Dog On A Root

- jim Young (20190323) “To everything, turn, turn, turn, There is a season, turn, turn, turn…”    - Book of Ecclesiastes / Pete Seeger I’m not sure what my favourite season is. It’s a toss up between summer, autumn and winter. But I know what my least favourite season is. It’s spring. Spring is ugly. Dirty and ugly. I hate spring. There is nothing good about spring. It’s ugly, it’s dirty and it’s teasingly disappointing. I get that some people don’t like winter but that’s no reason to delude themselves into thinking that they welcome spring. Welcoming spring because it’s the step between a season you hate and a season you love is like welcoming a needle because it’s going to get rid of your pain. The problem is, the needle will inflict more pain before it relieves the pain. You really hate the needle as much as you hate the pain. So why do so many people insist they love spring when all they really love is that winter is almost over? It’s like your...

- jim Young 20101203 A house catches fire every 45 seconds. Tonight while I was in my favourite reading room, perusing one of my beloved research materials - Uncle John's Bathroom Reader - I came across this little tidbit at the bottom of the page. "In the United States a house catches fire every 45 seconds." I found this very alarming. I mean, just think of the poor people who live in that house? Why don't they move? I guess it would be hard to sell the house because you would have to be very quick to get a picture of it for the real estate listing between fires. And you would think the fire department must be very discouraged. They wouldn't even have time to get back to the station before they were called out again. Maybe they should build a fire station right beside that house. This is just one of those little reminders when we are feeling a bit down. No matter how tough our life is, it could be worse. We could be living in a house tha...

- jim Young 20190322 We buy our boneless chicken breasts in bulk at Costco and then pack them in pairs with our vacuum sealer for freezing as we rarely need more than 2 at a time. When doing this, I always separate the tenderloins from the chicken breasts and vacuum pack them separately for use as a treat such as chicken fingers or fried chicken balls. Using them to make Boneless Buffalo Wings however is my favourite treat. Baked Boneless Buffalo Wings and Blue Cheese Dip. You don’t have to use the chicken tenderloins to make these. Simply cutting up any boneless chicken breast into strips or small chunks will work just as well. Of course nothing goes better with Buffalo Wings of any kind than some celery sticks with a good Blue Cheese Dip.  Baked Boneless Buffalo Wings The Boneless Buffalo Wings can be made for immediate use or to be frozen for a later date. Stuff Required: 1 cup flour ⅔ cup bread crumbs 1 tsp salt ½ tsp paprika ¼ tsp black pepper ¼ ...

- jim Young 20190321 “Kale is a superfood and its special power is tasting bad.” - Jim Gaffigan “Grow some kale,” they said. “It will be fun,” they said. I guess they were right because it kinda was  fun growing the kale. At least it was easy. And when it comes to gardening, easy = fun as far as I’m concerned. The kale that year was our best crop. The only problem was, what do we do with it? As it turns out neither My Shirley nor I are particularly fond of kale so we gave most of it away to our friends and neighbours. Be we did give it an honest shot first. Knowing my love of potato chips and other assorted junk food, a friend of mine sent me Gwyneth Paltrow’s Recipe for Kale Chips. According to both Barry and Paltrow, Kale Chips are “as satisfying as potato chips”. Gwynnth Paltrow's Kale Chip Recipe I decided to give it a try and I quickly discovered 2 things: 1) Kale Chips suck. 2) Gwyneth Paltrow is an idiot. (Barry is not an idiot - he was just misin...

Stuff Required: 1 big bunch kale, stems discarded and leaves torn into roughly 1½ inch pieces 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil Coarse salt Do This: Preheat the oven to 400° F. Toss the kale with the olive oil and spread out on two baking sheets. Sprinkle with coarse salt and roast for 25 minutes, or until lightly browned and crispy.

- jim Young 20190319 The three Rs are basic skills taught in schools: reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic. taken from a space-filler in "The Lady's Magazine" 1818  I was probably about 8 when I started my first job at Youngs IGA in Stroud in the early 1960s. It was Youngs IGA - circa 1960s owned and operated by my father and his brother, so I was fortunate to be able to start my first part-time job at such a young age. For 25¢ an hour my job was sorting pop bottles. There wasn’t much need for any mathematical skills to perform that task. It was pretty simple. Coke bottles went in the boxes marked “Coke”, Pepsi bottles went in the boxes marked “Pepsi” and the Orange Crush bottles went in the boxes marked “Pepsi”. Surprise! Yes, there was some skill involved even for an 8 year-old. But when I graduated to the position of giving customers refunds on their bottle returns, multiplication became a little more important. I had to know things like 11 x 2¢ = 22¢ (...