Telephones, Thanksgiving and other aimless thoughts

 Happy Thanksgiving  to people in the US who are also celebrating on the day.

And for people being in electronic touch, I remember way back in the medieval period, when I was growing up in England, with family all over the known world and we finally, after years of waiting, long story, another time, got a telephone.

 The number, which you usually recited on answering it, was Middlesbrough 44444.  That was it.  Because of the family diaspora, at holiday times my mom wanted to place transatlantic and transcontinental calls.  At that time you had to book them, way ahead, and were instructed when you could expect to make the connection, Probably days later.

Anyway, it involved dealing with snooty London telephone operators, who never missed a shot at us poor Northerners..and they'd ask for your number and you'd say, British style, four double four double four.  Little pause, and she say, aow, yew mean, dabble foah, dabble foah, foah.

So next time we'd remember that and do the double four double four four thing and this operator would crisply say, thet's foah, dabble foah, dabble foah.  Could not win! All this for a four minute call, all that was allowed, most of which we wasted asking about the weather. Is it hot in Africa? Well, yeah, it's Africa!  is it cold there in Canada at Christmas?  well, yeah, it's Canada at Christmas.  Etc.  Vital communication.

I was once engaged, another story, another time, to a man whose mother was a total delight. If I could have had her as a mother in law without marrying him, I'd have done it.  Anyway, their number, in a village in Cheshire, was Hooton 2.  She had a posh fluty voice, and when you called she'd come on with Hoooton Twoooo.  Her sons used to say they thought they'd been connected with an owl.

Here's a lovely new find on YouTube

VoxTox, who simply sits and talks entertainingly at the camera on books, history, quirky little known stuff, the environment, feminism, why we should write bits of Wikipedia if we know women who ought to be recorded and acknowledged in there for their accomplishments.  She's lovely.  Crisp British speech, which I run at 75% in order to catch it, having lost the knack of understanding them furrin folks.  It's largely about what she's saying, no changes of scene or special effects or pictures, so you can treat it as radio or podcast and do other things while she's on.  I found it by accident last night, and was so happy.

Then today, not being Thanksgiving celebration day, since we already took care of that, and Handsome Son is at work, I realized I had nothing to eat for lunch.  

Meaning nothing planned and cooked. There's quite a lot of prepped nothing in the freezer.  Soooooo, I made a vichyssoise soup, with fresh picked thyme, still going on out there, and chives, recovered after the recent raid.

The flavorings are the aforementioned thyme, and those leaves are curry leaves, a great alternative to bay leaf, which I don't like as much. 

 I was introduced to them by an Indian friend who gave me a supply.  I wanted to buy my own, and she waved me away, with don't even try!  the shop people speak mainly Hindi, the labels are in Hindi, they'll never know what you mean if you ask for curry leaves.  I'll supply you, stop fussing. 

 Which she did, and I still, long after she moved away, have a supply in the freezer.  I fish them out before I serve the food, since they're a bit too fibrous for me, just like a bay leaf, in fact, and I recommend them if you can find them.  Or get a nice Indian friend to give you some.

And here's the result, with just a dash of milk added at the end.  It's quite rich enough, because there's butter and oil already in there. And the flavor is just lovely.  All the veggies, onions, celery, leeks, potatoes, are from Misfit Markets, and they have definitely lived up to their billing.  The potatoes were this week, the leeks and celery from a previous one.

And I was even out of a nice something to go with afternoon tea, disaster.  So I thought I'd try a new thing I just found out, since St. Catherine of Egypt's feast day was yesterday, and this is Catternmas, celebrated by lacemakers.  The cookie/cake things are Cattern cakes, in her honor, being a way of saying her name. 

With caraway seeds, almonds, raisins unless you don't like them and leave them out a I did, cinnamon, caster sugar, butter, all kinds of nice stuff. If you like raisins, well, currants were the authentic fruit, add a third of a cup. 

The recipe is a Tudor one, and is also associated with Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first unlucky queen, who was very good to lacemakers, commissioning work from them to keep them employed.

St Catherine of Egypt is the patron saint of various people and things, including unmarried women. Also associated with wheels, hence the Catherine wheel fireworks.

Since Nottingham UK was a lacemaking center, and  lacemakers were typically unmarried women, it fitted in, the cakes, not the fireworks, and they celebrated St. C. at her feastday with these cakes.

I suspect either pretty affluent Tudors could afford all the sugar and raisins and almonds, unless poorer people saved up for ages collecting the ingredients. I also wonder if the recipe originated in and around Egypt, Catherine's territory, what with the almonds and raisins. Anyway, they're very good.

They also use self rising flour, which I didn't have, so I had to look up how to make that, no trouble, just add baking powder and salt to your flour.  And I had whole almonds, so I had to sort of crush them up a bit. I didn't blanch them, because there's no point in chucking out perfectly edible almond skins, and since the flour was brown, it wouldn't spoil the look of it to have fragments of brown almond skin.

An interesting point here: the recipe says one third  cup of chopped almonds. Meaning after they're chopped, it's one third of a cup.  Not one third of a cup of almonds which you then chop.  Wouldn't come out right at all.  This is what divides good recipe writers from the others, knowing the difference, which this one did. Just for interest, I measured out one third cup of almonds and busted them up, and when I measured one third cup of the resulting debris, there were leftovers, now in the freezer in a little container.

My recipe didn't work out exactly as per instructions.  You're supposed to roll it out flat, then roll it up like a jelly roll, and slice through to make the cakes.  Mine wouldn't roll up, too rich, I think, maybe because I was using wholewheat flour, too, not as soft as white, so I just cut them out with a glass.  And as always, there's an extra which needs its own little tray.

Despite all this, they came out well, and I got about 17.  I supposed I could have stretched it to 20, but it's okay, really. 

Considering I planned to loaf around all day,  not to wake  at 5.30 a.m. ready to go, this turned out a bit different than planned, but very good all the same. Including weather in the high 60s with sunshine, despite forecast of daylong rain, so I got out and walked after all this frenzied activity.

I'm sitting down next.  Happy Thursday, everyone!