The Diamond Island

K and I loaded up the chuck wagon full of yummy organic burgers and buns, homemade pickles, and a slab of onions and lettuces.  She grabbed the lager medicine and I seized on the cider muscle relaxant.  Then we rode on over to the folk’s ranch and got a charcoal grill going.  Hek-yeah, it’s burgerin’ time!

The day was in the high sixties, sunny, and no snow.  Perfect weather for an outdoors shindig and rap session with the clan.  The weekend had been a huge quest of doom which had made us a little unavailable on main and auxiliary power to the rest of the world.  I’ll write about that later.  For now, tasty food, delicious frosty beverages, and good company gossiping and chitchatting like a bunch of crows.  And crow does like a tasty snack with a little jibber-jabber.

While doing the burger meditation I had a chance to think about the change in the weather.  I smell spring, I feel it in my bones.  It just wants to burst forward like a spring coiled giant squid tentacle and seize the morsel of the now.  I can hardly contain myself at the excitement.  Spring within, spring without, all in balance.

While I’m waiting in the closet for the dumpling attack to subside (yeah, right), I come across a bunch of papers that need going through.  Most of which need to be tossed into the psychological void.  I’m not through with my mental dustbin by a long stretch.  Hexe witchie-poo text-messages me that I need to get on the stick and flame broil those puppies.  Which of course, makes total sense.  Have another popover froggie!

K is there for me.  She’s found the oven reactor, and fired up the converters.  It’s a hot smokin’ cook-a-roo just waiting for a bunch of sweet mineral dumplings to leap in and cook like a bee with an itch.  I telepathsize an ingredient list for her, figuring we might have to wing some of those ingredients a little, say cat pee instead of dog pee.

An’ I’m out of the closet and using my super-Mario powers of crazy imagination maneuverability to spring over that assembled high-density collage of crazy critters.  But whoa-ho-ho, they don’t waste time chasing after me with juice-drinkin’ intentions and physical happenstance collectivoids dancing all around my magnetosphere of doom-ness.

Thanks to my kung fu classes, I manage to stay one step ahead of the horde.  Sheesh, I guess being a little fit helps a little bit, eh?  I can understand Hexe’s desire to stay in top tennis destructor form, now.  The ability to fire tennis torpedoes is mighty after all!  K’s shoveling in the petrified wood as quick as the coal bin hatch will allow, and I lure those critters into the huge stone oven that must have been some crazy mass food feed-a-thon apparatus in olden days.  I dunno, Hexe’s the expert here.

I have no desire to end up cooked to a nice golden brown patina, so as K slams the door shut and bolts it, I leap up to the ceiling and grab a hold of a rope courtesy of Alexi’s thoughtful chimney rescue brigade.  Those Droll Dumplings try as they might, but I’m up and out of that chimney before you can say Jack Robinson!  I cut the rope in case a few more enterprising buggers decide they can evolve climbing skills.

Man, those dumplings are mad!  Hopping up and down in the oven like popcorn.  K pours on the fuel and pretty soon the haunted house heats up nicely.  Won’t be long before those critters are cooked to a crisp pop.

Meanwhile, more monsters out there!

Earlier, I mentioned that cleanliness is the secret weapon. Now is the time to avail myself of that superzapper to clear out the destructoids not taken out by the New Year reset button.

I wake up from a comfortable sleep full of dreams about Bigfoot studies and mountain retreats. I give myself a relaxed, easy shave and a nice hot shower. A fresh set of clean clothes and a dash of tropical rainforest aftershave to make me feel like a million bucks. My mindset is rooted deeply in the quiet, contemplative emptiness of a new day.

Next up comes a full and hearty brunch (my favorite meal of the day) for K and I. I cook up a helping of turkey bacon, fried eggs easy up with lots of pepper, hash brown patties (with an extra for K because she loves hash browns), and toast with butter and blackberry jam from K’s delicious homemade bread (she’s getting quite good with bread now, after having read Yakitate for inspiration).

Frankie comes by for a pet. She looks out the window and meows at me. I take her up in my arms and we have a walk around the neighborhood. She is well-behaved, paws calmly digging into my sweatshirt as we take in the cool air in the light of the bright sun. Then it’s back to finish up the cooking.

K and I have brunch and revel in the comfort and satisfaction of a shared meal together. The food tastes delicious. Frankie munches on her dried salmon treats, Blink washes herself in her lambskin and wooly tower, and michael the ratbag pigpen snowbeast sleeps at the top of the stairs on an empty laundry bag.

Next up: chores. K vacuums while I do dishes. Frankie comes by and watches me clean dishes in the sink, enthralled as always by the running water and the steam. She grows sleepy and climbs into her crow’s nest by the fridge, joining Blink and Michael in slumber.

I clean out the fridge, then get a pizza dough started for Pizza of Doom. I mix up some rum punch for a shin-dig with the parental units tomorrow (though there’s plenty for sampling later). The punch forms easily, the flavor masking the strong alcohol with just the right amount of flair.

K decides to join the cats and sleeps on the couch. I tuck her in with Jeero the ani-pal and she passes out. It’s a lazy day after all, and one needs one’s strength.

I put the last of the suitable holiday cookies and cakes out for the squirrels. They show up within minutes and clean out the lot – in a half hour there’s nothing left. Feeding the animals gives me a warm feeling.

While I wait for the dough to rise, I sit at my special spot next to the stairs and gather my materials. In particular I contemplate the photograph of a willow loaned to me by the Incorrigible Witch Hexe witchiepoo of the many ovens.

I go over in my mental containers the experience of her two collage booklets (a term which fails to do justice to what they actually are, but needs must make do when the Devil drives), and how they relate to something in my book. I never would have thought I’d encounter a living example of concepts I only imagined in my head.

Then there are the “last request” Koh-I-Noor woodless colour pencils she gave me. I examine my poster board sketches and imagine what the next step might be.

BAM!

Frankie has knocked the box of hot cocoa powder from the counter to the floor of the kitchen. I come over and pet her, giving her lavish and deep voiced praise. She settles down and cat loafs on the counter in cat thought. I stand beside her and space out, the two of us keeping each other company.

All is calm, all is sunlight reflected brilliantly off the beautiful, cold nature slumbering in a half-sleep drowsiness outside.

Frankie and I, in each other’s company, silently existing one for the other in nameless ways while the house sleeps. She and I watchful, guarding, alert, and openhearted to the being and becoming oneself.

A half hour passes in this manner. Frankie moves softly then, leaping down to the floor and off to her crow’s nest to snooze once more. I remain, watching the day change slowly into the muted orange glow of sunset followed by the bluish gray shadows of twilight. The dough has risen, and it is time to make tonight’s nourishment.

An inspiration strikes me and I decide to try something new with the Pizza of Doom recipe. I’m pleased because I know I’m making just enough, no more. As I roll out the dough, my brain buzzes with troubles “I should” be worried about, but they melt in contact with how I’m floating through my dreamy, alert witnessing.

The pizza comes perilously close to melting down like a reactor. I lack panic; I adjust the oven and let it ease down gently, until it comes out complete and delicious. I sense that K is hungry and ready to wake, so I stir her with a mere touch.

She grabs a slice and starts surfing the net as if she’s always done this. One by one the cats activate, going for their bowls of food. They eat small amounts and are remarkably polite with each other. I chomp down on a slice and savor the experience.

All is well.

Right before the hurricane comes in, K and I make a run to the grocery store before the drones arrive to beam aboard their protein requirements in a hoard.  Milk, water, booze, flour, rice, apple turnovers.  You know, the stuff you’d need in the last days of the acrockalypse.

Gum machines are still instruments of enlightenment, despite half-hearted attempts by the puerarchy to make them into mere sugar dispensaries.  The old school fighters of random stupidity still follow the musical harmony creature as it dances through our reality to balance the antisystem, lest it continue the path to one-sided aggrandizement.

While I’m opening my wallet for the mandatory vacuuming with bonus peak oil food prices penalty, K takes a few quarters and gets herself a little rubber figure and on the first try gets what she wanted.  A little red devil figure.  I take my turn, and I get a little robot dude and a purple devil figure.  She’s happy that she has a little devilkins she can put on her keyboard, it reminds her of our Frankie, who is a devilkins.

Fast forward back to now, and the jack up we just started dealing with on top of the usual realization that it’s all Sector 2.2 days for a while. While K works her brand new bread magic to make us bonus food, and I try to make sense of the psycho-nautical habitat we find ourselves in, we examine our devilkins figures.  They both have what look like cat ears for horns, except her ears are facing the back, so it really looks like horns, and the “Made in China” is on the tummy instead of the back.  Mine is the opposite.  It makes them both different even though they are the same thing essentially.  I think K’s looks cooler, but my purple dude still has character, he’s more cat-like.

Okay, it’s obviously a clue.  I had a dream two weeks ago, where I was trying to keep my mirage from waking up.  He was in a coffin, and I was with a bunch of people, trying to convince them to help me before it was too late.  I was chopping my mirage’s limbs off with an axe, afraid he would wake up and we’d all be jacked.  His eyes were open and looking at me letting me know he knew what I was doing.  Perhaps what I was doing was futile.

I had another dream three days ago, where I found an open entrance into the underworld, and I started digging dirt away to get inside.  For some reason, I called into the tunnel with a howl, and it echoed down into the darkness.  I grew very afraid, and all of a sudden a scary, vicious seeming gollum-like creature appeared at the opening and started trying to dig its way through.  I freaked, because I didn’t want him to escape, and I didn’t want to get yanked into the underworld or have my arm eaten off like what happens in the horror movies.  I woke up before I knew what happened.

Yeah, more clues.  How do me and my mirage deepen our relationship without letting the other make changes on who we are?  The last time I tried to do something for my mirage, he played a mean trick on me.  Maybe I’ve got this all wrong.  But I’m pretty mad, and I guess I’ve been letting things slide long enough.  This night in a haunted house is turning out to be a long one.

So I knock on the basement door to the laundry room and say, “Yo, mirage with all the spooky scary stuff.  What’s up?”

I’d known about O-bento sama since I studied in Japan. But I don’t think I started to really understand them until now. For those not in the know, a bento is a lunch, usually in a container of some kind. The O and sama refer to a certain amount of respect for the lunch and what it represents.

K picks up on things all the time from her communications and sensor monitoring stations. I never know what she’ll find next. In this case, she started trailing the subculture of bento preparation, and boy is there a bottomless depth to human ingenuity and presentation in this one.

At its simplest level, a bento is a container. But you can add dividers, and layers of containers. And then you start getting into shape and size. Depending on the kind of lunch need, whether it’s a single person or a family on a picnic, the containers called upon depend upon the desires of the preparer and the needs of the consumer(s).

Most bento containers are plastic, but some are wood or metal. They may come with spaces for chopsticks or other utensils, and they can be tall or wide. Many have trays within the container that act as dividers in and of themselves.

You begin to get into personalization. Some bento containers are decorated with famous bento characters and sayings. Others are just decorated with scenes of solitude or symbols representative of the preparer’s wishes. You can have a lime green garden on the bento top, with a saying such as “friendship is a treasure, let’s eat!”

There are special containers and utensils that can be added to the bento. Small plastic fish to squirt soy sauce or little molds that can be used to shape hardboiled eggs into shapes. There are small creatures that can be used to cover a small treat. There are plastic figures and accents that can be added to make a point or deliver a message.

The food items that go into the bento start to turn into decorations. You can use cutters to make messages out of cheese, or cut vegetables and fruits into handy shapes like stars or moons. Rice and meat can be colored or arranged in shapes that make a friendly face or a background for another message.

Why all this elaborate work over what should is just a lunch? Near as I can tell, the bento is an actual person or spirit that delivers well wishes from one person to another in the form of a meal. Because the bento is a “go-between”, the lunch preparer can express feelings of love, friendship, or devotion to the eater without losing face, because it is assumed that the bento is relaying the message for both parties.

I like that. You open a container as if it’s a sacred object, and you don’t just eat a meal, you are eating something that expresses someone’s feelings for you.

K and I went searching various Asian stores for bento materials. We didn’t score anything more than some basics, but it will suffice for now. We just started this thing at level 1. It’ll take us a while to get to the higher levels where our bentos to each other are like dioramas.

But even a humble bento is nice. Mister lunch has been visiting me this week, and every small touch makes the meal warm and friendly. I know someone cares enough to send me a message of caring and sharing!

Ugh, the cola wars never end! The war to make you drink carbonated sugar water and get fat, that is. It tastes so good, but it’s so bad for you. A world of addicts to a beverage that is nowhere near the original fountain drink experience of eras long past. There must be a way to fight against the unstoppable tanks armed with shells of cola cans shooting liquid health problems into your gullet.

Well, on the starship Snipe, I was a chattin’ with one of my imaginary friends. Doctor Madman, in charge of my general health and well-being. He clues me into some plot points I’ve missed over the years and the hints I haven’t taken up. So I agree, yeah I need to follow up those transmissions and see what we find. Next time, I got a tag on relevant info and it’ll happen.

K and I walk into a tea shoppe, and we realize this is what we’ve been looking for. The bonus has landed. We plop down some bucks for a nice Chinese ceramic teapot, teapot coaster, some cups, and some cupholders. Plus a supply of rooibus (pronounced roy-boss) tea in two flavors for long lasting refuels. We head to an appliance store and get a hold of a nice water kettle and bang, we’re in business.

The upgrade goes like this. Fill up the kettle with some water, heat it up. Meanwhile, spoon some measures of tea into the teapot’s metal filter. When the water is hot, pour into the teapot, and let simmer. Then, pour yourself some tea and consume together for relax time.

Yeah, yeah, drinking tea is something only those fruity “other countries” do. Real people drink real soft drinks, right? Hey, I ain’t giving up my right to drink a bottle of RC cola now and then, but I’m switching sides, man. I need to keep my water tanks filled, I need the hook up with plant particles in my system fightin’ the nasty infestoids tryin’ to carjack my body. The right tea set-up does all that, and relaxes me.  And it’s all about me!

So from now on, K and I do our tea filler-up when we get home, and dial down the damage. It’s part of the secure to general quarters, and the beginning of reprogram and recharge procedures. The new gas station of the future, baby. I’m pumpin my body full of fuel and puttin’ the smack down on the imbalance. All things in moderation, and that goes for vice as well as civilized behavior. I’m not going for the best, just going for what’s mine.

From now on, it’s going to be tea, not just no-tea. Watch me work now!

It’s a typical Satyrday night. I’m mixing up the medicine, a nice tangy rum punch designed to make me more receptive to the forces of the universe while I do my chores. One can easily learn the secrets of Kung Fu while scrubbing the bathtub of scrum, it’s all a matter of training. I’m also chopping up the ingredients for my yummy beef stew. K and are planning to watch some Grey’s Anatomy to a steaming bowl of stew and a glass of thick, rich milk to make a party in our tummys (so yummy, so yummy).

Cooking is an unpredictable venture. The formula of a recipe should ensure a consistent result every time, but the real world operates on a random adventure generator on a regular basis. You can’t always count on what kind of experience you are going to get out of life. So it is that as I’m mixing up the punch, it turns a brilliant red, and no matter how much I try to get it to behave, it remains red, instead of the off-orange and feathery brown it usually is. I examine my ingredients, and realize I bought a bunch of juices that have nothing to do with the original recipe. Well, it’s always dinosaur hunting when I have to go to the supermarket, and its likely that the robots in disguise had me so distracted that someone else pulled the strings when I made my juice selections. I do try to be open to outside messages, after all.

I start work on the stew, and for some reason it turns out a deep red color instead of the brown-brothy color it usually does. I look at my ingredients and I realize that instead of using my jar of home-jarred tomatoes, I used a can of Nature’s Promise tomatoes instead. I shake my head and realize I’m acting on some kind of puppet-master control field and try to get to the bottom of things. The stew and the rum punch taste excellent, it’s just they are, well this shade of red that I feel means something. You know, like in that scene from Close Encounters when the main character starts realizing there’s some meaning to what they are building with a mountain of mashed potatoes.

So I sit down and I visualize the color red in my mind, and decide to see what comes up. The image that flashes into my brain is the Blob, from the old 1972 movie Beware! The Blob, a sequel to the original movie in 1958. Whoa, that takes me back. The last thing I want to do is consume anything that reminds me of the Blob, because that thing was a deadly poison that killed and consumed you if you touched it! But here I am sucking down a ceramic cup of the good stuff and preparing a pot of stew that has a meaningful connection to that which scared the pants off me as a kid.

As a young pouchling, I watched a lot of movies on the TV. Back then independent stations were more common, and even the big networks had a creative side. The late night monster movies were a staple back then, and you could always be assured of picking up something weird past ten P.M. One movie I saw was, of course, Beware! The Blob. It made an impression on me as a kid.

At the end of the original The Blob movie, the creature known as the Blob is frozen and dumped somewhere in the north pole with the titles “The End?” showing. The intimation is that this is not the end of the matter. Beware! The Blob (also known as Son of the Blob, which I think is false, more like daughter of the Blob) picks up from that loose end.

An oil pipeline worker digs up a canister and brings it home. The canister contains, you guessed it, the Blob. It thaws out, and starts eating everything in sight. A pair of young love birds clue in to the danger while the authorities stall. The blob is a nasty, icky, bright red jelly creature that can move quickly and squeeze through any crack to reach it victims. It sticks to you like glue, and quickly engulfs you to digest your body. As it absorbs animals, insects and people (it apparently doesn’t like plants) it grows in size. The only thing that stops it is cold. If you freeze it, the blob can be stored and transported (as it was in the original movie).

In Beware! The Blob, the final showdown occurs in a skating rink, where the hero of the movie finally lures it onto the ice rink and turns on the cold, freezing the creature and saving the town. The sheriff poses in front of the creature, and the lights of the news media thaw a piece of the creature where it reaches out to grasp the guy’s boot. Again, the titles “The End?” appear as the movie ends.

This movie terrified me as a kid. The Blob could appear anywhere and strike quickly. Once it got a hold of you, there was no escape. You would live long enough to be absorbed into the creature and turned into liquid lunch. In one scene, a guy gets a haircut, and as he’s getting a shampoo from the barber, the blob squeezes out of the sink drain and snags the guy by the head. I absolutely refuse to get my hair shampooed at a hair cut establishment to this day because of that scene.

In the movie, the presence of the creature is always accompanied by a spooky sound tone. That musical tone has lodged itself in my brain, and I always jump when I hear that exact tone of music played somewhere. The Blob ain’t gunna get me! Although, where could you run? Your only hope would be to splash it with cold water or throw ice cubes at it.

The memory is not quite as fierce or terrifying as it used to be. I’ve had to go about my business despite the fear that at any time that sound might begin, and I find myself washing my hands while a red slime oozes out the drain and tries to get a hold of me. But I haven’t forgotten that primal terror, the fear that would keep me from going to sleep at night, because the light in the hall was making that same dull hum as the Blob.

As I’m stirring the pot, and mixing the punch bowl, I realize in a sense I’m consuming the Blob at this very moment! You can’t escape the Blob, only postpone the inevitable. The creature always thaws out and comes at humanity again and again. The test of survival never ends. Of course, in the movies, consuming the Blob is always fatal (the guy who drinks it from his beer can dies horribly as it consumes him from within). The Blob comes from outer space (the deep unconscious), and needs to eat everything in sight (to what end?). The idea of anyone consuming the Blob and surviving is as preposterous as the existence of the Blob itself.

The thought strikes me that the Blob is an archetype of feminine power, engulfing everything and devouring all in its path, growing larger and stronger. I’m cool with that, as long as I don’t lose my own individuality in the process. It’s the hero/heroine pair up in the movie that always defeats the Blob, or more accurately, puts it on hold until next time. So perhaps the individuation of certain characters is what moves the plot along. The Blob is too strong for any one person to take on, and yet, it’s the individual response to the reality of the growing Blob’s power that determines the outcome.

I’m thinking that the Blob represents nothing less than the fear of girl power. That nasty contamination by women that always wrecks things and makes life more difficult. What does the Blob want? It must be looking for a connection of some kind, and anyone who doesn’t measure up to the requirement gets eaten alive. The people who are smart enough to flee or avoid contact with the Blob might be the very people the Blob is trying to contact. The Blob comes from outer space (the heavens), maybe it’s trying to make contact, and the outer space girl power needs to hear a message from the right person to move things forward.

The Blob keeps getting put off, because we love the fear of running from the gross girl germs that might give us cooties. The movies keep coming. But maybe it is way past time the process moved to the next level. Humanity has to grow up eventually, or be stuck in a never-never land of childish dependence. I hear the message, I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m letting the Blob get inside of me!

Now that the holiday madness has past, I’ve been able to take stock of the post-santa-claws damage.  My car’s engine mount succumbed to the forces of doom and collapsed, just in time for my yearly inspection.  So I’m socked with a repair cost and delays during the nebulous holiday spirit that means every mechanic is doing the total dodge.  As if that weren’t enough, Frankie caught a lite sneeze, and needed a vet visit to get the kitty drug hook-up.  Sometimes, if you really try, you can feel the jackup gnomes with their vacuum in your wallet.  I must have landed on the square in my personal board game where I have to lose 2 turns.

My friend Liephus gave me a minor linkdump, which gave me a chuckle.  He’s all about the funny, and I think that’s a good a life goal as any.  First off, he sent me a link where a group of video game “experts” do a “scientific” study.  They show a compelling correlation between the time it takes for a game avatar to encounter a “crate” and how good the video game is.  See, it’s a staple in video games that there are crates everywhere.  They conceal “powerups”, “heals”, and “ammunition”.  They are often used as scenery or obstacles to liven up what are otherwise boring environments.  Some games start you out staring at a crate (and therefore are traumatic, horrible games to play), while others take half an hour before you encounter a crate (you have just found gameplay better than any vice you can imagine).

Second, he introduced me to Korean professional StarCraft matches on YouTube.  I think StarCraft is one of the greatest computer games ever made, and a heck of a lot of fun to play, either solo or against other folks.  In the matches, video game players fight to the death on-screen for fabulous glory and prizes.  The Korean announcers lose their marbles following the ebb and flow of play, which is pretty funny.  Some folks dub over them with English (such as DiggitySC), and give it that understated, but deeply satisfying humorous edge.  It’s all about the funny!  Just one more match, and I’ll head off to bed, I swear.

K and I have been watching Grey’s Anatomy, Seasons 1 and 2.  I think House is by far a better “medical” drama, but I like the premise and many of the characters of Grey’s Anatomy.  I loathe the main character, Meredith Grey, however, and her One True Couple counterpart Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd.  She’s very much an example of “The Beautiful Lady without Mercy”, making it all about herself and caring not a whit for what happens to other people.  I sense a post of some kind coming out of this in the future.

My Pa noticed the work I was doing on my rum punch recipe, and gave it the enthusiastic thumbs-up.  Then he passed along to me some vital ingredients.  It appears that I have yet some kung fu techniques to work on, and will likely have to modify my alchemical concoction.  Or perhaps do an addendum post on the matter.  But it’s very encouraging to have my efforts be recognized and have the parental unit pass along another part of the secret recipe down.  On K’s end, she’s been fiddling with crepes, trying to duplicate her Ma’s baffling ability to create rolled-up sugar crepes of smooth munching satisfaction.  She got a pair of really cool cookbooks from the holiday loot-fest, and has been readying to level up her baking skills.  Which reminds me, I have to summon the Cookie Aphid and go back to basics – the Chocolate Chip Cookie of Doom.  I’ve been experimentin’ a little too much, and need to return to solid ground.

Plans for the garden this year are already being made.  The entire garden gang got together the other day and drew up preliminary plans as to what will be planted, and how it will be harvested and stored this year.  There’s some fence work, sod-busting, and composting in my future I fear.  The ground is cold and damp, and the planting many months off.  But this year will be a new level with more hit points and better rolls, I can feel it.

I’m not a big fan of the Washington Post, or the “Court Circular” as some call it.  Well, I’m not a fan of corporate media period as a lot of its product is junk.  But as they say even a blind cat catches a bird now and then.  One of their features had a focus on cookies, and since I’m always on the lookout for additional recipes, I gave it a sensor sweep of the peepers.  Several items came up on the ol’ mental viewscreen for testing out, but one in particular really caught my eye.  The Anzac Biscuits have that euphonious sound quality that rolls over the tongue, so I decided to try it, even though I hate coconut.

I had to scramble to get a hold of the syrup, which turns out to be the cornerstone of the recipe, but I manage to manufacture a batch and give them a try.  K and I both agree the cookies are uncommonly delicious.  We scarf them down and have to make another batch.  And I think we have a winner!  A good combination of sweet and base flavors, and it really sticks to your ribs.  Even Frankie wanted some!  Something about the smell of the Anzac biscuits that got her watching us from her perch on the refrigerator with curiosity.  Her detectors must have been reading the heavy concentration of food regeneratives coming from the discovery of ancient food technology!

The recipe has some interesting history behind it.  The biscuits were put into care packages for soldiers from Australia and New Zealand during World War I.  The ingredients were chosen to allow for the long transportation times without refrigeration, and were packed in tins to maintain crispy freshness for as long as possible.  Church groups of wives, mothers and girlfriends spent enormous amounts of time manufacturing these biscuits for as many soldiers as possible, and so it became something of an institution.  In Australia the biscuit is a part of national identity.  Who knew?

I tell you, there are treasures of knowledge and tasty chompin’ goodness all over the place.  K and I just got the pump up.

Feasting on food and fine victuals while celebrating with loved ones. Thanks for the sacrifice, Turkey With No Name.