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Post by breeze on Jan 17, 2021 21:21:01 GMT
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Post by breeze on Jan 17, 2021 21:11:50 GMT
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Post by breeze on Jan 17, 2021 21:09:23 GMT
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Post by breeze on Jan 17, 2021 21:02:21 GMT
Don't be shy, Beatrix.
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Post by breeze on Jan 17, 2021 21:00:31 GMT
Here’s a chipper little sign along a stream that feeds into the Mayenne river at Changé. Now to Laval, where each time we visited we discovered more to like. The center of town is lively and has a pedestrian street, La grande rue, lined with half-timbered houses. Beatrix de Gavre gave a boost to the local weaving industry around 1299 which lasted till the 18th century.
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Post by breeze on Jan 17, 2021 14:20:51 GMT
That was fun. I haven't read most of the books but it's funny how we know the titles anyway. Kind of like when you catch sight of a tabloid in the supermarket and you know who those people are even though you've never heard their music/seen their TV shows or movies/read their blogs/followed their sport/kept up with their personal crises. I resent giving up limited brain space to celebrities, but I don't mind storing old book titles up there--they're more compact.
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Post by breeze on Jan 9, 2021 23:13:50 GMT
Patrick, I bought Katharine Whitehorn's bedsitter cookbook while we were on a long camping trip, thinking it would be useful for camp stove cooking and it was. Bedsitter cookery has a lot in common with a Camping Gaz setup--just one burner, no actual work surface, and the difficulty of washing up. Very entertainingly written as well as being practical. That's where I learned the word 'wonky.' The need to put coins in a gas meter line baffled me at first but I figured it out.
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Post by breeze on Dec 31, 2020 14:06:57 GMT
Mick, are those chickpea based? The color reminds me of sev. Last January we bought a bag of plain sev, which at the time I'd never heard of but I needed it for something I was cooking. I loved them, even though they were just plain chickpea flour. Add chili and lemon and I can see that they'd be irresistible. I'm a potato chip addict, particularly Utz brand--in fact, only Utz--but the sev scratched the same itch and were healthier. Now I'm hungry.
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Post by breeze on Dec 30, 2020 23:31:40 GMT
We have groundhogs in our part of the US, similar to marmots but bigger and a determined garden pest. When I found out that France had moles and marmots, as well as couch grass and sour grass aka sorrel, my dream of living and gardening in France died.
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Post by breeze on Dec 27, 2020 14:32:49 GMT
6. My boy Lollipop
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Post by breeze on Dec 9, 2020 16:40:31 GMT
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Post by breeze on Dec 5, 2020 14:10:00 GMT
Mick, that happened here that all the good gardening shows dried up but the cooking shows increased. I turned to youtube. I absolutely love this Irish gardener, John Lord. Once I discovered him, I went through every video he'd ever done. It kept me busy for days. www.youtube.com/channel/UCc1hdKqCEwZqZYNjKitAlaQ/videosOn youtube I tried Bunny Guinness, Gardening at Douentza, Huw Richards, plus many I can't remember. I can take them or leave them but John Lord is to me irresistible. He's mostly into perennials and goes for the prairie garden look which is not my favorite, but he's so knowledgeable. Worked in German gardens with old-school gardeners. Has a garden center at Ratoath.
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Post by breeze on Dec 4, 2020 17:23:37 GMT
casimira, I think I learned here on anyport that Louis Prima was from New Orleans. We've never been to New Orleans (still waiting to hear how to pronounce it) but it's on our post-vaccine list. I appreciate your gracious offer of honorary citizenship. I can do the same for you in our tiny township in central PA. Less coveted than New Orleans, but best I can do.
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Post by breeze on Dec 4, 2020 14:49:21 GMT
Some wonderful stories here! It's great when not just mothers but fathers are involved.
A friend of ours, a high school teacher, scheduled the birth of her child so she could take off the whole next semester and not cut into the current semester. She had figured out the schedule for induced labor as soon as she knew she was pregnant. The summer before the baby was born she canned a year's worth of baby food. She interviewed daytime helpers for when she went back to work and laid out all the chores she expected to have done and when they were to be done. One thing at the bottom of the list, for any idle hours, was to clip the articles she had marked. She was the most organized person I know.
When my sister was born, it was the practice to keep mothers in the hospital for two weeks. They brought Mom home on a stretcher and she had to learn to walk again. She told me it was the same for my birth but I don't remember it. As usual, I just wasn't paying attention.
We lived with friends, maybe eight in all, and one was having a home birth. The doctor came around ready to get to work, but things progressed slowly, so the doctor spent the afternoon in the kitchen with us (we all took off work) telling stories. The one that comes to mind is the baby born with a head shaped like a banana. It soon resumed normal shape.
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Post by breeze on Dec 4, 2020 14:39:16 GMT
patrick, we heard a complaint from a British couple living permanently in Normandy that they had lost their fuel allowance after receiving it in France for years. The British government had set a new cutoff point. Mainland France was well above the cutoff, but the government included not just mainland France but all the warmer departments, so every Brit in France lost the fuel allowance.
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Post by breeze on Dec 4, 2020 13:50:11 GMT
bixa, could that be Louis Prima?
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Post by breeze on Nov 10, 2020 12:56:33 GMT
Mark, I hereby move that we remove the "only" from your name. You are Mark the mighty, Mark the wily, Mark the fixer. Do you hire yourself out internationally?
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Post by breeze on Nov 2, 2020 20:02:31 GMT
Cross-posting from What is everyone here reading?
Post by breeze on 7 hours ago
I just learned about archive.org and it’s my new thrill. I had no idea such a website existed, a place that offers digital access to books, websites (presumably defunct ones?), movies, software, video, audio, TV shows, music, and maybe other things.
My husband has for a long time had an interest in Apples of New York, a collector's item we couldn't afford to collect. I learned that it was on archive.org, looked it up, and there it was, the illustrations bright and clear and probably better than the library copy we almost bought.
For years I've kept a list of books I want to read. I'm only rarely a book buyer, but I'm a steady borrower of library books. Some books have stayed on the list for years since none of the libraries in my area, or even the biggest libraries in the state, has them. I brought out my old notepads and looked through them. It turns out dozens of books I'd given up hope on are available. My winter's reading is all lined up.
A group of major publishers has sued internet archive. IA’s defense is that they operate the same as a library, lending only one copy of a book at a time. I’ve decided to use it only for out of print books.
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Post by breeze on Nov 2, 2020 14:09:16 GMT
I noticed the same thing kerouac did. This year's Muertos is not as overwhelming but the elements we all enjoy are still there. Even though I've experienced Muertos only through bixa's photos, I've often had the funny feeling that I was being jostled by crowds. We're getting a little snow here, so bright flowers are just the ticket today.
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Post by breeze on Nov 2, 2020 13:00:28 GMT
I just learned about archive.org and it’s my new thrill. I had no idea such a website existed, a place that offers digital access to books, websites (presumably defunct ones?), movies, software, video, audio, TV shows, music, and maybe other things.
My husband has for a long time had an interest in Apples of New York, a collector's item we couldn't afford to collect. I learned that it was on archive.org, looked it up, and there it was, the illustrations bright and clear and probably better than the library copy we almost bought.
For years I've kept a list of books I want to read. I'm only rarely a book buyer, but I'm a steady borrower of library books. Some books have stayed on the list for years since none of the libraries in my area, or even the biggest libraries in the state, has them. I brought out my old notepads and looked through them. It turns out dozens of books I'd given up hope on are available. My winter's reading is all lined up.
A group of major publishers has sued internet archive. IA’s defense is that they operate the same as a library, lending only one copy of a book at a time. I’ve decided to use it only for out of print books.
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Post by breeze on Oct 25, 2020 21:59:58 GMT
Okay, Tod, with your encouragement we tried malanga. It's been a long time since I tried a new vegetable. Boiled for about 50 min it was not bad, slightly sweeter and starchier than potatoes. I've never eaten poi so I can't compare.
To go along with it, I made a Vietnamese-American cabbage dish, though I suppose if you poured nuoc mam over anything edible you could call it Vietnamese.
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Post by breeze on Oct 25, 2020 16:39:01 GMT
Tod, I appreciate the clear directions. I'll give this a try tonight. Malanga must be fairly bland if it calls for lots of butter and pepper.
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Post by breeze on Oct 25, 2020 13:47:24 GMT
Tod, you know someone's a good cook when they can turn on a dime in the kitchen. You don't have string for rotolo, okay, canneloni coming right up! It looks good, too.
Does anybody here have any experience with malanga? I don't think I've ever heard of this before. I bought a small one on spec to try out. This one is 4 ounces so I know I can't do much with it, but if it's great I can get more this coming week. But should I bake, boil, steam, fry, cook in a pit overnight? All I know is that it's related to taro, which I've never thought of as a great recommendation.
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Post by breeze on Oct 11, 2020 18:03:20 GMT
Wait a few years and Auntie Wainright will have those same bags on sale for a snip.
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Post by breeze on Oct 7, 2020 12:32:02 GMT
Kerouac, that's one of my favorite songs, and I think of it as one of the most American songs. Steve Goodman, who wrote it, does a more homespun version.
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Post by breeze on Oct 6, 2020 21:03:33 GMT
kerouac, thanks for posting this for those of us who are interested, who "knew" her much less well than others here. She did have a fascinating life and looks very convivial in her photo. She impressed me during the brouhaha about Airbnb etc on Fodor's and TA. TA shut down those discussions but I was happy to see that Fodor's let it go on.
casimira, I know you would have if you could have, but I'm pretty sure you have other things on your mind at this moment. Stay safe.
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Post by breeze on Oct 6, 2020 11:33:37 GMT
I think I haven't been on Anyport long enough to have seen posts from Patty. The name Chexbres rings a bell but I'm thinking it was maybe used on Fodor's or Tripadvisor's France forums. Would she have been Patty in Paris before she was Chexbres? I remember her staunch defense of Paris's decision to put limits on short-term rentals. That was a contentious topic; she stayed reasonable but the yips of distress from Airbnb lovers in denial continued for some time.
Casimira, you mentioned an obituary. Can you link to it, please? I would appreciate it.
Was she part of the visit to Rungis that kerouac reported on?
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Post by breeze on Sept 10, 2020 18:15:16 GMT
Tod, do I detect a Barcelona fan at his computer? Barcelona football players have had some wild hairstyles, so he'd fit right in. He is adorable. Is this the younger or the older grandson?
Enzo looks so happy to be going swimming.
bixa, are you sure that's not the young Annette Funicello with your brother?
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Post by breeze on Sept 10, 2020 18:10:58 GMT
Elena Kagan, fourth woman to serve on the US Supreme Court.
I posted this just so I could say to casmira that we had also a Pele cat, one of our all-time favorite cats. Except they all were.
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Post by breeze on Sept 2, 2020 0:15:51 GMT
bjd, our paths might have crossed at Pompeii in 1970.
We had planned to camp the night before our visit to the site but couldn't find a campsite anywhere near Pompeii. We drove up Vesuvius in the dark thinking we'd find a place to pull off the road and just sleep in the car, but I couldn't settle down to sleep. We'd slept in our car seats many times, just never on a volcano. We wound up driving back to Pompeii and finding a place where we could park next to the wall, between some trees. When we saw the staff showing up for work, we neatened up and waited by the gate. We were the first people in to the site and soon a Japanese photographer approached us for permission to include us in his photos for 3D postcards. I always wondered what people would have made of two grubby groggy people in anoraks, but I'm sure he found better subjects later on.
What I remember best about Pompeii is the Villa dei misteri. Reading the Robert Harris book brought the eruption to life much more than our visit did.
We watched something recently about Pompeii from the British Museum.
Thanks for an excellent report, kerouac.
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