Hate-Filled Insanity

[Libralabrat]

Next Thursday is my "final out" day for being on Active Duty, US Army. Sometime in the first week of December I have to drive to Seagoville, TX (and if anyone lives very close to there, I could use a place to stay on drill weekends, as it is nearly a four hour drive for me.)

I will soon have a lot of time off, and hopefully custody of my daughter. One of the things to do on my Agenda of Important Stuff is to start fixing the local library here in Apache, OK. It is a little library, but a full half of the books in it are religion related. Take a wild guess at which religion?  I am intending to get together with the librarian, and start making annoying phonecalls to our congressmen and senators and see what we can get done to modernize the place a bit.

Nothing is sadder than a poorly stocked library.

On the other hand, they do have just about every Southern Living cookbook every printed, so there is some redeeming social value.....

[Sibling Chatty]

Tho FAR SIDE of Dallas is a close as you can get??

What, Oklahoma has no Guard Units left?

Or has the Army just lost their mind...

[Swatopluk]

Are there also books on religious southern cooking? [I think there actually are those things]

[ivor]

You have the right to free speech but the Constition doesn't say you can't be held accountable for what you say.

[Sibling Chatty]

Well, Swato, just about every church in the South has their own cookbook, published as a fundraiser, and they all have the same glurgey recipes for a Happy Home, a Happy Husband, a Cheerful Child, etc. AND they have "Scripture Cake" (all the ingredients are referred to in the corresponding scripture) and then the inevitable "jello salads" and other disgusting things, as well as some of the better traditional Southern cooking things.

[Swatopluk]

Yes, I know that cake recipe (called bible cake over here).
Can be hilariously ambiguous with different bible editions/translations.

[beagle]

There was a good cartoon in the Telegraph over here which showed a woman in the kitchen explaining to her worried-looking husband that "baking a cake for the church fete does not equate to becoming radicalized".

[Griffin NoName]

Maybe not religiously. And maybe not for church fates. But cake baking in the UK still has it's grip on the anti-post-feminist lobby. In a lifetime at work, I have never had such pressure and guilt trips laid on me for not baking cakes for my sons' school whatsits, which happened more frequently than a working Mum could believe. I never did bake one (I am proud to say!).

[Bluenose]

Good for you, Griffin.

When my kids were small, I too got the guilt trips put on me about bakjing cakes.  I finally shut them up by pointing out that the price they were proposing to sell the cakes for was less than it would have been for the ingredients to make a decent cake, never mind the cost of my time.  They shut up after that.

I have been involved in a lot of fund raising activities for all manner of organisations over the years and things like cake stalls are a complete waste of time IMO.  if you add up all the time involved in baking the cakes, plus running the stall, plus the cost of ingredients, they ake a very poor return.  Those organisations that I have been involved in that took a professional approach to fund raising, for example ensuring that a specified minimum hourly rate is acheived for all work put into the fund raising, have funnily enough been the ones that were most successful and felt the least need to try the guilt trap on members and others associated with the organisation.  I wonder why that is?

Sibling Bluenose.

[beagle]

But cake baking in the UK still has it's grip on the anti-post-feminist lobby. In a lifetime at work, I have never had such pressure and guilt trips laid on me for not baking cakes for my sons' school whatsits, which happened more frequently than a working Mum could believe. I never did bake one (I am proud to say!).

Someone at our office had the brilliant idea of an  hour long cake session each week, and of course it'll soon be my time to provide one. I'm faced with either poisoning everyone or passing off Tesco's finest as my own. Explaining that boys did Woodwork/Metalwork/T.D. at school in the 70s is not going to save me from the ignominy of not having some exclusive exotic ingredient in my rock cakes.

[Griffin NoName]

Explaining that boys did Woodwork/Metalwork/T.D. at school in the 70s is not going to save me from the ignominy of not having some exclusive exotic ingredient in my rock cakes.

Isn't there a scottish shop near the Round Church? If it's still there, they did scottish biscuits as well as woolly things, and I bet cakes laced with some wee drams. Or Aunties ?  Or the veggie place up Kings Parade.... they used to have very odd cakes....

[beagle]

I'm on the ouskirts at the St. John's Innovation Centre these days, but you're probably right that a trip to the town centre is in order. Or I may concede defeat and hire a pastry chef. Which are the cheapest illegal immigrants these days?*



* only kidding.

[Aggie]

Explaining that boys did Woodwork/Metalwork/T.D. at school in the 70s is not going to save me from the ignominy of not having some exclusive exotic ingredient in my rock cakes.

....but it would be a good excuse to include some exotic woods and assorted metal filings in 'em!  I bet you wouldn't be asked to bake again!

[beagle]

Good thought.

Returning briefy on topic Louis Theroux is interviewing America's favourite church (not) on the box in the UK tonight.

Be warned that the Telegraph review wondered why the nutballs (I believe that was their exact description) deserved air-time at all, and reckoned Theroux didn't get to talk to the looney-in-chief much.

[Griffin NoName]

The Radio Times, which I read in preference to the Torygraph, said Theroux has now joined them.    I decided even I, with my suspect level of TV censoring, couldn't go that far and actually watch it. I see you forgot to warn of the spoiler when posting that BBC link - my laptop started spewing out filth.