The Blue Willow Journal

Holidays 2012

 

 

Global Connections

This year the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance (RIGEA) decided to hold a Global Connections Bookmark Contest to celebrate Geography Awareness Week. We asked the entrants to design a bookmark that shows their connection to a location in the world.

We were excited to receive over 100 entries from Rhode Island elementary and middle school students!

Here are the winners in the K-2 category:

Karah-Mia Reavis Her special spot is Minnesota because "Indians were there" and "2 million years ago there was an ice age (there)".

Carlie Manning  Carlie chose California because the "Golden Gate Bridge is very pretty" and also because "Disneyland is there".

Helena Dudley  Africa is Helena's choice. She is curious about what Africa's people eat and where they sleep.

All three winners in the K-2 category put much effort into their artwork and writing about their special place. Congratulations to you all!

 

Winners in the the 3-5 category:

Julia Correnti Julia chose Block Island, Rhode Island. On the back side of her bookmark she showed pictures of what Hurricane Sandy has done to Block Island and she did a great job on her writing.

Gregory Sundstrom Gregory's spot is Kentucky. He did a nice job on his artwork and geographic details about the "horse state".

Alexandra Buffi  Alexandra's special place is Italy because her great-grandparents emigrated from there. Careful artwork is another plus for this entry.

Zoe de Silva  Zoe feels connected to Trinidad because her Dad was born there and she has pleasant memories of visiting there as a young child. Zoe did a great job describing where Trinidad is. 

The 3-5 category winners all did a fine job and worked hard. Congratulations!

Winners in the 6-8 category:

Marissa Lescarbeau  Marissa has a connection to England because her favorite band has members born there. Her bookmark included an excellent hand-drawn map of England.

Kiley McAleer  Kiley picked Rhode Island's capital city - Providence. She drew a detailed image of the city on her bookmark and described some of her favorite places in the city.

Kaleb Rubera  Kaleb chose Greece because he is Greek! He made a two-sided bookmark, on one side drawing a map of the surrounding area of Greece and on the other side a chart of Greek mythology figures and Greek alphabet letters.

Dale Einhorn  Dale's global connection is Canada because his great-grandmother was born in Prince Edward Island. He has memories of enjoying time with his great-grandmother learning about birds.

A fine job was done by the 6-8 winners on their geographic descriptions of the places they chose and the reasons why they felt connected to their locations. Very well done - congratulations!

RIGEA will highlight some of these wonderful entries as rotating banners for our website. Please visit rigea.org to see the efforts of these Rhode Island students once again.

Special thanks to Artena Fairbairn, 6th grade teacher at E.G. Robertson Elementary School in Warwick, Rhode Island and teacher consultant and long-time member of RIGEA. Just about all the entries in in our "Global Connections Bookmark Contest" are from Artena's school because she did such a good job motivating the student body to enter the contest!

 

May Breakfasts

May Breakfasts are a Rhode Island tradition. Churches, fire stations and community groups hold them each year all over the state.

Our local one in town is held at the "red church" either right on May 1st or as close to that date as possible.

It was cold and wet this morning but the food and coffee warmed us right up:

scrambled eggs

bacon and sausage

pancakes

hash browns

blueberry coffee cake

fruit and juice

coffee

 

Provincial Wisdom

I spent last July in Waterside, New Brunswick, Canada, at my parents' summer place bought back in 1966. Waterside is right on the Bay of Fundy and has a population of 100.

If you are living or staying in Waterside one of your nearby go-to villages is Hillsborough, population 1,962. The bank is there. You can go to great auctions at the Hillsborough Kiwanis Club, you've got several restaurants to choose from and there's even a museum. It's a happening place.

Last year the New Brunswick Women's Institute was celebrating its 100th Anniversary and in honor of this milestone the Hillsborough branch published a cookbook. Of course I bought one. Besides some winning recipes, I noticed that sprinkled throughout the cookbook were tidbits of New Brunswick wisdom on life, weather, gardening and cleaning.

Here are some of the best:

~ Enjoy the pleasures of gardening or don't bother doing one ~

~ Use ketchup to clean silverware ~

~ Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning ~

~ Always have something to do, something to get up for each morning ~

~ Grass stains: use molasses, let stand, then wash ~

~ Keep digging at your garden and keep it

loose between plantings ~

~ Mackerel sky: not long wet and not long dry ~

~ To remove pen stains on clothing or crayon marks

on the wall, take the outside of a cucumber

and slowly use it to erase the stains ~

~ Follow the Canadian food hints and keep active

in your personal life ~

~ Put vinegar on rags to keep deer out of the garden ~

~ Blueberry stains: soak in milk ~

~ If you are retired, adopt hobbies with up and going activities. Avoid sitting down and too much napping as it is not good ~

~ To deodorize shoes, place sheets of Bounce in them overnight ~

 

 

 

Swedish Visiting Cake

I am always on the look-out for terrific things to bake and this fills the bill. This recipe is incredibly easy, requires no mixer and turns out perfectly every time. I found it in two places almost at the same time and one of the sources called it "Swedish Visiting Cake". The reason? Because you can have this recipe baking in the oven between the time you see your visitors at your gate and they are knocking on your door!

Swedish Visiting Cake

325 degree oven         Butter a 9x13 inch baking pan

Mix the following ingredients together thoroughly:

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

4 large room temperature eggs

2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

2 teaspoons almond extract

Spread this batter in the pan evenly.

Sprinkle about 1/3 cup sliced almonds over the batter and then sprinkle about 1 tablespoon sugar over the almonds.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the cake tests done with a toothpick and is golden brown around the edges. Cool, and cut into cake-sized squares or into bar-sized treats (about 24 of these). Swedish Visiting Cake is perfect with tea or coffee, it freezes well and I doubt anyone you serve it to will have tasted it before!

 

 

 

 

Preserving Hydrangeas

Today is final preparations for Hurricane Irene, which is due tomorrow here in Rhode Island. When I was going down the list of what needs to be done I suddenly realized I had not "taken in" my hydrangeas for the coming year and if I did not take them in today they would be unusable once the hurricane arrived.

When I say "taking in my hydrangeas" I'm talking about preserving the semi-dried blooms for use in the house from now until next summer.

Here's what I do:

I wait until late August when the blooms are fading and drying on the bush. My hydrangeas are bright blue during their blooming season. At the end of the summer they are many different colors - lovely faded colors like purple, light blue, lilac, even some tinges of green - and the trick is that you want to have them retain these beautiful colors while completely drying.

When I cut a stem off the bush I remove all the leaves and also shake the bloom head to rid it of any insects camped inside.

I've been doing two large bouquets for the house, for one I use a frog for the other I don't.

Fill the containers you want to use about 3/4 full of water. Arrange your hydrangeas and then display them and DO NOTHING ELSE. Let the water evaporate over time - DO NOT refill with water.

I find hydrangeas preserved this way retain their gorgeous colors from the day you picked them, they dry completely and they stay this way until the next August!   Pretty amazing.

This arrangement is done with a frog in the bottom of a large silverplate bowl:

This one I just stick the stems in and arrange without a frog:

New Brunswick, Canada

I am spending July in New Brunswick, the large Maritime Province just over the US border. In an earlier post I talked about how Grand Manan Island, which is part of New Brunswick, goes unnoticed by Americans, even Americans who live very close to it. The entire province of New Brunswick suffers the same fate.

I guess I can understand this - looking at these photographs, why would anyone want to come here?

 

 

Cranberry Vanilla Jam

My sister Beth has been visiting for the holidays and we both love to cook and bake. We just whipped up a batch of delicious, unusual jam. Probably nobody you know has tasted this before so this is a delightful gift to give special people. It has a gorgeous, clear-red appearance and it is very easy to make.

Here it is:

1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise

1 (12 oz) bag fresh cranberries

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup fresh orange juice

1/2 cup water

Scrape vanilla seeds from pod into a heavy saucepan. Add pod and remaining ingredients and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thick, about 20 minutes.

Jam will thicken as it cools.

Puree jam in a food mill set over a bowl, discarding skins and pod.

Pour into sterilized jars and seal. Makes 2 cups.

 

 

 

Deck the Halls

 

 

Flea Market Finds

More amazing scores on the flea market front.........

A set of Villeroy and Boch china in the "Anjou" pattern:

and four perfect plates in Booth's "Real Old Willow " pattern:

It is unbelievable what turns up at the flea market we go to almost every Sunday from April to November. This Sunday will probably be the last one until the spring....good thing because I will soon need a barn all to myself for all the treasures I have found!