Friday, January 26, 2024

Misfits, tea rescue, and Snow White

 Yesterday's Misfits arrived early





 

Which gave me plenty of time to roast the chicken and prep the  broccoli to go with it.


And this is not a very over-roasted chicken, it's a nicely roasted one with tamarind paste and berbere spice spread on it. That, with steamed broccoli, blue cheese crumbles flung about, worked out well. 

Speaking of food, did you know that in WW2 Britain, when rationing was at its most stringent, the prospect of starvation very real in the island nation,  food supply shipping being mined and torpedoed, the Minister of Food (yes) said tea must be supplied, no matter how.

He stated that whatever hardships the national morale could withstand, bombing, family separation, food and fuel shortages,  being deprived of tea might very well break people down.  Yesterday I remembered this when I used the very last spoonful of tea in the breakfast pot. The new order still hadn't arrived, despair lurked.

Then, a thump at the door, and the clouds parted, birds started singing, the supply ship, well, USPS, had arrived to save us all.


that rationing feller knew his onions.

I finished the jigsaw puzzle, and found one piece missing but it didn't really matter.


Ah, the sermons you could wring from puzzles, how one missing piece isn't so bad, how the piece that fits is often nothing like what you expected, all these  insights into life, aren't you glad I grew up in a religion without lay preachers..

And just so we don't get over excited about good things, here's a modern look at the happy ever after fairytale where marriage is the key.


Happy day everyone, knitting group today, where I'll disappoint everyone by knitting a sock rather than exotic underwear. I might be wearing it,  though.







47 comments:

  1. Tea, glorious tea! Love that cartoon, too.

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  2. Finally something to model! And finally a Snow White who speaks truth. I love tea. Unfortunately, I do mine in bags because loose tea is too much like cookiing. However, I did yesterday find the tea I had on my flights that I loved so much. Chamomile and Anise!

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    1. Too much like cooking!! Anise is one of those licorice flavors you get in various foods, including aniseed ball candy of youth. I wonder if it still exists.

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    2. I love licorice, so love anise. I've never had aniseed ball candy, but i just found tons of it online.

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    3. There may be some in your future. Caution: dogs love it and may follow you..

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  3. Ha! We had chicken and broccoli night before last! But our chicken dish was air-fried thighs which were quite delicious, though probably not as delicious as that lovely chicken you roasted.
    I'm getting to the end of the puzzle I'm working on and at the point where I keep thinking there must be MANY pieces missing. I always do this. Sometimes there are a few! It really isn't a problem but somehow slightly disappointing.
    I loved the cartoon. Seriously, Prince? You're not THAT charming.

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    1. Every puzzle I have a period of swearing pieces are definitely missing, and I search the box, the floor..

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  4. There must be tea! You got a good Misfits order, lots of good stuff. The chicken looks really good, you had a delicious and healthy dinner. Had you grown up in a lay preacher religion we would now be calling out, preach it Boud! While wondering when you would model your britches.

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    1. Think what preaching you missed..probably just as well.

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  5. Not having been brought up with tea as a staple, I learned about early morning coffee. So I can understand the despair I'd feel if the house was suddenly devoid of any coffee. Poor Brits making it through starvation with tea.Yes, wearing the new knitted undies to the group is definitely an understatement.

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    1. I was a coffee drinker for decades until a medication made it impossible and I went to tea, surprisingly liked the reunion and stayed with it.

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  6. Yes I remember reading about the importance of tea in many of the WWII books I've read. Keeping up morale is quite important. I suspect many had very weak tea as bags and leaves had to be reused often; but at least they had it. Glad yours arrived and averted a disaster. Your meal from your misfits looks yummy. Love the puzzle.

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    1. My late husband could never understand how I still reused leaves two or three times, childhood habit. Nowadays twice is my limit.

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  7. like Barbara, I'm a coffee drinker which we get from a woman who imports organic free and fair trade whole beans from many different countries. she doesn't roast them until she gets your order and then sends them out pronto. we always get whatever the special is for the month and it doesn't really matter where the beans come from the quality is always excellent. but lately, the package is getting delayed at a particular transfer station which is undergoing some sort of upgrade and we run out and have to fall back on the back-up we get locally and it's never as good.

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    1. I'm picky about my tea the same way, tried a few English breakfast ones before this.

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  8. Now that is refreshing take on Snow White. Love it. Tea - love that too but it doesn't love me and attacks the inside of my mouth. How I miss as good cuppa. And chicken with tamarind and blue cheese sprinkles? Not a combo I'd have thought were natural taste companions (although to be fair, blue cheese does go well on broccoli).

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    1. Tamarind on chicken, blue cheese on broccoli. Worked for me.

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  9. Smile! At the tea and the underwear!

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  10. I was recently contacted on Ancestry about my grandfather sending food packages to England. She didn't remember but passed on someone else's recollections. Indeed, I also vaguely recall this in the early 50s when we lived with my grandfather.

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    1. Unforgettable generosity from strangers an ocean away.

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  11. Oh yes, tea is one of life's essentials. Pretty jigsaw and yummy looking chicken.

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  12. There is Series on tubi called War Time Farm, farmers had to change what they grew and there was still a shortage of food especially in the cities:)

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    1. They also had to plow up meadows and hillsides for planting, much against their will at times.

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  13. I drink herbal tea in the evenings. My grandmother always had a strong pot of tea going.
    Happy knitting
    Cathy

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    1. I think your grandmother and my mom would have got along.

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  14. The picture made by the jigsaw is pretty, now to be disassembled and maybe never put back together again.

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    1. It's from the library borrowing collection, so I think it will be solved again.

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  15. I'm not a tea drinker but I keep tea packages in case I feel some digestion discomfort, or in the rare case I've got some mouth infection. I'm a coffee drinker and I would feel furious if coffee gets rationed or there's shortage of my favorite type of coffee.

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    1. Yes, you do get to need your beverage of choice!

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  16. Timing is everything I say. And what perfect timing to your tea arrival

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    1. Usually remember to order earlier, but this time I forgot.

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  17. I've read that tea directive in my reading of WWII history.

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  18. Your chicken and broccoli looks delicious! I've always loved my coffee in the mornings but since I had my gall bladder out it doesn't always agree with me so I've switched to English Breakfast Tea. I've come to really enjoy it but I've never tried that brand as the store has a limited number of tea brands. Do you recommend that one?

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    1. I had to switch from beloved Vietnamese coffee for digestive reasons, and switched to loose tea. I bar teabags. Of the various brands of English bfast, I like this best. Expensive, $28 lb, but that's about a five or six week supply. I always have to buy tea online. Locally I can't get loose tea.

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  19. Your chicken looks fabulous. As for tea, please take it away and give me my coffee!

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    1. For so many years I was strictly a coffee drinker, then stuff happened and I had to change my allegiance!

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  20. Tea is a must here now. Coffee has gone by the wayside!

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  21. I love my coffee, so I totally understand the tea rule. Depriving people of coffee or tea (whatever their preference) would be cruel and unusual.

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    1. I often wonder how they managed before tea appeared in the UK. No wonder they called it the dark ages!

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  22. My mother-in-law was a tea drinker (entire family was) and her idea of good tea was to put 4 bags into a granite tea pot, put it on the stove on low and simmer it all day long, adding water and more tea bags as it got consumed. By the time night came around there was often more than 20 bags in the bottom of the pot. Talk about tea with a capital 't'.

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  23. That was an interesting aside about the non-tea rationing in Great Britain during WWII, Boud. I do recognize just how important having a cuppa is because even in British crime dramas there is always time for tea. The roasted chicken looked perfectly done to me.

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    1. It was absolutely rationed! Everything. Clothing, food, furniture. I think it was two ounces per week. The idea was to try to make it available. Even rationed foods were only on an as available basis. It wasn't like food was issued in those rationed quantities. That was just the most you could buy if you could find it.

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