( wanna see? )
Yay! I'm so happy with how it turned out. I want to do more. If you drink bottled sodas what kind do you drink so I can get an average cap size? I can have my family/friends keep an eye out for empty bottles to snag caps off of.

As I've mentioned before, I don't make soap. I use it though for laundry, for my hair, for my body and if I could find a formulation that worked well with dishes, I'd use soap for that too.
Real soap.
I read a lot of books about soapmaking. Even though I don't make soap I'm fascinated by the process and actually E and I do plan to make some sometime soon.
I just finished reading Soap: Making It, Enjoying It by Ann Bramson, it's not very expensive and it's a good book from the early 70s. Not the best book to start with if you want to start making soap, but if you want a clearer idea of how it's made, the history of soap and some tips on making pretty handcarved bars from a simple box mold, it's good. The reason I don't think it's a good beginning soapmaking book is because soapmaking has come a very long way since the mid-70s, the internet, people sharing information, the fact there is so much more information than there was then means that a lot of the information is out of date. Like she says to put the water into the lye in a glass juice bottle which can be dangerous. More current books explain how to mix lye into water more safely.
But the sheer amount of information on the history of soap was a lot of fun to read, and unlike a lot of how to books, her writing style is accessible enough I was able to read it from cover to cover instead of just reading the parts that looked interesting. Soap is a passion for her and her book was one of the first really good ones on soapmaking. Another thing is that most of her soaps are tallow soap, which means rendering fat to make the tallow. I like tallow soaps. In fact an awful lot of current formulations by major soap companies contain tallow, which makes for a nice hard bar of soap. More modern books focus on vegetable and nut oils that don't need hours of boiling and straining and have no animal by-products.
I've gone into detail about why I like soap, real soap over detergents. At some point I'll have to work on a list to ask soapmakers so you can know what you are using and buying. I usually ask if it's hot or cold process (cold process soap isn't boiled after the lye and fat are mixed, it's given time to age and fully cure to be usable, hot process is boiled to completely saponify all the fat and lye mixture and is usable as soon as it sets), if it's super-fatted (which means fat added that isn't saponified) and what additional ingredients are in it and if it uses essential oils or fragrance oils for scent. I will buy soaps that use fragrance oils, but I like to know for sure. Rose and jasmine soap from cottage industries almost always use a fragrance oil because their essential oils are really expensive.
For store bought soaps, there are a couple kinds that are real soap. Little House in the Suburbs says that Ivory is a good substitute for handmade soaps because it's inexpensive and only has a few ingredients which is what you're looking for in real soap. Mike uses Dr. Bronner's exclusively, the liquid version which seems expensive, but a little bit goes a long way, and can actually be diluted to half water, half soap if the people in your family just can't resist using lots.
One thing that Ms. Bramson recommended in her book to cut down on soap usage was not running the bar across your body and keep it all wet in the shower or bath, but using wet hands to soap up your hands and using your soapy hands which keeps the soap from being too water-logged and helps it last longer.
I love using my soaps. Other than Mike, we mostly use Gladheart Acres soap, which is cold process. We buy several bars at a time and the kids sniff them and pick out their soaps carefully. They love the whole process of it. We use end-cuts and mistakes from them in our kitchen and by our bathroom sinks for handwashing.
I'm reading another book on soapmaking now in between working on my current project which is pin cushion that's just turning out too cute. I should have that done in a day or two to show off and post general instructions for on Beadwork at Bellaonline.com.

I love my Kindle.
One of the nice things about it is that slowly a lot of the public domain material from places like Project Gutenberg is becoming available in Kindle format so I can hit one click buy for free, and turn on my Kindle, open up the connection, and get it in seconds. The weird part is that a lot of it is not being reviewed. So I went to review a cookbook I downloaded and just started really going through in the last couple of days. The cookbook is The Compleat Cook Expertly Prescribing the Most Ready Wayes, Whether Italian, Spanish or French, for Dressing of Flesh and Fish, Ordering Of Sauces or Making of Pastry which was printed in 1658.(Project Gutenberg link to read online or download) The first reviewer said it was from 1658 and you couldn't make the recipes now. I had to disagree and said this..
Yes, the first reviewer is right, this IS a cookbook from 1658. But I don't see that as being a bad thing at all. A lot of the recipes in it are doable now and adaptable. If you are interested in renaissance era cooking at all, it's an invaluable guide and being in Kindle format makes it easy to bookmark things you want to try out later.
It is NOT a step by step cookbook as we are used to now, so it will take a little bit of research to understand what some of the terms are, as well as a decent knowledge of how to cook to be able to do the recipes in it. It will call for "enough flower to make a past" which means enough flour to make a paste/dough, or for cooking in a "quick" oven which means hot. You don't get exact temperatures or times or even exact measurements for a lot of the recipes.
That said, I read some of the recipes to my husband yesterday and he's looking forward to me trying them.
It also has a couple bread recipes in it, and a lot of bread recipes weren't recorded in the middle ages and during the renaissance because it was generally assumed that people knew how to make bread. Which leads to another thing that people miss in older recipes. We are very used to having instant dry yeast available to us, so when we look at older beer or bread recipes that call for a cup of yeast, it's a bit confusing. Yeast at that point was the sourdough yeast culture, a liquid mix of flour and water that had live yeast growing and active in it.
It's free and it's a nice bit of history.
----
I'll admit, there is something very strange about reading a cookbook that old on something that seems to be science fiction to me still even having one.
You can see all my book reviews here.
Okay..back to beading.

Snowy box because it's all snowy outside so I drew a simple snow scene and put it on a box to celebrate.
BeadTool4 review. I used pictures I took of mushrooms for my example, but if you ask nicely, I also did Sam Winchester for R.
Wild Rose bead pattern, also done in BeadTool4 using another photo I took this summer.

Other than that, working on a pincushion, and I knit myself a headband, but even using a suspended bind off, the bind off was too tight. *grumbles* It fits. It's just not as stretchy as I'd like.

The icky thing about snow is that of course, I hurt entirely too much right now. It's making me a little moody.

Oh! Sister Diane interviews Rachel Klein. Sister Diane does the great CraftyPod podcast, Rachel runs the incredible craft round up site One Pretty Thing. I've been really impressed with how regularly she updates and how she manages to find so many new projects. What really astounds me is the idea she keeps up with 4000 craft sites weekly to do it. 4000. Wow. Her organizational skills are astounding.

You know, just because it's the song playing. I do want a rock to wind a piece of string around though, or rather to crochet a piece of string around.
It's sort of impossible to listen to TMBG and be moody isn't it? It makes you want to bounce.

So let's see.. after picking up comics on Wednesday, we stopped at the perfume shop so I could pick up a bottle of Chloe Narcisse. It's an oriental floral that's very grown up, and also one of Mike's favorites on me. It's got just the barest hint of vanilla with peppery marigolds, narcissus and other florals on a musk base. Musks are touch and go for me, but this one doesn't turn on me because of the marigold. *sniff sniff* It's nearly as good as Opium to just smell.
I may not wear make up, but I do have a weakness for fragrance. Mostly vintage florals, although I remember when Narcisse came out which makes it probably the newest of the fragrances I like best.

Yesterday E and I made glittered ornaments (link is DETP with templates for the ornaments we made) so there is more ambient glitter in the house.

Other than that, working on a pin cushion, reviewing the newest incarnation of Bead Tool (which is an awesome program. Really. Christopher also does great support.) Also planning out my next shortbread experiment. My family is getting so sick of shortbread.

Catherynne Valente recently got married and her honeymoon is having some issues.
If you can help, please consider it.
When I make a list of my favorite books/music/tv shows this year, Palimpsest is hands down my favorite book. It's a gorgeous story that drew me in, and if you haven't read it yet, I truly envy you for getting to read it for the first time.
New printable and some musing about a project I want to do at Don't Eat the Paste.
Let's see.. what else? I made myself a couple scrunchies. So very 80s, but also one of the best options for damage free ways to constrain long hair.
Other than that, the last few days have been pretty much recovering from Halloween.

I did miss NCIS last night to watch V. I loved the original mini-series way back when. I have mixed feelings about the new version of the book because the author changed some important parts of the story. The new show so far seems good, and E was enjoyed it a lot. She's like me, there are shows she really likes, but she can turn off the tv for days at a time without missing it. I think this will be a winner for our family for as long as it lasts.

I love NCIS. I admit it. I catch Nova in reruns if new episodes of NCIS are on. *shh* Don't tell. I use the time for crocheting or beading or something, but Tuesday nights, I'm watching NCIS.
Today's MP3 album deal on Amazon is NCIS Vol. 2 Soundtrack which includes The Elements by Tom Leher and a song sung by Michael Weatherly who you may know as either Tony DiNozzo or Logan Cale for 3.99 in MP3 format. Yay.
Threadless is having free shipping INTERNATIONALLY from 10 am CT Nov. 2 to 10 am CT Nov. 3. No minimum purchase.
( May I suggest? )

I'll do a real post later. But I wanted to remember to share those before they went away.

We looked for something going on locally that looked interesting, and the zoo was having a Halloween event. So we went to the zoo which was a lot of fun and very crowded. William, 18 or not, figured if he was herding his easily distracted sister, he should wear a costume and get the loot. So he did.
Then we went out to dinner at William's favorite restaurant. It's also one of my favorites, but William loves it because they have crab and sushi on the buffet.
After that, it was trick or treating time. Again, William figured if he was herding E while Mike and I sat in a nice warm car and drank cocoa, he should get some candy too. You've got to love an 18 yo 6'1" young adult with no hesitation about trick or treating. E told him "I don't mind being your candy beard." (and much hilarity ensued)
Well, apparently nobody minded William trick or treating because both kids wound up with probably 4 or 5 LBS of candy. Mostly chocolate. Dad was happy because he knows he's getting most of William's candy.
Mike and I had planned on going out dancing afterward, but between the cold and the zoo I just physically wasn't up to it.
We *did* roast pumpkin seeds though. Next year I think I'm going to tell my friends who do pumpkins but don't do the seeds and Mike will tell his coworkers who don't do the seeds how to save them for me so we can do lots more seeds.

Today- Day after Halloween shopping! Yay! We hit all those awful mall shops we usually avoid. Old Navy had their Halloween shirts for 97 cents each so we got a half dozen shirts. Claire's had inexpensive knee highs with skulls on them. Then to the candy sales to get dad even more candy. Yeah. William's huge stash of chocolate isn't enough, dad wanted even more.
Head over to Dad's, where the wind storms of the last couple of weeks took down part of the very rotted, old, fire damaged fence there. Surprise surprise. Part of this fence is held up with a ladder. I'm NOT kidding. So in "OMG YOU MUST BE KIDDING" cold weather Dad and Mike repaired the fence. This was further complicated by the fact Dad had no tools. I'm not sure how that happened. But Mike knew from last time and brought his tool box with him.

My shoulder is still really unhappy with me.

But this icon is music related!
Thursday night was Marian Call's last Anchorage concert for a while. So we went there, ate great sustainable organic food, drank wonderful locally produced beers (those of us old enough to drink) and listened to great music.
It was her playing a lot of the music that's going to be on her next album. To all the Pride and Prejudice lovers out there.. she's going to have a long complicated song called Mr. Darcy on the album. For the zombie lovers, she was asked to write the theme song for Zombie Cheerleading Camp, a very wretched looking movie, but if they used her song, it's got a great song in it. Called Out for Blood which she does as a sing-along in her shows. She does a lot more shows in Washington, California et cet than she does here, well worth hitting.
But the song that won my heart is her Avocado Song "You're an avocado baby, you're only good for one day."

And she played Birdhouse in Your Soul. Asked everyone who knew the words to sing-along and you know something? My eldest had no problems. My youngest had problems recognizing it in her arrangement. I giggled really hard and sang happily offkey.

She told us we were becoming super fans. So now Mike wants an MC Sooperphan shirt. I'd settle for a zombie cheerleader shirt.
She also complimented Mike and William on their very cunning hats that R made them.

Yesterday was chat. Plus I worked some on a couple projects I've got going, but my working on things is seriously hampered by the fact my shoulder isn't any better. *grumbles* I have no clue what I did to it except somehow I sprained it badly. Yeah, I know, pay more attention and take better care of myself.

Happy Halloween!

I talk about my vintage craft books a lot, but not so much about my cookbooks. I have the collections of 2 very active cooks. My grandmother and my mother. They range from a copy of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book that's over 100 years old and in a bag to keep the pages together to an awful lot of 60s cookbooks, to church community cookbooks everybody has to have.
All in all, before my collection, I had about 200 cookbooks. I've been adding to that number steadily.
I get some cookbooks to review. I also buy myself vintage cookbooks. Not every single one I see, just the ones that pertain to one of my interests in cooking. So a bread machine cookbook from the 80s or 90s I'll probably pass on, I like doing it by hand. But Pillsbury's Bake Off Breads Cook Book from 1968? Absolutely irresistible. On the cover it declares proudly "Shortcutted favorites... the best of all the Bake Offs streamlined for use with new instant dry yeast"
I'm thrilled with all the new recipes. There is one for bread made with bacon fat instead of whatever fat you usually use and with crumbled bits of bacon in it. There is also a cheese bread that I really like the look of, but I'll have to adjust the recipe somewhat because nobody in my family likes American cheese.
The part that absolutely charmed me is the spreads section. Because they were all pretty much variations on a theme but all presented as individual recipes. You know..
Festive Olive Spread
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 Tbsp milk or cream
2 Tbsp chopped green olives
Beat butter and milk until light and fluffy, stir in olives.

Honey Butter
1/2 butter, softened
1/2 cup honey
blend until light and fluffy

There are cream cheese ideas too, along the same vein. Switch the ingredient to accent, but the basic process is the same for each of them. Maraschino cherries, honey, instant coffee and sugar, orange juice.

Reminded me somewhat of one of William's favorite desserts when he was little. I'd make him chocolate cream cheese or chocolate labneh and serve it as a spread for toast with strawberries or blueberries. I haven't made labneh in a long time. Maybe sometime soon.

Mike wants to get the costumed brats energy drinks this year. Since they seem to have multiplied. In the house across the street, we know for sure one person lives there. We don't know who else of the constant in and out there actually lives there. It can't be all of them can it?

Somehow I messed up my shoulder again, so no weight lifting this week. Last night we went swimming. Much fun. It was the first time Mike came with E and I and she had a blast splashing him.

I have a scrap of Superman fabric from a remnant bin and I used motifs off it to practice doing a strong seam by hand. You can find that here.

Umm.. another S word.. how about spaghetti since that's what I made for dinner last night?
I also made E some earcuffs.
( click here to see )
Other than that, crocheting, reading, reviewing. I got a copy of Felties to review from the Vine program. By the terms of the program, I can't review it here. But I did like it a lot, it's full of easy cuteness.
Still time to vote on my design at Spoonflower PLEASE? I'm begging. Not much time left to vote before the next round starts.

Although it's actually more a Punisher icon.
When my son was 5, my mom made him a Captain America costume. I let mom hit my fabric stash and old clothes stash for the fabric for it and loaned her one of my sewing machines to make it. We didn't know it at the time but it was the last costume she was going make him. The following year she was in California helping out Grandma after surgery, and the year after that, she died suddenly.

Now skip forward 13 years, and I spotted a Captain America costume teeshirt at Hot Topic, so I had to get it for him of course. He still has the same shield from the costume mom made him and he said he would use it. Of course, a shield scaled for a 5 yo William would look like, as Mike put it, a dinner plate. So E and I made him a shield yesterday. Dad was impressed, William was happy.
Also yesterday I wrote an article on how to do nice neat loops for eyepins.
AND cute paper snail craft .
Plus I made up some cinnamon-y goodness shortbread.
Cinnamon Vanilla Short Bread
Pre-heat oven to 375°F
1 cup of butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
Cream together.
Add in 2 cups of flour. Mix for a few minutes and knead lightly with clean hands.
Pat into an 8" cake pan. Sprinkle top with a mixture of 1 tsp white sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and pierce with a fork and score lines to cut it apart.
Put it in the oven for 10 minutes, after 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 300°F and bake for 20 minutes more. Take out the oven and cut apart along score lines. Let cool a bit.

Turned out really good. I think I'm going to go have a piece now.

Spooonflower's Doll Panel contest is in it's first round of voting. So please go vote, I'm on the 3rd page with the floral kokeshi style dolls. 1/2 a yard has 2 10 inch dolls set up on it, a fat quarter will make the blonde doll.
Other stuff.. I posted a couple new batty printables. Tags and labels in 300 dpi pdf format, and Bat embroidery patterns using my bat drawings.
Yesterday I had a plan to make shortbread and read Oscar Wilde. Instead I spent an outrageous number of hours working on a digital scrapbook kit. I don't scrapbook.
I also got a few graphic novels for myself. Fables. I missed it the first time around, but through the Vine program I got the Peter and Max book which I loved an awful lot. So now I'm reading them. The newsletter is a lot better targeted now. I'll post links to the next to the next two reviews in the queue since I can't cross post Vine reviews.

So last night, Mike was running late. He usually calls when he's on his way home and he hadn't called by 5, so about 15 after I asked E "Where do you suppose your daddy is?" she said "I don't know. How would I know?" and I said "You should be able to come up with a good story."
She replied in a very distracted way "I don't feel like telling stories."
"But it's fun. Like I think he's battling Moon Ninjas for dominance of the solar system."
That's when Mike called, which put a temporary end to the conversation.
When he got home, I explained my theory about why he was late. He just sort of looked at me like silly is something completely new in our household. I think he was still detoxing from work.
"Moon ninjas?"
E at that point got into it. "They look like cows. But they are hard to see because they are ninjas."
I said "But MOON ninjas. With natural crater-y looking lunar camouflage."
E nodded solemnly.
Mike looked at us and said "You two are nuts. You know that right?"
So when he headed up to the laundromat to do the bedding, we both told him to watch out for moon ninjas. E added "Seriously." because he didn't look like he was taking us seriously.

Threadless tees 10 dollars for a few more hours today. LOTS of zombie and creepy designs.

Let's see.. Friday we had plans that didn't pan out. My fault I'm afraid.
Saturday on the other hand, everything did work out nicely.
( bead show )
After the show, E took us all out to lunch. It's a family tradition that the kids take us out to dinner once a year. E chose Glacier BrewHouse and Dad met us there. They have lovely food. I checked the menu carefully and finally settled on a hamburger for dad. Their cheeseburgers are slathered with goodness so I had to make sure they would do it the way Dad wanted it. So instead of a nice big absolutely wonderful burger, Dad got his plain burger with bacon, no bun and mashed potatoes instead of fries. Which I had to order for him, because he will go without rather than doing a special order.
Home again, home again.
Sunday we went to the fabric store, and E got fabric and thread. After, we went to a thrift store we hadn't been to in a while and I found a 1960's hamburger cookbook. I also found a cone of beige fingering weight yarn of indeterminate fiber content. But it's pretty stuff. Just slightly fuzzy and that light eggshell beige. I got it and it would make a lovely shawl, but I'm using it to make a light lacy scarf. I think I'll make a flower pin for it as well. E found herself a nice jointed Barbie in decent condition she's going to make clothes for.

I posted a recipe for Creme Brulee from Grandma's recipe box over at Don't Eat the Paste. The hat E is wearing in that picture is a Link hat she made for herself out of green fleece. Hand sewn without a pattern, it's awfully cute.

The burn on my leg WAS blistered, the skin came off it in a strip about 2 inches long and a half inch wide, but at this point it doesn't look like it injured the tattoo too much. Just waiting for it to heal to see if I'll need touch up work.

Fresh homemade shortbread is so easy and so much better than store bought there just is no comparison. Fresh homemade shortbread done with maple sugar instead of white or brown is just amazing. It is more expensive though than store bought or using brown sugar.
Maple sugar shortbread-
2 cups of flour (weighs about 9 ozs) at 1.00 a lb- 57¢
.5 cup maple sugar (weighs about 3 oz)- $3.38
1 cup of butter- assuming 4.00 a lb= $2.00

So an 8 inch round pan of shortbread with maple sugar costs about 5.95 to bake.
Brown sugar would be about 40¢ for a packed half cup, and white sugar would be even less. So it costs half as much to make a batch that way.

But the maple sugar tastes so good.

Maple Sugar Shortbread-
Preheat oven to 375° F
1 cup soft butter (butter, really. Don't use margarine for this)
1/2 cup maple sugar
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (well, I'm sure other types will do, but that's what I have on hand this week)
Cream together butter and sugar. Mix in 1 3/4 cup flour, stir in the last half cup a little at a time to make a soft dough. Pat dough into an ungreased 8 inch cake pan. Prick it with a fork, and score it into 8 pieces with a knife (like cutting up a pizza). Put it in the oven for 10 minutes, turn the oven down to 300 and bake for another 20 minutes. Check to see if it's all browned and lovely. While it's still warm, cut along the scores to separate but *don't* take it out of the pan yet. It will crumble. Let it cool as long as anyone will put up with before serving.

It's pretty flexible though. My great grandfather used a similar recipe omitting the sugar, and adding in a cup of cheddar cheese, some red and black pepper and powdered onion and garlic to make savory crackers. You can use this recipe with any kind of wheat flour, or even a mix of wheat and oat flour, you can use brown, white or maple sugar. I don't recommend date. It gets weird in a lot of types of baking. You can make a snickerdoodle like shortbread by mixing in some vanilla or vanilla caviar (the seeds inside a pod, slice pod, scrape inside. Toss empty pod into a container of sugar for coffee and baking)and sprinkling the top lightly with cinnamon.

But I just made plain old shortbread. With maple sugar. Yum yum.

Yesterday I had a really hard day and after we picked comics Mike asked if I wanted to do anything. I said "Yes. Salvation Army." So we went over and they've got some gorgeous end tables from a couple hotels in town, but we weren't looking for tables.
It was good. I found a cook book for E. Grosser Foods by Tina Vilicich-Solomon is out of print, and it's disgusting. Seriously. "Beastly bites that look good but taste bad"
( recipe names cut for squeamish )
Mike found a book about solar heating,a piece of electronics to play with, and 2 button down shirts in good shape that are his size. E found a pair of purple dungarees, and I got a couple skirts and a red hooded cardigan. No luck on craft books for me.

In non-disgusting food projects, check this ice cream recipe out.Mike and I discussed doing it with the kids this weekend. It looks like a lot of fun.
From Don't Eat the Paste-
I was reading KissThisGuy.com this weekend, actually I was singing it to my family, looking up favorite songs. I realized, that would make the BEST party game. Go there, find songs, and make little slips of paper with the misheard lyric, the actual lyric, song and artist. Fold slips in half and put them into a bowl and let your guests take turns taking out slips and singing the misheard lyric. Prizes for the people who guess the most right songs and artists, and for the people who perform the best so the songs are recognized.
*singing to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody* Scare a Moose, Scare a Moose, Will you do the fan tango?

I really think that comfort cooking is going to be the next big thing. People will still love their gourmet seasonings and all their foodie toys, but there will also be a resurgence in familiar favorites, the sort of foods that your grandmother or mother might have made for family and company.
That's what this cookbook is. Classic homestyle recipes that have stood the test of time. The author wants you to play with them, to find what works for you and your family. Some of the recipes in here I have my own versions of already, but a lot of them, I don't. The recipes are easy and there are a lot of tips for making your time in the kitchen quicker and easier.
Unlike a lot of my cookbooks, this one actually has lots of recipes I can see becoming a part of our regular menu. My husband is patient enough with my experiments in hummus, tofu and white bean chilis and that sort of thing but he really prefers American classic home cooking.
Monkey Bread was one of my mom's standbys, and it was nice to see it in here. My daughter will enjoy making that. My son will love the mushroom bread, and my husband is looking forward to me trying the chicken fried steak recipe because I've never made that for him before.

You can find recipes and more about the cookbook at the author's blog Stir, Laugh, Repeat

-----
If you haven't noticed, what I'm doing with book reviews is posting most of the cookbook or craft related ones here and in my other blog as well as on Amazon. Not all because I'm not supposed to post reviews anywhere but Amazon for ARCs I get from the Vine program, and not all the reviews I write because they aren't all crafty by any stretch. I also don't review everything I read, but I'm trying to at least review 25% of what I read. So far I'm failing miserably. I can tell you what I like about a cookbook or a bead book, but with fiction, it's harder. I'm working on it.

I read some more of H.E. Bravery's wonderful Home Wine Making Without Failures last night before bed. A lot of the recipes look amazing and the introduction says you can make wine for a bob* a bottle. Doing the math, you can't really do it for that little now. If you buy the fruits, it winds up being anywhere from 2.00 a bottle to 5.00 a bottle not counting cost of the bottles. Still very reasonable, and if you are making it for your home you can reuse bottles.
So all that said, when I read a recipe for a port like Elderberry wine, 2 things go through my mind. The first is "Your father smelt of elderberries" because clearly I have some very real problems. The second is heartsease and how much she would love this book. It's primarily wine recipes. Lots of them using potatoes, parsley, flowers, fruits, dried fruit, parsnips, all sorts of things.
It was reprinted a bunch of times, so you should be able to find a copy reasonably inexpensively at used book stores, Ebay, any place that has used books if you look.


*A bob was a slang term for a shilling, or 12 pence. They went out of circulation in 1971. This book was written in the 50s.

It's going around yes? I got it from nyghtshayde

( long, mark the things you've done )