Picspam.

[curiouswombat]

There has been an awful lot of snow all over the UK. We had some too, but I didn't take many photos, I was too busy coping with getting to and from work, and ours wasn't much compared with other people's. I do have some pictures of where Daughter-dear lives though, under the cut, also some pictures of flowers still trying to survive the winter in our yard, and a picture of the festive flapjack that I posted the recipe for during the week.

The flapjack picture is because I realised, through comments, that in Amer- English 'flapjacks' are a sort of 'pancake' and so, in English English, would be some sort of drop scone or Scotch pancake. Whereas the recipe is for British flapjack and so something rather different...

But also, under the cut, is a bit of reminiscing. Bojojoti posted a picture of her daughter's new rescue kitten, and he reminded me of the ginger cat we had when D-d was little - so there are also some pictures of Cherry.



Firstly the pictures of Cherry. We had one cat before D-d was born, a ginger she-cat called Kara. When D-d was about three or four a half-grown ginger kitten invited himself into our house and, despite trying to find his original owner, remained unclaimed and stayed. D-d was allowed to name him, hence 'Cherry' as cherries were one of her favourite things.

There are kitten pictures of him around, but they are all on paper. But there are some pictures of him taken after I got my first digital camera in 1998. He was very much an immoveable object; if Cherry decided he was going to sit somewhere - he did.







He was happy to share space with, the much younger, Shaka:



But Bojojoti will realise, when she sees this picture, why her own picture set me off on a photo hunt -



A very young D-d, there. I think she must have been about 10, possibly 11.

Speaking of D-d - this is what it is like in York at the moment - very familiar to Hils;





Those are along her usual route to college - they decided to give them snow days and cancelled all week - except Wednesday when there was something compulsory that could not be rescheduled! She said it was a but like trying to get there in a blizzard, but at least it is less than two miles so she did eventually make it there and back - with very frozen feet.

She took these on the way.



And this one may turn up on your Christmas cards...



However, back on the rock, there are flowers still trying to bloom in the below zero temperatures, snow and ice -







Granted they're not exactly at their best - but they are still trying!

And the final picture - the festive flapjack before being split properly into separate pieces. I'm not terribly good at the artistic decorating with chocolate...



I now have tins of white chocolate and cranberry cookies, anzac biscuits (note to dougalsservant - with sugar!), and festive flapjack piled up in the kitchen. But there will have to be a real flurry of baking at the end of the week as there is a Christmas cake stall at church on Saturday.

At church today the children lit two advent candles, one after the other as there was no church last week. Then they decorated the Sunday school tree, we 'cast' the Nativity - and there was still time for short lessons!

Comments

[bojojoti.livejournal.com]

Cherry looked as if he was a grand master of sleeping, but most cats are! It's too bad about his health. He obviously adored your daughter. I am concerned about Bojoette's two kitties. They've had such a rough start in life. I'm hoping they can rebound and be healthy once everything is addressed and treated.

One meaning of to flap which dates from the 1300s is "to toss with a smart movement" or, in other words, "to flip". Jack is a little more problematic. The Oxford English Dictionary lists 39 different meanings for jack with hundreds of compound expressions like those you mention, Richard, but none of them seem especially relevant to the jack in flapjack. It could be their small size. One use of jack is to designate something smaller than normal, as in the "jack" used in the game of lawn bowls.

The word flapjack has been with us since around 1600 though it has been applied to a number of different foods. While it originally meant "a pancake", flapjack can also mean an apple turnover (a.k.a an "apple-jack") and, in parts of England, a cookie made with rolled oats and syrup. In the first half of the 20th century it was used to mean "compact case for face powder"; this is similar to using pancake to refer to face make-up (clearly referring to the flat pad used to apply the make-up in both cases). However, we do find this quotation from 1941 rather amusing: "Slowly opening her handbag and taking out her flapjack."

I can understand the "flap" part of flapjack, as one flips the pancake mid-cooking. Do you still call compacts "flapjacks," or did you ever?

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

as one flips the pancake mid-cooking

But that would only account for your sort of flapjack - ours is baked on a tray in the oven...

I am not sure about the second paragraph of your research - I can't find any mention of a flapjack having been a pancake in Britain, but a pastry - usually a tart and, by the nineteenth century, specifically an apple tart. It is hard to see how it went from meaning an apple tart to a tray bake made with rolled oats and honey or golden syrup in a short space of time! But that is what it had become in all of Britain by the 1930s if old notes and recipe books are anything to go by.

In my Australian cookbooks the same recipe as my 'flapjack' is called a meusli bar. But whatever you call it it is good food for this cold weather.

I have to say I have never come across a compact being called a flapjack! Not even in Agatha Christie.