Senseless Banter...

martha wrote:I miss my restaurant. When we ordered lobsters, they came packed with seaweed… Forget missing my restaurant, I miss my compost pile!

What happened to your restaurant?  Would love a lobster right about now.

Kay

True story:  A mother sent a video she took yesterday (Thanksgiving) to a local TV news station that broadcasted it this morning.

It showed her teenage daughter getting the cooked turkey ready to serve.  She was scooping out the stuffing with a spoon when she struck an unexpected resistance inside the cavity.  She reached inside with her hand, got a very puzzled look on her face, and pulled out another bird about the size of a Cornish hen.  

She started squealing like teenage girls do, her expression turned to panic or fear, and she said: "OMG we cooked the turkey's baby."    

In less than 10 seconds she was almost blubbering about it, when her mother told her that she had put the smaller bird inside.  The girl's relief was obvious when she comprehended what her mother had said, and they had a good laugh about it.

Obviously, if mom and daughter had ever had 'the talk' about the birds and the bees, they didn't talk about birds!  

I'm starting to wonder if that story is apocryphal. Someone just told me they did the same thing yesterday.

it feels a little creepy to me, putting a little bird inside the big bird.

There's a recipe called turducken, in which a chicken is placed within a duck (or vice-versa, I forget which), which is then placed inside the turkey cavity.

John Madden, when he was announcing the NFL Thanksgiving football game every year, would do a segment where he talked all about a turducken, and bring out a fully cooked one for his associates to sample. It was a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey.

boffer wrote:John Madden, when he was announcing the NFL Thanksgiving football game every year, would do a segment where he talked all about a turducken, and bring out a fully cooked one for his associates to sample.  It was a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey.

In a Knowledge Network (British Columbia TV), they showed an episode that went one better, by inserting a pidgeon into the chick/duck/turkey/pie crust. It was "Edwardian Farm" a very interesting series of how life was actually lived on a farm during that period.
They also had "Tudor Farm", "Victorian Farm" and "Wartime Farm" (WWII era).
Each series showed how things were done, from animal husbandry, agriculture, living conditions. In each case, although it looked so idealistic at times, I certainly would not want to have lived in those times. 
PS I did live during WWII times but was not very aware of what went on in grown-up life.

One thing that does stick in my memory is having my dad take me on his bike to his allotment where he grew all the veggies our family needed and where I was allowed to play in the dirt and actually planted some potatoes that we were able to have with our Sunday Roast Beef dinner. Hence my love of growing vegetable now, even though the gap between then and when I started gardening was decades of years.

Kelejan wrote:
They also had "Tudor Farm", "Victorian Farm" and "Wartime Farm" (WWII era).
Each series showed how things were done, from animal husbandry, agriculture, living conditions. In each case, although it looked so idealistic at times, I certainly would not want to have lived in those times. 

That must be so interesting. I need to check and see if they have these videos at my library. I'm currently reading a fictional series called Outlander that takes place in the 1700s, starting out in Scotland and moving on to America. The books go into great detail on how life was lived during that period. Fascinating, but I wouldn't want to live back then either.

CC

BBC had a couple of series like that too. I saw one about frontier homesteading in America and one about urban life during WW2 in Britain, and another one about being a servant in the pre-WW1 era, or roughly thereabouts -- a time when the technology for such things wasn't rapidly changing at any rate, and the way servants did things was pretty much the way their grandparents did. A mop is still a mop, and a floor is still a floor, after all. I'll watch all of those that I can when I find them.

Even for people who understand they're on TV and their exposure to the lifestyle will be limited, some of them can't take it and many of the rest have a lot of difficulty with it. Servants were rarely allowed to associate with anyone outside the house nor romantically with each other, for instance, and had to work every day, often for 12 hours or more, and always be on call. It was a tough and lonely existence without a lot of opportunity to find a way out of it.

You are right, Marc, about it being a lonely existence.  My foster-mum was a maid in a big house in those days and they were closely supervised. It was a wonder that they ever met a boy and got married. If you have watched Downton Abbey on TV, then think of my mom as the skivvy cleaning out the fire-place and hauling water. She earned the grand sum of twelve pounds per year. They were up before dawn and they had to keep out of sight and never, ever, address anyone superior to them. Even downstairs, there was the similar caste system with the chief butler and the housekeeper in positions of authority and where the lower slaves waited on them.  When I was being a rebellious child she always threatened to "put me in service". She is long gone now of course, but I loved her to bits. I only   wish that she was here now so that I could talk to her about those days in more depth. But when one is young, you just don't.
In case anyone is interested in pronunciation of names, Downton is pronounced DARNTON. I am so glad that those days are gone now, even though there is still a class system in England. That is why I am happier here in Canada.

Kelejan, I really enjoy your recollections. I find them fascinating because they're sooooo different from mine!

I've heard about a lot of bullying, etc. in those situations...

I'd probly last about 10 minutes, lol. 

I don't like bullies.  But I DO like to push their buttons.

boffer wrote:Kelejan, I really enjoy your recollections.   I find them fascinating because they're sooooo different from mine!  

I sometimes wonder if I sound off too much here, seeing it is a gardening forum.
But having a few threads that are off topic is good in my opinion. One gets to know each other a little better.
I guess my recollections are different from about 90% of the people here partly due to my age and my Oh so different upbringing to what I consider a normal family life.
I am happy that you do enjoy my recollections. Thank you, boffer.

Funny thing is, for those among us who have had unusual backgrounds, it's the "normal" family backgrounds that can seem strange, exotic, and just plain weird. And uncomfortable. When you're used to everybody being at each other's throats, for instance, or a lot of passive-aggressive behavior, going to visit neighbors who just act "normal" can make your head spin.

On the broader scale, when you're used to neighborhoods with lots of racism or other kinds of violence, visiting a neighborhood where kids are playing outside can seem outright spooky. In the same way, I'm sure, that if you're used to kids being able to run around everywhere with no real worry about it, hanging out in front of someone's house without a kid or a neighbor in sight feels spooky too, as if everyone in the world suddenly packed up and left and forgot to tell you they were going. I've felt both ways in my life, depending on what I'd been living around at the time.

Kelejan wrote:It was a wonder that they ever met a boy and got married.

Of all the miseries involved, it sounds like that must have been among the very worst. A little hope can keep people going through the most unbearable things, but if you get the very compelling and probably reasonable idea that you might spend the rest of your life like that? Worked like a dog, forbidden friends and free time, powerless, broke and alone? What a crushing burden to bear, especially upon the shoulders of those young enough that they should still be able to believe that their lives getting better is at least a possibility.

I'm a huge advocate of off-topic conversations, especially ones that involve sharing who we are and where we have come from. My POV isn't universally popular, because I find that sharing some of the less ideal parts of our lives can really help us connect to one another, and more often than one might think, provide real help, comfort and support to someone whom we have never met face to face. 

So, in my opinion, Kelejan, it would be difficult for you to "sound off" too much!

And, Marc, I understand and agree with your comments about what seems normal, and what seems weird! How often in my life have I been observing people  acting in a way that seems foreign to me, better or worse than what I would expect, and have it be an eye opening experience! And it often has helped me become more of who I want to be, to realize that not all families act the same, that I can choose what parts of the way I lived growing up I want to hold on to, and what ways I want to leave far, far behind! The same also for what I see around me - as in your example of racism. When I lived in the South, I didn't have to take on the racist approach that I so often saw. When my mother grew up, thank God she knew she didn't have to take on her father's racism!  My mother sent him from the table one time for using the N word in front of us kids. Good job, Mom!

And Kay, we sold the restaurant and closed the end of October. We chose to do so, but it was a hard decision. And though it was undoubtedly the right one, there were things about it that I don't think I ever would have been ready to give up. Like seaweed being delivered with the lobsters!  

martha wrote:And Kay, we sold the restaurant and closed the end of October. We chose to do so, but it was a hard decision. And though it was undoubtedly the right one, there were things about it that I don't think I ever would have been ready to give up. Like seaweed being delivered with the lobsters!  

I know what it is like to give up something like a business that you have worked hard for and probably for a long time. Sometimes it is something like a relatively small thing like giving up your seaweed that that makes it feel even worse. 
After only a month I doubt if you have adjusted yet, but you will get there and concentrate on other things. It took me a long while to adjust myself as I had worked at my business for nearly thirty years.  But I am happy now, with my little house that I was able to hang on to, my small dog, my garden, new friends I made and now have time for, and forums like this SFG, and my continuing good health.

boffer wrote:Kelejan, I really enjoy your recollections.   I find them fascinating because they're sooooo different from mine!  

Kelejan wrote:

martha wrote:And Kay, we sold the restaurant and closed the end of October. We chose to do so, but it was a hard decision. And though it was undoubtedly the right one, there were things about it that I don't think I ever would have been ready to give up. Like seaweed being delivered with the lobsters!  

I know what it is like to give up something like a business that you have worked hard for and probably for a long time. Sometimes it is something like a relatively small thing like giving up your seaweed that that makes it feel even worse. 
After only a month I doubt if you have adjusted yet, but you will get there and concentrate on other things. It took me a long while to adjust myself as I had worked at my business for nearly thirty years.  But I am happy now, with my little house that I was able to hang on to, my small dog, my garden, new friends I made and now have time for, and forums like this SFG, and my continuing good health.

+1

I don't remember too much from WWII times but there are 2 things that stick in my mind:
1) black outs and huge flights of planes going over the house (we were near DC in MD).

2) my aunt and mother canning huge amounts of vegs and chicken.  My aunt had a large row garden and raised chickens.  The canning was done in a shed away from the house and there was a big wood stove used. Unfortunately the pressure canners don't come to mind - what kind and how big.

The flights of planes - were they scary to you at the time? Or did they represent security?

martha wrote:The flights of planes - were they scary to you at the time? Or did they represent security?

I was only little at the time, but I remember being in bed and having the window blown in from a bomb being dropped further down the road. I remember Mom coming in and telling me not to get out of bed because of the glass. The day after one of my brothers showed me a piece of shrapnel that had  gone through the door and cut a broom handle in half. 
Another memory later on when I was at the children's home, we were all being fitted up for gas masks. The three youngest had red Mickey Mouse gas masks and I was the fourth youngest and had to have the usual black masklike the rest. I was upset.  I was only just turned six years old.  Then we all filed into a large van to be tested. No one came out shedding tears so all was well. Then we had to carry these little cardboard boxes with the gas masks around with us wherever we went.

Kelejan,

Why not write a book?  Or at least your memoirs?

donnainzone10 wrote:Kelejan,

Why not write a book?  Or at least your memoirs?

+1 Like a diary