Thread 19 - TalkLair: "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long"

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 18)

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...

In the TalkLair, the fairy lights are festooned on the mantlepiece, the tree is twinkling with baubles, the mince pies are in the oven, the MN legendary chicken is ready to feed the hordes. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics. We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Some.sort of press would definitely be my guess for he big, squarish thing. The ones that look like a hybrid between a valeting horse and a mangle (with odd extra sticking out bits), though, I have no idea.

Goodness, what a house, and what a backstory!

I went down a rabbit hole and found a very interesting article on the history of roofing in Romania:

roofingmagazine.com/roofing-in-romania-lessons-from-the-past/

Fascinating. I really want to go to Rumania, Transylvania especially, having read books set there.

Vaulting. Vaulting horse. Have no idea how autocorrect managed to changed that to valeting.

That is an interesting article. Lovely external decorations on those churches.

I thought it must be something to lay clothes out on.

We finished all our Chinese New Year decorating baking over the weekend. Part of me wonders why I do it, because it's a lot of effort and in the end it's basically just the 4 of us who eat the delicious-yet-fattening results and admire the decorations. I suppose I do it because it's the only tangible way of connecting DH and DDs to what was such a big part of my childhood culture.

DH's cross-cultural contribution was, instead of filling the house with piles of mandarin oranges, to make a giant vat of marmalade thus filling the house with the wonderful scent of Seville oranges.

Tomorrow being Shrove Tuesday as well as CNY, we'll be going cross-cultural again, by having crispy aromatic duck pancakes for dinner.

Lemon, but no sugar?

😄

I like tofu in many guises including being very happy with Tofoo smoked tofu made all nice and crunchy in the air fryer. I seem to be all about cheese at the moment though.

Happy New Year

I asked Bing for an image for the Bluestockingers

Excellent artwork there @DeanElderberry!

I've had this one doing the rounds of my friends and family back home.

Here's a Chinese lion dance in my [parents'] favourite shopping mall.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUaxGOakcHz/?igsh=MTQ1cXpvMWRpMGVycA==

It's like gymnastics on the high equipment except in pairs, blinded by a giant shaggy blanket, one of you bent over double, the other carrying a giant obscuring basket over your head, neither of you with arms to spare.

Happy CNY, Kuc! Hope you all enjoy the treats.

In a queue of traffic earlier and a man walked by with a pushchair with a toddler in it. The child turned to me and started smiling and waving, so I smiled and waved back. Never seen either of them before and it was very sweet.

That's it.

In a small protest against Chinese New Year clashing with Shrove Tuesday, tonight I am making a Burmese chicken curry. Apparently Burmese New Year (Thingyan) is based on the Myanmar lunisolar calendar. Who knew they even had a separate one of their own?

Never had a Burmese curry before and will look them up.

We're on Hungarian goulash tonight and it's a good chilly night for it too.

I guess there are multiple ways to arrange your lunisolar calendar!

I think some countries have more than one ... just because they can! I vaguely recall something weird involving the Thais switching to the Gregorian calendar but keeping their own Buddhist era years. And why not? I'm all in favour of confusion.

Since CNY is linked to the New Moon and Easter to the Full Moon I suppose it makes sense that the start of Lent sometimes (?often?) coincides. Never noticed it before.

Now you mention it, I seem to recall a few previous occasions of CNY and Shrove Tuesday coinciding. Thing is, CNY is quite late this year (usually mid-late January or early February) whereas Easter is always late March onwards.

Yes, Easter is fairly early this year - presumably there could often be a month to spare.

While putting away last weekend’s new jars of marmalade, DH found a jar from last year that we’d somehow missed! It’s still sealed and clear, so we’re definitely going to eat it. The colour difference is really something.

I did rather enjoy this.

I found a Kilner jar of Cointreau marmalade, dated 2011, which was candied. Several short, gentle heatings rendered it dark brown and soft again. As long as there's no mould, it'll keep indefinitely.

As a general observation, has anybody thought that wider MN has recently become even more, um, disconnected from reality than it used to be? I can think of several threads on a wide range of topics which have gone in very strange directions (so not just one or two odd posters).