More on food. . .

It seems that a city in Italy, Lucca, has banned new ethnic food restaurants. They state that they want to preserve their Italian food culture.

Well, you can imagine that this move has raised a storm of protests. Opponents point out that the basic Italian foods actually include items from other countries -- tomatoes came from South America (I didn't know that), and the resulting sauces, so much a staple in Italian cooking, could then be banned as being from another country. Also, evidently pasta came from Chinese influence. Hard to imagine Italian cooking without tomato based sauces and pasta.

There seems to be a movement afoot to keep Italians eating Italian food only. The thought is that if other foods are not available it will force the locals to eat only Italian.

What do you think about this? If my city was to pass such a ban, what would we eat that is typically "American?" I think eating out would get boring!! I love the ethnic flavors that make my eating experience richer!

What would be banned here -- pizza? That isn't typically "American." Mexican food? Well, much of this state was once a part of Mexico. So, is Mexican food really "American" food?
Would McDonald's have to stop serving breakfast burritos? Oh, no, they are so good! (But, are they American?)


What about rice. It is grown locally, and we eat a lot of it. However, I'm not sure it is an all-American dish. And what about potatoes? Where did they originate?

Seems like people in this "new world" ate a very limited diet when it was being formed. Fish, wild game, turkeys, etc., were available. Corn, squash, fruits, etc., were growing here already. Would we have to limit our diet to those items? I think much of what we consider "American" actually came from other countries as emigrants came from different lands bringing their own food preferences.

Seems like this was a really bad idea! Wake up, Lucca, you are part of a larger world!

What do you think?

Food Likes and Dislikes

Yahoo Food says that there are 11 foods that people either LOVE or HATE.
The list:
white chocolate
cilantro
eggplant
coconut
tomato
sardines
black licorice
stinky cheese
mayo
bell pepper
beets

Which of these arouse strong feelings in you? Please comment.

As for me, I LOVE white chocolate. I found a treat at Hobby Lobby -- white chocolate covered pretzels. YUMMY!
cilantro -- I like it in moderation.
eggplant -- some people can cook these and make them taste really good. I don't have that knack.
coconut -- in moderation
tomato -- LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! -- Really good with scrambled eggs!
sardines -- OK, if I have crackers to eat with them. Unfortunately, however, they come from the ocean so I can't eat them.
black licorice -- NO, NO, NO -- NOT ANY COLOR!
stinky cheese -- NO
Mayo -- Yes -- usually use lite Miracle Whip but have some salads that call for a touch of Mayo and it does make them better.
bell pepper -- YES, YES, Just bought 5 to have next week -- I'm going to stuff them! Also like sauteed bell peppers with my scrambled eggs (egg beaters) I like all colors!
beets -- Not really. Have eaten Harvard Beets but, I can live forever without them!

Ok, now it is YOUR turn!

ROMEO, ROMEO

For some time I have been interested in watching groups of older men who congregate in some local place (hamburger joint or coffee shop) one or more days of the week, usually in the morning, to drink coffee and talk. Sometimes the groups are small and sometimes there are 10 - 12 at a time. They may be people who once worked together, neighbors, or just random people who joined together to visit.

Now, men will tell you that they don't talk or gossip. They say that only women do that.
DO NOT BELIEVE THAT!
Men talk and gossip just like women do, and they may be worse!!

I used to visit a Whataburger that had a large group of regulars -- I don't know what their connection was, but they thoroughly enjoyed each other's company!

Recently I read a book by author Ellen Crosby. She has a name for men like this. She calls them ROMEOS (Retired Old Men Eating Out.) I think that is a great name for them! Now, the morning coffee call may not be exactly "eating out" but the designation fits. They catch up on all the gossip and then take it back home to their wives, if they still have them.

Most recently my Sweetie and I were having breakfast at a McDonald's in a small Texas town. There were two men there who fit the ROMEO title. One told us he drives in the 4 miles from his home every morning to have coffee. That day the crew at McD's messed up and put a tea pack into the coffee maker. It was causing mass confusion. Car after car came through the drive-through ordering coffee. They would drive away and then come back and complain that they got tea instead of coffee. Made the oldest ROMEO just cackle with laughter! Perhaps a comment on the fellow's life -- that was high excitement for him!

Look around -- have you seen some ROMEOS where you live?

Another thought. . .
Years ago I notice that when we would go to a local cafeteria to eat we would see 6 or 8 tables each with just one older person eating alone. One time I knew the man dining alone was a recent widower. He was our Optometrist and we knew his wife had died within the past 6 months.
What about designating one large round table as the "eating alone" table and let "single diners" sit there. An opportunity to meet new friends, and to feel apart of the world again. Even if they chose not to talk, they wouldn't be alone. Any thoughts on this?

Play It Forward

I've agreed to join the PIF offered by Comfort Cove Designs (http://comfortcovedesigns.blogspot.com/)

Joining means that I will get a hand-made gift, sometimes in the next 365 days, from that blog. My obligation (pleasure?) will be to recruit 3 more participants. I will send each of them a hand-made gift (machine sewing is ok, just not purchased items) sometimes in the next 365 days.

Then, they will each get 3 volunteer participants, and it will repeat as it started. Make sense?

I hope someone will volunteer to join my PIF because I've already decided what gift I'm going to make! How about it! Will you join me?

Valentine's Day

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I got to wondering -- is this mostly an American tradition or is it observed/celebrated in other countries? Possibly it is, but then I wonder if it is observed/celebrated in the same fashion.

In the US some people go all out and some are a little more subdued. Valentine cards are very popular. School children take cards to school to hand out to their classmates. More ornate cards are given to husbands/wives/sweethearts. Traditional too, are heart shaped boxes of candy.
Flowers are traditions, especially things like red roses. Locally, grocery stores put up tents in the parking lots and sell flowers from them. Some also have stuffed animals. We saw some left-over stuffed animals getting rained on yesterday evening. They looked sad, :-( Jewelry is offered as a Valentine gift -- especially things like heart shaped necklaces (with or without diamonds.) Lots of moola being spent with florists, jewelers, and in card shops, candy shops and in restaurants. Today, however, the news reports are saying that this year showed evidence of the current economic downturn. :-(

Many times one spouse takes the other out for a special dinner. We often have a special dinner but usually here at home.

This year, my Sweetie and I exchanged cards, I fixed his breakfast (he usually isn't here for breakfast during the week,) and we ate a small lunch out. As far as gifts are concerned, he gave me a pedicure (to be gotten at a later date) and I gave him the "gift" of taking him to see a movie that he wanted to see and I didn't. Earlier I had said I would not go but I knew he wanted to see it so I made the sacrifice! Needed to disinfect my ears afterward. The language was horrible! The movie (Grand Turino) actually had an interesting plot -- was funny in places and sad in others. However, the language made it less than enjoyable for me. My least favorite word is the "F" word and it was definitely over-used!

To top off the evening our motorcycle club had a "Leather and Lace Ball, Y'all" It was fun -- it was actually a fund raiser for the "Run for the Son" ride that comes up later in the year.
We ate "breakfast for dinner," -- waffles made on demand, egg and sausage casseroles, chocolate covered bananas and strawberries, coffee and orange juice. A version of the Newly-Wed Game was played and it was fun. We didn't win, however! :-(

All in all, it was a nice day. However, I'm wondering why we have just one day designated as a special day to honor those we love. Shouldn't we do that all year long? What do you think?

Good class today -- we look at new calendars -- I purchased one for each of them, with pictures of puppies and kittens. Lesson went this way.

Look at the pictures -- What are these animals. Dog, Cat. Yes, but they are babies. What do you call a baby dog? Uhhhh, baby dog? No, puppy. How do you spell that? Ok, what about the cat -- what is a baby cat called. Uhhhh -- no clue. Oh, yes, Kitty cat. Almost. A baby cat is a kitten. Oh, how do you spell that.

Inside the calendar I showed them the birthstone designations for each month of the year. Also, the flower that is designated for that month. I told them that it was probably a gimmick sponsored by the florist industry to sell more flowers. They laughed.

We also talked about the special designations for anniversaries -- like "silver" for the 25th anniversary, and "gold" for the 50th anniversary.

In the body of the calendar we found holidays for the US, UK, AUS, NZ, CAN, MEX. We looked at the fact that in the US, Mother's Day is always the second Sunday in May and in Mexico, it is always May 10, regardless of the day that falls on.

We looked at Australia Day and I asked if anyone knew where Australia was on the map. No one did. I showed them. I asked if anyone knew why Australia had been in the news recently. My Thai student knew about the wild fires. We talked about wild fires and about floods. I explained that Australia is having summer now, with hot weather. I showed them a C/F scale -- the Thai student said that they use the C scale in Thailand and the weather is usually in the 90's there.

We talked at the different religious holidays -- Christian, Jewish, and Eastern Orthodox were the ones on our calendars.

The calendars had the moon phases and we talked about full moons, new moons, and "blue" moons. December is the only month in 2009 to have a blue moon. I explained that the term
refers to the second full moon in a calendar month. It is very unusual. Thus, "once in a blue moon" means something that does not happen very often.

We talked about Daylight Savings time -- when and why -- and also about when spring, summer, autumn, etc., begin. I asked about the other name for autumn. No one knew, but, when I said Fall, yes, they had heard of that.

My Thai student asked me about two former students from Columbia -- she wanted to see them again. Funny thing -- as we were leaving, who should arrive but those two students. We had a "reunion" in the parking lot. I asked if their ears had been burning. That puzzled them. I explained that it was an expression that meant someone was talking about you, and we had just been talking about them. Another lesson! One student came just to bring me a Valentine gift. How sweet of her.

We now have our class year planned -- we are taking the summer off. One student will be going to Iran, and one to China. They will have much to write about in the fall. Next week we will go shopping at the grocery store. We will look for vegetables and talk about cooking and eating them. We talked a little about fall vegetables (like pumpkins) as opposed to those that are more plentiful in the summer.

Oh, yes, we talked about Halloween and how people decorate for it. (It seems to be more common to decorate for Halloween now -- we don't, but our neighbors go all out.) I mentioned the word, scarecrow. No one knew what a scarecrow was. Another lesson.

A good class -- a little learning and a little laughter! The beginning of a great day!

How was your day?

Time flies, even when you aren't having too much fun!! I haven't had too much time to blog.

It has been a busy week -- lots of chores around the house that piled up while I was away. It is, however, looking better. I've accomplished a lot!

As I worked, I've been thinking about the size of my world.

This morning I was talking to a man in his early 70's, who is not in good health. He told me that he grew up as an only child on a 100 acre farm. He would go days without speaking to his Father and only sometimes spoke with his mother. Evidently, they were not very verbal people. He spent most of his time roaming around the pastures alone. That told me a lot about the way he is -- rather stand-offish, reluctant to have a relationship with someone. He feels he gets along just fine with only a small number of people in his life. His world is very small.

I, on the other hand, love the contact with people. And, I feel that my world has grown and grown and grown. Several things caused this growth.

In school I had pen pals -- from Japan and from Sweden. The Swedish pen pal and I continued to write after both of us were married.

In the 80's my family hosted a student from Japan for two summers. That was really interesting, and again, our family worlds grew. We learned words like "prefecture" and "Awa Dancers." We ate different food. It was an adventure!

I've been able to visit a number of different states here in the US. East coast to West coast, northern border to southern border, and a tiny bit in the middle. More adventures and more world expansion.

We've been fortunate enough to do a little traveling. Mexico and Canada are the countries that I have visited in person. In Mexico, Sweetie and I walked around a bustling city and found a hardware store to visit. I love hardware stores and this was a good one. In some ways it was like going back to pioneer America. We found a lot of items for sale that we don't usually see in American hardware stores any more.

In Canada I bought lunch and was handed a handful of really strange looking money. (The clerk was kind enough to explain what she had given me.) I found magazines for sale that weren't available where I lived. So close, but so different.

Today I visit with people from many other countries quite often. When I first contacted Coolrue in his blog he remarked that who ever thought that someone in the US would be reading his blog written there in Ireland. Blogging had caused my world to grow! I read blogs from all around the world. This morning I heard the reports about the fires and Australia and heard places mentioned where I have blogging buddies. They are having a really terrible time over there. Fires in several places and floods in others.

When hurricane Ike blew through our area we rejoiced when it left our family relatively unscathed. However, it just kept going and places in the middle of America were hit by high winds, heavy rains, flooding, power outages, etc. "Our" hurricane hit them, too.

When I was younger our world was rather small. Oh, we did hear about other countries. Missionaries came to our church and told us about China and Africa. They brought us strange objects that we put in glass fronted cabinets where we could look at them as often as we wanted. They were interesting, but our contact with those places was strictly second or third hand.

Today I have friends and neighbors from those countries, and many others.

In earlier days we knew only about our local weather. Today we watch weather patterns develop across our country and around the world, courtesy of The Weather Channel. We get reports about fires and floods and tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that happen thousands of miles away.

In our previous home I taught photography at a community college and had a few international students. My world grew a little then.

Today, I teach ESL and I meet people from other countries -- I eat with them, shop with them, laugh and talk with them. They are helping my world grow larger again. So many adventures I've had, and, I pray, there are many more to come.

How big is your world?

Want to see some beautiful quilts? My OD clued me into this site on Flickr.

go to

www.flickr.com/photos/mellicious/59191280

really some nice uses of color!

enjoy!

ESL class today! Today was our first class since before Christmas. Since I spent almost the whole month of January caring for my parents, I had to cancel my class. It was wonderful being back! I had 3 of my 4 students and we caught up -- they read their journals, we did a word find using idioms & slang expressions, and then we played Scrabble. They had never seen the game and seemed to enjoy it. It will help them to start thinking more about English words and how they are structured.

We also watched a video that was made at the annual ESL party. One of my students participated in a presentation about the Chinese New Year and she enjoyed seeing how she and her friends looked and sounded.

My Iranian student brought doughnuts (that blew the diet!) and shared them with the class and then with the librarians. My student from Taiwan brought Chinese New Year's candy.

My student from Thailand was sad because she sometimes encounters people who make no effort to understand her English (which is quite good.) She feels rejected. She is a really lovely person and I enjoy visiting with her. We talked about not letting people take control of her feelings. I so enjoy meeting people from other countries that it surprises me when other people don't, and especially when they are rude about it!

Next week we will have a "calendar" class. I gave them all new calendars and next week in class we will look at all the holidays and learn about the American customs that go with each one. I also have another word find planned -- it is centered on White House Facts, and I thought that would tie into a discussion about the new president, the inauguration, etc. One student is studying for her citizenship exam and she is learning some of this type of information.

How do you feel about meeting someone from a country entirely different from yours? Do you feel threatened?