The girls are discovering the classics. Yes, those age-old, timeless pieces of culture that should be required learning for anyone in society. The mark of all truly genteel persons, the knowledge and stories that continue to delight and to teach the deep things of life.
We have found Teletoon Retro.
They have now experienced Tom & Jerry, Rocket Robin Hood (yes, really! the animation is frightening!), Scooby Doo, and their far-and-away favorite, Looney Tunes.
They are learning the full roster of characters - from Bugs and Tweety to Marvin the Martian and Pepe Lepew. I'm still amazed that they were all voiced by one man, the incredible Mel Blanc.
They are becoming wise in the ways of cartoon logic:
- when one runs off a cliff, they do not fall until someone points it out to them.
- that painting a black spot in solid rock means the good guy can run in, but the bad guy will slam into the rock - or, the corollary, that if the bad guy can enter, a train will always come out of the tunnel and smash him.
- that Acme sells anything you could ever possibly want. Especially Rocket Skates and giant springs.
- that sawing the limb off a tree to make the enemy fall always results in the main part of the tree falling, while the limb stays up.
- a coyote falling from an insanely great height will make a small 'poof' of cloud upon reaching the ground.
- trying to send dynamite via slingshot invariably backfires. Literally.
- that the monster/ghost/witch/vampire/alien is always really the janitor or groundskeeper in a disguise, and he "would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling kids and your dog".
It just goes to show that for all the modern takes on cartoons, you can't beat the classics.
The rest of this week is finishing up some work (making up for the loss of a day thanks to a migraine on my part. No substitute teachers, unfortunately) and looking forward to March Break next week. We're all ready for a little break from the routine and some days of just having fun.
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Sunday, 2 March 2008
the end of a (medieval) era
Our two-week Medieval unit stretched to three weeks, between learning and sewing and feasting. All in all, it was a nice break from the regular book and some good hands-on learning. 
Saturday night was the end of the unit, marked with a feast that itself involved some learning and some new culinary adventures. The recipes were taken from an online search of medieval cookbooks that had the original recipes as well as modern translations.
The first course was leek and potato soup, followed by a course of something called 'flampoyntes', a pork pie that had an odd taste but was really quite good. To browned bulk sausage we added cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar, and shredded cheese, baked it in a pie shell, and then topped it with diamonds of fried pie pastry. Interesting combination, and the pastry diamonds for decoration were a bit fussy but I liked the look of it.
The third course: first, duck cooked in a wine-onion sauce that again used cinnamon and cloves (apparently this recipe will also work for rabbit, in case you're wondering), as well as wine, chicken stock, and vinegar. Very good and tender, though at first the smell was very heavy on the vinegar and had me a bit concerned. The duck itself was a wild duck shot by Goaliemom's husband and graciously donated from their freezer. I do think I'd cook with duck again. It's got a nice flavor, even in its medieval setting.
Saturday night was the end of the unit, marked with a feast that itself involved some learning and some new culinary adventures. The recipes were taken from an online search of medieval cookbooks that had the original recipes as well as modern translations.The dresses were done, much to the girls' delight, and after setting up a folding table and the kitchen chairs in the living room by our fireplace, using a blanket over the window (a poor tapestry, but it darkened the room enough that we could enjoy a fire while we ate) and the shield A had made for last fall's fair as a decorative prop, we were all set to go. We had whole wheat pita bread to serve as trenchers, which the middle ages folks used instead of plates. In view of easy cleanup, the trenchers sat on plates instead of right on the table. Everyone had a goblet for 'wine' (the real thing for Lord Dad and Lady Mom, white grape juice for the girls), a knife, and a spoon for the soup. No forks here, as they weren't used until the 1500s.
The first course was leek and potato soup, followed by a course of something called 'flampoyntes', a pork pie that had an odd taste but was really quite good. To browned bulk sausage we added cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar, and shredded cheese, baked it in a pie shell, and then topped it with diamonds of fried pie pastry. Interesting combination, and the pastry diamonds for decoration were a bit fussy but I liked the look of it.The original recipe for these, from England in the 1300s, is as follows:
Take fat pork ysode. Pyke it clene; grynde it smal. Grynde chese & do therto with sugur & gode powdours. Make a coffyn of an ynche depe, and do this fars therin. Make a thynne foile of gode past & cerue out theroff small poyntes, frye hem & put hem in the fars, & bake it vp &c.
Simple enough, no?
The third course: first, duck cooked in a wine-onion sauce that again used cinnamon and cloves (apparently this recipe will also work for rabbit, in case you're wondering), as well as wine, chicken stock, and vinegar. Very good and tender, though at first the smell was very heavy on the vinegar and had me a bit concerned. The duck itself was a wild duck shot by Goaliemom's husband and graciously donated from their freezer. I do think I'd cook with duck again. It's got a nice flavor, even in its medieval setting.Duck was followed by pheasant (another one hunted by GM's hubby - enjoyed with many thanks) which was 'barded',
or wrapped in bacon. Yummy. That's really all there was to it, though the recipe (England, 1400s) had me laughing at the directions. When a recipe starts with telling you how to kill the bird, it's a far cry from modern ones. And this passage: ...breke his necke, and pul him dry, And draw him as a chekon, and kutte off his fete and wings by the body and the nekke, and roste him, and reise his winges and his legges as a heron... gee, I'd love to, but I'm really not up on preparing heron for eating. Or crane (as in another recipe), for that matter.
or wrapped in bacon. Yummy. That's really all there was to it, though the recipe (England, 1400s) had me laughing at the directions. When a recipe starts with telling you how to kill the bird, it's a far cry from modern ones. And this passage: ...breke his necke, and pul him dry, And draw him as a chekon, and kutte off his fete and wings by the body and the nekke, and roste him, and reise his winges and his legges as a heron... gee, I'd love to, but I'm really not up on preparing heron for eating. Or crane (as in another recipe), for that matter.'Eating pheasant' also led to a fun discussion on the importance of the letter 'h'. Think about it.
Along with the meat was 'pescodde' (France, 1300s), a dish of pea pods cooked in water that first had boiled some bacon. That was simple and good. We only had one veggie dish as feasts for nobles ty
pically were mostly meat dishes.
pically were mostly meat dishes. Finally, along came some baked pears. Apparently, pears and apples were believed to have medicinal properties and were a common finish to feasts.
All in all, the unit was good and the extra learning a welcome addition. The food was good - different, but good - but they certainly had no concerns about their fat intake. One of the benefits of a very active lifestyle, I guess.
Thursday, 28 February 2008
soon?
I've reached it. The point I reach every winter. The snow stretches across our fields, pristine and white but no longer lovely to my eyes. I'm not bitter about winter yet (though that may well come), but the visit has been long enough.
I long for the breezes blowing through the open windows, the snap of sheets as they blow in the wind on the clothesline, the smell of pure freshness after the clothes come in, the green - the green!
Green grass, green trees, little green seedlings poking up through the soil, green everything. Can it come soon?
I long for the breezes blowing through the open windows, the snap of sheets as they blow in the wind on the clothesline, the smell of pure freshness after the clothes come in, the green - the green!
Green grass, green trees, little green seedlings poking up through the soil, green everything. Can it come soon?
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
home ec at home
R discovered sewing yesterday, and she quite enjoyed it. I had made the first layer of her medieval dress (pics to follow when all three are done; only A's remains) and, considering the fabric and seams required on her kirtle (the top layer, basically a sleeveless tunic covering the main dress) I decided it was good for her to learn to use the machine. I showed her step-by-step how to thread the machine, how to adjust the speed with her foot, how to pin the fabric and then run it through for a seam that we then pressed.
I had flashbacks to my own time learning to sew, the terms in junior high Home Ec class where we learned lots of rules and how-tos, the time spent sewing with my mom where I learned much that broke those rules but made more sense, born as it was of years of experience and coming from someone who was and is a great teacher. I particularly remember one instance of pressing out a certain seam, and Mom showing me a trick. "Where did you learn that?" I asked, to which she replied, "When you do it wrong enough times, you figure out a way to do it right!" How true.
Of course, that led to recalling the cooking terms of Home Ec class, telling R about it and how we were docked marks if we dared to actually taste the food while it cooked. R met that with a blank stare ("what? How can you know if it's seasoned right?" ah, my good little chef) and we laughed as I realized that she is learning from me much as I learned from my mom, that sometimes (and often) experience takes the day.
After everything was put together R put it all on and proceeded to run about the house looking like an extra out of Rivendell. I almost expected to see her ears had taken on elvish points. She loved it, and I was amused and surprised at my camo girl twirling around in *gasp* a dress. I had thought that getting them to dress like medieval girls for the feast might be a problem (A had been talking armor at one point), but it seems we shall be a proper nobleman's family at our dinner. And thanks to donations from Goaliemom's freezer of a duck and two pheasants, that has taken on a more authentic tone.
Today will be spent at home, sewing A's dress, editing Seren's book which continues to delight me even as I apply what we now call the Red Pen of Doom, and coming up with something good for supper. Sole and risotto with brussels sprouts (sauted with carmelized onions), I'm thinking. And yes, I will taste it as I cook. Dock marks if you like. I don't care. HA!
I had flashbacks to my own time learning to sew, the terms in junior high Home Ec class where we learned lots of rules and how-tos, the time spent sewing with my mom where I learned much that broke those rules but made more sense, born as it was of years of experience and coming from someone who was and is a great teacher. I particularly remember one instance of pressing out a certain seam, and Mom showing me a trick. "Where did you learn that?" I asked, to which she replied, "When you do it wrong enough times, you figure out a way to do it right!" How true.
Of course, that led to recalling the cooking terms of Home Ec class, telling R about it and how we were docked marks if we dared to actually taste the food while it cooked. R met that with a blank stare ("what? How can you know if it's seasoned right?" ah, my good little chef) and we laughed as I realized that she is learning from me much as I learned from my mom, that sometimes (and often) experience takes the day.
After everything was put together R put it all on and proceeded to run about the house looking like an extra out of Rivendell. I almost expected to see her ears had taken on elvish points. She loved it, and I was amused and surprised at my camo girl twirling around in *gasp* a dress. I had thought that getting them to dress like medieval girls for the feast might be a problem (A had been talking armor at one point), but it seems we shall be a proper nobleman's family at our dinner. And thanks to donations from Goaliemom's freezer of a duck and two pheasants, that has taken on a more authentic tone.
Today will be spent at home, sewing A's dress, editing Seren's book which continues to delight me even as I apply what we now call the Red Pen of Doom, and coming up with something good for supper. Sole and risotto with brussels sprouts (sauted with carmelized onions), I'm thinking. And yes, I will taste it as I cook. Dock marks if you like. I don't care. HA!
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
family day ... and week
A long weekend is making Tuesday feel like Monday. Yesterday was the first Ontario "Family Day" statutory holiday (yes, that is what it's called), meaning that D had a long weekend. And there was much rejoicing.
The weekend was a relaxing mix of sewing medieval dresses, having our Valentine meal (roast beef, risotto, and a made-up though not likely original mix of mushrooms sauteed with bacon), church, having Seren's family and B's family over for dinner, going to another friend's farm for dinner last night, and spending some of yesterday at the War Museum. The girls and I have been several times, Derek none.
In the course of the visit we walked through a recreation of a first-world war trench, landed on the Normandy beaches on D-day, saw the changes in weapons and uniforms from the earliest conflicts to modern peacekeeping, D took in a computer simulation of World War 3, M stuck her head in a cannon from the Louisbourg fortress from the 1750s and the girls became aware of how glad we are that we don't use the medical equipment from back in the day. Most of them appeared to be of the limb-removal type; especially nasty was the hand-driven circular cutter for relieving pressure in the brain. Ew.
So now we're back into a week although it won't be the norm, thanks to the arrival of Goaliemom this evening for a short visit. Hopefully the Canal will recover from Sunday's melt so we can take her out skating.
The weekend was a relaxing mix of sewing medieval dresses, having our Valentine meal (roast beef, risotto, and a made-up though not likely original mix of mushrooms sauteed with bacon), church, having Seren's family and B's family over for dinner, going to another friend's farm for dinner last night, and spending some of yesterday at the War Museum. The girls and I have been several times, Derek none.
In the course of the visit we walked through a recreation of a first-world war trench, landed on the Normandy beaches on D-day, saw the changes in weapons and uniforms from the earliest conflicts to modern peacekeeping, D took in a computer simulation of World War 3, M stuck her head in a cannon from the Louisbourg fortress from the 1750s and the girls became aware of how glad we are that we don't use the medical equipment from back in the day. Most of them appeared to be of the limb-removal type; especially nasty was the hand-driven circular cutter for relieving pressure in the brain. Ew.
So now we're back into a week although it won't be the norm, thanks to the arrival of Goaliemom this evening for a short visit. Hopefully the Canal will recover from Sunday's melt so we can take her out skating.
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