ready for another recipe?

I'm going to visit friends at a lake again today and I cook both for them and for me. I cannot throw anything away so I cook stuff that might spoil and either take it with me or freeze it.  So here is a favourite of the people I am visiting, prepared for them on purpose:

ROASTED FENNEL

Wash  the fennel, cut off the bottom tough part and chop off the arms.  Keep out any with fronds; fronds are very decorative.  Now slice the fennel downwards, not too thick, if the slices are wide, cut them in half, lengthwise. Chop the arms into half inch discs .  Heat oil in a roasting pan and add the fennel along with several slices of cooking onion, or red, if you prefer.  Stir and brown lightly, adding sliced garlic, optional   Optional means it depends how I feel and what else I'm cooking that day.  Stir in a few stingy spurts of Sriracha sauce and add some quartered tomatoes, or halved grape tomatoes or Romas, whatever.  Stir and mix well, and transfer to a pre-heated 375 F oven and roast for about half an hour, stirring once or twice.   Remove from oven and add a can of white beans, drained,  stirring gently.  Sprinkle the fronds artistically (?) over the surface. This serves about six as a side dish.  Or you can use it as a main dish because there's protein in the beans.  It's low-fat and good for you.

You can serve immediately or divide and freeze or give some away. That's how my friends got to taste it and like it so much.

boxes

Years ago I used to say that my happiness would be complete if I could find a Carnation milk box in good condition.  That size of box was perfect to hold file folders, of which I was gradually developing a collection.  I did find the box of my dreams and for a time I was content, with sufficient space to corral my files. Lo, how simple life was then!  Of course, I graduated to filing cabinets, lots of them, and to auxiliary boxes, the kinds sold often to house magazine collections, and Banker's Boxes that I filled to send my history away. If it hadn't been for the University of Manitoba Archives that took, has taken, keeps on taking, my files, I would have run out of Carnation milk cartons as well as Banker's Boxes a long time ago.

Then there are shoe boxes.  I'm always thrilled when I buy a new pair of shoes because i get a new shoe box, also good for filing stuff.  Before I began to do quarterly reports for my GST/HST, I used shoe boxes to hold all my receipts and necessary papers.  I think a lot of people tend to use shoe boxes for this purpose.  I actually wrote a pamphlet for the CLHIA (Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association), the umbrella organization that supplies all the insurance companies with guidelines and information.  I called it The Shoebox Guide and it was a mail-away give-away for years, until computers took over and supplied such material online.  Then the Association bought my title. I don't know if it still exists. I'll have to look it up some time.

P.S. I looked it up and it's still there. When they first asked if they could buy it from me, I said "Oh, you're going to offer a virtual shoe box guide," and that's what they called it, a virtual sbg.  How about that?

My son-in-law collects boxes and he has some gorgeous ones, hand-crafted of beautiful wood, and some of them are very large. I found him a small, pretty one made from a redwood tree, fitted together so closely you can't see the lid from the bottom. You've probably seen lots of little puzzle boxes with secret panels and hidden closures.

Boxes were invented before trunks, I think, to store and carry  one's possessions.  My husband's grandfather was a cabinet-maker. First-born son of a family firm that made beer, he found religion and renounced his fortune.  When he emigrated from Scotland to Canada with his family, he made all his travelling crates out of mahogany, painted black. Once established in the New World, he turned the boxes into fine furniture for his home.  

I don't know when the popular, over-used expression, "think outside the box" came into play but I hope it outlives its so-called usefulness soon.  There's plenty to think about inside a box. (I want to say until I'm carried out in one, but that would be pushing it.)