Movie Night

Last week we had a laid back evening where we watched a fun movie.  It is a kids movie but I enjoy children's films.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

The Unlikely Pilgrimage

Of Harold Fry

by

Rachel Joyce

The July selection for the library reading group at Wilmington Public Library is The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.   It is the story of a retired man who is walking a long way to see a friend who is dying.  As he walks day in and day out,  he reflects over his life and relationships.  He also reconnects with nature.   It is like his journey is not just spanning the UK but is more like it is a journey of his life.  It is a well written novel with a touching story line.  It is not my genre and will not make my top ten list for this year.  But this is not because it is not a good book.  It is just not my kind of book.  The story flows well and could well be someone else's favorite.  This book has won awards and is well thought of.  Please click on the book title and author's name above to follow the links for more information and enjoy the video that follows.

Something Fishy

 National Geographic is running a series right now on how we are going to feed the world as populations swell.  The June edition highlights fish farms and the article can be found HERE.    While it does mention that there have been disease issues with farming fish,  the article focuses on solutions and not problems.  When I mentioned the article on another social media site,  my niece spoke up about a documentary she has seen about the problems with Salmon farms in Canada.  The entire documentary can be viewed on YouTube and is excellent.  Since it is long I am going to post only the trailer here but please after watching the trailer go to YouTube and watch the entire hour of information available.



After watching the entire hour long documentary I came away with the same opinion that I have of the beef, pork and chicken sources in this country.  That is -  if you are going to eat meat - cook it thoroughly.  To be fair,  National Geographic does mention the Salmon farms as an example of problems with the industry and offers a solution in the quote that follows.



  "Figuring out what to feed farmed fish may ultimately be more important for the planet than the question of where to farm them. “The whole concept of moving into offshore waters and on land isn’t because we’ve run out of space in the coastal zone,” says Stephen Cross of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, who was an environmental consultant to the aquaculture industry for decades. Though pollution from coastal salmon farms gave the whole industry a black eye, he says, these days even salmon farms are producing 10 to 15 times the fish they did in the 1980s and 1990s with a fraction of the pollution. In a remote corner of Vancouver Island he’s trying something new and even less damaging.

His inspiration comes from ancient China. More than a thousand years ago, during the Tang dynasty, Chinese farmers developed an intricate polyculture of carp, pigs, ducks, and vegetables on their small family farms, using the manure from ducks and pigs to fertilize the pond algae grazed by the carp. Carp were later added to flooded paddies, where the omnivorous fish gobbled up insect pests and weeds and fertilized the rice before becoming food themselves. Such carp-paddy polyculture became a mainstay of China’s traditional fish-and-rice diet, sustaining millions of Chinese for centuries. It’s still used on more than seven million acres of paddies in the country.

In a fjord on the British Columbia coast, Cross has devised a polyculture of his own. He feeds only one species—a sleek, hardy native of the North Pacific known as sablefish or black cod. Slightly down current from their pens he has placed hanging baskets full of native cockles, oysters, and scallops as well as mussels that feed on the fine organic excretions of the fish. Next to the baskets he grows long lines of sugar kelp, used in soups and sushi and also to produce bioethanol; these aquatic plants filter the water even further, converting nearly all the remaining nitrates and phosphorus to plant tissue. On the seafloor, 80 feet below the fish pens, sea cucumbers—considered delicacies in China and Japan—vacuum up heavier organic waste that the other species miss. Minus the sablefish, Cross says, his system could be fitted onto existing fish farms to serve as a giant water filter that would produce extra food and profit."

While there are issues with disease and fish farms, to strive to solve the issues seems to be a worthy goal. But what of fishermen and the way we have always done it?  Unfortunately,  that process also is riddled with problems.  There have been many reports,  like the one that follows,  of slave labor being used on fishing boats.  

The entire system around fish seems to be so complicated that it is tempting to close our eyes to the issues.   While as individuals we can't solve all the problems,  it is important to educate ourselves and be aware of where they are.   We may not be the whole solution but we may be able to not be part of the problem.

The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book 1896 by Fannie Merritt Farmer

The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

by

Fannie Merritt Farmer

Since relocating to SW Ohio and getting married I have been cooking a lot more than I had the prior decade.   Having exhausted the couple of cook books I had unpacked and the couple of cook books Bruce had around here I was in the market for some new ideas.  I subscribe to several emailings of recipes but none were grabbing me and I have downloaded several ebooks to my kindle from the free list but none of those were really interesting me either.  Although I am sure I will I guess I have not graduated to e-recipes yet.  But then I have never been one to find good ones in magazines either so maybe not.  Then one day last week a contact on a social media web site had mentioned that she had found a steal from a vintage second hand store of the type of recipe boxes that people had in the 1970's where the cards came in the mail.  They looked like the image below.

She was having a ball looking through what she considered the old time type recipes.   That put in me in the notion to find my boxes of cook books although  I had not looked through any of them for quite some time.  I managed to unearth one plastic bin of cook books and have been finding lots of recipes to keep me busy for awhile.  Among the cook books was The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book 1896 by Fannie Merritt Farmer.   I was not able to find anything in it I wanted to make but very much enjoyed looking through the old time ways of doing things.  The book begins with a quote:   "But for life the universe were nothing; and all that has life requires nourishment."   It is full of interesting historical ways of cooking.  For example on page 18 it describes how fire is used and tells where one removes the ashes from the cook stove.  I had to google some of the terms used, for example "forced meat"  seems to be sausage stuffing type meat,  and overall it was just interesting to look through.  If you click on the book title above you will be directed to an online 1910 edition.  I could not find the 1896 edition available for free online.  If you click on the authors name above you will be directed to more information about her.  Please enjoy the video that follows in which one of the recipes is demonstrated.

Wednesday Night At The Movies

On Wednesday Night,  while my daughter was visiting,  we watched Saving Mr Banks.  It is a delightful movie.  It is about the problems Walt Disney had getting rights to the book in order to make the movie Mary Poppins.  The author of the original Mary Poppins book was Pamela Travers.   This is a movie I would highly recommend but have the Kleenex ready at the end.  Please click on the links above in the text to more information and enjoy the movie trailer that follows.

Tuesday Night At The Movies

While my daughter was visiting this week we watched a couple of movies.  On Tuesday night we watched August: Osage County.   It had a couple of funny lines in it but mostly was drama.  The movie is about a very dysfunctional family.  I would not recommend it unless one was using it to teach a class on unhealthy family dynamics or addiction issues.  The actors and actresses in the film did do an outstanding job.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point

by

Malcolm Gladwell

It is not very often that I read a book and just really don't like it.  The Wilmington Library book group does a non fiction selection every other month and non fiction is not my genre in book length unless it is a topic that is really of interest to me.  This book would have made a great magazine article but I really had to wade through its 304 pages.  I missed the meeting last week so don't know if other people liked it or not.  The book is about how some things become popular and some things flop.   One of the points of attending a book group is to expose oneself to things that they would not other wise read.  This selection achieved that goal for me.  It is written clearly and if a person enjoys non fiction about selling items or ideas then this would be a good read.   If this subject is your cup of tea you can click on the title and author's name above to learn more and view the video that follows.

Friday Night Dinner And A Movie - Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips

After a long day of sight seeing,  when I arrived home Bruce threw shish kabobs on the grill and we watched Captain Phillips.  We had both wanted to see the movie for a long time and so it was good to relax and watch.  If you have not seen this movie you need to.  It is very frightening till the Navy Seals arrive and then after that is just exciting.

A Visit To Yellow Springs Ohio 6/2014

Yellow Springs Ohio

After lunch we shopped a little in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  It is a small tourist town full of little shops and interesting places to eat.  It is just a fun place to wander around.  A favorite store there of mine is:

Julia Etta's Trunk

Creative clothing for body & spirit

100 Corry St
Yellow Springs, OH 45387
Phone: 937-767-2823 

Next Saturday is their Street Fair but I will be working so can't attend.  A video of some of the shops follows:

A Visit To Clifton Mill 6/2014

Clifton Mill, Ohio

After we finished at Springfield we drove down to Clifton Mill for a late lunch.  The food was wonderful!  and the view was breathtaking!   The video that follows convinces me I want to go back for a supper at Christmastime.  Click on the title  above to follow the link to visit their website.

A Visit To The Westcott House 6/2014

Frank Lloyd Wright's

Westcott House

in

Springfield Ohio

I visited the Westcott House about three years ago so when I had out of town company this past week it was on my go to  list of places.  Touring a Frank Lloyd Wright Home is a very interesting and relaxing thing to do.    We had made reservations for the noon tour.  My favorite feature of this house is the upstairs master and mistress bedrooms.  They take up the entire front of the house and are mirror image each with their own bedroom, bathroom, and dressing room.  There is a door between them and each has a door to the hall.  I also liked the paint throughout the house which looks like leather.  One of the following videos will explain more about the paint.  Another of the videos tells of the Westcott family and the third highlights the restoration of the home.  If you click on the Westcott House name in the title above you will be directed to their website.  Anyone who is passing through the area of Springfield Ohio would enjoy a tour of the Westcott House.

Underground Rail Road Freedom Center Visit - 6/2014

June 2014

visit to 

The Underground Rail Road Freedom Center

Cincinnati, Ohio

My first visit to The Underground Rail Road Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio was in the fall of 2011.   During that visit I spent the afternoon experiencing the second floor of the museum, which is about the historical slave experience in the US.  I did get to the third floor but there was not enough time to spend there.   Yesterday when I went for my second visit to The Freedom Center,  I started on the third floor.  Again I spent the afternoon and again I not only became saturated but ran out of time before absorbing all the information.  This museum is a place to visit several afternoons in order to process the experience provided.  The displays are very well presented and I highly recommend it as a place for people to put on their list of places to visit.   Click on the link in the title of this blog to go to the site for the museum.  On the third floor is the area about slavery today.  The following video is over a half hour long but it is an important video.  Please take time to view it, even if you need to take more than one sitting to do so.

Princess Diana Exhibit/ Cincinnati/ June 2014

Princess Diana

1961 - 1997

Today a friend and I visited the Museum Center of Cincinnati to see the Princess Diana Exhibit.  It was wonderful.   It will remain there till August and I highly recommend anyone who has not seen it to do so if at all possible.  The history of her family and her life are well presented and one gets a lump in the throat in the room that has the film and artifacts of her funeral.  It was an enjoyable day that will be long remembered.  Please follow the link above and watch the videos below and learn more. 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Book Thief

by

Markus Zusak

Every once in a while one comes across a book that makes one's hair stand up on their arms and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is one such book.   I listened to it on audio and the performer was outstanding.  The book is narrated by the grim reaper and is about a small town in Germany during WWII.  The main people in the book are not in agreement with The Third Reich.  They are poor,  every day people who all live on the same street.  The characters are well developed and the relationships between the people are bitter sweet.   One of the bombings described in the book made tears spill down my cheeks.  While listening to the book I felt I gained an understanding of what it was like to be in Germany during WWII.   This book was made into a movie for those that are not readers and want to enjoy the story.  Please click on the book title and authors name above to follow links to more information.  And enjoy the video that follows.  This book has been on my wish list for a  while and I was glad that the CC library book group chose it for their June 2014 selection.

Indiana/Michigan Visit 5/27-28/2014

Not having been back to NE IN or SWL MI since my move to SW OH 12/2013 I was getting a bit antsy to go and get my fix to see people.  So last week we traveled and used my new mother in law's home as a home base while I ran and visited people and hubby visited his mom.  I enjoyed CC library book club for lunch on  Tuesday and a visit with my dad afterwards.   Tuesday pm I picked up my grandchildren from a prior husband and took them for a sandwich and to see the new X Men movie in 3 D.   While it is not my genre of movie I have to say I enjoyed it.   It is a good movie to take tween grand kids to.  See the trailer below.  Wednesday morning I got better acquainted with my new mother in law.  On Wednesday pm I enjoyed dinner with my husband Bruce, my son Scott and grandson Tucker before making the return trip back to SW OH.