why. Were they not considered important enough to mention?
Did they not notice them?
Did they not think I’d be interested?
Another coincidence
NOON
I didn’t mean to go to a book fair to buy a book for my daughter’s birthday.
Far from it.
My plan was to go to a craft shop in a country park to buy her a card and perhaps a small item, so she would have a parcel to open from me, since my “real” present was boring money. It just so happened there was a book fair that weekend.
Now, The Blue Fairy Book was not the only book I bought. No. It was the second book.
When I walked into the room, I was faced with rows and rows of books on shelves and tables. Why then, did I immediately pick up a humble little old red book that had no presence at all? Why did I choose it from all the others? There was no reason – my hand just picked it up.
I opened the book at random and read a bit of text. A woman called Mrs Barrowfield. How odd. That name is so familiar to me. I never knew a Mrs Barrowfield, but the name Barrowfield is part of my life. You see, Barrowfield House was the name of my grandparents’ home. The house where my mother was born.
I never knew my grandparents. They both died when my mother was a child.
I opened the first page. The old dog was called “Clyde.” My mother as a young woman, while living in Barrowfield House had a dog called “Clyde.” Barrowfield and Clyde. I knew the pair of them well. The house was demolished long before I was born, but Barrowfield House and the dog Clyde have fueled my imagination for as long as I can remember.
And so I bought the book “Wax Fruit” by Guy McCrone.
The 1948 edition.
For a fiver.
Coincidence
MORNING
If you don’t believe in magic, then you have to believe in the power of coincidence.
Here is a tiny, tiny, tiny, coincidence.
On Sunday, I mentioned I had bought my daughter the Folio edition of “The Blue Fairy Book.” Funnily enough the illustration on the inside cover was very familiar to me. I used it a couple of weeks ago for a Powerpoint presentation. I knew it was from a Folio Society book but I didn’t know which one.
Yes, it was a tiny, tiny, tiny coincidence.
I bought the book partly because of it.
My daughter was well pleased. She informed me that we had come across an original first edition of one of the “Fairy Books” when we visited a book show a couple of years ago and it cost thousands of pounds. I had forgotten about that but eventually managed to retrieve the memory of the event from the depths of my brain.
I had a search in Abe books and, sure enough, there was an original first edition of the Blue Fairy Book selling for a lot of money. A lot.
Now, that is a “three tiny” coincidence. When I bought this book , there was another coincidence – a “two tiny” one this time. But that can wait till noon.
Gruntled
NIGHT
Is gruntled a real word, and if so what does it mean?
Apparently it is. Gruntled means, just as it sounds, ie grumpy. Disgruntled means even more grumpy than gruntled.
The prefix dis…. does not always negate. In some cases it means more of the same ie an intensifier.
PS Missed my morning posting. Something very strange happened. I had hoards of incoming Turkish links and the site was disabled for a while. Why me. What have I done?????????
Crunchy strawberries
NOON
When I was a child, strawberries were seasonal, a luxury, soft, had a magnificent flavour and did not last.
At some stage, everlasting, crunchy strawberries for all seasons appeared.
I can’t remember when.
I must tell those that come after me that crunchy strawberries are a freak of mankind.
Have they crossed them with turnips, maybe?
The Blue Fairy Book
NIGHT
It was my daughter’s birthday today and I gave her money. A boring, boring money present.
However, I visited a book fair yesterday and found a Folio Society copy of “The Blue Fairy Book” edited by Andrew Lang. I loved it, and although my daughter is an adult, I knew she would too. It is beautifully presented and contains wonderful illustrations by Charles van Sandwyke.
Here is an extract of something Lang wrote in 1891.
” There are not many people now, perhaps there are none, who can write really good fairy tales, because they do not believe enough in their own stories and because they want to be wittier than it has pleased Heaven to make them……..”
I wonder if “Harry Potter” has been so successful because J K Rowling believed enough.
The no cooking years
NOON
For several reasons I’m not in a position to explain, my life has been on hold for a period of three years. Survival mode self care, cooking, housework and gardening. During this time anything that was done had to be done quickly. Very quickly. This meant convenience foods, (many of them horrible) and a huge amount of fresh fruit garnished with chocolate (not in the least horrible).
One of the little snacks I used to make in the twinkling of an eye sounds revolting but I grew to love it.
Curried peaches and cheese on toast.
Toast a slice of bread on one side. Lightly toast it on the other. Place on slices of cheddar cheese on the toast and sprinkle with curry powder. Place under the grill again to melt the cheese. Remove from grill and place a half or sliced peaches (fresh or tinned) on the melted cheese. Sprinkle grated cheese on top. Sprinkle a little more curry powder and place under the grill for a few seconds.
You’ll either love this or loathe it or won’t even bear to try it.
I love it!
Morning, noon and night plant
MORNING
There is a plant called “Morning, noon and night.” Or sometimes known as “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” Brunfelsia pauciflora
It is a shrub with white and purple flowers that change colour as they age. It has a sweet Jasmine-like perfume. In suitable climates (not the UK) it can be planted as a fragrant hedge.
It needs a warm, sheltered position and rich soil. Once established it will tolerate drought.
Carmine allergy
NIGHT
Carmine is a beautiful shade of red and as well as an art pigment is frequently added as a dye to foods and cosmetics. It is obtained from the cochineal insect.
In Europe this dye is regulated under the food additives directive and is known as Cochineal, Carminic acid, Carmines and Natural
Red 4 or as additive E 120.
An individual may develop allergy to carmine because of sensitivity to the protein residues from the cochineal insect present in the dye.
Wild bergamot
NOON
This is wild bergamot Monarda fistulosa
Nothing to do with Oil of Bergamot used in Earl Gray Tea.
I know something else that’s important about Oil of Bergamot, but I can’t for the life of me think what it is.
CARTHUSIA Perfume from Capri
MORNING
This is the little perfume shop in one of the tiny streets on the island of Capri. I remember bringing one of their perfumes home with me. It was called Fiori di Capri and I loved it at the time. It was used up a long time ago.
And here is the small factory.
Below is a link to the Carthusia Website (in Italian).
