Breaking down the brick walls – Where did we come from?

McCrystal Homeplace-circa 1970s
McCrystals’ homeplace – Irish Ridge, circa 1970s

A misconception, call it misinformation:

When you absolutely know  your ancestor came from a specific area and time of history, why would you (or in this case, “ME”) look anywhere else even when confronted with conflicting information?

Yep. I was completely wrong! Sadly, I was many miles from my hometown when many of the elders related to my family were talking to strangers researching their book about the Rock Fences of the Bluegrass area of Kentucky. Their reminiscing’s were documented as the absolute truth about where my ancestors came from in Ireland and the stories behind those journeys. Continue reading “Breaking down the brick walls – Where did we come from?”

2026 – a year to travel again?

For the past 7 or 8 months I have been back to digging into my ancestry.

Brick wall
Brick Wall Background
by goodvibrations/Stocksy

I had given this research up in the late 20-aughts because I felt I had fully explored everything available and had reached a dead-end. The proverbial “brick wall”. I was tired of the blood running in my eyes as I battered at the wall and got nowhere. I had been using Family Tree Maker and even that program had been sold so many times and not updated or maintained. All roads pointed to “give it up”. Continue reading “2026 – a year to travel again?”

Food Sharing versus Food Waste Composting

To Share or Not To Share

I am not a radical in the food world.  However, I do have strong opinions. This whole food composting, politically-correct idea is a bit off-putting for me. I know there are things that are appropriate to composting – rinds and peelings of fruit and vegetables, bones from the chicken or turkey (or beef and pork if you are into that), and some items that are not actual food.

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Real Cornbread with Corn Kernels

Traditional cornbread muffins are made with cornmeal.  However, if you don’t have cornmeal on hand or prefer fresh corn, you can still make cornbread muffins. This recipe is easy to make and the results are delicious.  I’ve made them with whole wheat flour, but all purpose flour can certainly be substituted, though not as healthy.

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Seasonal Peach Coffee Cake

Seasonal Peach Coffee Cake

Fresh from the oven, a warm Peach and Walnut Coffee Cake. It is peach season here and I am so into freestone peaches.  At $4/pound, I cannot let any go to waste or get too ripe and soft. So when they get really ripe in the refrigerator, I whip out my recipe for Coffee Cake and make sure every bite of these lovely peaches is in one form or another.  Give the recipe a try and let me know what you think in the comments below.

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Gardening in an urban environment (V-2025)

We have around 500 square feet of deck, trex decking with a solid surround and angled cap. During the lock-down we decided to start our urban gardening.

We moved here with over 30 plants.  Getting them loaded into the U-Haul truck, then unloaded here and moved to our deck was no small project. Slowly over the past 12+ years, some plants made their end-of-life transition.  I mourned the loss of each one. There were 3 bushes, numerous perennials and a limited number of annuals, which for some reason came back year after year when we lived in downtown Seattle (Belltown). One I mourned was a Rosemary bush that had thrived in downtown Seattle but found Burien just too harsh to live with.

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The Urban Gardener (V-2021)

Covid-19 caused us to tuck into our home and not really go out at all.  While Hubby had an outpatient surgery scheduled for January 2021, that was the only risk we had to take since lockdown.

In 2020, for Mother’s Day, Hubby insisted I should not cook.  We went into “Old Town” to a known restaurant (eaten there a number of times pre-Covid) and ordered a “to-go” Chicken Caesar salad.  Not saying the restaurant is no longer a favorite, however the salad was seriously lacking in quality, taste and pretty much anything else you can think of (wilted, tasteless and unappealing visually). Continue reading “The Urban Gardener (V-2021)”

Coleslaw & Dressing Like Mom’s

I love coleslaw but I have always taken the “easy and fast” way out with it, buying bottled coleslaw dressing or a coleslaw “kit” in the bag. Now I am a convert – yes, it took maybe 15 minutes to make this coleslaw dressing (and yes, I purchased a 14 ounce bag of shredded green cabbage, carrot and red cabbage, so I cheated a little).

Here’s my version of this recipe – a mash-up of several I have tried but none of which ever added up to my expectations. This one pleases my taste buds enormously.

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Romance and/or Travel: the journey or the destination?

Travel.  The word can bring forth thoughts, memories, feelings.  Yet, it is just a word.  A six-letter word.  Looking up definitions for such a word, I found many variations.  As a verb, travel was defined as early as the 1300’s:

travel  (v.)

c.1375, “to journey,” from travailen (1300) “to make a journey,” originally “to toil, labor” (see travail). The semantic development may have been via the notion of “go on a difficult journey,” but it may also reflect the difficulty of going anywhere in the Middle Ages. Replaced O.E. faran. Travels “accounts of journeys” is recorded from 1591. Traveled “experienced in travel” is from 1413. Traveling salesman is attested from 1885.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

 

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