I can believe that your uncle was that angry. It is often the most mundane of indignities that set people off. Trying to deal with neighbor disputes as a cop teaches you that nothing is too insignificant to result in a murder.

Food was not easy to come by during the war, even when your extended family includes farmers. You feel guilty about having access to food other people can’t even buy. Rationing, which took place on both sides of the Atlantic, and military mess halls make a good anything, a very precious commodity, because you know you can’t just go back in the house, if it’s still standing, and make another.

The total loss of normalcy is one of the biggest indignities of a war. My Mother still makes references to things that weren’t available during World War II.

Hey! My Mother had 17 siblings (honest!) And would have had 18, but her twin sister died at birth. Mom always said that she always felt that some part of her was missing, even though she never knew about her twin until she was in her 30’s. When she was 16, she lied about her age and tried to join the Navy, then WAF etc… she made such a nuisance of herself, the MOD had to give her a job to shut her up! LOL My maternal granddad was secretly pleased, though he gave her hell for it of course. 🙂 But when They came to Aus after the way, my Mother was the only sibling they brought (or could afford to bring) with them. She told me a story about her older brother who was a Bomber pilot flying a Lancaster. He was home on leave after 2 years and was enjoying a ham and cheese sandwich with fresh baked bread my Gran had made for him (which he said was pure heaven to him) and the air-raid sirens started wailing. They were having a late picnic just out of town, and the town was bombed (apparently it had a factory that made bomb parts). One bomb came crashing down nearby, but miraculously didn’t explode! However, he and his sandwich got covered in oil and mud, and Mom said he screamed horrible revenge at the German bombers for ruining his wonderful sandwich! LOL After that mom said, he was possessed with rage and he volunteered for every raid on Germany, and racked up an impressive score. He was shot down during a massive raid towards the end of the war, and survived in a dinghy but lost a leg that had become infected. He’s still alive in Essex somewhere, I saw him at my Moms funeral several years ago. An amazing man. 🙂

Natural foods taste better because we have eaten them for thousands of years and they are what our bodies want and need.

I should have mentioned that my maternal grandfather was one of 18 with no twins, so family reunions were rather large gatherings.

These recipe’s are from my Italian grandmother (who was married to a Maltese) and while they are a tradition all over Italy (and/or Malta), some have been slightly changed with years or generations of trial and error. I also have some recipe’s from the maternal side of my family. They are English/Irish/Welsh for the most part. But I didn’t get around to transcribing those to computer. My mother had her own cookbook that we had made for her 50th Birthday! Took us 2 years to secretly get her recipes and take secret photos, and my best friend then was an apprentice Bookbinder. 🙂 I have her book now. For me, it was one of the most important memories and keepsakes when she passed away. 🙂

One thing is certain, my family way back then were not at all worried about such things as cholesterol etc! LOL And also, we grew a lot of our own veggies and herbs (and even our own chooks!) 😀 *sigh* Food used to taste so much better when I was a kid. Now, you have to spend a fortune finding really good ingredients, or grow your own. Which is not so simple these days, as I am finding out. 🙂

Anyway, glad you all like them. My grandmother would be very pleased (May she rest in peace)! She had an ‘open house’ policy when it came to food and we would often have neighbors over sampling dishes and many an impromptu parties! And neighbors looked out for each other then. 😀 Yeah… They were the ‘good ol’ days'(tm) Where did they go?

The other problem is that some things just don’t scale [as we say in computers]. Some recipes just don’t work when you double everything. You would think that is should be that easy, but it isn’t. And it works the other way, too, as my Mother has recipes from family reunions, but when you cut them down to reasonable levels so you don’t fill your freezer with leftovers, they just don’t taste right.

Of course, that’s the key to a successful food business – finding the right point where things taste great, and can be made efficiently.

more coming! On the weekend! LOL (which for me, starts tomorrow. 3 Days! *Queens Birthday* Monday) 😉

Cheers all! 😀

the problem is only that i’m going to have to go to the grocery store first. which will have to wait till the weekend. meanwhile, every time i visit this blog between now and saturday-ish, there it’ll be double chocolate…