Idle chatter!

[Susan in NC]

Abigail wrote: "I'll trade you a slice of the lemon-basil cake I just made for my writers group meeting!"

One of each, please!

[Karlyne]

Abigail wrote: "I'll trade you a slice of the lemon-basil cake I just made for my writers group meeting!"

Yum! I love those flavors! My buns turned out really well; I used dried tart cherries instead of raisins and that worked nicely, although not traditional. We ate them with dinner, also not traditional, but modern life has to trump tradition, right?!?

[Abigail]

You bet! If we don't adapt traditions they tend to die. After all, raisins were only used because dried tart cherries weren't available, so you're just perfecting tradition.

My cake was a little heavy, as my cakes generally are, sigh, but the little crunch of lemon-basil sugar on top was fabulous.

[Karlyne]

Abigail wrote: "You bet! If we don't adapt traditions they tend to die. After all, raisins were only used because dried tart cherries weren't available, so you're just perfecting tradition.

My cake was a little h..."

I happen to like dense cakes- more flavor! (my rolls were heavy, too, and took forever to rise, but it just made them better) If you have any basil left, send it to me. I need it for my potato salad Sunday.

[Abigail]

Sadly, I picked it over pretty thoroughly.

[Karlyne]

Cilantro makes a nice substitute for basil, which was nowhere to be found in my area, in potato salad. In fact, it added a serious freshness to the potato salad, and I was quite proud of how much of the mountain of it was eaten. (Easter is the first potato salad of the year, and first baked beans. But I didn't put cilantro in the beans...)

[Abigail]

I admire your courage! I love cilantro in many things, but some people hate it and won't touch anything that includes it. Glad your crowd was not of this number, and happy spring!

[Karlyne]

Thank goodness we're all very herby. A couple of the weird grandkids even eat sage and oregano raw, but, as I said, they're weird. Fried sage and oregano is crazy delicious, but I'm not a fan of fuzzy foods!

[Abigail]

Well, I used to suck on lemons and eat salt out of the cellar, so sage and oregano don't seem too weird to me, though I'm with you on the fuzzy thing!

[Portia]

I am one of those unfortunates who thinks cilantro tastes like pencil shavings. However, I love all other herbs. In fact, tomorrow we are going on our annual herb buying spree. We will get cilantro. My spouse likes it just fine😉

[Karlyne]

My in-laws thought cilantro tasted like soap, but then they hated garlic, too. Odd people... (aren't all in-laws?!)

I had a friend who used to dunk her carrot sticks in sugar, and yesterday we dunked celery in salt and chives. We go through a ton of chives, because I have a weird sensitivity to raw onions. I'm glad that chives are the first herbs to grow because the frozen and freeze-dried ones just don't last a whole winter, and they'd eat a big jar of the Costco ones in one sitting if I'd let them!

[Jackie]

I don't really care for cilantro but I thought I was the only one!

[Critterbee❇]

I dislike cilantro as well - too reminiscent of stinkbugs for me.

[Barb in Maryland]

I belong to the 'cilantro tastes like soap' group, but love regular parsley--so I freely substitute when I'm the cook.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah!]

Abigail is the basil lemon cake recipe online. Our basil bushes are still alive, but the cooler weather mean we won't have them for much longer.

Oh I love cilantro (which we call coriander) I just made a beautiful pumpkin chickpea curry, which was garnished with coriander. To die for.

[ShanDizzy]

Barb in Maryland wrote: "I belong to the 'cilantro tastes like soap' group, but love regular parsley--so I freely substitute when I'm the cook."

Me too Barb! However, one of my friends made a cilantro and mango salad that tasted very pleasant. But as a general rule, I say a hard no to cilantro!

[Susan in NC]

Portia wrote: "I am one of those unfortunates who thinks cilantro tastes like pencil shavings. However, I love all other herbs. In fact, tomorrow we are going on our annual herb buying spree. We will get cilantro..."

Mine, too! But to me, it tastes like soap...

[Susan in NC]

Karlyne wrote: "My in-laws thought cilantro tasted like soap, but then they hated garlic, too. Odd people... (aren't all in-laws?!)

I had a friend who used to dunk her carrot sticks in sugar, and yesterday we du..."

Now I like garlic flavoring, but also have a hard time with raw onions.

[Susan in NC]

Barb in Maryland wrote: "I belong to the 'cilantro tastes like soap' group, but love regular parsley--so I freely substitute when I'm the cook."

That’s my favorite sub for soaplantro - oops, cilantro- also!

[Susan in NC]

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "Abigail is the basil lemon cake recipe online. Our basil bushes are still alive, but the cooler weather mean we won't have them for much longer.

Oh I love cilantro (which we call coriander) I just..."

That sounds delicious- just hold the coriander garnish on my serving, please ma’am!

[Abigail]

Hi, Carol, the lemon-basil cake is not online so far as I know. It's from a book of Bundt cake recipes I edited about a decade ago. It was good, especially the glaze, but my favorite recipe in the book is for a vanilla-pink peppercorn cake.

Sadly, I just left town for a week so I can't supply the recipes just now. I'll see if I can come up with the title and author of the book, though, and if I can you could check to see if she has a blog.

[Abigail]

I'm pretty sure this is the book!

https://www.amazon.com/Cake-Simple-Bu...

[Karlyne]

I'm reading Thirkell's The Brandons, and I laughed at this reference to Cold Comfort Farm: …"the intense pleasure of seeing Something with a blanket over it taken away"...

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah!]

Abigail wrote: "I'm pretty sure this is the book!

https://www.amazon.com/Cake-Simple-Bu..."

Thanks Abigail. I rarely buy cookbooks now - especially cake ones. & I don't own a bundt tin.

I've found a couple of recipes online so may experiment. In a couple of days.

It's ANZAC Day here. We are going to the daytime parade in an hour or so.

Lest we forget.

[Karlyne]

Be sure to pronounce "bundt" with a heavy Greek accent (My Big Fat Greek Wedding).

[Karlyne]

Oh, my word. I just finished Rumer Godden's Kingfishers Catch Fire, and I won't be forgetting it any time soon. I "knew" where part of it was going, having read part of her memoirs, but she still stupefied me. I'm so glad I found her here, Group!

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah!]

Karlyne wrote: "Oh, my word. I just finished Rumer Godden's Kingfishers Catch Fire, and I won't be forgetting it any time soon. I "knew" where part of it was going, having read part of her memoirs, but she still s..."

I have that one! I would love to nominate it for a group read later in the year!

[Karlyne]

It's a doozy!

[Karlyne]

So, I just finished Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish (#9, I think), and I've been continually amazed at her even knowing of so many of these places, let alone knowing about their political situations. She travelled a lot, but still! I don't recall ever hearing of Western Sahara and the Prolisariats (ok, I'm going to have to trot off and check that spelling). Dorothy Gilman, my hat is off to you!

[Karlyne]

Oops, an "r" slipped in there. It's actually the Polisario Front. Crazy interesting story.

[Karlyne]

I just finished the last Mrs. Pollifax (one of my favorites, but then it was my most recent 😁), and I have to thank her for vastly increasing my knowledge of, especially, the Middle East, rather like Thirkell forcing me to look up her classical references (Egeria, anyone? Hmmm). And this is the official End of Summer Week, so it's fitting to leave Emily Pollifax here. But, still, rather sadly.

[Abigail]

You've inspired me, Karlyne--next time I'm sick in bed I'm going on a Pollifax binge!

[Karlyne]

Abigail wrote: "You've inspired me, Karlyne--next time I'm sick in bed I'm going on a Pollifax binge!"

I heartily recommend it! I've been interspersing a whole lot of children's pioneer fiction and Thirkell as summer has, sadly, passed. Speaking of Thirkell, I thought pollarding trees meant to take off the bottom branches so that the tops are denser. There go my gardening credentials- it's exactly opposite. Google is so very handy. 😁

Get healthy, Abigail! Should I send you some blue sky and fresh air (before it gets hot this afternoon, the last hurrah, I hope)?

[Abigail]

Thanks, we actually have weather in the upper sixties and lower seventies (nearly all the time), so I have nothing to complain about. I'm almost recovered, but next time I'll definitely prioritize a Pollofax reread; some of the more recent ones I haven't read since they first came out!

[Karlyne]

I hadn't read them in order before, or even all of them, so this was really nice!

[Hana, Hana is In Absentia]

Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish was lots of fun. The series began to flag a bit for me after that, but Gilman is still always good for light recreation on a slow summer day and she always manages to send me off to Google Maps and Wikipedia and amazes me with her eye for detail.

[Karlyne]

Hana wrote: "Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish was lots of fun. The series began to flag a bit for me after that, but Gilman is still always good for light recreation on a slow summer day and..."

I've already begun to run them all together in my memory, and I agree that some of the later ones were uneven and not as plausible as the earlier ones. But they were still fun - and definitely educational! My knowledge of, especially, Africa and the Middle East is spotty so it's been fun to look up the locales and the historical facts. I love maps and encyclopedias, whether in paper or online.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah!]

Hi if anyone wants to comment about the White Island tragedy in New Zealand, please do it here rather than in one of the book threads.

[Abigail]

Very sorry to hear about the eruption and the loss of life. Does it affect any parts of NZ beyond White Island?

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah!]

Abigail wrote: "Very sorry to hear about the eruption and the loss of life. Does it affect any parts of NZ beyond White Island?"

It would have been visible from the shore, but I haven't heard of any direct effects. I have read on one of the news reports that just because one volcano went off doesn't mean that others in the area will.

This article before the full scale of the tragedy was realised.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/1180...

[Abigail]

The most recent report I saw had the daunting words "no sign of life" and mentioned that 13 people were believed to be on the island.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah!]

Hi, following a complaint I'm moving some off the off topic comments from the Death In Cyprus thread.

Lesley wrote: "
Carol, can you see White Island from where you are? Sounds like it’s been a reasonably ..."

Carol No, we have been following with horror. To be honest I didn't realise tourists were allowed on White Island. For some reason I thought it was the domain of scientists & geologists only.

Lesley"I thought the same but apparently they’ve had tourists there for a few years.i thought the sulphur made it too dangerous."

Susan in NC "Carol and Lesley (and any other Kiwis present), so sorry about White Island - saw the picture on The NY Times and BBC home pages on line. Be safe!

Susan in NC & Lesley, if you could remove the off topic part of your comments in #43 & #46 I would appreciate it. :)

[Karlyne]

I was surprised to see that the island is so close to the shore (I don't know why I was surprised). What a horrible tragedy.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah!]

Karlyne wrote: "I was surprised to see that the island is so close to the shore (I don't know why I was surprised). What a horrible tragedy."

That is it's attraction as a tourist destination - relatively easy to get to.

There are other live volcano tours around the world.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah!]

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I'm going sailing Boxing Day - not very far afield though.

See everyone in the New Year!

[Abigail]

Sounds like fun, Carol! It's supposed to rain here so maybe I'll be swimming . . .

[Lesley]

Hope the weather behaves for your sailing, Carol. Merry Christmas to you and Marty. Talk to you in 2020 👋🏻

[Susan in NC]

Have a wonderful, safe trip, Carol, and Merry Christmas to everyone! Looking forward to reading and discussions with you all in 2020!

[Karlyne]

Sail away, Carol! I'll be snow tromping!

[Susan in NC]

Keep your tootsies warm, Karlyne!