ABC Wednesday
March 19th, 2014

The Letter is J, for Jelly Roll

When we were young and newly married we were part of a Veterans' community involved in establishing a new orchard project on the Cawston Bench, - the Fairview Heights Irrigation District.

Amongst our many friends was a War Bride from the United Kingdom who brought with her two great accomplishments;  the knack of gathering together friends for wonderful parties, (most of which eventually included a round of Knees Up Mother Brown),  and her elegant and delicate way with Jelly Rolls!  They were the star of most tea parties, and she was generous with the recipe, - which follows....

Norma's Lemon Jelly Roll

4 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
3 tbsp hot water
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sifted flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of sale
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Lightly beat the egg yolks, gradually beating in 1/2 cup of the sugar.  Continue beating at a high speed until thick and very pale in colour.  Beat in water and vanilla.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt, folding it into the yolk mixture.  Set aside and wash beater thoroughly.

In a large bowl beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until peaks form; gradually beat in the remaining sugar until stiff shiny peaks form.  Fold the yolk mixture into the egg whites with a rubber spatula, turn into a prepared 15x10 inch jelly roll pan lined with parchment or waxed paper.

Bake at 325 F for 25 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly touched.

****sprinkle icing sugar over tea towel; invert cake on  top.  Remove paper and gently roll the cake in the tea towel from the long side......   Let it cool on a rack.

Unroll the cake when it is cool and spread with Lemon Curd.  Re-roll and dust with icing sugar....

Put it on your best plate and prepare for accolades....

****this is the delicate part

If you're going to make this for a party here's a little bonus to make things even gayer!

For more interpretations of the letter J join Denise and Roger and all their helpers

  here at ABC Wednesday!

with many thanks.

Oh, this week has been quite perfect.  Blue skies every day, - warm sun and that lovely spring energy that urges you to be outside; tempts you into the garden even before the breakfast dishes are done!!!

I have been raking leaves, cutting down last year's dry flower stalks and poking around where

the earth is soft, looking for precocious pale green stubs, rich red folds of awakening peonies, and baby daggers amid last year's beds of iris.

Marvelous to have been released from gingerly treading on slippery ice to a springy step on dry ground!!

A wonderful drive on Sunday, over the Richter Pass and into the south Okanagan, 

looping up through Oliver and Okanagan Falls and then back on the

highway to the Similkameen.

All the baby calves and the beautiful naples yellow of the grasses, tinged with the emerging greens

of spring.  A sharp shinned hawk sits in the sun, with vigilant eye....

Too early, I know, but I imagined that aura of green that surrounds the poplar trees

before they burst into leaf!  And the gold of the willows as the sap rises!!

I have been very remiss in visiting in blogland, but the temptation to be outside 

has been overwhelming......

Tonight, as I came to the computer after a busy day outside, I found this

poem from Wendell Berry's  'Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems'

No, no, there is no going back.

Less and less you are

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.

You have become a sort of grave

continuing much that was

and is no more in time, beloved

then, now and always.

And so you have become a sort of tree

standing over the grave.

Now, more than ever you can be

generous toward each day

that comes young, to disappear

forever, and yet remain

unaging in the mind

Every day you have less reason

not to give yourself away.

It seemed to describe so well and poignantly the space I now occupy.

Idioms

ABC Wednesday
March 12th, 2014

The letter this week is I
I for Idiom

An Idiom is a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definition of the individual words.

Phrases such as:  singing the blues

at your fingertips

nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs 

 jumping in with both feet

yesterday's news

spit nails

Well, you get the drift!!!

For more great interpretations of the letter I idle on over to ABC Wednesday, here, 

with thanks to Denise and Roger and all their intrepid and industrious helpers.

Harmonica

ABC Wednesday
The letter is H for Harmonica

Sometimes known as a mouth organ, the Harmonica is a free wind instrument used notably in the blues, American Folk music, jazz, country and rock and roll.

Although it may seem a simple instrument to those who pick it up and play a simple tune its construction is really quite sophisticated.  The varieties of Harmonicas are numerous and it has an interesting history, beginning in Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century.

The music produced by an artist and master of the harmonica is quite spellbinding.  Well, to me, anyway, who cannot perceive of making such glorious music with a tongue and puffs of air!

For more interesting takes on H visit here, at ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Roger and Dennis

 and all who help.

Dreams, Wind and Weather

Now that my wrist has healed nicely I am afflicted with itchy hands,
 - itching to get out into the garden, to prune the roses, to search for spring bulbs,
 to see how the compost is progressing and to rescue the hellebores from their icy bed.

It seems life is centered around the weather report,
and the weather man has nothing to say about spring
until at least the middle of March.

Two weeks ago Son #3 came to visit in the afternoon.  The sky was blue and the sun was shining and all was so promising that we rescued the small garden table and chairs from the shed and had tea on the deck!

I should have taken a picture, for now here is the selfsame table with a couple of inches of snowy icing decorating its glass top!!

and winter has returned for what we persist in thinking is 'one last visit' when really he is only reminding us that the polar vortex is in charge of his travel arrangements and he can drop in just any old time the spirit moves him - alas!!

This morning the sun tries bravely to shine through a thin cloud cover 

and in the west there is a little blue sky, but this, I fear, 

is just Winter cruelly teasing....

I am reminded that the spring after we moved to town from the farm (1988) we planted early potatoes on the 3rd of March!!!!

( in that lovely vegetable garden we had )

I sigh, and think of all the things that can keep me busy and optimistic for the next two weeks.  I am emptying drawers and being firmly stern with myself as I discard into a black bag for the Bargain Centre.

All the spring cleaning I do now will leave me free to indulge myself in the garden

whenever Winter decides to vacate.

I have some denim strips cut to bind the ends of rugs I made many years ago that are beginning to curl.

The wonderful Crazy Quilt duvet cover I made in early days needs mending and I have plans to turn it into a proper quilt and pass it on to the granddaughter to whom I promised it.

And the warp on the loom begs to be finished.......

Inside, the pussy willow branches I cut keep company with some late amaryllis that lay forlornly in a bin at the Garden Shop, passed over by earlier shoppers.  And I yearn for some forsythia branches

to brighten the house with their cheery yellow blooms.

I pour a cup of mid morning coffee and devour the gardening book I brought from the library -

'Green Places in Small Spaces'  by Kerwin Fischer, and I make plans

for a DIY garden tower made out of pots and sturdy gridded wire.

And perhaps a window box hung along the top rail of the porch, 

extravagant with petunias and flowing blue lobelia.

And veggies planted in among the raised bed flowers.

God meant every day to be lived to its fullest potential, I think

so here's to dreams, tidy drawers and 

clean woodwork!

ABC Wednesday
The letter is G for Guitarist

The famous guitarist shown here is Django Reinhardt, (1910-1953)  born at Liberchies, Belgium into the rambling lifestyle of his gypsy parents.  Django grew up 'in a world of contradictions, one foot in the bustling big city of Paris and the other in the age-old life of the nomadic gypsy'.

When he was twelve he was given a banjo/guitar by a neighbour who had notice his interest in music and he was soon astounding adults with his ability on the instrument.  By the time he was thirteen he began his musical career playing with a popular accordionist at a dance hall on the Rue Monge.

In 1928, at the age of eighteen, Django was in a devastating fire in the caravan he shared with his wife.  He was bedridden for eighteen months and the fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand were permanently curled towards his palm, due to the tendons shrinking from the heat of the fire.  He took his convalescing time to devise a new technique of soloing with only his index and middle fingers, a graceful and precise technique that is visible in the bottom right hand picture above.

He went on to have an amazing career with The Quintet of the Hot Club of France, formed with a fellow guitarist Stephane Grappelli.  They were playing in England when war broke out.  Django returned to Paris, and somehow managed to survive the war, avoiding the fate of many of his kin who died in Nazi concentration camps.  After the war he was reunited with Grappelli and toured briefly with Duke Ellington in America.

On May 16th, 1953 Django suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and died.  His music remains as vital and exciting today as when he lived, a truly great guitarist and one well loved amongst all my family.

One of Charles' favourites

and one of mine

for more great Gs visit here at ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Roger and Denise.

http://abcwednesday-mrsnesbitt.blogspot.ca/

From my morning mailbox

Some things come daily to start me off on the right track!!!

Like the  'Wordless thought for the day'......

sometimes cheerful, sometimes sombre, sometimes quite relevent
Today's thought. from W..H. Auden

"Death is the sound of distant thunder at the picnic."

And I think yes, - we reach a stage in life when we are watching mindfully for the first drops of rain.....

on the other hand I also received from 'A Year of Being Here'

Every Day is a fresh beginning

Listen my soul to the glad refrain

And, in spite of all sorrows

And older sinning

Trouble forecasted

And possible pain

Take heart with the day and begin again.

Susan Coolridge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

And to top it all off, 

a link to The Four Seasons 

and The Piano Guys playing an amazing rendition of Vivaldi's Winter!!!

Under the lid of the pewter skies it  makes the sun appear to shine
and I look forward to going to the Berlin Philharmoniker Concert (digitally)
in just 23 minutes!

Fiddle De Dee

ABC Wednesday
The letter this week is F
for Fiddle Dee Dee!

So, used as an interjection the expression Fiddledeedee indicates scorn, or indifference, - impatience, or disbelief.  Perhaps you remember Scarlett O'Hara and her careless dismissal in Gone with the Wind.....

and then there is the children's' rhyme that announces the nuptials of

 

the Fly and the Bumble Bee

 

Oh fiddle dee dee, fiddle dee dee

the Fly has married the Bumble Bee!!

 

but have you heard the lovely young people's Choral by the same name?

 

 

Fiddle de dee - Kurt Bikkembergs

Perpetuum Mobile

Children's Choir Cantabile uit Novotroitsk

 

or Lionel Hampton and his orchestra   - Fiddle de Dee (recorded 1940)

 

 

For more really interesting interpretations of the letter F fiddle on over to

ABC Wednesday, here, with thanks to Roger and Denise!

 

 

Tugs of Spring

 

 

 

I woke with the urgent need to fling open the windows and let the fresh air rush into the house, spiraling in all the stale corners and circling the ceilings and the hallways.

 

Somewhere in my dreams I must have encountered Spring, but alas, she had only sent her

 Envoy, - slightly warmer temperatures. 

No sunshine, no blue skies.  Indeed, the sky has grown heavier and clouds have crept down lower in the valley so that on looking out all thoughts of Spring and uplifted spirits

would surely have vanished.

 

But wait, - the pavement is dry. 

 The ice has disappeared, except for small spots that even ancients with canes

should be wary enough to avoid. 

There is no wind. 

 The air feels warm and the door, open to the summer room,

 draws me like a magnet.

 

I have birthday cards to mail and books to return to the library

and a promised visit to an old friend.

 

Already I am recapturing a little of the spirit of adventure

after this long, enforced sojourn indoors.

 

I still have not retrieved any forsythia branches from the old garden. 

 Or uncovered the Lenten Roses  from what was their icy prison......

Or stirred up the compost that is hopefully warm and busy and productive,

making rich soil for the new pot containers we brought home from the Garden Shop......

 

Is this the day?????

 

Pink and White and lots of love

 

Well, it's Valentine's Day, - not quite the same as the Valentine's Days of the past, - the ones in grade school when it was always a bit on the edge, - would you get a Valentine from the one you admired and REALLY WANTED to get a Valentine from - or not! 

Or the ones when our children went to school and you made sure that everybody in the class was given a Valentine by the ones who were bent over the kitchen table cutting and colouring  numerous hearts and flowers and arrows and gathering them together to post in the class Valentine Box - what an honour to be the Postman.

I passed a middle-aged fellow in the grocery store yesterday, cradling a large bouquet of spring flowers.  He said, with a wry grin, 'this should gain me some brownie points'!

Today in honour of Valentine's Day I have been plying some of the pretty pink and silk Polworth yarn that I spun with a skein of white silk left over from past projects, and thinking nice heartfelt thoughts as I did so.....

 

 plying

 

skeining

 

 

 washing

 

 

and hung out to dry....weighted, to encourage

a nice even ply...

 

What will I make?  Well, maybe a nice lacey scarf,  or a hat

or maybe even a pair of socks with a heart motif

to celebrate Valentine's Day.

 

Have a Happy Valentine's Day

and cherish the thought behind every loving gift

you receive - slightly grubby hand made cards are especially charming!



 

In Remembrance

 

Heart of my heart, we are one with the wind,

One with the clouds that are whirled o'er the lea,

One in many, O broken and blind,

One as the waves are at one with the sea!

Ay! When life seems scattered apart,

Darkens, ends as a tale that is told,

One, we are one, O heart of my heart,

One, still one, while the world grows old.

 

Alfred Noyes

E is for Eccles Cakes

ABC Wednesday
The letter is E, which is an Elegant choice for the Eccles Cakes

Not exactly what you would call a cake - but rather a crisp, crumbling pie, reminiscent of mince pies but fresher and simpler in their ingredients.

A confection with a history!!!

In 1793 James Birch's shop on the corner of Vicarage Road and St. Mary's in Eccles began selling small, flat, raisin-filled cakes, and is the first person credited with selling these 'Eccles" cakes on a commercial basis, although there are traces of something similar to the Eccles cake in a cookery book entitled "The Experienced English Housekeeper" written by Mrs. Elizabeth Raffaid in 1769.

Whatever their true origin, Eccles cakes are now famous throughout the world, and for me they have special memories from my early childhood.  During the Depression days, (when I believe the fortitude of many of the generation which coped with those days evolved) Mrs. Clough, wife of the minister who shepherded the flock at St. Faith's Anglican Church, was famous for her Eccles cakes throughout the parish, and always a welcome visitor as she visited with a basket of these hearty and delicious morsels she had whipped up in her kitchen just that morning!

The recipe for Eccles cakes in my trusty British Baking Book calls for  a rough puff pastry made from 4 ozs of plain flour, a pinch of salt, 1 oz of chilled lard and 2 ozs of butter, a squeeze of lemon juice and 3-4 tablespoons of icy cold water, mixed in the traditional manner and chilled for 15 minutes in the refrigerator. 

Modern recipes make use of frozen puff pastry purchased from the super market.

Here is a modern recipe which I use; guaranteed to produce the same wonderful pastries that live in my memory....

2 tbsp. of butter
1 cup of dried currants
2 tbsps. of mixed candied fruit, chopped
3/4 cup of demerara sugar
3/4 tsp of mixed spices (nutmeg, etc)
1/2 pack of frozen puff pastry
I egg white
1/4 cup of sugar

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and sprinkle a baking sheet with some water.  In a small saucepan melt the butter, add the mixed peel, demerara sugar and the spices, mixing until the sugar is completely melted.

Prepare the puff pastry as directed and roll out into a flat circle, 1/4 inch thick.
Cut into fairly large circles and divide the fruit mixture between them.
Moisten the edge of each circle and pull it towards the center to make a pouch.
Turn over and press gently with a rolling pin to flatten the cakes
Brush each cake with egg white and white sugar, make parallel cuts in the top and bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven - or until lightly browned around the edges.
Place on a wire rack and allow to cool.

 Eccles cakes are sometimes, with affection, referred to as 'dead fly pies', but don't let that deter you!

For more surprising interpretations of the letter E visit here, at ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Roger and Denise for this great meme.

Little accomplishments and a sunny day

 

 

I have mastered the art of Navaho plying after a great deal of conversation

with my spinning wheel, that through neglect has grown careless about the

way it responds to my loving touch.

 

I am happy about this, even though I may never use the art.  It bolsters my confidence, which

is not always as strong as it once was!!!  Or am I falling prey to EGO again?????

 

And I have started to knit a sweet little pair of fingerless gloves

from the resulting pink wool and silk handspun, although I am not quite sure that

my wrist is ready for the twists and turns required to knit.

 

 I have had a friendly tea time visit and a pot of spring bulbs from the

Royal Purple Ladies in honour of said wrist...

 

 

 

It is a cold, clear bright day, with pussy willows and shadow

There is a date with the Berlin Philharmonikera at 11:00 a.m. to watch and listen to Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique with Herbert Blomstedt conducting, and an afternoon out and about, doing errands in the sunshine - my second time out with the car since my adventure with the slippery ice and the process of becoming a Bionic Granny.

 

Nothing is quite 'perfect' anymore, but all of  this comes close to making me happy

and contented, and so I am off to shower and start the day with a song and a smile....

Doggerel

ABC Wednesday
and the letter this week is D

D as in Doggerel

 

Here we have a "low or trivial form of verse, loosely constructed and often irregular, but effective because of its simple mnemonic rhyme and loping metre.  It appears in most literatures and societies as a useful form for comedy and satire..."

 

My favourite writer of 'doggerel' is Ogden Nash.  Although his verse may sound nonsensical I am, nevertheless, impressed with his take on life and his attitude towards the things that might make others morose and melancholy!!!

 

I quote - ' his rhymes are jarringly off or disconcertingly exact, and his ragged stanzas vary from lines of one word to lines that meander the length of a paragraph, often interrupted by inapposite digressions".

 

But I think you will enjoy these few examples from Nash's 'Good Intentions'.

 

Presenting Dr. Fell

(and Nash has expanded on this unfortunate chap in other poems)

 

I know a man whom because he isn't a doctor I think of as Dr. Fell,

And I do not love him for reasons which I am delighted to tell.

Although he is a good citizen and a respected vestryman

He is unfit to be either a motorist or a pedestriman.

His is the car always approaching just as you are about to step off the curb, but you don't mind him,

Because you plan to cross as soon as he passes, because the next car is half a mile behind him

But with your plan he plays havoc,

Because you have forgotten that he moves at the pace of molasses in Reykjaavik,

And by the time he is gone and you are ready to step on the street.

Why the traffic formerly half a mile behind him has descended on you with the speed and power of a husband quashing his wife's suggestions for the disposition of the fleet.

Dr. Fell is he who when as a dutiful driver you halt for the red,

Stands on the corner with a newspaper buried in his head;

Until you start to start with the green;

When he steps in front of you with the carefree countenance of one who is beginning the beguine.

Such is Dr. Fell, and I fear that I shall never be a friend of him

Particularly as long as he parks his car in a two-car space with half a space sticking out at each end of him.

 

The Gander

 

Be careful not to cross the gander,

A bird composed of beak and dander.

His heart is filled with prideful hate

Of all the world except his mate,

And if the neighbours do not err

He's overfond of beating her.

Is she happy?  What's the use

Of trying to psychoanalyze a goose?

 

Samson Agonistes

 

I test my bath before I sit,

And I'm always moved to wonderment

That what chills the finger not a bit

Is so frigid upon the fundament.

 

Assorted Chocolates

 

If some confectioner were willing

To let the shape announce the filling,

We'd encounter fewer assorted chocs,

Bitten into and returned to the box.

 

The Porpoise

 

I kind of like the playful porpoise,

A healthy mind in a healthy corpus.

He and his cousin, the playful dolphin,

Why they like swimmin like I like golphin.

 

Well, I could go on and on, but if you wish to read more of Ogden Nash you might be able to Google him, or if his books are not out of print you might find him in the libraree......

 

If you nip over to ABC Wednesday here there are bound to be other interpretations of D that will tickle your fancy, and while there say thanks to Roger and Denise for this grand meme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

O Wondrous Day...

 

 

 

      YESTERDAY  - it snowed, and snowed and snowed. 

Winter had got lonely for us, - feeling sorry for himself, having been banished to the hills and the ski slopes.

He decided to pay one last visit - at least we hope it was the last time before he decides to move on!

 


 TODAY.......

 

 

 

and the sun has now reached the point where it skims the top of the mountain further along to the west, giving us twenty minutes more sunshine before it hides behind an outcropping.It makes my heart flutter and the garden tips I read on Facebook even more seductive.I finished the digital album I have been working on, looking for pictures in all the strange places they hide in my computer (because of my poor housekeeping) - thoroughly frustrated!

Maybe that's why the sun came back.....

 

O Wondrous Day!!

 

 

 

 

 

 



ABC Wednesday

The letter is C this week

Here is Marc Chagall, a Russian artist, born in 1887 the eldest of nine children. 

 

I have chosen the glorious Chagall Windows in the Hadassah Hospital in Israel to represent C,
the ones about which Marc Chagall said in 1962

"This is my modest gift to the Jewish people who have always dreamt of biblical love, friendship and of peace among all peoples.  This is my gift to that people which lived here thousands of years ago among the other Semitic people".

The light that emanates from these windows bathes the Abbell Synagogue at the Hadassah University Medical Centre in a special glow. The sun filters through the brilliant colors of the stained glass capturing their radiance and even in the misty haze of a cloudy day 'Chagall's genius transforms time and space'

 

Every pane is said to be a microcosm of Chagall's world, of his love for his people and his deep sense of identification with Jewish history.

 

Each window is dominated by a specific color and contains a quotation from the individual blessing on Jacob's twelve sons and Moses' blessing on the twelve tribes.

 

The Synagogue was dedicated in the presence of the artist on February 6, 1962.

as part of Hadassah's Golden Anniversary Celebration.

 

Click here to see other interesting representation of the letter C

with thanks to Roger and Denise and all their helpers who come and read your contribution.

Sunday

Off to church this morning with a peach pie and an apple pie, - my contributions for the pot luck luncheon we were having after the service to feed the Archbishop, who was coming to see how our little Anglican worshipping community is doing after our union with the United Church of Canada fell apart.

 

 I did not make these pies, but bought them from the ladies at the Mountain View Manor, an independent living facility which has marvelous pie sales at random times during the year to make money for little extras for having fun, - like the Wii, which provides wonderful exercise,  and the big flat screen TV whose remote is probably responsible for a fair amount of quibbling.......

I had to be driven to the church on account of not being able to walk the half a block of icy road laden down with pies. but coming home the sky was blue, the sun was out, the ice was melting and my neighbor from two doors down walked with me and we had a lovely chat and enjoyed the weather and the results of our time with the Archbishop.  That a small congregation of 15 should move the Archbishop to come to visit says something, - but I'm not sure what.  Probably that he feels some loving concern for us, as Archbishops are supposed to do.

He is a very personable fellow, and the ladies of the parish were all quite impressed with his gallantry when he made the rounds of the tables with the coffee and tea, replenishing each cup.

I can remember when the Bishop used to travel his Diocese with a Crucifer and maybe a Warden or two, and seemed to be a very lofty chap who impressed small children and young people but John travels by himself  and it was a pleasant and relaxing hour over lunch.

I spent the afternoon reading, sitting by the window where the sun shines through, starting off with more of Gerald Durrell as I finished the sequel to My Family and Other Animals (Birds, Beasts and Relatives) and then moved on to 'Justine' of the Alexandria Quartet.  I am wanting to finish this book while I am incapacitated with my wrist (which is healing nicely, thank you) but the print is so fine and the pages so many that spring might come before I am done, or the seed and flower catalogues might distract me and devastate my good intentions.

Tomorrow the weather man is promising sunshine - probably just a smidgin, but hopefully enough that I can hitch a ride to our old garden and see if the forsythia is have thoughts of budding, and if it is I will bring great bunches of dry sticks home and fill the house with glorious golden bloom - eventually!