And Now For Something A Little Different

It's been some time since I've had a similar post, but I guarantee you will enjoy these links that friends have sent me.  Exquisite Cuban ballet dancers in Havana's streets, French chateaux for sale, majestic libraries old and new, and photos of D-Day that morph into the same setting 70 years later.


1.  Cuban dancers  (give it a little time for the images to come up)

2.  French chateaux

3.  Majestic libraries

4.  D-Day scenes (drag the mouse back and forth to see the scene in 1944 and then 2014) D-Day 

Apple Time in Vermont

People around here (mostly tourists) think about this as being leaf season which it is, of course, but for those of us who actually live here, it's also apple time.  And apples can be gotten rain or shine whereas leaf viewing is enhanced by having glorious weather ... and this last holiday (which I understand is now to be called Indigenous People's Day) was 1) gloomy on Saturday and 2) gloomy and rainy on Sunday.  It was Monday (I.P. Day, itself), with everyone back on the road going home again, that turned out to be gorgeous.  But regardless of the gloomy weekend, visitors still flocked this way.  I chose to stay in, make soup, read David Copperfield, catch up on my ironing, and marvel at all the company at the neighbor's across the street.  I also got to the farmers' market early enough to find a parking spot, gather my weekly head of butter-crunch lettuce (THE best) plus a bouquet of zinnias, then skedaddle home.

The Sunday before, some of us made a PYO trip to a local apple orchard where we filled a bag with (mostly) Cortlands and (a few) McIntosh. (The Cortlands are crisper.)  At the end, here, you'll see what I did with mine.  I also went out one day to another orchard which, incidentally, was used as the setting for the bunk house in that movie some years back, Cider House Rules.

Picking time at our local Cortland Hill Orchard

For wasps, squirrels, deer ... plus cider-makers.

Scott Farm, a wonderful 571-acre farm that produces 120 varieties of ecologically-grown apples.
The building on the extreme right served as the bunk-house setting in the movie, Cider House Rules.

Scott Farm dates from 1862.  (You can just make out the year on the sign.)

More apples from another farm stand.

My heavenly mostly-Cortland apple pie

Some Favorite Quotations

Over the years, I've made lists of quotations from my reading that I'm then never quite sure what to do with.  What it mostly amounts to is running into them when cleaning out my office files.  Now, I ask myself, why not share a few with you?


          Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news.
                   Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

          Life is always this choice--to choose an old house nearer the office or the new one sitting amidst coconut gardens.
                    Raja Rao, The Cat and Shakespeare

          You mean can one be "just angry" with nothing extra--like a thunderstorm that comes and goes?  Gosh, I wish I could do that.
                    Zen Master Suzuki Roshi

          Committee Defined:  A group of people who, individually, can do nothing, but collectively can meet and decide that nothing can be done.
                    Thomas L. Martin, Jr., Malice in Blunderland

          .... he had endless time on his hands, which in itself is the mark of a great soul.
                    Henry Miller, Colossus of Maroussi

          Just watch the movie of life, without judging it, avoiding it, grasping it, pushing it, or pulling it.  You merely Witness it ....
                    Ken Wilber, One Taste

          .... the nature of politics is to subtract meaning from language.
                    Bernard S. Bowdlerberg

          Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.
                    Mae West

          We stand today at a crossroads:  One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness.  The other leads to total extinction.  Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice.
                    Woody Allen

   

Genealogy Jag Update

(See my April 21st posting.)

Gotta admit:  this was a whole lot more work than I expected.  I finished what I set out to do but found much more material than I wanted to deal with so didn't carry on "down the years."  Obviously, as one goes on back, it becomes less accurate, and I didn't want to spend hours accessing maybe-so/maybe-no data.  Like someone who was born, had his family, and died all within the (given) years of, say, 1504-1515.  Or the man whose dates indicated that his mother had been born several years after he had already died.  Or, for that matter, so many possible branches with more and more names and dates that it would make any reader's head spin.  Then, too, some researchers seemed so zonked out by the time they got to the 1400s that they put down 20th century dates just to liven things up.

I was hooked into one of those genealogical web-sites that gives the names of the parents of whomever one keys in.  Which would be fine but such information can go back centuries.  Then, of course, as I've already said, if the connection is spurious, why pursue it.  I got lords and ladies, sheriffs of this English county and that, three Lord Mayors of London, most of which I discarded since I had no idea if the connection was legitimate.  I traced one family through their thousand years in England to find the "first" of the family was a Tuscan who had befriended William the Conqueror. There was no way I wanted to write all their particulars down so was glad when I found a glitch that allowed me to scratch all that.  You might well say:  some researcher you are!  Right.  Too much work at this point.  But I wanted what I ended up with to be as accurate as possible.

So I stayed this side of the pond though admit that continuing on back brought up some wonderful names.  Like Fulke Le Strange, 1st Lord of Blackmere.  Such a name makes you think of a children's book about medieval knights--which I guess he was.  I also got someone akin to the Sheriff of Nottingham as a possible ancestor.  Yikes.  And after all those Robin Hood movies, too!  But then to compensate, I had a good chuckle when a Mr. Fisher married a Miss Fryer.

Then I was given the name Sallye Lnu as the 16th century Welsh mother of another possible ancestor, but the name Lnu didn't fit a Welsh lass of any century.  But there it was, written out, and repeated by other researchers. Then, of course, I realized it wasn't a name at all but the initials for Last Name Unknown.

And then records get hazy after awhile.  One poor woman was listed as having had 30 children. And there was the man who was born in The Tower of London!  Goodness, I thought, what brought that about!  But then I found it was Tower Street, London.  An important difference.

So, you see, it can be fun, it can be interesting, but there's a lot of fuzzy information.  Even a lot of un-fuzzy information which is why I decided to just list the more recent folks I was fairly sure about and suppose someone else might want to take up the banner one day and plow into the rest.

Yet ... so much for my promise to just investigate "the recent folks."  Right after saying that, I found 41 generations of one Welsh family ending in the year 500.  Afterwards, I got up from my chair feeling as if I'd been out on the high seas, I was so wobbly.

Savory Tomato Tart

Ah, it's tomato time.

This is the kind I used for this recipe

And my local farm stand always puts out a magnificent array of plump, gorgeous, juicy tomatoes.  So .. a few days ago I realized it was time to get out my good savory tart recipe which I then proceeded to make up yesterday.

There are two preps here.

1.  One is to make a crust for a 9"-10" pie dish.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

1 + 1/2 c. flour
1/4 lb. butter (one stick)
1/4 t. salt
4 - 5 T. ice water.
Cut the butter into the flour (and salt) so that it's the size of small peas.  Add enough ice water to form the dough into a smooth round ball.  Roll out.  Place in the pie dish and bake for 8 minutes.  (I put in a piece of foil and scattered some of those pea-like ceramic pie weights.  Not sure how necessary they are, but they do keep the crust from puffing up.)  Let cool.  Turn off oven.

After pre-baking for 8 minutes

2.  The other prep is for the filling.

3 lb. tomatoes.  Drop 2-3 at a time into boiling water for 20 seconds, then peel.  Cut each in half cross-wise and dig out the seeds and juice without being too vigorous about it.  In other words, don't squeeze the tomatoes.
1 medium-sized onion.  Dice and sauté in olive oil.  Be careful not to burn.
1 clove of garlic.  Mince or press.  Add to onion at end.
Give the tomatoes a rough chop and add them along with:
3/4 t. dried oregano
4 T. chopped fresh parsley
4 T. chopped fresh basil
Salt and pepper
Turn burner to medium low and let this all cook awhile.  I gave it about 20 minutes.

Fresh parsley and basil

Pour the tomato mixture into a colander placed over a bowl and simply let the juices drain into the bowl.  I allowed 10 or 15 minutes for that.

Letting the juices drain out of the tomato mixture

Then, return those juices to your pot and let them reduce down at a simmer.  Watch carefully so that they don't start to brown.  Turn off the heat, put the tomatoes from the colander back in the pot, and mix them with the reduced juices.

Let cool.
When you are nearing the time to complete the tart, preheat oven to 375.
Beat 2 eggs
Add in 1/3 c. mayonnaise and beat until smooth.
Grate 1/4 pound of a nice sharp cheddar cheese and divide into two piles.
Add the egg/mayo to the tomatoes.
And stir in one pile of cheese.

Two piles of cheese

Two eggs, whisked

Pour into the pie crust and sprinkle on the second pile of cheese.

Ready to put in the oven

Bake 30 minutes at 375.

The final thing ... yum!!

A Gallery of Photos: The Summer of 2016

Here we are, mid-August already.  The day lilies are past, the apple tree leaves turning, the morning glories thriving, and the air is filled with "humdiddy," as we used to say.  It all does go by quickly, doesn't it.  Crossing guards will soon get out their stop signs and school buses will be humming up and down the streets.
 

Working to Untwist Things

Alternative media:

1.  Stuart Jeanne Bramhall--stuartjeannebramhall.com (An American activist and retired child psychiatrist who moved to New Zealand.  Daily.)

2.  James Howard Kunstler--kunstler.com (Intelligent, graphic political writer. New blog every Monday.)

3.  Paul Craig Roberts--paulcraigroberts.org (Trustworthy writer, former Asst. Secretary of the Treasury.  Daily.)

4.  Chris Hedges--truthdig.com (Great human being, great activist.  New posting every Sunday.)

5.  activistpost.com (Also good is Peter Kirby in the environmental section on chemtrails/geoengineering. Activist Post is daily; Peter Kirby is not.)

6.  off-guardian.org  (Daily.)

7.  usawatchdog.com  (New postings every few days.)