A Holiday Recipe by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

 

The following is a recipe for a dessert that I made for many years for my husband’s birthday and Christmas and when requested for other gatherings. It is simple to make but takes a while because you have to let it cool between layers. It is very rich and each person only needs a small piece.

 

Cherry Delight

Bottom Layer

1 ½ cup graham crumbs

¾ cup brown sugar

½ cup melted butter

Mix these together and pat down into a nine by nine inch pan. Put in refrigerator to harden.

Middle Layer

1 cup whipping cream

1 4oz package softened cream cheese

¾ cup icing sugar.

Whip the cream until almost stiff. Blend in cream cheese and icing sugar and beat until mixed well and stiff. Spread on bottom layer and return to fridge until set.

Top Layer

Open a can of cherry pie filling and spread on top.

 

Enjoy

Linda or Olivia?

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I love names. When I was growing up my parents had a baby name book in the house. My sister and I had a favourite game, where we’d open the book at random pages and whatever name our fingers landed on would be the name of a character we’d act out. In our view, the weirder the name the better--and the book had plenty of them outside of the Lindas, Debbies and Susans who populated our classes at school.

Nowadays, when I'm writing a story and a character appears, my usual process is to assign him or her the first name that pops into my head. I keep writing and get a feel for how the name works, or not. Somewhere along the way, I'll move from feeling to logic. If the character isn’t someone my age or from a similar background, I go to the Internet and look up popular names for the year the person was born and for his or her heritage. In fact, for a person quite different from me I might do this before I start to write, since I simply have no idea for the name.

Of course, a person might have a name that doesn’t fit her era. I knew an Emily about my age, but her name was unusual for the times. This says something about her parents who chose it and parents' personalities and values influence the child's character. So do other children who respond to a classmate with a name they find old-fashioned. In contrast, a young Emily today might feel her name is too common. In my school classes, I was always Susan C to distinguish me from the inevitable other Susan or two.

In addition to the era and ethnicity, I consider the sound of my characters' names. During revision, I take a take a piece of paper, write the letters of the alphabet down one side and list my character names by starting letter. If too many begin with “B” I’ll change the name of the less important one. Sound also relates to how we hear a name and the number of syllables. Once, an author who reviewed a story I wrote noted that all my men had single syllable names, which prompted me to give one of the males a two-syllable moniker. Likewise, I once changed a character named Gareth to Garth when I realized Gareth sounded too much like the name a main character, Eric. But while my naming can fall into a rut, about half the time the original name that popped up is one I stay with in the end. Intuition can work.

Charlotte Bronte - Charlotte, an old-fashioned name now hugely popular due to William's and Kate's daughter Charlotte. 

In those childhood games with my sister, we used those random names as a springboard to developing our imaginary characters through dialogue and actions. This is pretty much my writing process today. The name itself generates personality traits. Lucinda feels like a different type of person than Jane. Harold, Harry and Hank are equally different, since these men have had the choice of which name to go by.

When my mother cleared out her house, one item I requested was her old baby name book. It is dog-eared, literally, since it looks like our family dog chewed a corner. For fun, today I opened the book randomly to pick names for a girl and boy. My finger landed on Ardelis and Rayburn/Reyburn.

The book also provides name origins and meanings, which I sometimes consider when naming story characters. Ardelis (Latin) means zealous or industrious; Reyburn (Old English) means from the roe, or deer, brook.

I like the names Ardelis and Reyburn and am already thinking of a story for these characters.  

My first grandchild - Vivienne - born July 31, 2017

        

  

Sphagnum Moss to the Rescue in World War I by Karla Stover

On September 23, 1990, the first episode of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary aired. Thanks, in no small part, to the charismatic Shelby Foote, the documentary's popularity has never waned. However, I have always been fascinated by World War I, and especially the fall of the Romanov dynasty. I recently took a DNA test and it showed I have Russian blood, but more than that, innovations from WW I moved us into a more sophisticated lifestyle. Kimberly-Clarke began to mass produce items made from cellucotton, and sanitary napkins were one result. A German doctor came up with the idea of treating rickets with a sun lamp. Day light savings, which Benjamin Franklin has proposed in 1784 as a way to save on candles. Tea bags, wrist watches, paper hankies, zippers, stainless steel--and the list goes on. But--though cellucotton was also used in medical dressings, the supply was never enough. Enter sphagnum moss. Yes, moss, the stuff that grows on the top of a peat bog. Peat moss is the decaying matter below.

For hundreds of years, uses for sphagnum have been well-known. In Sweden, it was used to make coarse paper; in Germany it was mixed with wool and woven into a somewhat abrasive cloth. The Finns somehow made bread with it during famines. However, no one used it more than the Native Americans. Across Canada and in the Pacific Northwest, Indian women kept baskets of dried sphagnum to chink their wigwams or longhouses. They put it in gloves and footwear to act as insulation; They wove it into  baskets, twisted it into candle wicks, scrubbed the slime and toxins off fish, put it in papoose carriers to act as a diaper, used it as toilet paper, and during menstruation.

And then, the United States went war.

As far back as 1513, at the battle of Flodden Field, highlanders staunched their wounds with sphagnum. The practice continued in various wars right up until the American John "Blackjack" Pershing realized we were ill-equipped to fight. The call went our for practically everything--including medical dressings, and that's where sphagnum came in: it replaced cotton. Let me explain.

The branches of sphagnum spread away from the stem and hang in clusters. The walls of the branches have large, clear, dead cells. The cells have pores, and the wall of each pore is punctures toward the outside. Each pore acts independently from the others and stores the fluids with which it comes in contact. A spring-like coil in the cell presses out and keeps it from collapsing. As a result, the plant has the ability to absorb up to twenty times its dry weight. Armed with this knowledge, the United States government appoint a Moss Czar--a man named Harry Smith. After touring the country, he determined that Pacific Coast moss was the best.

Thus began moss drives.

When a local newspaper announced a "moss drive," whole towns practically shut down. People took picnics, requisitioned vehicles, and headed out to gather moss which they took to large drying barns. Once dry, it went to groups who picked it clean so it could to make Pershing Packs.

A Pershing Pack consisted of layers of paper, moss, and a little cotton. The resultant "piles" were folded into various-sized dressings, sterilized in autoclaves, and sent to field hospitals. Because of moss's ability to soak up fluids, a Pershing Pack worked wonders on bleeding or suppurating wounds.

I always look down when I'm walking, especially in the woods. There are approximately 10,000 species of moss--all lovely to look at.



bwlauthors.blogspot.com karla stover