Happy Channukah

Sounds like he has Dude's wrapping skills! LOL

Being raised in a religiously mixed household we had some interesting traditions.

Mom always liked to have the menorah within the same eyeline as the Xmas tree....so you could see the lights and the candles going at the same time. Dad buys a big bayberry candle each year which he lights at sundown on the Winter Solstice (yes, he claims to be pagan from time to time).

No gifts for Channukah, but always on Xmas. Not that we got spoiled as kids, Dad taught public school, not a lot of money for extravagant gifts.

Xmas morning I still do what my mom did, let my kids open their stockings and then they have to eat breakfast (Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls and O.J.) and then the "official" unwrapping can begin!

Caryn

My mother's old piecrust recipe uses lard. It can be made with Crisco but lard is flakier. And it doesn't taste like bacon! If your grocery has an ethnic food aisle (mine has the Chinese foods and the Latino foods on it) then you can find lard or manteca (which I think also means butter.)

Alison

Yes door stop of bread, spread with beef dripping and heavy dredging of coarse salt ! Of course the war time diet really allowed for that sort of splurge.

Not fair, I am really drooling now!! Dripping was one of my favorite things! I also liked bacon sandwiches, when the bacon was put on the Bread and butter while it was still warm, and by lunchtime at school it was all hard and greasy!

Great for Jim. Personally - not being much for pork except on my rare cyclical cravings, and lord knows this could've been the cheapest lard at the commissary - it was something special for sure.

Fat adds much flavor to things - I'm just not big on the clog your arteries types.

ellice

For me the nearest equivalent was chicken skin and fat that was rendered with lots of onion. Spread on fresh rye bread it was as close to heaven as we could get.

Lucille

Who knew from clog your arteries back when my mother and grandmother rendered chicken fat. We just knew it was good.

>

LOL- you're very welcome. I think this is the trait which I shared with my mother, and grandmothers. And what I miss as there were always housefuls of guests, interesting things happening. And, sadly the one my DSIL missed - and probably drove my DM the craziest. The SIL is known to say such things as "well, if you're coming down for the party then it'll change the table arrangements - that's really inconvenient" or "well, I just didn't invite you because you live up north" - with respect to things involving my DB (we're only siblings, our parents gone since our early -mid thirties). She's just not gracious about most things - I love her - but, boy - it's a wonder. My DB is however always happy to make people comfortable, and quite generous.

ellice

Perhaps someone should tip off MacDonald's that this could be a new line to investigate. If they can sell chicken wings and potato skins then this should be an easy seller!

Gill Murray ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

Aha yes, the bacon butty lol

"Lucille" ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

I think the key thing was, we were very active children, I was always on the move or way out on my scooter (no bikes available) and our diet was pretty limited and not on the generous side. I can't say I went hungry but there were none of these undesirable snacks between meals (unheard of) I drank milk or when there was none of that, water and had never even heard of pop. Oh yes, there was the Ministry's issue of 'orange juice' for kids. Very thick, put some in a glass and add water, so we had vitamin C.

So if we ate dripping etc. the body could handle it. It was such hard work combing the neighbourhood, spying on all and sundry because my brother was certain there must be some German spies lurking around that we should catch lol

I'm sure you've seen this on the web but just case, here it is in full:

We, who were born in the 40's, 50's, 60's and even the 70's shouldn't be alive today. Read and see why: Our cribs were painted with lead-based paint. We didn't have child-proof medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and we biked without helmets. As kids, we drove in cars with no seatbelts or airbags. Riding in the back of a pick-up truck on a warm summer day was heaven! We drank water from the garden hose and not bottled water. We ate bread with butter, drank soda pop filled with sugar, but were never over weight, because we were always out playing. We shared a bottle of pop with our friends and drank from the same bottle and no one ever died from it. We spent hours building soap box cars out of old junk and raced down hills, just to find out that we forgot to install brakes. A couple of times in the ditch taught us how to solve that problem. We left early in the morning to go out and play and came home when the street lights went on in the evening, and no one could get a hold of us all day - NO MOBILE PHONES! (can you imagine??) We had no Playstations, Nintendo 64 or X-Boxes - in fact no TV games, no

99 TV channels, no videos or DVD's, surround sound, cell phones, home computers or chatrooms on the internet. But we did have FRIENDS! We went out and found them. We fell down from trees, cut ourselves, broke arms and legs and got teeth knocked out, but no one sued anyone. No one else was to blame except ourselves. We fought till we were black and blue, but got over it. We invented different games, played with sticks and tennis balls and ate dirt and grass. Despite all the warnings, no one really got an eye poked out and grass didn't grow in our stomachs for the rest of our lives. We biked or walked over to each other's houses, knocked on the door and became a part of the family.

You did that too? My pal and I went all around Wallington, skulking behind trees following anyone who looked or talked strange. We just KNEW they were spies! We wrote all their descriptions down in our little notebooks. Actually some did land at Croydon Aerodrome; my dad (ARP Controller) had to go out and bring them in, along with the police.

I also remember the ghastly orange juice, the cod liver oil and malt, which I loved, and the gross halibut oil capsules that sometimes burst in your mouth.

Remember sfter the war, we had 1/3 pint bottles of milk issued at school, along with 1 penny cream buns? I mostly liked to stick a peppermint Rolo in my mouth, and have peppermint milk!

I think my grandkids miss out a lot on self-entertaining things.

Gill

Gill Murray ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

I also had a wonderful shrapnel collection and was the first to find the unexploded bomb in the asparagus bed one morning, instant celebrity lol When they disarmed it my grandmother saw there were marvellous pads of heavy felt in the tail end. She 'told' the man they were her's and he docilely handed them over. They made wonderful mats under the tablecloth for years.

We had a marvellous time sussing out the American officers who were put in the house next door when it was requisitioned for them. What they ate was very important and looking back I am sure that was one time when we were encouraged to talk about anything we spied about them by the adults. They didn't like lamb and gave our dog a barely cut leg of lamb. He went home with it (the fool) and my granny wrestled him to the ground (a Staffordshire Bull) and prised his jaws open. She rinsed the meat in vinegar and declared it safe to eat lol There were no arguments.

We preferred the water but the adults liked the orange juice with the odd bottle of gin they managed to come by lol

Hey! Down to Devon we got the 1/3 pint milk but no cream buns. Funny, you would have thought they would have had cream buns. I was soon gone to Hong Kong after the war. We flew out from Bournemouth on a Sunderland, it took a week to get to HK, stopping every night and flying again the next day. The air hostess did all the cooking on board and we could not believe the food ! It was a gracious way to fly, BOAC was competing head on with liners at that point, no sardines in a can flying then.

I don't think mine use their imaginations as we did. We never said we were bored for fear a job was found for us.

Yes, I have but remember we probably have selective memories and things like seat belts are good things, I remember a friend sitting in the front seat with her little girl, aged four, on her lap. Car slides on black ice and runs into the ditch, she slams against her child killing her. All the other occupants fine.

Come to think of it, that would be exactly thirty two years ago today. They had the funeral on Christmas Eve feeling that was the best thing to do with three other kids left.

I do think though that children lack the freedom of movement we had to roam the neighbourhood. That's probably not entirely necessary, two of my grandsons roamed and no harm befell them. My daughter drilled them well on anyone, not just strangers because it rarely is a stranger, and what the approach might be, and that if in doubt, yell hard and loud and run like hell.

I had a nice shrapnel collection, too, but never had the luck, or instant fame, of finding a bomb!

My mother, younger brother and I spent 6 months in Devon, during the V2 era, staying with friends of my parents in Shillingford St George, near Exeter. Mum would take me into Exeter to a bookshop, where she bought school books for me. I still had to do classes every morning in Aunt Louise's dining room. That was a really great time , I remember we went to a deserted estate opposite the house, to see the peacocks, which stilled roamed freely there. Also remember the barbed wire all along the beaches at Teighnmouth, and picking wortleberries on Exmoor.

Gill

I am not so facinated by Borscht, but in summer , i cook sliced beets with some sliced onions, +1tooth of garlic and 2-3 [fresh from my tree] Bay leaves, a little salt and paprika. i keep it in the frigidaire. and serve as salad. mirjam

Gill Murray ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

Seemed Devonians like peacocks. When we lived on the moors in South Brent a man further up had peacocks, very eerie on a foggy night when the damned things got started.

I remember the barbed wire along beaches, like it would stop either German spies from subs or an invasion. I think Churchill did many things designed to make one feel safer. My aunt tells me it was a good job the Home Guard never had to spring into action lol

*big sip of prehistory*

Great. We like the company - and well, it's the Devils. But, honestly - we are big Marty admirers - he's a god - so to speak.

ellice