Organic Granny

  HOW THIS SPELT AND OAT FOCACCIA RECIPE CAME TO BE: One day I was browsing the flour shelves in my favorite health food store when another shopper sighed in frustration and gestured at an empty shelf. Evidently it had been the Spelt Flour shelf, which was now 'sold out'.  We entered into one of those conversations based on shopper bonhomie. We both liked spelt flour. It is an ancient grain, but has almost a 1:1 ability to be used in the place of bread flour or all purpose flour, even though it is technically a "whole grain flour" like whole wheat-- but sooo different in its baking profile from whole wheat. It has quite a high gluten quantity, but doesn't require as much kneading. In fact, if you over-mix spelt flour, you end up with that stringy quality that says "high protein" (or rubber bands). It has a nice nutty flavor (again, unlike whole wheat), and a sort of "soft cake-y" texture in some baking. And it is high in fibre-- definitely a pl

Forever Young by Hayley Mills  <-- Get it at Amazon My rating: 5 of 5 stars I was a teen on the prairies of Canada at the time of the British Invasion (1960s). There were many little Anglophiles swarming about in those days-- trying out our British accents, reading British novels, swooning over the Fab4 and other groups, and watching British movies. Hayley Mills was a young British movie star and only a couple of years older than I. I enjoyed her movies-- especially "The Parent Trap". I enjoyed this Memoir. Very much. I learned there was quite a bit I didn't know about Miss Hayley Mills. 10 THINGS I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT HAYLEY MILLS   10.   Hayley was an English actress but her mother, born Mary Hayley Bell, grew up in a Missionary family in China, and was descended from New Englanders .  Her mother's family had lived in the United States for several generations. Hayley didn't discover this until she herself was an adult and had worked back and forth between

Run Rose Run by Dolly Parton   My rating: 4 of 5 stars Dolly Parton partnered up with super bestseller writer James Patterson to write this fast-moving story of a young singer-songwriter's arrival and assent in Nashville's country music scene. AnnieLee Keyes is petite, gorgeous, naive, ambitious, and altogether a 'firecracker'. But she also comes with "secrets" and a bag full of demons from her past. The reader will find that the novel is primarily a mystery story with some pretty interesting 'action' as well.  ( Click here or on image left to to to book on Amazon.ca or click here to go to Amazon.com . Because it carries a strong theme of writing music for the country audience, there is also a lot of the "values" innate to that industry: cowboy heroes, no flagged LGBTQ+ characters, identifiable violent villains, some with shotguns, and a stark contrast between the super-rich and the very poor and all that says for the reader niche. There

  Kidneys from "Dreamstime"  In 16th Century Japan, Samari warriors wore a haramaki-- a tight fitting piece of woven armor over their lower abdomen-- stomach, kidneys and other organs were somewhat protected.  Today's haramaki has little in common with the military wraps. In Japan there is a burst of the haramaki on the fashion scene. It is generally a tube that is knit or woven to fit over the abdomen and takes various aesthetic forms, textures and colors.   Keeping Your Core Warm Take 3 minutes to watch this video that will tell you about the benefits of kidney warmers: Along with the fashion surge, there is a recognition in Asia and cold-weather countries in Europe and North America, that the haramaki offers a solace for the kidneys and other organs in the abdomen. The haramaki (or "kidney warmer", "kidney wrap" or "core warmer"-- some of the many names it is called) will boost circulation, which is a great boon for warmth and health. It i

Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese  <-- link to Amazon My rating: 4 of 5 stars Laurie Lico Albanese has written Hester an historical novel based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's *The Scarlet Letter*. She presents her book's heroine, Hester, as the imagined victim of Hawthorne's assaults, a parallel with his story except that he does not identify himself as the character of the deceiving minister and all the notes and unpublished manuscript pages for *The Scarlet Letter* have been lost, likely burned. ( click image above to link to Amazon ) The story involves a history of 'witches,' both in Scotland, where Hester originated with a predecessor (aunt) who was persecuted as a witch, and in Salem in America, where the famous Puritan witch persecutions had taken place. The story is quite gripping and full of surprises. Hester is a gifted seamstress/embroidery artist and I found myself intrigued by Albanese's descriptions of the needlework she does, and how its artistry is hi

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser My rating: 5 of 5 stars  (click above or on book image to go to Amazon.ca) This is a fat, academic-standard biography by Caroline Fraser about one of my favorite childhood writers, Laura Ingalls Wilder. When I was in third grade the teacher, Mrs. Kathleen Turtle, read a chapter out of one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books after lunch each day. I likely checked the books out of the library since I do not recall owning any of her books. But she definitely left an impression. I recall sitting in my desk and relaxing, just letting my mind follow the story set on the prairie in the USA, like our prairies in Canada, to which, as a Saskatchewan rural farmgirl, I could relate. I day-dreamed about my maternal grandmother as a child because she had actually been born in North Dakota, coming up to Saskatchewan "in the Early Days" with her parents and eight of her siblings. You can