Did you know?

[Aggie]

Did You Know. People used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot......they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.
Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . ...... . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof... Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive... So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.
And that's the truth....Now, whoever said History was boring?

[Aggie]

"Warshing Clothes Recipe" - imagine having a recipe for this ! ! !
Years ago a Texas grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe:
This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook, spelling errors and all.
WARSHING CLOTHES
Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert.
Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water.
Sort things, make 3 piles
1 pile white,
1 pile colored,
1 pile work britches and rags.
To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.
Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard and boil, then rub colored don't boil just wrench and starch.
Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch.
Hang old rags on fence.
Spread tea towels on grass.
Pore wrench water in flower bed. Scrub porch with hot soapy water.
Turn tubs upside down.
Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs. Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.

[Aggie]

Interesting world geography tidbits.
* Almost the entire continent of South America is further east than the state of Florida.
* Maine is the closest U.S. state to the continent of Africa.
* El Paso TX is closer to Los Angeles than it is to the eastern border of Texas.
* Dalhart TX is closer to the state capitols of NM, OK, CO, KS, NE, and WY than it is to the capitol of Texas.
* Reno NV is farther west than Los Angeles.
* Austin TX is on the same latitude line as Cairo, Egypt.
* Calgary, Canada is on the same latitude line as London.
* If you start in downtown Detroit and drive either North, South, or East, you eventually end up in Canada.

[Aggie]

Millions of Monarch Butterflies have invaded my farm this week. They must think I am a weed, they keep flying into my face.

[Aggie]

After hearing this story I will never look at a fork again the same way!
Keep your fork!
There was a young woman who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and had been given three months to live. So as she was getting her things 'in order,' she contacted her Pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes.
She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like read, and what outfit she wanted to be buried in. Everything was in order and the Pastor was preparing to leave when the young woman suddenly remembered something very important to her.
"There's one more thing," she said excitedly..
"What's that?" came the Pastor's reply.
"This is very important," the young woman continued. "I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand."
The Pastor stood looking at the young woman, not knowing quite what to say.
"That surprises you, doesn't it?" the young woman asked.
"Well, to be honest, I'm puzzled by the request," said the Pastor.
The young woman explained. "My grandmother once told me this story, and from that time on I have always tried to pass along its message to those I love and those who are in need of encouragement. In all my years of attending socials and dinners, I always remember that when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say, "Keep your fork." It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming .... like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie. Something wonderful, and with substance!"
"So, I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder... "What's with the fork?" Then I want you to tell them: "Keep your fork ... the best is yet to come."
The Pastor's eyes welled up with tears of joy as he hugged the young woman good-bye. He knew this would be one of the last times he would see her before her death. But he also knew that the young woman had a better grasp of heaven than he did. She had a better grasp of what heaven would be like than many people twice her age, with twice as much experience and knowledge. She KNEW that something better was coming.
At the funeral people were walking by the young woman's casket and they saw the cloak she was wearing and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over, the Pastor heard the question, "What's with the fork?" And over and over he smiled.
During his message, the Pastor told the people of the conversation he had with the young woman shortly before she died. He also told them about the fork and about what it symbolized to her. He told the people how he could not stop thinking about the fork and told them that they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it either.
He was right. So the next time you reach down for your fork let it remind you, ever so gently, that the best is yet to come. Friends are a very rare jewel, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. Cherish the time you have, and the memories you share. Being friends with someone is not an opportunity, but a sweet responsibility.
Share this to everyone you consider a FRIEND... and I'll bet this will be a message they do remember, every time they pick up a fork!
And just remember ... keep your fork!
The BEST is yet to come!

[Aggie]

DID YOU KNOW THIS?
Coffee filters .... Who knew! And you can buy 1,000 at the Dollar Tree for almost nothing even the large ones.
1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave. Coffee filters make excellent covers.
2. Clean windows, mirrors, and chrome... Coffee filters are lint-free so they'll leave windows sparkling.
3. Protect China by separating your good dishes with a coffee filter between each dish.
4. Filter broken cork from wine. If you break the cork when opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter.
5. Protect a cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.
6. Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.
7. Recycle frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter.
8. Weigh chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale.
9. Hold tacos. Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods.
10. Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot. Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going through the drainage holes.
11.. Prevent a Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter.
12. Do you think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows? Use strips of coffee filters..
13. Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc on them. It soaks out all the grease.
14. Keep in the bathroom. They make great "razor nick fixers."
15. As a sewing backing. Use a filter as an easy-to-tear backing for embroidering or appliqueing soft fabrics.
16. Put baking soda into a coffee filter and insert into shoes or a closet to absorb or prevent odors.
17. Use them to strain soup stock and to tie fresh herbs in to put in soups and stews.
18. Use a coffee filter to prevent spilling when you add fluids to your car.
19. Use them as a spoon rest while cooking and clean up small counter spills.
20. Can use to hold dry ingredients when baking or when cutting a piece of fruit or veggies.. Saves on having extra bowls to wash.
21. Use them to wrap Christmas ornaments for storage.
22. Use them to remove fingernail polish when out of cotton balls.
23. Use them to sprout seeds.. Simply dampen the coffee filter, place seeds inside, fold it and place it into a plastic baggie until they sprout.
24. Use coffee filters as blotting paper for pressed flowers. Place the flowers between two coffee filters and put the coffee filters in phone book..
25. Use as a disposable "snack bowl" for popcorn, chips, etc.
Not just for coffee--

[Aggie]

PONDER ISMS

1- I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

2- There are two kinds of pedestrians . . . The quick and the dead.

3- Life is sexually transmitted.

4- Healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

5- The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

6- Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

7- Have you noticed since everyone has a cell phone these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?

8- Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

9- All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

10- In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

11- How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

12- Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, 'I think I'll squeeze these dangly things and drink whatever comes out'? Hmmmmm, How about eggs ? . . .

13- If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

14- Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?

16- If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

17- Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

18- Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

19- Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

[Aggie]

The designation Wiener Schnitzel first appeared in the 19th century, with the first known mention in a cookbook from 1831. In the popular southern German cookbook by Katharina Prato, it was mentioned as eingebröselte Kalbsschnitzchen (roughly, 'breaded veal cutlets').
According to a tale, field marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz brought the recipe from Italy to Vienna in 1857. In 2007, linguist Heinz Dieter Pohl could prove that this story had been invented. According to Pohl, the dish is first mentioned in connection with Radetzky in 1869 in an Italian gastronomy book (Guida gastronomica d'Italia), which was published in German in 1871 as Italien tafelt, and it is claimed that the story instead concerned the cotoletta alla milanese. Before this time, the story was unknown in Austria. The Radetzky legend is however based on this book, which claims that a Count Attems, an adjutant to the emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria gave a notice from Radetzky about the situation in Lombardy and mentioned a tasty veal steak in a margin note. After Radetzky had returned, the emperor personally requested the recipe from him.
Pohl relates this anecdote with the words: "This story is scientifically meaningless, it does not cite any sources and it is not mentioned […] in the literature about Radetzky. No such Count Attems appears in any biographical work about the Austrian monarchy, which would have corresponded to this time and position."
Pohl doubts that Wiener schnitzel came from Italy at all, with the basis that in the other "imported dishes" in Austrian cuisine, the original concept is mentioned, even if in Germanised form, such as in goulash or Palatschinke (that is, pancake), and the schnitzel does not appear even in specialised cookbooks about Italian cuisine.
Pohl hints that there had been other dishes in Austrian cuisine, before the Schnitzel, that were breaded and deep fried, such as the popular Backhendl, which was first mentioned in a cookbook from 1719. The Schnitzel was then mentioned in the 19th century as Wiener Schnitzel analogically to the Wiener Backhendl.
Documents in the Milan archive of Saint Ambrose dated 1148 use the Latin name lumbolos cum panitio,[9] which can be translated as "little chops with breadcrumbs". This can be a hint that a dish similar to the cotoletta alla milanese already existed at that time.
In 1887, E. F. Knight wrote of a Wienerschnitzel ordered in a Rotterdam cafe, "as far as I could make out, the lowest layer of a Wienerschnitzel consists of juicy veal steaks and slices of lemon peel; the next layer is composed of sardines; then come sliced gherkins, capers, and diverse mysteries; a delicate sauce flavours the whole, and the result is a gastronomic dream."
PREPARATION
Whereas the original Austrian Wienerschnitzel only includes lemon and parsley as garnishes, in the Nordic countries it is typically also garnished with a slice of anchovy and capers.
The dish is prepared from veal slices, butterfly cut, about 4 millimetres (0.16 in) thin and lightly pounded flat, slightly salted, and rolled in milk, flour, whipped eggs, and bread crumbs. The bread crumbs must not be pressed into the meat, so that they stay dry and can be "souffléd". Finally the Schnitzel is fried in a good proportion of lard or clarified butter at a temperature from 160 to 170 °C[12] until it is golden yellow. The Schnitzel must swim in the fat, otherwise it will not cook evenly: the fat cools too much and intrudes into the bread crumbs, moistening them. During the frying the Schnitzel is repeatedly slightly tossed around the pan. Also during the frying, fat can be scooped from the pan with a spoon and poured onto the meat. The Schnitzel is cooked after it turns golden yellow or brown.
The dish is traditionally served in Austria with Butterhead lettuce tossed with a sweetened vinaigrette dressing, optionally with chopped chives or onions), potato salad, cucumber salad, or parsley potatoes. Currently[when?] it is also served with rice, french fries or roasted potatoes. In earlier days, the garnish consisted of capers and anchovies,nowadays a lemon slice and parsley are more common.
SIMILAR DISHES
Pork schnitzel variation stuffed with fried mushrooms and onions (Fuhrmann Schnitzel vom Schwein), served with mashed potato and side salad
A popular variation is made with pork instead of veal, because pork is cheaper.

[Aggie]

What is Hasenpfeffer?
Hasenpfeffer is a traditional German rabbit stew. A number of cultures make variations on the dish, which is also referred to as jugged rabbit. To make hasenpfeffer, rabbit meat is cut into pieces and marinated in a wine and vinegar sauce for up to three days. After marination, the rabbit is browned and then stewed until tender. The result is a rich, flavorful stew with a hint of spiciness. Cold days are well suited to hasenpfeffer, since it is filling and warming.
The rabbit meat must be soaked in cold salt water when making hasenpfeffer.
Like other jugged foods, hasenpfeffer is stewed slowly in the same juices that were used as a marinade. The long marination time allows the meat to fully absorb the flavor, while the slow stewing makes the meat tender and soft. A woodstove is an ideal surface to cook foods like hasenpfeffer on, since it promotes slow, even cooking, although a conventional stove on low to medium heat can also be used.
Once finished, hasenpfeffer is often dressed with sour cream, and it may be served with dumplings, noodles, or a dense, crusty bread. Some cooks like to make hasenpfeffer an homage to German cuisine an starch like spätzle. Salt and pepper are also provided on the table, so that people can adjust the seasoning to taste.
In German, a Hase is a rabbit or hare, while pfeffer is pepper. To make hasenpfeffer, start by acquiring four pounds (two kilograms) of rabbit meat. Cut the meat into chunks and wash it well before soaking in in cold salt water for one hour. While the rabbit soaks, prepare a marinade. In a a large glass or ceramic dish, combine one and one half cups white wine, three quarters of a cup cider vinegar, one half cup finely chopped onions, one tablespoon of pickling spices, two teaspoons salt, one teaspoon freshly cracked pepper, and two bay leaves. Once the rabbit has soaked, lift it out, rinse it, pat it dry, and then submerge it in the marinade..
Cover the marinade dish and refrigerate for three days, periodically turning the rabbit to ensure that it is evenly covered. Next, drain the dish, reserving the marinade after running it through a fine strainer or cheesecloth. Dredge the rabbit in flour and brown it on medium in a heavy pan or dutch oven, along with one finely chopped onion. When the meat is browned, add one and one half cups of the strained marinade, along with two tablespoons of sugar. Stew the hasenpfeffer on low heat, slowly adding the rest of the marinade until the meat is tender. This typically takes around two hours.

[Aggie]

[Aggie]

[Aggie]

Well ya learn something new everyday. Who knew this?
original meaning of a deck of playing cards:
52 cards for 52 weeks in the year.
2 colors for day and night
4 suits for the 4 seasons and 13 weeks per season.
Twelve court cards representing the 12 months.
If we add each of the cards (ace + ace + ace + ace + two + two + three + seven + eight ... and etc) of the game we will get 364.
The card game is an agricultural calendar that told us about the weeks and the seasons.
With each new season, it was King's week, followed by Queen's week, Jack's and so on until AS week changed seasons and we started over with a new color.
Jokers were used in leap years.

[Aggie]

"I don't think our kids know what an apron is. The principle use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.
It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids..
And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.
They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.
I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love... "
Sharing from Love What Matters
Inspired by Tina Trivett’s poem, Grandma’s Apron