At least here in the US, Amazon has made a lot of Kindle books available free for Amazon Prime users. Among them is Jacques Pepin’s new Heart & Soul in the Kitchen. I’ve just started but as expected it is quite good.
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Agree on that book @Auspicious, I bought the hard copy when it came out. It’s a good one, and appropriately titled.
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A friend of mine is predicting a major baby boom in December and January. I sent him an Amazon link.
I may have mentioned before we’re doing some canning and pickling.
Naps are good. You do have to get up early in the morning in order to have breakfast and have your mid-morning nap before lunch. Another nap before tea to have time for a nap before supper. If you have a lie-in you’ll miss a nap and that won’t do.
When was the last time you replaced all the wax rings under your toilets?
Now is the time for a lot of deep cleaning. “If you have time to lean you have time clean.”
Are your spices alphabetized yet?
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You have wax rings??? Luxury! We used to pee in a cardboard box outside in the rain.
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TMI. My home office is in the basement. I pee out the door into a French drain sump.
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Oh you guys, re: the peeing. All of you men must do it, including the H. My friend’s husband did it so much, he killed one of their bushes. Men working on the North Slope in Alaska are strongly cautioned not to do it EVER, because in -50F to -70F, they could wind up with frostbite.
What I really meant to respond to, is doesn’t everyone alphabetize their spices?? It’s one thing I’m absolutely parochial about - wouldn’t be able to find things, otherwise. I’ll send pics upon request if you wish…
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A cardboard box in the rain? You were lucky.
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I thought the same. Maybe I have too many herbs and spices? (Two full shelves in my cabinet.)
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A friend told me of this series. Very relaxing. Comforting to go back 80 years.
I can hit the French drain sump pretty reliably. At sea I have a mantra however. “There is no man in the world whose aim is anything like as good as he thinks it is, particularly with a moving target. Everyone sits for everything.” I follow my own rules for indoor plumbing even at home.
Now we can go on to talk about the issue of under seat splatter on the part of women. Go on. I dare you.
My wife still thinks I’m OCD. I finally got her to accept alphabetizing spices in our main spot. She has spices in two other places. I at least got her to accept labels.
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My friend and I killed all the grass outside his back door. Hey, we’re trying to save water.
The frostbitten weener thing, I’m not afraid of frostbite just that the thing may break in two.
I make chutneys and pickles. But, you need prices to be reasonable - which here, they’re not at this time of year in the best of times - and certainly not at present. We are heading for shortages and, certainly, higher prices - the UK depends on migrant labour for harvesting and those folk simply can’t get here at the moment.
Not to turn this thread into a pissing contest…oh wait too late!!!
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You must have a story, or twenty.
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Nope. I have two boxes in the cupboard. I enjoy being the modern day hunter gatherer having to root through both boxes, each time I need something, never really knowing if there’s going to be a jar in there somewhere.
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I use the same process. Always end up thinking I have a spice when I’m about to cook. Or buying spices when I’ve already got some. It’s actually a good system for establishing what I really use. It’s cumin, fennel, star anise and coriander that I regularly run out of.
I just saw a Twilight Zone from the early 60’s. These nice giant aliens landed on Earth and ended all wars, famines and offered free flights to their utopian planet.
They left a book at the UN and the cover eventually translated read “To Serve Man.”
The rest was later translated and:
“It’s a Cookbook!”
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Mine are actually semi-alphabetized. 
I have one of those little sets of steps in my cabinet so that I can actually see where things are, and the front line is everything I use very regularly, then a row of alphabetized spices, and then the baking related spices are alphabetized separately on the back row.
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Wow . . .did my mom teach you? I have the regularly used spices and herbs alphabetized on a lazy susan on my first shelf. On the first step of my second shelf are semi-used alphabetically sorted herbs and spices. I need a step ladder to get to the back row of the second shelf, but they’re things I use rarely.
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The late Oliver Sacks, who has no greater fan than I, once did a 4 part TV documentary called Mind Traveller. One episode focused on deaf culture and the different ways its vocabulary develops. It grew into a book, “Seeing Voices”, that might interest you.
