Saffron Museum

If you read yesterday's Toronto Star, you saw article about a Saffron Museum!http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/travel/Saffron_is_mountain_village_s_spice_of_life.html?siteSect=415&sid=5293362&cKey=1220517614000&ty=st Purse Museums -Saffron Museums-what next?

135 saffron growers in Mund Switzerland, a tiny village in southern Switzerland spend time on the steep hillsides growing and harvesting the world's most expensive spice. Saffron has been grown in Switzerland since the 14th century but today it's grown only in Mund- the northern most place in Europe where saffron flourishes- in a canton known for other superlatives like the Matterhorn, and Visperterminen-Europe's highest vineyards.

In Mund, you get saffron risotto, saffron bread, and creamy saffron soup at the Restaurant Jagerheim.

A saffron museum opened in October 2007 in a 15th century wooden house here.

"Does it pay off? No," Rohmeder: a pharmacist who now makes Munder Gold, a saffron liqueur, says candidly.

"Nobody is rich here, nobody is poor. Everyone makes as much money as they want and as most have sheep. It's an ideal pre-Marxist society There's no reason to accumulate capital."

Interesting, making as much money as they want. Something makes me think that the accumulation of material wealth is not high on the list of their priorities since they spend their time painstakingly collecting the stamens of the flowers for saffron. 130 flowers result in one gram of saffron, that is a lot of work. Most of the saffron is produced for the village.

I think that someday, I will visit museum's of the world the great ones in terms of size but also the quirky.

Tassen Museum or Purse Museum

Many people are definitely collectors and I just discovered a wonderful museum in Amsterdam which I would love to visit next time I visit this delightful city. The museum was started by Sigrid Ivo who inherited her passion from her mother who devoted half her life to creating one of the biggest walk-in closest in the world. The Museum of Bags and Purses is inside an elegant, five-storey home that houses more than 1,500 bags dating back to the 16th century. http://us.holland.com/e/45245/Evening+bags+and+purses+.phpThis museum would complement Toronto's Shoe museum. Women often buy bags and shoes with the intention of having them coordinate.

I don't think that Michael will be as eager to join me in a tour of the museum but I think that I can arrange for him to sit at a lovely cafe or restaurant and have an ale of some kind.

The article in today's Toronto Star feature some wonderful examples of purses from the museum. They put me to shame with my back-pack bag that I use nearly everyday. I can not be bothered transferring all the things that help me get through a day. I like to know that I have them even if I don't always use them.

I am inspired to think about being more creative and imaginative in my choice of handbags. Dull works but these are more fun.

Local Food

As I continue to discover, we must research environmental decisions carefully. The use of ethanol and growing crops to produce it has demonstrated that our best intentions can have a negative effect when we divert what was a crop for cattle and people to fuel for our vehicles thereby causing farmland to be allocated for other purposes. The other negatives are that the cost of food increases and the actual amount decreases especially in areas that are already experiencing difficulty producing enough food for the local population.

Our 100 mile diet does not always support economic efficiency or best farming practises in. New Zealand researchers have found that the country's natural abundance of clover-filled fields mean it can ship its lamb 24,000 kilometres to Britain and still only produce one-quarter of the carbon footprint of local British lamb raised on manufactured food.

Canada's Atlantic halibut is obtained by using the highly destructive practise of bottom trawling which other nations (not all I will admit) have banned.

What these examples point out is that we must keep examining our assumptions about the 100 mile diet and other practises. Things are not as clear as they might seem at first glance.

Executrix

In case, you are wondering why I have not posted for a couple days- actually only one but it feels like a few days, I am busy focusing on my duties as a executrix and relearning what needs to be done. Unfortunately, I taken care of more than one estate prior to this.

Probate: must be done if property and assets are not held jointly- something to be said for joint accounts but then again there are good reasons for not having joint accounts!

I just contacted the cemetery where my friend's ashes were buried last week. I wanted to make sure that all the details had been taken care of. Well, apparently my friend had been sold two identical headstones! Who would do that?!? The cemetery claims that they can not refund the cost because they make the headstone immediately upon payment and store them. Well, I want to see the storage facility and since they are not refunding, I want the metal which can be melted down and some money retrieved. No really, I think that if they do not refund we are going to Small Claims court. Who would do such a terrible thing to a nice old man. My friend, Charlie was already 75 when he purchased the two headstones!

Hopefully, everything else will go smoothly and there will not be any major problems. Just the methodical process of applying for survivor's benefits and closing and cancelling accounts.

Oatmeal Bread

It is getting cool outside, not downright cold yet but we are migrating to colder weather and it is time to start making comfort food. One of my favourites is this oatmeal bread which I made yesterday. My goal is to bake something old or new each week. This was the start. Love this recipe, the leftover cheddar cheese will be used for Macaroni and Cheese later in the week. No waste, although we could use the cheese for sandwiches; cheese does not go to waste here.

Oatmeal Bread

To sour milk, use 1 tbs.. white vinegar for each cup of milk. Put the vinegar in the cup before measuring.

1 cup rolled oats
1 1/4 cups buttermilk or soured milk
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg beaten
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese

Heat oven to 350o F. Grease a 1 /12 quart casserole well. Combine oats and milk in a medium bowl and let stand 30 minutes. Beat in sugar, egg and oil. Sift together dry ingredients and stir into oat mixture to blend. Turn into casserole and sprinkle cheese over top. Bake until a toothpick stuck in centre comes out clean. about 55 minutes. Cool in casserole 5 minutes, then turn out a rack.

Good, coarse flavourful bread, excellent toasted
Canadian Magazine

THomas Jefferson and the Economy

The first dire warnings about the U. S. Banking system was issued 199 years ago. "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties that standing armies... if the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporation that will grow up around them will deprive people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent that their fathers conquered. Thomas Jefferson, 1809 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

(http://www.economyincrisis.org/)

If this concept was there 199 years ago, why was it ignored?

Side-walk artist

Many of us have seen his work. It is often passed around in e-mails. He is Julian Beever, the sidewalk chalk artist who has become known for his 3-D art and illusions http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm He is in Toronto! I hope that his work is still at the corner of Eglinton and Yonge after the rain we had. I am planning to get there and have a look. His work has always fascinated me and obviously many others.

Mr. Beever is from Dover, England. Toscano Pizza has hired him to draw on boards brought in for the occasion. This is the first I have heard of the pizza; will have to look it up. Riocan which owns the building and the square where he is working has not helped make his work easier by placing a giant yellow Dumpster next to the artist. Sometimes people lack understanding of the impact of events. Beever has commented that the area is not particularly attractive and it would be hard to disagree.

Beever left art school and started his career in York, England where he was a busker for a Punch and Judy puppet show. He pioneered 3-D drawings and his career took off when his girlfriend took photos of the 3-D images and placed them on the Internet. Last week, he was in Montevideo drawing a Ballantyne's scotch bottle, next week he is in Bangkok drawing Piper's whisky bottle. Nice life.

Wonderful what images on the Internet can do for some careers.