The ancient gift of shortbread

In my experience, there is one present that is never put to the back of a cupboard, exchanged or re-gifted, and that is the gift of some home-made shortbread. Very few people can resist its sinful buttery crumble.

Shortbread it thought to have its origins before our time in medieval Scotland with a twice-baked biscuit bread made from left-over bread dough. This item was dusted with sugar and spices and hardened into a sweet biscuit. Over time butter was substituted for the yeast. This created the crumbly (short) texture we know and love!

Butter and sugar however, were expensive items and shortbread was only eaten in most households as a luxury on very special occasions such as Christmas, Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) or weddings.

Nowadays, in our kitchen, we use an ancient Scottish secret family recipe (i.e. I copied it out of my Mum's recipe folder). Details can be found here.

The basis for all shortbread is three ingredients: flour, butter and sugar (usually in the ratio of 1 part sugar, 2 parts butter, 3 parts flour). However, there are a number of different variations as you can see from this page in Lady Hackett's Household Guide (1940):

Plus a variety of flavourings can be added. According to an article by Camis Davis at Saveur.com, "Queen Victoria liked hers seasoned with salt; classic shortbread from the town of Goosnargh in Lancashire is flavored with coriander and caraway; shortbread from Pitcaithly, in Scotland, is made with orange peel and almonds; the Scottish baking company Walkers, founded in 1898, has a ginger version of it."


The shape is traditionally a round, often made by pressing the dough into a carved circular mold.  This creates triangular wedges which can be snapped apart.

We take a less traditional approach to the shape - creating Christmas-themed shapes such as angels, bells, trees and stars. However, call us old-fashioned, when it comes to flavourings we stick to making the unadulterated version.

Bagged up with the addition of a ribbon and gift tag, they made the perfect small item for my daughter to give to her school friends.

How much do you love shortbread?

Wisdom on Wednesday: Theodore Geisel

Following on from the theme of Wisdom on Wednesday last week, I think this Dr Seuss quote sums up many of our feelings at this time of the year!

In our household, the calendar seems to go: August - September - December. October and November may as well not exist as they flash past in an instant.

And then, when December arrives we suddenly realise that all the things that we had planned to do before December haven't been done!

I often wonder if this a universal feeling or one particular to the Southern hemisphere where everything (schools, dancing studios, sporting clubs etc) operates on a calendar year? Plus, here in Australia lots of families take holidays during January, so there is an impetus in the workplace to get things done before Christmas.


Does everything rush to the end of the calendar year in your part of the world?

Wisdom on Wednesday: EB White

(Quote from The Second Tree from the Corner (1954) by E.B.White)

My daughter reminded me this morning that tomorrow (1 December) is the start of Advent, at least as far as the opening of countdown calendars for Christmas is concerned. I think, strictly speaking, that the various religious definitions of Advent are quite different, and it usually commences on the fourth Sunday before Christmas.

Anyway, in some respects this morning's declaration caught me by surprise: "What? Already?" and in other ways I've had a lot of warning.  Shops have had Christmas goods on the shelves since early October, decorations have been hanging in public spaces for weeks, Christmas catalogues were in mailboxes at the start of November and I've even heard the carols muzak in stores.

I wonder if this extended warm-up to Christmas (the 'wrapping' referred to by E.B.White?) takes some of the gloss off the Festive Season itself. By the time the 25th of December comes around we've already eaten more than our fair share of fruit mince pies.

Before our time, Christmas wasn't anticipated quite so early in the year. 

What do you think is a reasonable lead-up time for Christmas? Should there be declared limit? e.g NO tinsel before 1 December?

Blending in by standing out

Back before our time towards the end of the 19th Century, military uniforms were traditionally brightly coloured. (Think bright red jackets worn by horsemen charging across green fields with their muskets at the ready.)

These distinctive forms of uniform had a number of strategic purposes: it allowed generals (or whoever was in charge) to see at a glance where their own troops were, it stopped soldiers from unintentionally slaying one of their own, and in certain cases where a particular regiment had a fearsome reputation, the mere sight of their distinctive colours could be enough to send terror through the enemy, forcing a retreat. (See an interesting history of military camouflage clothing, here.)

However time marched on, military technology improved, and with the development of weapons with longer ranges and greater accuracy (e.g. rifles, machine guns, grenades, missiles) it was not advantageous to signpost to the enemy exactly where you were.

So, what we now think of as regular army dress (khaki and camouflage) was developed as a way of disguising personnel in the field. The mottled colouration of garments is designed to blend with the natural background and it is available in a variety of colourways to blend with different environments.

However one instance where it would have the opposite effect is if you were to wear full camouflage gear and walk through a busy urban area. In fact, far from blending in, it would probably rouse a great deal of suspicion.

It is one of the ironies of the present day that one of the best ways to blend in, in almost any circumstance, is to don a garment which was originally designed to make you stand out - the high-visibility fluoro vest.

Fluorescent clothing was originally a military development (during World War II) designed to protect soldiers from unintentional friendly fire. Now, high-visibility clothing is worn by everyone from post delivery workers to road crew, cyclists to removalists.  If you want to look like you have an 'official' reason to be somewhere, put on a fluoro vest and you can walk around unaccosted.

In an article in The Guardian in 2005, Jon Ronson examined this phenomenon:

"So maybe ubiquity is to blame. Or perhaps, as dazzling as high-visibility clothing is, even more compelling is the public's desire not to notice those people who scurry around at our feet, fixing holes, mending tracks, cleaning up after us. We trust them and we don't want to think about them. This is how Bryan Ferry's son Otis and the other fox hunting aficionados got into the House of Commons to disrupt a debate last year. They put on fluorescent jackets and told the first policeman they met that they were "going to inspect the electrics". The policeman shrugged and waved them on.

The surveillance specialist Peter Jenkins - who teaches private investigators how to follow people without being spotted - is a fan of the fluorescent jacket, too. He says that if you're observing a target in a rural environment, use hedges and ditches and trees. But if you want to be invisible in a city, just put on a fluorescent jacket and sit in the passenger seat of a transit van, or queue up at a telephone box. (Remember to turn off your mobile phone first.)"

I drove past a neighbour's house a few days ago where two guys wearing high-vis tops were filling an unmarked truck with furniture and effects from the house. They (the neighbours) may have actually been being robbed, but the wearing of the high-vis clothing reassured me that a legitimate house move was taking place.

But was this a fair assumption?

According to an item on the BBC website, thieves just this month targeted homes in an English housing estate while clean-up from a flood was occurring:

"Walsall Council leader Mike Bird said thieves had been spotted wearing high-visibility vests to blend in with council workers helping with the clear up."

We rarely give a second glance to 'fluoro-collar workers'. Add an ID on a lanyard round their necks and we'd never question their legitimacy. 

But the flip side of this, is that we also don't notice those workers. They are, in fact, rendered invisible by their visibility and we don't necessarily see them as individuals doing a valued job.

UK photographer, Stephen Gill explored this concept in his 2005 book and exhibition, Invisible which contained photographs of all those people who, by the wearing of high-visibility clothing were rendered invisible to the general public. He was inspired by his own experience as a photographer. He had discovered that by wearing a fluoro vest he drew very little attention to himself when carrying a camera, far less than if he wasn't wearing one.

Do you notice the 'fluoro-collar' workers? Is it time for a new form of high-visibility?

Wisdom on Wednesday: Sydney J. Harris

There's a reason the lead-up to Christmas is known as 'the silly season'.

There's the mad rush in lunch breaks, running around the shops getting all the Christmas shopping done in between impending deadlines at work, and a hectic schedule of social engagements.

And then if there are kids in the household, you do all of the above...and schedule in end-of-year concerts, and school cocktail parties, and gifts for teachers, and mailing letters off to Santa.

I'm constantly checking the notes on the fridge to see which child needs a plate of food for what function, what costumes are needed where and when, what parties are to be attended (both adults and kids)...my head spins.

The end result is that most adults just scrape themselves through to Christmas Day, collapsing into a semi-comatose state on the sofa after lunch.

The quote above is right...it's exactly at this time of year that you need to relax, but the trick is to squeeze in 'relaxation' time that delivers the maximum benefit in the minimum amount of time. 

Although on the face of it, it doesn't sound 'relaxing', I find that a Zumba class can totally reset my frame of mind.  It's a quick hour at the gym, and I feel so much better afterwards.  But I know that for many people, that would not seem relaxing at all!

What's your relaxation activity of choice when you don't have time to relax?

TXT-SPK

Watching today's teenagers communicate via on-line messaging or texting on their mobile phones is like being dropped behind enemy lines in a country where you don't speak the native tongue. You're not quite sure what they're saying, but you know they're probably discussing you, and that if you don't keep your wits about you, it could all turn quite ugly.

It can be a completely foreign language.

In teen-texting, spelling and grammar are tossed out the window, clarity is sacrificed in the quest for speed,  and some words are appropriated for uses they were never intended for. Acronyms reign supreme.

It's almost a form of code.  But is this a new phenomenon?

During World War II, before our time, defence personnel and their sweethearts used acronyms in correspondence.

According to an entry at everything2, the World War II acronyms developed as a way of expressing endearments with extreme brevity (e.g. for use in telegrams) or as a 'secret' language between the lovers. The words could be concealed in sentences, or written across the back of the envelope.

Although some of these examples are well-known now, I wonder if the parents of that generation (and the correspondence censors) were as much in the dark about the meaning of BURMA, SIAM and ENGLAND as today's parents are about PSOS or ROFLMAO?

Some of the less saucy World War II examples are:

• ITALY: I trust and love you
• HOLLAND: Hope our love lasts and never dies
• SWALK: Sealed with a loving kiss

 And my favourite (although a little racier):

• NORWICH: 'Nickers off ready when I come home   

The now widely used acronyms SNAFU and FUBAR are also thought to have had their origins among American military personnel in the Second World War.

But the fun didn't stop with the Silent Generation. The Baby Boomers and their Generation X children have (among a multitude of other language tweaking practices) created a treasure-trove of acronyms to describe demographics and lifestyle choices:

• DINKS: Double income, no kids
• YUPPIES: Young upwardly-mobile professionals 
• LOMBARD: Lots of money but a real dickhead 

And the one which always makes me LOL (laugh out loud):

• SITCOM: Single income, two children, outrageous mortgage 

The corporate world has also weighed in with examples such as:

• SMART goals: Specific, measurable, agreed, realistic, time-bound goals 
• SWOT analysis: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats analysis 

Imagine these in context:

Q: Where's Bruce?
A: He's in the stationery cupboard, doing a SWOT on the supplies situation. He plans to set some SMARTS regarding paperclips, envelopes and fluoro marker pens.

Most acronyms seem to have originated with the Brits or the Americans, however I did come across one which the good people at BBC' s h2g2 attributed to Australian origins. We Aussies have the dubious honour of coming up with the following acronym to describe someone with an elevated opinion of him/herself:

• FIGJAM: F*** I'm good, just ask me

Is coded language used in your world?

Wisdom on Wednesday: Eudora Welty

Way back in the dark ages when I was at university, (not quite before our time, but in the next postcode) I spent three months in the United Kingdom on an extended holiday.

I have a thick photo album from that time - one of those horrible ones where you stick the photos to the pages and then smooth the clear plastic back over them.  It contains around 250 photos and I often get it out and flick through the pages. 

A single photo of two of my friends in a pub in Oxford reminds me of the day we all met up there from our various, separate travels. Three photos of Stonehenge prompt memories of the day I spent there with my Aunt and Uncle, and how it was the winter solstice (one of the only days of the year you were allowed to go right into the stones).

For three months, 250 photos is not a huge number of snapshots but, like the quote above says, they captured enough of the experience to lock it into my memory, ready to be triggered when I view the album.

Fast-forward 20-something years and I returned from a recent (three week) holiday with over 3,000 photos. Digital camera technology has made it just too easy to photograph every place, every occasion, every person from every angle imaginable.

But does that 'stop the moment running away'? Or is, in fact, the moment running away before we even realise it is there, as we're too focused on the digital screen?

Sometimes I have to remind myself to put.down.the.camera and experience what is right there in front of me.

Is life what happens when you're not looking through the viewfinder?