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[CatrionaGrace]

One of my best memories is loading hay onto a trailer hooked to the back of my son's pick up truck. Son stood his five year old son on the seat, showed him how to guide the truck straight, put the truck in granny gear (slow, slow, slow), and started bucking hay onto the trailer while my grandson drove.

 

[Link the Writer]

Found a scene I needed... in a document I created in 2019 where I threw it in along with a bunch of other scenes. So glad I didn't delete it. That's why you don't delete what you write, children. You'll never know when you'll actually need it.

 

[ps102]

Both of my children and my grandson were driving on backroads by the time they were twelve or thirteen.

That's very common in Crete's villages. Parents teach all kinds of things to their children from very young, including driving. You see 14-15 year olds drive more often that you'd think. I don't know if that's a good thing but I've never heard anyone complain about it either.

Either way, I do admire parents who teach their children really important skills like this. It makes all the difference later in their lives.

What we could do, you can do. It's not so hard- really!

I sure hope you are right!

 

[CatrionaGrace]

A family here in town has an olive grove on Crete. A few people go back once a year for harvest, press the olives, then ship the oil back here in drums to be bottled, labeled, and sold for ungodly prices.

 

[Homer Potvin]

A family here in town has an olive grove on Crete. A few people go back once a year for harvest, press the olives, then ship the oil back here in drums to be bottled, labeled, and sold for ungodly prices.

You can't pay enough for good olive oil. If I only get cooks to stop pushing it past the smoke point. Might as well be cooking with pee at that point.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Is Italian EVOO the best?

 

[CatrionaGrace]

You can't pay enough for good olive oil. If I only get cooks to stop pushing it past the smoke point. Might as well be cooking with pee at that point.

Apparently this is very good olive oil, but I can't bring myself to spend seventy or eighty dollars for a bottle of oil.

 

[Homer Potvin]

Is Italian EVOO the best?

That's a broad category in a big world. Like asking if Italian bread is better than French bread. Or Italian wine over French wine. But speaking generally, as in a random brand of EVOO in a grocery store vs a random brand of something else, then probably. But there's boutique brands from all over the world that are randomly better. Spanish and Greek olive oil are excellent, too. And it depends what you're doing with it. If you're dressing, dipping, or cooking with it. Once you cook with it, it degrades quickly. If you're mixing it with a bunch of shit in a salad dressing, it equalizes. If you're dipping with it unadulterated, one particular flavor might be better than another. I usually buy the gallon tins of Filippo Berro because it's ubiquitous and hits the best of all worlds. $35-40.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I buy the Kirkland (Costco) brand

 

[Homer Potvin]

No Costco in RI because they can't sell beer and wine.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

So RI only allows stores that sell wine and beer? Must make visits to places like fabric stores and Home Depo more bearable for people who are accompanying shopping spouses.

 

[ps102]

A family here in town has an olive grove on Crete. A few people go back once a year for harvest, press the olives, then ship the oil back here in drums to be bottled, labeled, and sold for ungodly prices.

That's really smart of them. Crete has the necessary weather for olives to thrive (which is why the island has so many of these trees).

It's also very common for people in Crete to own Olive groves. I own two. My grandmother left them to me when she passed away long ago. They produce really, really good olive oil that tastes nothing like the stuff you buy at the grocery store. My favourite dish is tomato sauce pasta, made with Greek tomatoes and my own olive oil. I swear, nothing in this world tastes better.

I've read a lot of articles on the "olive oil mafia". You apparently can't buy extra virgin olive oil that easily—even when you buy bottles that advertise themselves as such. It's really crazy. I think the answer to the best olive oil is some that you produce for yourself.

We do have similar problems in Crete. The vast majority of these individuals who own these groves go to olive extraction plants. They don't charge you money to extract the oil; they just take a specific percentage of what you make. But it's very common for these plants to just straight up lie about how much oil your olives produced so they steal the rest.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I'm eating Irish fudge I brought home and it is like the fudge my mom used to make when we were kids.

 

[Homer Potvin]

So RI only allows stores that sell wine and beer? Must make visits to places like fabric stores and Home Depo more bearable for people who are accompanying shopping spouses.

That would be hilarious, but it's the other way around. Costco won't come to RI because booze can only be sold in LQ stores, not grocery.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

That would be hilarious, but it's the other way around. Costco won't come to RI because booze can only be sold in LQ stores, not grocery.

I figured as much, but couldn't resist.

When I first moved to Wyoming, I bought ingredients for a special meal then went looking for wine to accompany dinner. Was told I had to go to the liquor store next door. Floored me. I had only been in one liquor store in my life (I was 23) and had accompanied someone there rather than buying alcohol myself. Going into that liquor store felt like sneaking into a adult bookstore. At least I think that's what it would feel like to sneak into an adult bookstore. I've never been in one of those, either.

Hmm. Certain parts of my cultural education have been neglected.

 

[Louanne Learning]

it wasn't until last year that grocery stores and corner stores were allowed to sell alcoholic beverages, in Ontario.

Before that, you had to go to the beer store or the liquor store, which remain government-run.

 

[GrahamLewis]

Looking out the kitchen window, watching the birds swarming around the bird feeder, bright sunlight reflecting off frozen snow. For me, watching them is recreational, like live TV, as they squabble and position themselves, flutter up and down, chickadees, cardinals, juncos, wrens, their feathers fluffed for warmth. For them, though, it's anything but recreational. Finding a source of ight-protein sunflower seeds and getting a decent share is a matter of life and death.

 

[GrahamLewis]

it wasn't until last year that grocery stores and corner stores were allowed to sell alcoholic beverages, in Ontario.

Before that, you had to go to the beer store or the liquor store, which remain government-run.

Having grown up in Nebraska, my first experience with Iowa's state-run liquor stores was quite the experience. Seemed so counter-intuitive. Hmm. "counter"; there must be a joke in there somewhere.

 

[GrahamLewis]

I'm eating Irish fudge I brought home and it is like the fudge my mom used to make when we were kids.

I remember when my mom made fudge -- she would be using the egg-beater until the fudge got a certain sheen to it, then she would dash across the kitchen where she would pour it out at the exact right moment, and heaven help any kid who didn't get out of the way in time.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I remember when we were kids getting several samples of home-made fudge in our Hallowe'en bag