Dillards 73: A Bitter Dill

[acheronbeach]

On 2/2/2019 at 2:59 PM, Markie said:

Things I’d like to see Jill post: preschool with Israel, going to the library for story time with the boys, fun playing in the snow if they get snow, easy oven bake Mac and cheese that kids and adults both like, having the boys make rice crispie animals, kids singing in the children’s church choir, boys playing at a neighbourhood park. Guess I don’t have any interest in seeing Derrick or gross recipes... 

Oh, Lord, Markie, don't give her ideas.  Can you imagine how her half-assery and awkwardness would turn what should be cute posts into a big fat fail?  

• Library time... at the law library to hang out with #bestdadever
• Snow time!  But no hat/toques so the boys have to make do with tortillas again.  
• Mac and cheese!  Where we learn that Campbells does indeed make cheese flavoured condensed soup.  

Etcetera...

[Cat Damon]

2 hours ago, acheronbeach said:

Where we learn that Campbells does indeed make cheese flavoured condensed soup.

I hate to break it to you, but they do.

[tankgirl]

21 minutes ago, Cat Damon said:

I hate to break it to you, but they do.

Is it cheese sauce, is it soup, is it another food horror, brought to you by FJ and Campbell's? I am truly confused!

[onekidanddone]

2 hours ago, tankgirl said:

Is it cheese sauce, is it soup, is it another food horror, brought to you by FJ and Campbell's? I am truly confused!

Is it floor wax? Is it a desert topping? 

[HarryPotterFan]

10 hours ago, eport said:

When it comes to studying history, there is one thing that I really appreciated in my k-8 school (in an otherwise kind of deary middle school years). In the 7th and 8th grade years, we used only one US history textbook. Usually, schools rush through history and anything after WWII gets a quick once over in the rush to the end of the school year. So the school covered US beginnings through WWI in 7th grade and started 8th grade where 7th left off. We actually got to cover topics a lot more in  depth and actually talk about things like Vietnam/more recent history. WWII got more coverage, including homefront/Japanese internment camps/etc

I figured that US schools just didn’t teach about Vietnam because it didn’t go to well for us...like oh we didn’t win a war? Let’s pretend it never happened!

[SportsgalAnnie]

With US History we started after WWII. 
AP was revolutionary war to WWI 

I got lucky with my teacher, he was bigger on discussions and didn't like tests. He also traveled to Africa so when we covered the Rwandan Genocide (Geography same teacher)  he gave us the non textbook view.

I had awesome teachers in college that perfered discussion too. We would actually meet before class to talk about stuff sometimes. Especially with History of Crime and my Ghosts/Folktales class. 

[acheronbeach]

2 hours ago, HarryPotterFan said:

I figured that US schools just didn’t teach about Vietnam because it didn’t go to well for us...like oh we didn’t win a war? Let’s pretend it never happened!

Cough, cough War of 1812...

Right, Canadian FJers?

[Sullie06]

On 1/28/2019 at 8:47 AM, VelociRapture said:

Pulling from the last thread:

I live in Connecticut - for our non- US based posters, it’s a small state in the Northeastern part of the country. My state sided with the Union during the Civil War, yet we still have idiots up here who proudly display the Confederate flag and we have our fair share of racists. A few examples:

- I was best friends with a woman I had known since Elementary School for about twenty years. There were many reasons the friendship ended, but one of them was due to her family’s racism. They were lovely people to me and I never saw them act in a racist way towards another human being... however, her father and brothers made racist jokes about President Obama and his family when the topic would come up - and it came up a lot with me because I was the token liberal. Her youngest brother also had the Confederate flag displayed on the back wind shield of his truck.*

- We’ve seen other trucks driven around with the Confederate flag on it as well. It always elicits a WTF look from my husband and I. 

- The final Klan gathering in the state occurred in the late 90s or early 2000s. The local paper ran stories about it after Charlottesville - I guess a nationally known white supremacist held a rally in the town due to something about Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The rally was scarcely attended, but tons of people from the area turned out in opposition. The opposition was so loud in their demonstrations that the people actually attending the rally couldn’t hear anything, so it ended pretty quickly. 

- There was something in my hometown about swatsikas at the golf course when I was a kid. I think someone spray painted them on the building or something. I was pretty young, but I was old enough to know about the Holocaust and I remember being upset and confused about it. 

- There was a homeowner in our town a few years back who spray painted racist imagery and words on his own house. I guess he was pissed off because he sold land to a developer who then started building on it. I clearly don’t remember the details, but the general idea was he was trying to scare off potential buyers. Fucking dumbass. 

Those are just examples I can think of off the top of my head. So yeah. The South certainly has a reputation for racism that it has earned to a certain degree, but the rest of the country isn’t that much better. 

*Its been almost 2.5 years now and I’m still torn about our friendship ending. She was an important part of my life for a very long time and it hurts knowing she’ll never know my daughter and I’ll never know her’s. But I also know that we were moving in very different directions politically and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’m hoping more time will help me get over it. 

They are all over that is for sure. I live in Upstate NY and we are a pretty liberal state in general. About 2 months ago some idiots spray painted swastika's all over the side of our high school, the sidewalk and even in the intersection by the school because they were mad about something. Jokes on them for two reasons, one they got charged with multiple felony's because they were caught on the school camera's and identified and two they didn't draw the swastika correctly so whatever message they were getting across was not the right one (like I said, Idiots).  We are a pretty good sized metropolitan area with a lot of rural areas around us and I see a lot of "old country boys" (they call themselves that, not me) driving around with confederate flags on their trucks. They don't get to kind a response when they come into the city. SO much ignorance in the world. 

[Sullie06]

On 1/29/2019 at 5:00 PM, OldFadedStar said:

I think the image of Illinois above is an inaccurate representation of how people outside the midwest see here. 

See exhibit A:

 

I grew up in Illinois and now that I live elsewhere when I tell people when I'm from their first response 99% of the time... "Oh, you're from Chicago?"

 

People view New York the same way. So annoying. No! I'm not from NYC, there is a whole damn state attached to NYC. I went to college in Alabama and someone asked me if I've even seen "wild trees" before. First off, I had to have a wild tree explained to me, she meant forest, and secondly I had to explain to her that like I had previously told her, I'm from Upstate. We have plenty of cows, trees, grass, mountains, apples and corn!

[Georgiana]

I think a lot of the reason that Vietnam has been left out of curriculum for so long was recency.  The same reason that most schools don't cover the HW Bush administrations yet either.  It takes time for information to come forward, scholarship to weigh in, etc. and while we're in the process of examining recent events, we usually have adults (e.g. college students and academics) examine it first before we come up with a simplified understanding we can pass along to children.

Scholarship on the Vietnam war is JUST starting to trickle down.  We just got Ken Burn's fantastic documentary.  We're just starting to have the power of hindsight.  We're now able to discuss it more like the Civil War whereas for a long time we weren't.

And the passage of time has allowed wounds to heal.  The kids of Vietnam vets are no longer the kids in schools.  It was going to be hard to teach any stance on Vietnam while you're talking about the parents, aunts, uncles, etc. of kids in the classroom. That's tough because that's personal, and no matter WHAT your stance is, people will be harmed.  And the Vietnam War got VERY personal in America.  And for a long time, there deliberately was not space to talk about it because of how personal it got to so many people.   

It just takes time for current events to become history.  There's always a delay before things reach the history books, especially for kids' classes.  Vietnam took longer than most I think because it is both so incredibly complex AND because it became so incredibly personal and destructive.  Many people felt we needed a LOT of information and a LOT of distance before we could responsibly and respectfully discuss it.  

To give an example of what I'm talking about: I'm 30.  My parents were not in the Vietnam war, nor could they have been (I think? My dad would have been JUST on the edge of being eligible for the draft before it ended).  But they remember it.  I have NEVER talked with my parents about Vietnam.  I tried as a kid.  But they just wouldn't speak of it.  I didn't even "get" Vietnam until the documentary came out.  It was a very emotional time for many Americans, and many of them ended up with very complicated emotions they haven't yet fully unpacked.  I'm not surprised if it's JUST hitting schools.  Honestly, it would have been weird to learn about Vietnam in high school, and I think my parents would have had issues with that.

[Sullie06]

On 1/31/2019 at 4:31 PM, MayMay1123 said:

i spent every summer until about '97 in Somer's Point/Ocean City. hubs spent his summers in Stone Harbor. obviously his grandparents were richer than mine ?

We spent a good majority of our summers split between Wildwood/Cape May and Southern Alabama. Lots of good memories.

[karen77]

On 2/2/2019 at 5:19 AM, HarleyQuinn said:

Not to be outdone by Jessa's "my kids eat seaweed" post, Jill posted one of her own but had to point out that hers came from #Korea.  

haha! my son just begged for us to buy him seaweed at the store yesterday, we didn't want too (ick) but I relented, he at the whole container in one sitting...

 

kids LOVES sauerkraut too....(he's 6)... such a foodie!

[acheronbeach]

Jilly's "Hudson Bay Bread" recipe on the blog/insta (spoiler: it's just a granola bar) post is really boring.  Sad times.  The only snarkworthy part of it was when she made sure to remind us that Derick was an EAGLE SCOUT.  

Oh, and this is the recipe she tells us is high calorie.  Not the spaghetti sauce recipe made of three tins of condensed soup and 1/2 pound of butter.  

[bella8050]

I was just coming here to LOL about Jill's heads up on the bars being high calorie, of all the receipes to "warn" people about she picks one that at least has oats and nuts in it. Also yayyy for young Wreck being an Eagle Scout. ?

Geography...to my fellow New Jerseyans...Central Jersey...myth or reality?

Spoiler

 

 

[MarblesMom]

11 hours ago, Georgiana said:

And the passage of time has allowed wounds to heal. 

For some, perhaps. 

I remember having an argument with my daughter 10 years ago over wanting to name her son Nixon.  Caused a major rift in many generations in our family.... and he is not named that.

 

[Granwych]

On ‎2‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 6:46 PM, onekidanddone said:

Is it floor wax? Is it a desert topping? 

It's a multipurpose item--floor wax, dessert topping, wall spackle, face paint, car grease, you  name it.

9 hours ago, bella8050 said:

I was just coming here to LOL about Jill's heads up on the bars being high calorie, of all the receipes to "warn" people about she picks one that at least has oats and nuts in it. Also yayyy for young Wreck being an Eagle Scout. ?

Geography...to my fellow New Jerseyans...Central Jersey...myth or reality?

  Hide contents

 

 

Right up there with the Jersey devil.

12 hours ago, karen77 said:

haha! my son just begged for us to buy him seaweed at the store yesterday, we didn't want too (ick) but I relented, he at the whole container in one sitting...

 

kids LOVES sauerkraut too....(he's 6)... such a foodie!

Take him to the beach, it's fresh and it's free.

[Four is Enough]

On 1/29/2019 at 6:47 PM, QuiverFullofBooks said:

Why do people in the UK associate Maryland with cookies?

Maybe Berger Cookies? Sugar cookie with fudgy thick goodness on top?

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bergercookies.com%2Fmedia%2Fqueldorei%2Fshopper%2Fslideshow%2Fhome_pic1_3.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bergercookies.com%2F&docid=hy5eGx3rfk-7kM&tbnid=Um4SRv4zjq8xtM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjKjtaH0KfgAhXOmOAKHe__Bf0QMwhAKAIwAg..i&w=951&h=471&bih=789&biw=1600&q=berger cookies maryland&ved=0ahUKEwjKjtaH0KfgAhXOmOAKHe__Bf0QMwhAKAIwAg&iact=mrc&uact=8

On 1/29/2019 at 9:38 PM, Glasgowghirl said:

Their is a popular brand of cookies here called Maryland.

As a Marylander born and raised, I'd like to hear more about these.

On 2/4/2019 at 3:51 PM, tankgirl said:

Is it cheese sauce, is it soup, is it another food horror, brought to you by FJ and Campbell's? I am truly confused!

I've used Cheddar Cheese soup and it's actually good, especially in something like mac and cheese, or as part of meat loaf.

[PennySycamore]

@Four is Enough,  I don't know of cookies named after the Old Line State, but there are Lord  and Lady Baltimore Cakes.  I've got recipes, but I've never made them for my Maryland born* and raised husband because the recipes have nuts in them.  There's also the famous Smith Island cake.    I wonder if Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes has ever made any of them. 

The Girl Scout Cookies that our council sells were made by Famous Foods of Virginia at one time. 

*My husband was actually born at Garfield Hospital in DC.  He was raised in Wheaton and Silver Spring though.  

[Coconut Flan]

That talk of Maryland cookies made me curious:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_Cookies

Copy cat recipe:

Ingredients 
Serves: 35 

165g vegetable shortening (e.g. TREK) or margarine

1/4 teaspoon salt

75g caster sugar

4 tablespoons golden syrup

2 teaspoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

260g plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

100g plain chocolate chips

Method
Prep:20min  ›  Cook:10min  ›  Ready in:30min 

Preheat the oven to 180 C / Gas 4. Make sure the rack is on the middle shelf.

Put first 3 ingredients into a bowl (of standing mixer if your using one). Turn on your electric mixer and mix the ingredients until fluffy.

Add the next three ingredients and continue to mix until thouroughly blended in.

Mix in the last 3 ingredients by hand. If mixture is dry, add enough milk so the dough is moist but not sticky.

Shape dough into teaspoon sized balls and place on a greased cookie sheet. DO NOT flatten dough.

Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Put on cooling rack 1-2 minutes after they come out of the oven. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

[AliceInFundyland]

That looks a heck of a lot like a chocolate chip cookie, except no brown sugar and instead this golden syrup. Is anyone aware of the taste difference?

[Lisafer]

On 2/6/2019 at 12:12 AM, MarblesMom said:

For some, perhaps. 

I remember having an argument with my daughter 10 years ago over wanting to name her son Nixon.  Caused a major rift in many generations in our family.... and he is not named that.

 

Yikes, that's tough. I imagine you didn't want to be "that mom," but at the same time you could obviously see that the name Nixon would probably hurt a lot of people in your family and cause trouble for the poor kid too. 

Most of the Vietnam vets I know were irreparably damaged by that war. One sweet and wonderful gentleman I knew carried trauma to his deathbed. He told me how a fireworks display had him hiding under his folding chair in an automatic reaction to the noise. He was a liberal guy in a conservative town and used to mutter to me under his breath about all the damn tourists watching that crap on Fox News. Rest in peace, Mr. B.

[byzant]

 

 

Edit sorry was beaten to it. They are not bad just dry and small!

On 2/6/2019 at 5:27 PM, Four is Enough said:

Maybe Berger Cookies? Sugar cookie with fudgy thick goodness on top?

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bergercookies.com%2Fmedia%2Fqueldorei%2Fshopper%2Fslideshow%2Fhome_pic1_3.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bergercookies.com%2F&docid=hy5eGx3rfk-7kM&tbnid=Um4SRv4zjq8xtM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjKjtaH0KfgAhXOmOAKHe__Bf0QMwhAKAIwAg..i&w=951&h=471&bih=789&biw=1600&q=berger cookies maryland&ved=0ahUKEwjKjtaH0KfgAhXOmOAKHe__Bf0QMwhAKAIwAg&iact=mrc&uact=8

As a Marylander born and raised, I'd like to hear more about these.

I've used Cheddar Cheese soup and it's actually good, especially in something like mac and cheese, or as part of meat loaf.

They are literally dry biscuits with chocolate chips.

[Vivi_music]

On 2/5/2019 at 1:25 PM, Georgiana said:

I think a lot of the reason that Vietnam has been left out of curriculum for so long was recency.  The same reason that most schools don't cover the HW Bush administrations yet either.  It takes time for information to come forward, scholarship to weigh in, etc. and while we're in the process of examining recent events, we usually have adults (e.g. college students and academics) examine it first before we come up with a simplified understanding we can pass along to children.

Scholarship on the Vietnam war is JUST starting to trickle down.  We just got Ken Burn's fantastic documentary.  We're just starting to have the power of hindsight.  We're now able to discuss it more like the Civil War whereas for a long time we weren't.

And the passage of time has allowed wounds to heal.  The kids of Vietnam vets are no longer the kids in schools.  It was going to be hard to teach any stance on Vietnam while you're talking about the parents, aunts, uncles, etc. of kids in the classroom. That's tough because that's personal, and no matter WHAT your stance is, people will be harmed.  And the Vietnam War got VERY personal in America.  And for a long time, there deliberately was not space to talk about it because of how personal it got to so many people.   

It just takes time for current events to become history.  There's always a delay before things reach the history books, especially for kids' classes.  Vietnam took longer than most I think because it is both so incredibly complex AND because it became so incredibly personal and destructive.  Many people felt we needed a LOT of information and a LOT of distance before we could responsibly and respectfully discuss it.  

To give an example of what I'm talking about: I'm 30.  My parents were not in the Vietnam war, nor could they have been (I think? My dad would have been JUST on the edge of being eligible for the draft before it ended).  But they remember it.  I have NEVER talked with my parents about Vietnam.  I tried as a kid.  But they just wouldn't speak of it.  I didn't even "get" Vietnam until the documentary came out.  It was a very emotional time for many Americans, and many of them ended up with very complicated emotions they haven't yet fully unpacked.  I'm not surprised if it's JUST hitting schools.  Honestly, it would have been weird to learn about Vietnam in high school, and I think my parents would have had issues with that.

This is so well put and eloquently written. I could not have said it better, because English is not my first language. It used to deplore the fact that recent history was also not thought to me in HS, until I studied history in college. Yeah... for an event to really enter ''History'' (with a big ''H'') and be understood from a scientific point of view (because yes, social science IS science). It needs more than archived news reports. You need scholars, experts, who are able to have some distance on the event to understand its impact. But it was only when I entered the academic world that I was able to understand that.

[Topaz]

I thought that Maryland cookies were named that because they were an American brand. My entire understanding of cookies is built on a lie.

As @byzant said they are very dry. Probably my least favourite sort ever, including gluten free ones which tend to vary a lot in quality. It’s good to know that with all the good chocolate chip cookies out there’s this wasn’t the brand that America chose to share with us. (Apologies to anyone out there whose favourite biscuits I’ve just run down.?)

[xlurker]

On 2/5/2019 at 4:43 PM, bella8050 said:

Central Jersey...myth or reality?

Reality!