"Mudroom" (word of the day)

Thanks to Octoberfarm, I have learned a new word, which is going to be the word of the day. If you want to see where I have seen it, read her post here. So the word of the day is mudroom. I don't think I ever heard the term before. Definition: "a room in a house designed for the shedding of dirtyor wet footwear and clothing and located typically off the kitchen or inthe basement." Or, as I call it in this household, the entrance. Front and back entrances, actually. But I love the name, so it is the word of the day.

Mysterious basements

Fellow blogger Jaz from October Farm has recently blogged a series of posts about her "ugly" basement and all the stuff that is in it. This made me think of the basements I experienced in my life: mainly the one of my grandmother's house, which I blogged about extensively here and the one of my parents' house, where was/is my bedroom.  The basement in many houses is basically a clutter room, but at home it was and is big enough to be a floor of its own (and i know in architecture technically the basement is not a "floor" but there you go). We had many rooms in it, including the living room where the TV was, the table where we played D&Dr, by a fairly large library, a computer room, a tool room, my own bedroom and at least two storage rooms: one with a freezer and a wine cellar, another one, the "cold room", divided into two sub-rooms, one for other food (during Christmastime especially) and drinks and one mainly for logs for the fireplaces.

The basement in my parents' place is much bigger than the basement in my grandmother's house was, but it was not as mysterious: there was no "secret passage" in it. Nevertheless, it had/has its fair share of mystery: the cold room which we did not have the right to spend time in as children because it had to stay cold all year long and we could not keep the door open had all the mystery of forbidden places, the fireplace was made of rough stones and looked primitive, as if it belonged to another age (in our make belief games it was often the entry of a dragon's cave, or a castle) and well, there were plenty of old stuff, old books and memorabilia to feed our imagination We spent many rainy days, cold days, heatwave days in the basement without being bored. So I have a fondness for basements and what we can discover in them.

Early Countdown to Halloween (?)

It vaguely crossed my mind yesterday, and October Farm reminded me of it in her most recent post, but once the summer solstice is passed, slowly, very slowly, the days will be getting shorter, until autumn starts showing up. Which means, in other words, that we can start the countdown to Halloween. In the middle of a summer that is looking to be quite hot, this may seem incongruous. But is is not. In folklore, witches's Sabbath were celebrated in different times of the year, including tomorrow. As a child, I used to start reading horror stories during summertime, mixed with more summery reads. Our make belief games during summer, don't ask me why, were often centered about haunted houses and castles. And of course, Halloween was always in my mind. Anyway, talking about haunted houses, there is one house in this town that keeps reminding me of Halloween: the one with the Jack O'Lanterns above the ground floor windows. I first blogged about it last August. Last Halloween I could see no sign of celebration there, but they don't need to, I guess. I am strongly suspecting that this is actually haunted. It looks quite spooky anyway, and I thought I would upload the last picture I took of it, to mark this early countdown to Halloween.

Celtic Harvest

Thanks to my fellow blogger Jaz from October Farm, I have learned from one of her posts that it was yesterday Lughnasadh/Lughnasa, the Celtic day celebrating the beginning of harvest. In fact it starts at sunset on the 31st of July and ends at sunset on the 1st of August. I know August is still sumertime, but I find the way the Celts say the seasons very logical. August is for me the beginning of harvest, and thus is in a way a prologue to autumn. There was one way I could commemorate the Celtic beginning of harvest: by posting a picture of the family's crabapples tree. It gives fruits every two years, in theory, although sometimes the crabapples show up every year. It is one of the first trees to show its fruits ripe. The tree gets so heavy with them the branches go down. There is nothing more harvest-like than this image of a crabapples tree full of fruits, ready for the picking. It is a fitting picture. It is also the first published picture of August.

Cosmic horror trivia

Recently, my brother posted on his Facebook wall that he was in the mood for a game of Call of Cthulhu. And October Farm blogged a spaghetti meatballs recipe, which reminded me of two things: 1) that Lovecraft loved spaghetti meatballs (true and that we often had spaghetti bolognese or some other kind fo paste before playing a game of Call of Cthulhu. I mentioned the role playing game before, among other times here. Anyway, this blog post and my brother's wall post made me think of the game and got me in the mood for it.

Little details like this, that made me remember the game. We used to play during summer, mainly, especially cool evenings and rainy afternoons. I remember the spaghetti bolognese we often made for the supper before. Our characters (well, I was the Game Master but they were still "my" characters) were eating plenty of pasta, lasagne, spaghetti and canelloni. This was for two reasons: one, because of Lovecraft's own food preferences, two, because it fitted the time period and the characters (one character, played by PJ, was an Italian American gangster, so the menu brought some kind of authenticity). And well, Cthulhu's tentacle are a bit like, you know, spaghetti.

Blueberry cake: I found my gastronomical purpose

Recently, my fellow blogger October Farm posted a blueberry cake recipe for the 4th of July. It looks absolutely delicious, and very much like the strawberry shortcakes we used to eat during summertime at home. But this would be more appropriate for me as a summer dessert, because I am from Saguenay Lac-St-Jean, where the blueberry is our regional fruit, the one we get our nickname from. So I want to make that cake. I feel like I found my purpose as a cake maker. This recipe screams like a recipe from Saguenay. It dates back from 1886. The hidden treasures one can find on the blogosphere. 

But I am slightly worried about it. Because I am not very good at making cakes. I pften make catastrophy cakes. And blueberries are not cheap here and come in small quantities. I don't mind buying them, I do regularly when they are available, but I wouldn't want to waste good blueberies in a catastrophy cake. Then again, I want to make that cake one day.