Tag Archives: Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

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Yes, I changed the topic a little this week because I’m firmly on the side of rereading books.

Rereading books is something I tend to do in spurts. I’ll either do a lot of it or not much at all, and my reasons for doing that are simple.

Reason #1: There’s something deeply comforting about stepping into a story when you already know what’s going to happen to it. This is even more true when life is uncertain or when I’m feeling worried or sad about something.

Reason #2: Sometimes I pick up on things I didn’t remember about the characters or plot before, especially if its been a long time since I read that particular story. It’s such a warm feeling to realize that you either missed out or forgot about a small part of the storyline that makes the whole thing feel even better.

Reason #3: Rereading is like visiting an old friend and reminiscing about the adventures you had years ago. The familiarity of taking that trip down memory lane makes me smile.

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Here are three Canadian recipes you all might like to try.

I’ve had dairy-free versions of the first two, and they were amazing! Someday I want to try pemmican as well.

 

 

Nanaimo Bars

Ingredients

Bottom Layer

½ cup (125 mL) unsalted butter

5 Tbsp (75 mL) cocoa powder

¼ cup (50 mL) granulated sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 ¾ cups (425 mL) graham wafer crumbs

1 cup (250 mL) shredded coconut

½ cup (125 mL) finely chopped almonds

Middle Layer

½ cup (125 mL) unsalted butter, softened

2 tbsp + 2 tsp (40 mL) whipping or heavy cream

2 Tbsp (30 mL) vanilla custard powder

2 cups (500 mL) icing sugar

Topping

4 oz (115 g) semi-sweet chocolate

2 Tbsp (30 mL) unsalted butter

 

Instructions

Bottom Layer

1. Pour 2 cups of water into the bottom of double boiler. Place on stove over medium heat and bring water to simmer.

2. In top of double boiler; combine butter, cocoa and sugar; place over simmering water. Heat while stirring until the butter has melted and mixture is smooth.

3. Add beaten egg and stir until thick.  Remove top of double boiler from heat. Stir in graham wafer crumbs, coconut and almonds.

4. Scrape into parchment paper-lined 8-inch (2 L) square baking dish. Press firmly to create even bottom layer.

5. If you don’t have a double boiler, half-fill a saucepan with water and heat over medium heat until water begins to simmer. Place a metal or glass bowl over the simmering water and proceed as directed.

Middle Layer

1. Cream together butter, cream and custard powder into a bowl. Gradually add icing sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. Scrape over bottom layer, smoothing top with spatula.

Topping

1. Melt chocolate and butter together in a clean double boiler. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. When cool, but still liquid, pour over custard layer.

2. Cover and refrigerate until cold.

 

Poutine

Ingredients

1 quart vegetable oil for frying

1 (10.25 ounce) can beef gravy

5 medium potatoes, cut into fries

 

2 cups cheese curds

 

Instructions

1. Heat oil in a deep fryer or deep heavy skillet to 365 degrees F (185 degrees C). While the oil is heating, begin to warm up the gravy in a saucepan on another element of your stove.

2. Place the fries into the hot oil, and cook until light brown. This should take about 5 minutes. Make the fries in batches if necessary to allow them room to move a little in the oil. Drain the fries on a paper towel lined plate for a minute or two.

Pemmican

Pemmican was a type of food traditionally made and eaten by several different Native American/First Nations tribes in North America, from the Cree to the Metis.

The specific ingredients for it do vary depending on who is making it and what ingredients they have on hand. They might look something like this:

• 1 1/2 lbs of lean, grass-fed shoulder roast,
• Salt and pepper
• Fresh or frozen wild blueberries
• Grass-fed bison or beef kidney fat, leaf fat, suet, or tallow

This post will give you the full list of instructions on how to make pemmican, complete with pictures of every step of the process. Since I’ve never made this dish, I wanted to ensure that you were all getting the right instructions for it.

If you’ve made or eaten pemmican, tell us what you think of it!

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Narrowing down my ideas to only one suggestion was tough. There are many topics I believe all adults should have a good working knowledge of, from history to budgeting, the latest scientific data on what constitutes a healthy diet to how to do basic repairs at home.

But by far the most important book everyone should read is anything that gives scientifically-accurate, up-to-date information on first aid like the American College of Emergency Physicians’ First Aid Manual.

(Ideally, I’d want everyone to take a basic first aid course, too! I took one many years ago and hope to refresh my memory as soon as these sorts of classes are offered again in Toronto).

No matter who you are or where you live, there may come a time when you or someone near you about will unexpectedly need medical care for a physical or mental health condition if it hasn’t happened already.

It’s imperative that all of us know how to:

• Determine when you should call a medical provider in a day or two, visit a non-urgent medical clinic this afternoon, or call for an ambulance immediately.
• Immobilize a broken bone
• React to possible spinal injuries or head trauma after an accident
• Treat burns, sprains, cuts, fevers, panic attacks, dehydration, blisters, bruises, bites, sunburns, nausea, gastroenteritis, heat exhaustion, hypothermia and other illnesses that may or may not be able to be treated at home depending on the circumstances.
• Help someone who is choking, seizing, having an asthma attack, or having a mental health crisis
• Safely address heavy bleeding after, say, a puncture wound
• Perform CPR
• Recognize the signs of a heart attack, stroke, severe allergic reaction, or any other life-threatening health problem
• Behave in an emergency in general.

There are no doubt other many other things to add to this list, too. Some people will naturally freeze up in an emergency, so it’s crucial that all of us study the best ways to react when someone suddenly needs medical care.

The more of us that know how to respond to scenarios like these, the easier it will be for everyone who needs help to receive it whether they’re being treated by a lay person or a professional.

Have you taken a first aid class? Have you read any nonfiction books on this topic recently? I’m curious to hear your thoughts on my pick for this topic and see what everyone chose as their answers, too.

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Autumn is a beautiful season in Ontario. You can spend hours outdoors without worrying about sunburns or frostbite, so most of my answers will reflect the benefits of taking advantage of such mild weather.

The Word on the Street Festival. This is an annual Toronto festival about literature that features local and well as international authors and publishing houses. It covers every genre and age group you can imagine, and everyone is welcomed. Of course, it was virtual this year due to Covid-19, but the food there was amazing in the past. They had cuisine from many different cultures, and the portions were so generous at many stalls you could easily buy one meal and split it with another adult if you wanted to.

Photography. I’ve mentioned my interest in this hobby in previous Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge posts. Autumn is the perfect time of year to play around with this, especially when I’m photographing the marvellous autumn landscape.

Stocking Up on Treats. Every store that sells food will have some candy that’s dairy-free, but it’s always fun to visit specialty shops and, before this pandemic happened, various food fairs/festivals to stock up on fancy vegan chocolate and other hard-to-find treats that are safe for my milk allergy before winter hits. (I get the winter blues, so having small things like this to look forward every X number of weeks helps my mental health).

Nature Walks. Autumn is my last hurrah for long nature walks until spring, so I spend as much time as I can outdoors before (this part of) the world freezes and everything is coated in ice and snow.

Nuit Blanche. This is an outdoor, overnight, free art show in Toronto that features the work of (mostly) local artists. You can find everything there: robotics, concerts, dances, interactive art displays, live theatre, light shows, and so much more. One year the city was even “attacked” by zombies. (Nobody was actually harmed. My spouse and I saw dozens of folks dressed as zombies who were roaming around and groaning dramatically every so often). I’m officially inviting all of you to come check it out online on between 7 pm on October 3 and 7 am on October 4 if you enjoy this sort of stuff. The programming is wildly different every year, so I can’t even begin to guess what they’ll have this time!

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My answer for this week is going to be short and sweet.

When I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy many years ago, I kept a dictionary open right next to it. There were so many new vocabulary words included in it that I kept having to stop reading to find out on what Earth the characters were talking about.

To be fair, I was in middle school when I read this series. Some of those words might be more familiar to me if I were to come across them again as an adult. But the memory of looking up words regularly during these hours of reading is a strong one for me.

If you’ve read this series, did you have the same experience?

 

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Wow, I came up with a lot of answers this week.

I love discussing:

History. The most interesting parts of it are the ones that chronicle how ordinary people live and how medical care has evolved and improved over the centuries in my opinion.

Art. If you want to talk about the possible meanings for a piece, I’ll happily jump into that conversation.

Ghost Stories. Whether they’re fictional or based on the personal accounts of real people, I find all of this stuff fascinating.

Fitness. I enjoy hearing about types of exercise folks do or don’t like and why. For example, I’ve never been able to get into jogging, but I love yoga, dancing, and weightlifting.

Astronomy. My favourite subjects here generally revolve around space exploration, the possibility of sending people to Mars, and the discoveries of new planets.

Food. Cooking, meal planning, the latest scientific understandings of good nutrition, and even the history of various foods/dishes all catch my attention.

Archeology. Learning how different groups of people lived hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of years ago is always interesting to me. We’re such an adaptable species in general.

 

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I’m an adventurous reader who bounces around among all of the genres. While there are certain genres I visit regularly and others I only visit occasionally, it takes a lot to turn me off from a story entirely.

This is the fairly small list of topics that I refuse to read about.

Glorifying Prejudice. That is to say, I strictly avoid anything that makes it seem honourable to hate or discriminate against  others because they’re not like you in some way. Why not encourage inclusion and acceptance instead?

Preachiness. This is a universal nope from me no matter the subject matter or whether I happen to agree with the author.  If someone wrote a book that tried to browbeat its readers into believing that purple is the best colour in the universe, I’d stop reading before finishing the first page despite my deep love of that colour.

Hopelessness. I used to be a huge fan of stories like The Walking Dead or Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. While I do still enjoy some horror in small doses, everything I read and watch needs to have a hopeful message included in it these days.

Dead Pets. There are far too many books out there that kill off beloved pets at the climax of the plot. I’ve had my fill of this trope until the end of time itself. Let Fido live!

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This question is a little subjective since foods that are common in one culture may be unheard of in another, but it’s still a fun topic to discuss!

If you also grew up in a family of fishers and hunters or in a rural area, some of the meat on list might seem pretty ordinary.

The rest of them I’ve tried on vacations or by picking up random pieces of produce at the grocery store and wondering if I’d like them!

The strangest foods I’ve eaten include:

• Turtle
• Venison
• Elk
• Oxtail
• Chicken hearts and livers
• Frog
• Gooseberries
• Lychee
• Dragon fruit
• Pomegranate

I was not a big fan of the lychee, frog, or pomegranates, but I enjoyed the rest of them.

But by far the strangest thing I’ve ever eaten is grass. When I was a child, I couldn’t figure out why cows ate grass but humans didn’t eat it. It seemed to me that a calorie was a calorie no matter where it came from. I loved lettuce, so I assumed grass would taste just as good.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t tasty. There was very little flavour to it at all, but the stringy texture of it convinced me that while cows might like grass, this human does not. 😉

 

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What I wanted to do:

It changed every year, and sometimes I had no idea what I wanted at all.

Generally, my dreams revolved around being a librarian, college professor, or bestselling author.

I love books, knowledge, and teaching things to adults. If the occupational outlooks for librarians or professors were better, I probably would have gone in one of those directions!

What I actually do: I’m currently a writer who is looking for ways to pivot back into the traditional workforce. Those plans were interrupted by Covid-19, so I’m still evaluating my options as far as job training, online courses, or additional volunteering goes to strengthen my resume as the economy (hopefully) improves. We’ll see what happens!

I’ve previously worked in all sorts of places, from retail to tutoring to office work. I enjoyed my office job the most because of how personable my bosses were there. Having wonderful bosses makes all the difference in the world.

Once I worked in a movie theatre that my coworkers swore was haunted because of weird sounds they heard and how certain objects like mop buckets tended to move around when certain people were cleaning. I preferred rational explanations for those phenomena, but I also didn’t look too closely into the shadowy regions of the employee-only zones late at night. Ha!