Learning and understanding

I thought that I’d make a change today and set up a game... let’s see how many of these you can solve! The following list is titles of blog posts (you can verify them on the main page) that are taken from various song lyrics.  The songs are a mixture of pop music (1940s-2010), songs from Sesame Street, hymns and calypsos.  All except one are English language (marked with an *)  in general, the phrase is not the title of the song...  Full marks for identifying the song and the artist.  Winner will get something in the mail from me   I look forward to seeing your responses.  I’ll publish the complete list on February 7.  Play on! Title Whole heap of zing The essence of all Dreaming of bigger things The whole year through O res mirabilis Try to bridge the emptiness Christmas changes too You can read me anything And a lots of work to be done It wasn’t me... Eat the dishes Battle lines being drawn A lifetime and the aftermath Things you don’t understand Between despair and ecstasy She knows

When the pandemic started last year, I received a chain email which I opted to keep going.  It wasn’t one of those “if you break this, you’ll have eternal bad luck,” ones (which I immediately delete.). Rather, it suggested that for the participants share recipes with the names on a list, knocking off the top name and adding your own at the end.  The theory being that there are enough people who are interested in swapping and sharing recipes to keep the chain going.  I got about a dozen recipes (some of which were sufficiently similar that they counted as duplicates) and it kicked me into enough activity to actually comb through my large collection of cookbooks to try new things.  Full disclosure, in spite of owning more cookbooks than the average bookstore keeps in stock, I’m not a “follow a recipe closely” type of cook.  I learned how to cook at the side of my grandmother, aunts and mother, and none of those meals had a written recipe. I think that I asked too many questions, because

 The lockdown has been in effect in one form or another for 10 months.  It’s now so much a part of life that it seems strange to watch a movie from “the before time” and see crowds, or people hugging and nobody wearing a mask- except medical staff or criminals.  I was wondering what things have changed, and which changes are likely to be permanent.  I had conversations with friends, snippets of which I recount, about this. One friend, who is known for his traditional male outlook (cooking, except barbecue, is really for the woman to do) has perfected the art of sourdough bread making.  Now, I have been in the habit of making my own bread for a few years now, and I rarely buy bread,  but I haven’t tried making sourdough. I was amused at the upswing of sourdough bakers, and the flood of recipes, but not enough to begin feeding my own starter.  Besides, I’m not sure that my kitchen can accommodate a starter pack, when I have... My stand mixer. It’s a lovely, “I am a real cook! Who can bak

Every year at this time I remind myself of how much has developed, and what has changed. Yes, it’s a new year, but it’s also the anniversary of my arrival in Canada.  This year marks 22 years that I’ve been living here.  I long ago passed the point where I had worked longer in Canada than in Trinidad; I’ve passed the point where my adult life has been mostly spent here, and in another 8 years I will have lived here for fully half of my life. A year ago, I was negotiating with my oncologist my early release from chemotherapy treatment.  (He did let me out a bit earlier) so you know that this year I’m happy not to be there.  We are in lockdown again (because people are selfish and think that the rules don’t apply to them) with the threat of curfew, so this year we won’t be celebrating in restaurants or doing much with others.  I am trying out a few new recipes, because I think that we should mark the event somehow!  This year is special for another reason - it’s the first time that I’m s