Tootsie Rolls!

Today's topic is how to make Tootsie Rolls: Ingredients: 1/2 cup honey 1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 Tablespoon coconut oil OR butter, melted 1/4 cup powdered sugar  pinch of fine sea salt 1 cup tapioca flour (may need slightly more or less) 1/8 teaspoon of orange extract (optional- it gives that “fruit-flavor” which is reminiscent of traditional Tootsie Rolls) Tootsie roll's popularity was due to the fact that it didn't melt in the heat, and was a low cost candy.  Who came up with the tootsie roll recipe?  Leo Hirschfeld - a poor Austrian immigrant with some family candy recipes.  This was at the turn of the last century.  The story varies about how Leo got to being a wealthy candy industrialist.  One version as he made Tootsie Rolls, named after his daughter's nickname, in his Brooklyn shop in 1896, and then 'merged' with Stern & Saalberg   The one he gave was that he worked his way to the top of the Stern & Saalberg company, invented the Tootsie Roll along with other candies and machines for which he he had U.S. Patents.  However, mergers and changes pushed him out of the company, and he wasn't as successful on his own.  He committed suicide in 1922.     He is in the Candy Hall of Fame.  Did you know there is a Candy Hall of Fame - candyhalloffame.org?  It looks like they had their 2018 event this past weekend.  Inductees come from companies like Jelly Belly Candy Co and IT'SUGAR.   The glorious days of candies seem to be past to me. We may have seen the rise and fall of sugar candy:  sugar content is now the subject of controversy - articles like 'war on sugar' indicate demand for sweet snacks has dropped and that sales are slowing with a bleak outlook ahead. We'll find out. On to our rust pictures today.  These were taken at Calamus Winery last year - macro images of  the rusty shed.  Such delightfully new rust.

Expressions of Twelve

How do expressions come about?  Why is twelve a dozen?  I summarize Wikipedia's explanation: A dozen is a grouping of twelve. It is a derivation from the cardinal number douze or twelve.  The dozen may be one of the earliest primitive groupings, perhaps because there are approximately a dozen cycles of the moon or months in a cycle of the sun or year. There are many themes to words within words. I found a list of 12 words with their letters in alphabetic order.  There must be a large following for these things as I find many variations, articles, etc.  Here's the list: effort abhors ghosty accent beefily billowy biopsy chintz almost access bijoux aegilops These come from buzzed.com I thought you might enjoy the visual results that came up when I searched on this.  This looks like a beloved area in teaching, learning, and in games and puzzles. To reproduce this do a search in google for just images, and then scroll through the many creative representations.  Today our word lists are sandwiched between rust on a dumpster.

Near the Top

These pictures are a combination of rust on peeling, crackled paint, and paper.  The effect seems to make the textures look like precious metals and velvet.   I usually check out the news before each day's post, and at the bottom of the top 5 stores, below all the ads and  signups (which seem to increase remarkably every day), I saw an article on the 9 best places to retire in Canada.   1. Moncton, NB 2. Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON 3. Kingston, ON 4. Stratford, ON 5. Comox, BC 6. Rimouski, Quebec 7. Ottawa, ON 8. Estevan, Saskatchewan 9, Salmon Arm, BC With Niagara-on-the-Lake just down the road from me, I can enjoy the benefits of a high-class community without the costs that come with it.   V

A City in a Park

This is the Evergreen Brickworks.  There is just so much to show you.  Today's headline 'the city in a park' is what you see on every park sign in Toronto.  Toronto considers itself a city of parks. How does this relate to the rusted wall with plants and water flowing down it?  This is the largest map of Toronto.  And it is a living wall.  It shows the major roads and major rivers/creeks in Toronto, and designed to connect us to our watersheds. It is titled Watershed Consciousness by the artist Ferruccio Sardella. Here is the link to the information by the artist on the work: https://ferrucciosardella.wordpress.com/watershed-consciousness/

Facebook Twitter Website

The Artist's Vision

Floyd Elzinga's Vision Floyd Elzinga is a sculptor in metal. He lives in Beamsville with his studio on Mountain Street. The natural world is his subject. Here's his Artist Statement from his website  http://www.floydelzinga.com "Rotten stumps, broken branches, invasive species, ravaged trees as well as polar opposites and dysfunctional objects; these are the things that excite Floyd Elzinga. He has made a career out of highlighting and glorifying these through three dimensional sculpture, relief work and environmental installations for over 15 years. Current themes in his work focus on broken landscapes, portraits of trees and the aggressive nature of seeds." I asked Floyd's permission to photograph his work and to be able to publish my images. He is very receptive to this as his work is three dimensional sculpture, so the original work cannot be replaced or reproduced.  This allows me to to pursue my interest in pattern, line, texture and saturated colour with extraordinary subject matter - subjects of the artist's eye that incorporate the natural world and urban materials.

Between Christmas and New Year's

Here we are at the holiday between the holidays, starting with Boxing Day.  This has become a secular holiday that seems to have extended into Boxing Week with the advertising that goes with this.  

The tradition started in the UK about 800 years ago. It was the day when the alms box for the poor was opened so that the contents could be distributed to the poor.

In the 1600's we would be servants and tradespeople and would receive gifts today, known as a "Christmas box".  Our Christmas Day would have been busy, waiting on our masters.  This is the day that Good King Wenceslas looked upon the Feast of Stephen.  St. Stephen's Day is celebrated as the 2nd day of Christmas.  The Germans had an original tradition - horses would be ridden around the inside of the church during the St. Stephen's Day service. 

We are into the Twelve Days of Christmas.  This is the twelve day period that starts with Christmas day and ends on Epiphaby (Jan 6th).The 'true love' who gave the gifts was meant to represent God, the true love of the world.  On the "first day", the partridge in a pear tree is Jesus who died on the cross.  The two turtle doves of the "second day", are the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.  The three French hens are faith, hope and love - the three gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Today's image explores the countdown of the 12 days through the language of urban grunge.