COUSIN CONNECT


Friday 1 February 2008

FAMILY HISTORY - WILLIAM BOCK/ALICE HAMMET

Success after so long - in my previous post, I mentioned that I was trying to find out more about these people. Well I managed to find a post from a lady who had posted to a message board I think - took the punt on the email address, and I was lucky.
The lady in question is related to William Bock and she was trying to find out further details on Alice. Maybe I can start filling in a few blanks.
Perserverance pays off eventually.

Further inputting of details on the Genes Reunited site has also thrown up more contacts, and I will need to spend a few days updating records and taking print outs of other family member trees. This site is well worth subscribing to.

Whilst searching for recipes the other day, I came across a good site, which I have sent to a few of my friends - www.recipezaar.com - numerous recipe categories and you are sure to find something to try out. A friend of mine has sent me an email, as she was having trouble making gluten free pasta and asked my advice. So I got onto good old Google and typed in gluten free pasta recipes and the above site was one of the many featured. The site allows you to email a recipe to whoever. Found a few Crock Pot recipes, which I am always on the look out for, plus many others.
One I came across was for a Lemon Butter, and I remembered the recipe that I have been making for years, and have passed onto to my mother and sister, who always use it.
Its done in the microwave and very easy.

LEMON CHEESE

2 eggs
1 cup castor sugar
Juice and rind of 2 lemons
1 tbsp custard powder
60g melted butter.

Beat eggs well, add sugar and beat until creamy.
Add lemon juice and rind, custard powder and melted butter.
Mix thoroughly.
Microwave on high for 3 minutes, reduce microwave to medium high and cook for a further 2 minutes, stirring occasinally.
Allow to cool - Makes one jar.

Something else homemade you may like to try is LAVENDER FABRIC RINSE.

Read this in either a Grass Roots magazine, or Earth Garden and have been making it for a few months. This is good if you have lots of lavender flowers -

I have been using a tall pasta sauce jar, but if you have an empty vinegar container, that would also work. All you do is pick your lavender flowers, and pack into the container. Cover with vinegar, and leave to sit in a sunny spot for about 2 weeks - turning the container upside down a couple of times a day.
After 2 weeks, empty the flowers out of the container and you have a lovely lavender rinse to use in your washing machine.
Don't waste money on the commercial fabric conditioners. Most manufacturers these days recommend not using them.

I am reading THE GLASS PALACE by Amitav Ghosh, and enjoying the style of writing and all about Burma. The reading group read a book set in Burma last year called THE PIANO TUNER by Daniel Mason, which opened our eyes to the culture of that country. One of the ladies had visited Rangoon and the surrounding countryside and was captivated by the people.

Both books though show up the English colonials for what they were - destroyers of ancient civilisations, power hungry and corrupt.

The Glass Palace is a book that I would like to buy for myself, as when I finish reading this, will have to return to a friend.
One of the many interesting facts described in the book is about TEAK

Did you know that Teak is a relative of mint, (tectona grandis), born of the same genus of flowering plant, but of a distaff branch, presided over by that most soothing of herbs, verbena.
It counts amont its close kin many other fragrant and familiar herbs - sage, savoury, thyme, lavender, rosemary and most remarkably holy basil, with its many descendants, green and purple, smmoth-leaved and coarse, pungent and frangrant, bitter and sweet.

"The mint leaf was the size of Rajkumar's thumb while the other would have covered an elephant's footprint; one was a weed that served to flavour soup while the other came from a tree that had felled dynasties, caused invasions, created fortunes, brought a new way of life into being."

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