Grannymar

Stuffed Tomato Salad

8 large, firm tomatoes
50g cottage cheese, sieved
50g grated Cheddar cheese
1 X 5ml spoon mustard powder
1 X2.5 ml spoon Tabasco sauce
10 cm cucumber, grated
Salt
1 small endive
To garnish 1 large carrot, cut in matchstick lengths

Cut a very thin slice off the base of each tomato, so that they stand steadily.
Cut a slice from the top of each and scoop out the flesh into a bowl.
Beat in the cheeses, mustard, Tabasco sauce and cucumber, and season to taste with salt.
Spoon the filling into the tomato cases and replace the cut-off lids at a jaunty angle.
Separate the endive leaves and line a flat serving dish.  Arrange the tomatoes on the salad leaves, and decorate with the carrot sticks.
Serve with mayonnaise.

Tomatoes make perfect containers for savoury mixtures and great for left-over rice, pâté or dips.

On Friday 10th July 2009 a baby was born, LBC was its name.  The Loose Bloggers Consortium.

There have been many changes along the way with some members retiring due to pressure of work or personal circumstances and fresh new blood coming to swell the numbers again with their thoughts and inspiration.

Over that time fifteen people have shared their bounty with us and their names are below.

• Anu
• Ashok
• Conrad
• Delirious
• gaelikaa
• Ginger
• Grannymar
• Helen
• Judy
• Magpie 11
• Marianna
• padmum
• Ramana
• The Silver Fox Whispers
• The Student Diaries - Anki

If only we were a little closer on the map…..  just imagine the party with all in the one room.

Happy Second Birthday to all our LBCers, past and present!

The Flight of the Earls was something we all learned about in history during our school days.  Today we see it depicted in Art

Flight of the Earls ~Bronze

John Behan

John Behan was born in Dublin in 1938. He studied at the N.C.A.D. Dublin, Ealing Art College, London and The Royal Academy School in Oslo, Norway. He now living and working near Galway city where he continues to vary his style of expression, John Behan is firmly established as a sculptor of international stature.   His major public commissions include Flight of Birds, Famine Ship, Tree of Liberty, Daedalus, Millennium Child, Arrival and Equality Emerging, unveiled in Galway city in November 2001.

In June 2000 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway on the same day his large commissioned sculpture, Twin Spires, was unveiled at the college.

John is a current member of Aosdána, established by The Arts Council in 1981, to honour those artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland

A film documentary of John Behan’s work entitled ‘Famine Ship’ was broadcast in Ireland and the U.K. in 1999 and is distributed in North America by The Cinema Guild Inc. and the rest of the world by Network Television.

The poet and Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney has said of the artist:

“There is something psychologically salubrious about John Behan. It is as if you are encountering what the Upanishads call the ancient self, something previous to an underlying individual character, some kind of psychic bedrock.”

A smile - is a sign of joy.
A hug - is a sign of love.
A laugh - is a sign of happiness

♥♥♥♥♥

And a friend like me??…well that’s just a sign of good taste!!  LOL

♥♥♥♥♥

We’ll be old friends until we’re senile.
Then, we’ll be new friends!

♦ ♥ ♣ ♥ ♦

I was playing earlier and made this:

My Post comes courtesy of Darlene for the lovely message above and

Will Knott for the info on KAYWA

The choice of topic for our Loose Blogging Consortium today was in the gift of Gaelikaa.

Unwritten Laws

Any instrument can be used as a hammer, the more delicate or expensive the instrument, the better hammer it becomes.

If it doesn’t fit, force it… If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

If someone giving you directions says at any time, “You can’t miss it,” be assured than you will.

If someone in Ireland is giving you directions, they will usually say “Well, I wouldn’t start from here…..”!

The first person needing to exit the elevator will always be the person right in the back corner.

You might forget your past, but your past will never forget you.

Your parents’ advice only makes sense 20 years after they gave it to you.

Your nose always itches when your hands are tied.

The squeakiness of floorboards is directly proportional to the need to remain unnoticed.

The grass is always greener on the other side – even when you move next door!

Active LBC Members are:

• Anu hopes to rejoin us in the next month.
• Ashok
• Conrad
• Delirious
• gaelikaa
• Grannymar
• Magpie 11
• padmum
• Ramana
• The Silver Fox Whispers
• The Student Diaries - Anki  will post when technology behaves.

A man pulled up next to a little girl walking home from school and said “If you get in, I’ll give you a lollypop.”

The girl kept walking.

Following along slowly, the man said “Come on and get in the car with me and I’ll give you two lolly pops.”

She kept her eyes on the sidewalk and continued on her way.

The man said “Get in with me and I’ll give you this whole bag of lollypops!”

Finally, the girl turned and said

“Look daddy, YOU bought the Ford, YOU ride in it!!!”

◊

♦

◊

♦

Thank you Ramana for the story today.

Any ideas of what might be behind this gate?

Suggestions welcome.

When mammy was given or asked for a copy of a recipe of something she liked, it found its way into her collection and was forever known with the name of the person who had given it to her.  The recipe today is a case in point.  We had several ‘Ann’s and ‘Anne’s in and out of our household over the years, the recipe has been on the go for about 40 years so I am not sure which of them gave it to her.

Ann’s Almond Slices

Preheat oven to 200°C

6 ozs Caster sugar
6 ozs Self raising flour
3 ozs butter
1 egg separated
Apricot jam
Few flaked almonds

Mix the flour with 3 ozs of sugar.  Rub in the butter and wet the mixture with the egg yolk.
Knead well and roll into an oblong tin.
Spread with apricot jam.
Whisk the egg white and fold in the remaining caster sugar, then spread over the jam. Sprinkle with flaked almonds and bake for 30 minutes.

Slice while still warm and leave to cool in the tin.

Back once to that wonderful day at Art in the Garden in Holywood, County Down, last May.

Hissing Goose - Bronze on Stone.

Fidelma Massey

Fidelma Massey studied at Dun Laoghaire School of Art , majoring in Fine Art/Sculpture (Stone carving, Clay modelling, Drawing and Ceramics). Fidelma engaged in commercial ceramics until 1986; after which time she returned to her original interest in pure sculpture, working in bronze, stone and ceramics. She also makes drawings and stained glass.

The Queen of Beasts - Bronze

She has shown work in many group exhibitions including the Royal Hibernian Academy, Sculpture in Context, Iontas, L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. Fidelma also shows work regularly with a number of galleries in Ireland.

Fidelma has a sense for mythical themes and draws images from deep within.   She is influenced by Western sculpture and also Eastern and Classical mythology.

“All through the ages art has expressed the sacred. The oldest sculpture we know represents the goddess, the immanence of the divine on the material world. There is a long, unbroken tradition of making new forms and faces, which express the laws of nature which make our world and us. Life springs from eternal unchanging unity and diversifies into the various and changing forms of the phenomenal world. In the same way that light is always white but can be separated into the spectrum colours, so the gods manifest from the unchanging absolute: and so men and women have given them faces and forms appropriate to their own time. This is the tradition in which I work.”

As I begin my piece for the Loose Bloggers Consortium this week, I would like to ask you to pause for a moment and think of Conrad and his family who were bereaved last weekend by the death of Conrad’s father Joe.  Over the past couple of years Joe had become familiar to us through Conrad’s writing and one very moving post - Fathers Are Sons’ Templates is an excellent example of the love and affection they had.  I was fortunate to have spoken to Joe via Skype, not all that long ago.   May Joe Rest in Peace and may Corky and the family find acceptance and strength in the strong bond of love between them.

Our topic today was chosen by Delirious

Ancestors

I could write reams about my ancestors, but so much of it would be repetition and boring for some long time readers.  I have decided instead to pick four posts from my archive.  Two are written posts sandwiched between two podcasts.  I hope you will enjoy them.

Which Branch are You? (Podcast)

My 3rd Great Maternal Grandfather 1763 – 1836

Who would you like to meet from past history?

My paternal Great Grandmother 1840 - 1921

History in the Making

My Maternal Granny 1884 - 1968

Who needs a Notebook? (Podcast)

Mammy 1914 -1996