It's a cold night in Calgary. I expect I'll be writing that a lot.
One of my favorite things to do when it's cold and snowy is to bundle myself up and go for a walk - particularly at night. There's a park across from our apartment that has huge cottonwoods and different kinds of pines, along with wide grassy areas. There's even a couple of cricket pitches! A paved path follows the perimeter of most of the park, and lovely, old-fashioned street lights illuminate the way.
When it's wintery like this, the park is abandoned. I'm free to trudge my way through the unblemished snow until frostbite begins to set in. Tonight the snowfall was a fine, dusty type of snow and it looked gorgeous and glittery under the diffused lights of the city.
I may have to figure out some better winter gear, though. Or get an extreme haircut. I have a lot of hair, and right now I can fit either my face or my ponytail under my hood, but not both. Thanks this and a ridiculous retrousse nose, I ended up snorting enough snow during my walk to have powered Corporate America, circa 1983. Maybe I should start wearing a balaclava.
In between walks in the park and through various snow banks, and trying to keep on schedule with my writing (I'm not...), Collin and I were pondering a couple of experiments today. Food experiments. My favorite kind.
Collin has a book called Cooking For Geeks that we were looking through, after I asked why it was that toast is so much tastier than regular bread (I can now tell you the answer if you're interested). At the back of the book were a bunch of experiments that can be done to change the state of familiar food. Foamed fruit juice sounds unnatural and shrimp roll-ups sound unholy, but the idea of gelatinous milk balls is intriguing. Don't get me wrong, I think it sounds disgusting, too. But I remembered my mom bringing milk to work for her tea, and doing all kinds of tricks to keep people from drinking it. What would happen if they poured some stolen milk into their coffee and little blobs slurped out, instead? They'd never steal your milk again!
Well, they'd probably think it had gone bad, and would throw it away. I haven't gotten all the kinks worked out of this Very Fiendish and Gelatinous Plan yet.
My other experiment is more of a social studies experiment. I was doing a bit of research about Albuquerque in the late '40s and early '50s for a story idea I had. One thing that would pop up regularly were mentions of food and materials rationing. This got me thinking. What was it that made the war effort of WWII so different from the wars that were to follow? Society and technology were changing, surely, but it seems like people on the homefront genuinely felt that they made a difference to soldiers overseas. They were recycling, rationing, and repurposing objects with individuals in mind. If we were to experience that kind of rationing and scarcity during our wars abroad today, would society's view of war and it's consequences change? Would it even be possible to go to war?
I'm wondering what a diet that followed rationing guidelines from the 40's would look like with the products available today. I came a across The 1940's Experiment, which has a writer who is using a rations-based diet to lose weight. I can't deny that would be a nice side-effect, but I like the idea of rationing food/materials to benefit something else, just as rationing was seen to help the war effort in the 1940s. I've been keeping careful track of our grocery expenditures since I came to Calgary. Perhaps donating the money we save on groceries each month to the local food bank?
Collin thinks he could only last about a week, but I've got my eye on The Victory Cookbook that might help me make food more interesting than he fears (as if we need another one - I think he and I are both rather compulsive cookbook buyers).
One of my favorite things to do when it's cold and snowy is to bundle myself up and go for a walk - particularly at night. There's a park across from our apartment that has huge cottonwoods and different kinds of pines, along with wide grassy areas. There's even a couple of cricket pitches! A paved path follows the perimeter of most of the park, and lovely, old-fashioned street lights illuminate the way.
When it's wintery like this, the park is abandoned. I'm free to trudge my way through the unblemished snow until frostbite begins to set in. Tonight the snowfall was a fine, dusty type of snow and it looked gorgeous and glittery under the diffused lights of the city.
I may have to figure out some better winter gear, though. Or get an extreme haircut. I have a lot of hair, and right now I can fit either my face or my ponytail under my hood, but not both. Thanks this and a ridiculous retrousse nose, I ended up snorting enough snow during my walk to have powered Corporate America, circa 1983. Maybe I should start wearing a balaclava.
In between walks in the park and through various snow banks, and trying to keep on schedule with my writing (I'm not...), Collin and I were pondering a couple of experiments today. Food experiments. My favorite kind.
Collin has a book called Cooking For Geeks that we were looking through, after I asked why it was that toast is so much tastier than regular bread (I can now tell you the answer if you're interested). At the back of the book were a bunch of experiments that can be done to change the state of familiar food. Foamed fruit juice sounds unnatural and shrimp roll-ups sound unholy, but the idea of gelatinous milk balls is intriguing. Don't get me wrong, I think it sounds disgusting, too. But I remembered my mom bringing milk to work for her tea, and doing all kinds of tricks to keep people from drinking it. What would happen if they poured some stolen milk into their coffee and little blobs slurped out, instead? They'd never steal your milk again!
Well, they'd probably think it had gone bad, and would throw it away. I haven't gotten all the kinks worked out of this Very Fiendish and Gelatinous Plan yet.
My other experiment is more of a social studies experiment. I was doing a bit of research about Albuquerque in the late '40s and early '50s for a story idea I had. One thing that would pop up regularly were mentions of food and materials rationing. This got me thinking. What was it that made the war effort of WWII so different from the wars that were to follow? Society and technology were changing, surely, but it seems like people on the homefront genuinely felt that they made a difference to soldiers overseas. They were recycling, rationing, and repurposing objects with individuals in mind. If we were to experience that kind of rationing and scarcity during our wars abroad today, would society's view of war and it's consequences change? Would it even be possible to go to war?
I'm wondering what a diet that followed rationing guidelines from the 40's would look like with the products available today. I came a across The 1940's Experiment, which has a writer who is using a rations-based diet to lose weight. I can't deny that would be a nice side-effect, but I like the idea of rationing food/materials to benefit something else, just as rationing was seen to help the war effort in the 1940s. I've been keeping careful track of our grocery expenditures since I came to Calgary. Perhaps donating the money we save on groceries each month to the local food bank?
Collin thinks he could only last about a week, but I've got my eye on The Victory Cookbook that might help me make food more interesting than he fears (as if we need another one - I think he and I are both rather compulsive cookbook buyers).
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