Things are getting rough out there, so Gert has pulled together some age-old wisdom to help you get the right attitude:
1. Put on the armour of righteousness
2. Gird your loins
3. Screw your courage to the sticking-place
4. Best foot forward
5 Toe the line
6. Stiff upper lip
7. Eyes peeled
8. Ears pricked
9. Get the monkey off your shoulder
10. Put your shoulder to the wheel
11. Nose to the grindstone
12. Don’t let your left hand know what your right is doing
13. Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it
There’s a prize for the best selfie in this pose.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Contortionist_Ravi_standing.jpg
Gert Loveday's Fun with Books 
Chin up
and keep your eye on the ball
I especially like the innocent flower — borrowing it for my kids.
Happy Baked Alaska Day, Teri.
You’re kidding! I missed it? These days, Baked Alaska always makes me think of pavlovas which have recently become stylish in somewhat higher-end restaurants (by which I mean restaurants that I can afford once a month — don’t know about the really high-end ones where I never set foot). Did you indulge in Baked Alaska?
1st Feb is Baked Alaska Day according to my radio this morning, so you probably still have time to rustle one up. To tell the truth, I’ve never actually had it. It always seemed to me a sort of made-up commercial thing, though it’s possible many happy Inuit at this very moment are sitting in their igloos enjoying their national dish. Such is my ignorance.
Here is what appears to be the most complete history of the dessert that I have seen in the past fifty years. Mostly it’s attributed to Chef Ranhofer, but he apparently shouldn’t even get credit for the name. I did make at least one, eons ago in my early twenties, using the “Joy of Cooking” recipe. They are tasty, but it’s easier (and more delicious) to plop a bit of fudgy chocolate cake or brownie in the bottom of the dish, spoon on some ice cream, and drench with chocolate sauce and caramel sauce (or maybe just the caramel). Meringues are too sweet for me. https://whatscookingamerica.net/History/IceCream/BakedAlaska.htm
The Inuit and Yupik and other Indians seem to prefer “Eskimo” ice cream, which in the old days was seal fat whipped up with snow and berries that had been preserved by freezing. Last time I had it (at a Tlingit-Haida gathering near Ketchikan) it was made with whipped Crisco, as it usually is these days, mixed with sugar and frozen blueberries. https://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Akutaq_EskimoIceCream.htm.
Now I think I’ll go eat some chocolate because there is no ice cream in the house.
Comprehensive and then some. I like the sound of Benjamin Thompson Rumford, must look into him. I don’t think I’ll be making any of these, including the seal-fat version.
Yes,Benjamin Thompson Rumford deserves more attention. I don’t think that non-Natives can acquire seal fat any way other than as a gift from Natives, so you are probably off the hook for that.
If I may remind my esteemed colleague we had an inferior version this when we dined out with the Family for Christmas. It consisted of stale Pannetone (an Italian sponge cake) covering some pink and green ice-cream,
Other Gert
So somehow Italian — I assume that the pink and green ice cream was supposed to be spumoni? And no meringue or frosting? Will it re-appear next year?
No meringue and no cream. I could eat almost anything if it included these two ingredients. I suppose it was Italian which was odd seeing it was a French restaurant. I don’t think we will be returning this year.
Other Gert
Perhaps they chose it because the colors were Christmasy, sort of? Sounds like a buche de noel would have been nicer.
Indeed. That would have been perfect, and plenty of cream there too.
Oh, lovely. “Although historians usually cite only his work on heat, he made numerous practical innovations, including central heating, the smokeless chimney, the kitchen oven, thermal underwear, the pressure cooker, and numerous others. In later life, he married (and then became estranged from) Lavoisier’s widow Marie-Anne. Rumford was overbearingly arrogant and had no friends, as well as having a life filled with repeated cycles of rapid rises to prominence followed by equally rapid falls to penury. His abrasive personality and style are perhaps why his many innovations were not widely chronicled by historians.”
In other words, he invented a great deal of what makes modern life pleasant — especially central heating. Add in electricity and running water, and you’re good to go. But we do know about overbearing and arrogant, and what a discouragement that can be to social recognition.
I’ll think of him next time I put on my thermal underwear, perhaps when I ‘m practising my troubled times pose. Where’s your selfie?
Best I can do is the Tree pose — maybe like Ents going off to save Middle Earth. No selfies.
Boo hiss.
OK. But only after I get more done on this manuscript so I can graduate.
I shall raise my head above the parapet, stand up to be counted and nail my colours to the mast. Not necessarily in that order.
I should add, though, that fine words butter me no parsnips, nor bake me any Alaskas.
Could you maintain the pose and still bake an Alaska, that is the question. And could you do all that and still stay “nice” as the nuns used to insist? Selfie, please, Chris. I can’t wait to see you in the armour of righteousness.
I tried to take a selfie while doing the really difficult Self-Righteous pose, but I kept dropping the phone — must be slippy fingers from buttering those parsnips.
Good boy. Keep trying.
At this point, after all those comments – how about “bite your tongue”?? As for Baked Alaska I have had it, can’t remember where, probably at some wedding. Have you ever had deep fried ice cream?
Leslie
Strangely enough I find I do bite my tongue whenever I do this. No, Deep-fried ice cream has never appealed. I bet you have, though?
Nope I haven’t had the deep fried ice cream. Can’t quite get my head around that one.
I feel that I should try this contortion as penance on behalf of Americans who do not agree with President Trump, who seems to have gone out of his way to offend all Australians.
Perhaps he’s read some of the public opinion polls here (Gert 1)
Oh dear, do be careful. It’s not your fault and we’d hate you to do yourself a mischief.(Gert 2)
I’ll be cautious. I have a lot more marching to do in the next four years. It does seem as if Trump and Bannon are doing their level best to burn as many bridges as possible — and his base seems to love him for it.
He certainly seems determined to deliver to them. I read David Brooks’ NY Times article on the Faustian bargain the Republicans have made. Is anyone going to have the guts to speak out against him, other than McCain and Graham?
Nice post