Judy's Pear Honey

PEAR HONEY


Since many of us have a few pears laying around, here is a great recipe for them. Compliments of Judy G.

9 lbs. of pears

7 lbs. of sugar

1 cup cider vinegar

1 stick cinnamon and 1 stick for each jar

Peel and core and quarter pears,  add 4 lbs. sugar,  1 cup vinegar, and cinnamon stick, then let sit overnight to draw out juices.

In morning drain juice in large kettle and add rest of sugar and bring to boil then add pears.  Reduce heat and cook slowly for 2 hours.  Syrup should have a honey color and pears are transparent.  Don’t cook with cinnamon stick. 

Pack pear honey in hot jars and place cinnamon stick in each jar, then seal and preserve in hot water bath.  The color gives the recipe its name.

Judy sends her love to all.

Book Club

Dear book club friends,

We decided to have a potluck in October--cooking recipes specifically from  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in addition to discussing our book of the month.  If you don't have access to the book anymore, you can get the recipes online at: http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/Recipes.html.  If you can let me know what you plan to make, or broadcast it ("reply all") to the group, then we can make sure we don't have duplicates.  So, if you'd like to take part in the potluck, we plan to meet for dinner at 6:45 at Sharidean's house.  If you can't make it for the potluck, book discussion will begin at 8 as usual.
October 12 at 6:45 (for dinner and discussion) and/or 8 PM (for discussion only) at Sharidean's house: The Miracle of Freedom: Seven Tipping Points That Saved the World by Chris Stewart and Ted Stewart (320 pages, hardcover) Chris and Ted Stewart make a strong case that fewer than 5 percent of all people who have ever lived on the earth have lived under conditions that we could consider free. So where did freedom come from, and how are we fortunate enough to experience it in our day? A deeper look at the human record, write the authors, reveals a series of critical events, obvious forks in the road leading to very different outcomes, that resulted in this extraordinary period in which we live. They identify and discuss seven decisive tipping points:
1. The defeat of the Assyrians in their quest to destroy the kingdom of Judah
2. The victory of the Greeks over the Persians at Thermopylae and Salamis
3. Roman Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity
4. The defeat of the armies of Islam at Poitiers
5. The failure of the Mongols in their effort to conquer Europe
6. The discovery of the New World
7. The Battle of Britain in World War II
North Logan Library has one paper book and an audio book that I will attempt to get at my first opportunity.  The Logan Library also has both, but the audio version has an enormously long wait.  The paper copy wait is 24 days--Pat, can you reserve it ASAP?
November 9 at 8 PM at Pat Marshall's house: The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig (352 pages, paperback) is set in the past in rural eastern Montana—and addresses that time and place in distinct, uncluttered prose that carries the full enthusiasm of affection and even love—for the landscape, the characters, and the events of the story—without being sentimental or elegiac. The novel is narrated by an aging Montana state superintendent of schools, Paul Milliron, who is charged with deciding the fate of the state's last scattered rural schools, and who, in the hours preceding his meeting to determine those schools' fate, recalls the autumn of 1909, when he was 13 and attending his own one-room school in Marias Coulee.Recently widowed, Paul's father, overwhelmed by the child-rearing duties presented by his three sons, in addition to his challenging farming duties, hires a housekeeper, sight unseen, from a newspaper ad. The housekeeper, Rose, proclaims that she "can't cook but doesn't bite." She turns out to be a beguiling character, and she brings with her a surprise guest—her brother, the scholarly Morris, who, though one of the most bookish characters in recent times, also carries brass knuckles and—not to give away too much plot—somehow knows how to use them.The schoolteacher in Marias Coulee runs away to get married, leaving Morris to step up and take over her job. The verve and inspiration that he, an utter novice to the West, to children and to teaching children, brings to the task is told brilliantly and passionately, and is the core of the book's narrative, with its themes of all the different ways of knowing and learning, at any age.

This book is available at the North Logan Library, and Pat has also reserved the book club set from Logan Library, but it may not be available until after Oct. 24.

Finally, the website Janet mentioned for getting books is:  http://www.alibris.com/

Happy reading,
                   Julie, 563-6619