I grew up with coal heat. My mother said when they got their first Warm Morning coal-burning stove that would hold a fire overnight, she thought she'd died and gone to heaven. Before that, they heated with a wood stove where you had to build a fire every morning. Until we got a gas range when I was 12, she cooked a hot breakfast, complete with biscuits, every morning on a wood-burning cookstove. Ask me if I long for the good old days.

I've never had a fireplace but would like to have one of the gas ones.

I grew up in a house built in the 1920's, which still had the old chute where coal was delivered through a hole in the wall that led to the basement. But in the 1940's, steam radiators had been installed. Talk about bliss! I've not been so warm since, and I never minded the clanking noise when they came on in the early morning. Now, I have a fireplace with old fashioned logs, but tend not to use it, unless we have a power outage, due to a rare ice storm, as it is so messy....

We have nine fireplaces in this house but only use one regularly in the winter/spring/autumn and one in the dining room just on high days and holidays. We even have a couple in out-buildings in the garden, but since we sacked the gardener and the coach-man ran off with the under scullery maid they don't get used.
Before our time here the kitchen was fitted with a coal range for cooking and possibly heating the bath water . . . not that washing seemed to have played much part in the lives of the former owners.

Mary, were the radiators really filled with steam? If so and a pipe had cracked it would surely have been extremely dangerous.
BTW have today paid £125 for half a ton of coal (double that for $$$'s) and last week heating oil was £800 for 2000 litres = 528 US gallons (approx) costs $1600.
I can't even work out what petrol/gas prices are. I know we pay over a £1 a litre.
How does it compare in the US?

Carolyn, I also remember Warm Morning. But I was still cold. When I left home and got an apartment that was heated "magically," my parents asked why I didn't come home more often in the winter. I said it was too cold. They had electric heat installed at that point.
There are many amenities of the present that I wouldn't want to give up no matter how good the "Good Old Days" were.

veer-they were filled with steam or hot water and there were accidents.

Today I paid $2.98 a gallon for gas/petrol

We now "heat" with a heat pump-which is so expensive that we keep the house at 62-65 degrees all winter. I keep extra sweatshirts and lap robes for guests. (Only kidding-we do turn it up when we have company. To a tropical 68.)

As you know, I grew up in England in a 130-year old big house with high ceilings and radiators below the windows. (Why do they put them there as all the heat goes out of the windows?) Anyway, I remember it being *freezing* in the house growing up and not until I came over the US, the land of central heating, did I realise just how cold our house had been.

I know it was a big house to heat and must have been very expensive, but ice on the windows? on the INSIDE of the windows? We just slept under our duvets and made quick dashes to the bathroom and got up quickly to put our clothes on. Plus there was never any hot water. Brrrr. I swore I would never go home to England during the winter any more.

My mum's new little house (she sold the other big one when my dad died) is now very cozy and I don't mind going home in winter any more. A little heat makes a big difference!

Today I paid $AUS1.29 for a litre of petrol, which is £0.45 a litre, or $US1.15 a litre, which in turn is $US4.35 per US gallon.

Of course comparisons like this depend on salaries, too. It may not be as expensive as it looks if average salaries are higher. Certainly, our petrol is tipped to go to $1.50/l, and high prices are hitting hard. I know our petrol is cheap compared to Europe, but the US has the cheapest petrol I think.

I wouldn't call US gas/petrol cheap. I paid $3.29 per gallon last week. Of course, the state of Connecticut tacks all sorts of taxes on to gasoline sales, so I don't know what that gallon *really* costs, only what the consumer has to pay.

We do have cheap gas/petrol compared to much of the rest of the world-have for years. But it has been very painful for the US over the last year to watch it climbing daily. Especially for us "life veterans" who remember trying to figure out how Daddy was going to pay 29.9 CENTS for gas-what coin was a .9?

Today is an awful, icy dreary gloomy day. Delayed start for school-I think I'll wear a bright orange sweater for emotional recharging! And to wake up the kiddos!

By volume, how does an American gallon compare to one in the UK? I remember my mother, who was born in Victoria, B.C. in 1914, referring to an Imperial gallon. Is that an actual term, or was my Mom adding an adjective of her own design? I recall her saying that there were 5 liters in an Imperial gallon, while there are four quarts in a U.S. gallon. Myth or Truth? This question is still vaguely on thread, isn't it?

thyrkas, you couldn't be more 'on thread' for how can we, who come from different countries and with all the difficulties of you not quite speaking 'our' language, be expected to understand one another without this exchange of useful information. ;-)

The 'Imperial' system of measurement, up until 'metrication' (so beloved of our leaders) is/was the UK standard. As you will see from the various charts below there are many differences.
For eg 4.5 litres = 1 Imperial gall
3.8 litres = 1 US gallons

An Imperial gallon = 1.2 US gallons

The difficulty with comparisons is the amount of TAX individual Govts slap on fuel.
Here in the UK it is about 65% while in the US it is roughly 28% (according to a chart I just 'googled'). One would like to believe all this revenue was being spent on new roads or even to fill the pot holes in the roads we already have, but somehow I doubt it.
cece cold here but bright while the north of England and Scotland are being snowed on.

Here is a link that might be useful: Imperial/US equivalents

Thank you, veer, for your explanation and the link to Imperial/US Equivalents. I did check out the link, but immediately felt a migraine coming on, so exited that collection of tables fairly quickly.
To cure my migraine, I am going to meditate on the fact the some friends and I are meeting for high tea at a local shop tomorrow! I can picture the dessert tray even now as the threat of the migraine disappears from my brain as quickly as did the tables of equivalents.

If those old steam radiators had been so dangerous, I don't think they would have been used so widely, in the "olden days." They were used throughout the South, especially in older dormitories of Colleges and Universities. I never heard of a single explosion or leak.

Despite a cold snap with snow and ice recently, today on my walk I saw redbud and forsythia flowering out, one of the first signs of spring in Tidewater....

I brought a jar of homemade strawberry jam back to school with me after the Christmas holidays one year and set it in the windowsill above the radiator in our dorm room. Then we raised the window one warm, stormy night; and it blew over and crashed onto the hot radiator. One of the messier messes I've cleaned up over the years.

You have all probably heard of the saying attributed to Wm Somerset Maugham that one should breakfast like an Emperor, lunch like a King and sup like a peasant.
Keeping very much to the sunny side up theme can US RP'ers tell me if they really eat doughnuts and Danish pastries for breakfast swilled down with strong coffee?
In the UK, and as WSM suggested, we are told to start the day with a healthy meal to boost our blood-sugar levels and stop the urge to 'snack' mid-morning.
I have started feeding the family on porridge . . . the proper stuff, none of the quick-mix, just add hot milk and swallow.
This might be followed by an egg . . . as we grow our own and the DH now makes his own bread.
Now I'm really getting smug; beat me down.

Hm, yes, unfortunately many of us do have the donuts for breakfast diet. Most of the people I know start the day with coffee on an empty stomach. I can't, it literally makes me ill. I have to something light and easy.

I'm smiling reading this thread, because its oh so different here in the SW deserts. Right now, its cloudy and chilly. It probably got up to 50 degrees. Yes friends, that to us is chilly. I don't get depressed in the winter. Its summer - when its 110 for days and days, the nights never get cooler than 85, everywhere you walk outside feels like a blast furnace, and there's not much to do around town. Most everyone spends their time inside their AC house, or in the AC mall, or in the AC movie theatres, or in the pool. The only relief for us is to get out of town. We drive to San Diego, the closest place with a beach, and stay a week or so. We also take day trips up to the northern part of the state where it is 'cooler'. Even just a day where we can walk outside without fear of a third degree burn is heaven.

As for diet - I take everything I read with a grain of salt. I do think there is truth in much of what is said, but many times its partially correct. So my theory, that I try to abide by, is to eat a variety of foods in moderation, and eat what I like, in moderation. I also find for me, small meals several times of the day is best. Its probably not the healthiest way to do things or the best way to loose weight, but given how nonfat foods taste, and given my extreme cravings for certain foods, its the only way for me.

Vee, if my kids had their way, we'd definitely be eating donuts for breakfast every morning (not to mention lunch and dinner, too). Cooler heads have prevailed, and we usually have oatmeal, bagels, or cold cereal for breakfast with lots of coffee -- not the children, of course, though the 8 yr-old keeps asking for decaf *sigh*. We save the sweet treats and the more time-consuming egg dishes for the weekends or holidays. Truth be told, I could easily go for pastries/muffins/danish and coffee on a daily basis, but I'd soon be 200 lbs! There's just something about sugar and caffeine that works for me.

I'd be thrilled to find a nice homebaked loaf of bread and fresh eggs waiting for me in the morning rather than the hurried rush of cereal boxes and misplaced homework that make up the usual start to my day.

I never did find out what the groundhog prediction was, but it was in the 40's and sunny today -- practically spring weather, and very cheering.

Breakfast for me is strong coffee with cream, no sugar, along with either yoghurt or fruit. Occasionally, an English muffin or cottage cheese.

Believe it or not, I actually do not like donuts or similar American pastries.

Funny, this morning while making my tea & toast, I was remembering another "breakfast" thread on this forum. In cold months, my children like hot breakfasts, heavy on protein, which goes well with the misplaced homework and missing library books/instruments involved in the morning routine. Now, Tuesday is Fastnacht Day so I will be picking up vast quantities of the huge pre-Lent doughnuts today so tomorrow we can eat them till we are sick.

Carolyn, once while getting ready for work, I dropped a glass jar of peanut oil in the kitchen; the glass shattered and oil and shards were everywhere. I had a new puppy who was kept in the kitchen at the time, too, so had to clean up every bit of the mess. I was hours late for work.

bookmom. I had to look up 'Fastnacht' as it is not a term I am familiar with. Are you Pennsylvania Dutch and is it a custom found elsewhere in the US?
In the UK we call it Shrove Tuesday and pancakes (the big thin round ones) are the order of the day, usually served with lemon juice and sugar.
Pancake races are popular in some areas, usually with 'housewives' running while carrying a frying pan and tossing a pancake at the same time.

Here is a link that might be useful: Olney Pancake Race

Lancaster and Berks Cos., in southcentral PA, are at the center of fastnacht making-Willard Scott, a famous and (somewhat) well-beloved morning show weatherman (for those who liked their weather drawn out and full of flaffle) has visited Trinity Lutheran Church in a nearby town several times to see the fastnacht assembly line-they make and sell thousands, mostly sold by preorder-and they ship! Every year we must buy and overnight fastnachts to "moved-away" relatives...DD gets a box this year. Sort of defeats the purpose of eating up the fats and sugars BEFORE Lent, as they obviously get there on Ash Wednesday....but it's the spirit of the thing!
True fastnachts drop like lead into your stomach-warm and filling. They are more than a donut-they are a meal!

Vee, my father's family is primarily German, and we grew up on the edge of "PA Dutch" country, so we were influenced by PA Dutch traditions, especially food. I'm also Polish, from my mother's side, so for Poles tomorrow is also the day when paczki,sort of a jelly-filled doughnut, are traditional. I think CC is right, southcentral PA is where you find fastnachts, but paczki you find where you have folks with Polish roots. It all has to do with getting rid of sugar and fats, and many churches in the US also hold pancake suppers on Shrove Tuesday--which have no appeal to me when I can have fastnachts and paczki (punch-key) instead.

When those of you in the US say you have cream in your coffee, is it really cream, or is it milk? I find cream too rich in my coffee, and in Australia you would always get milk.
We always used to have our coffee white or black, but in these more PC days, you would generally ask 'with milk?', although in fancy coffee places you still order a flat white or long black.

Astrokath -- Here in the US, you'd have trouble getting a consensus on that question. In fact, for those who frequent Starbucks (coffee shops) or other such establishments, the orders can get downright amusing, as in:
"Give me a -- tall, double shot, decaf, non-fat soy caramel latte." Or maybe a "Skinny Cinnamon Soy Dolce Latte." I'm not even sure I've got the lingo right. But the first time I ordered a fancy coffee drink at Starbucks it was so sweet I couldn't drink it.

So re: the cream question. It all depends. :) I actually drink one cup of fake coffee -- International Foods Cafe Francais, which I don't believe even has any real food ingredients in it. But I love it. I counterbalance that nutritional nightmare with a bowl of organic honey oat cereal topped with vanilla soy milk. Sort of like drinking a diet coke and eating a candy bar.

usually in restaurants, you get light cream for coffee or tea.

We use half-and-half for our coffee -- half cream, half milk. I find cream to be too heavy, but milk alone just doesn't do the trick. You can also buy fat free half-and-half, but it's full of corn syrup and I'd just as soon have the milk fat as the sugar and other additives. It's really a matter of personal preference.

Kath, we also put milk in our tea/coffee . . . and Vicky drinking vanilla flavoured soy milk . . .the mind and the digestive system boggles. ;-) And, if you don't mind me saying isn't all honey organic or have the US food-giants come up with a plastic/biodegradable bee substitute?

Just read an interesting obituary in our 'Telegraph' daily paper on 'Earl Butz' Nixon's Sec of Agriculture who brought corn syrup to the hapless American public.
SIX times sweeter than sugar and VERY cheap to produce.
He also did a nice line in vulgar jokes that didn't go down well with ethnic groups. But you probably know that already.

Here is a link that might be useful: Click on Earl Butz

I believe that organic honey has to be made by bees who only visit crops that have not been treated with any chemical pesticides or fertilizers.

Vee -- the vanilla soy milk is actually pretty tasty - at least on cereal. I hadn't actually thought about the honey being organic. I was thinking more about the oat cereal. But I guess they have to both be organic to get that label. :)

I'd forgotten all about Earl Butz. He didn't do us any favors with the corn syrup thing. I guess the book "Omnivore's Dilemma" explores this topic in detail. I haven't read it, but I probably will. I'm told I'll never look at food the same way again once I do read it, though.

Thanks for the answers - I don't think we get half & half here, although I have heard of it.

I can't imagine tea with any kind of cream (*pulls strange face*)

ugh. I agree. But waitresses will still ask....

Oh, there's nothing more soothing than a nice big mug of English Breakfast Tea (or even ordinary Lipton) with a generous splash of half & half. But no cream for the Earl Grey or the herbal teas, I promise *g*!

cece thanks for the organic honey info. Now I wonder how the bees know which flowers to visit?
Over here waitresses will always assume you take milk in tea, that is unless you order a 'pot' in which case they will bring it with a jug of milk, never ever cream.
Our local cafés have never been noted for their fine dining and I have been charged a penny more for coffee or tea with milk.
We tried to buy the most ordinary cheese sandwich at another place. "How many do you want?" asked the elderly waitress.
"Just one please." She took us at our word and brought one slice of bread folded over.

Sarah Canary, my favorite plastic coffee is International's Cafe Vienna, but it's become hard to find. Kroger now has its private label of it, sugar-free and non-fat. What do you suppose is in it? I'm afraid to look.

My husband uses non-fat half and half for his decaf coffee that he makes very weak and drinks constantly. Ugh! Post-heart surgery, he also uses some kind of butter substitute that won't even melt in the microwave.

I take my morning Irish breakfast tea with whole milk, same with coffee on the weekends. Cream makes it too rich and skim milk makes it icky.

Vee, some of your local waitresses must have moved across the Atlantic to northern Maryland. My little boy knocked over a full glass of water in one restaurant and, along with a scowl, I was handed one small paper napkin for the clean-up. It was better than the skanky rag with which she was wiping tables.

Bees perform a little dance, really!, to show the other bees where the good nectar is located.

I think Vee meant how do they know that the flowers are not treated with pesticides and fertilizers....huge glass houses, I assume.

Its not that the bees know, its that their owners know where they've gone. But how would they know? Its all very strange.

I learned to love cream in my tea but don't drink it here coz the only cream you get is that awful tasting stuff in the little cups on the tables next to the salt.

My Russian grandparents drank tea from a glass, holding a sugar cube between their teeth. Tried it once, its harder than it sounds.

My Polish great-uncle drank tea from a tall glass in a metal holder and he put jam in it-strawberry, I think. I believe that is Russian or Slavic too.

carolyn - You don't want to know what's in it. But I'll give you a hint: most of the words start with things like mono- and di- and sodium something-or-other. And of course it's got plenty of that wonderful corn syrup we've been talking about on another thread. But it tastes sooo good. I can't drink real coffee because it gives me heartburn. But the plastic stuff doesn't do that.

Oops, it was on this thread that we were discussing corn syrup -- thank you Mr. Butz. I was thinking it was on another thread.

After two weeks of filling in for sick teachers and being surrounded by what sounded like the leavings of a tubercular ward...I'm afraid my sunny side is down. Flu shot not withstanding, it got me. How lovely that I can still read RP in bed on the laptop! Now if the butler would just answer the bell.....tea, no cream...scones...well-buttered. Just the ticket.

cece, my sympathies. I have found the flu shots do not always work -- e.g. last year, as usual, I got one, yet had flu that went into severe bronchitis. I think it depends on the strain going around.

As for those International coffees, they are truly "heart attack" food, when you read the labels....

cece, I'm glad the 'flu hasn't taken away your appetite.
Over here we have two types of 'flu. The 'false' one were the sufferer has a cold and cough and the other where one is prostrate with aching limbs and a fever.
The test is said to be for the carer to drop a £20 note (or $ bill) by the bedside. The person with 'real 'flu has no strength to pick it up.
I don't doubt that your bedroom floor is covered in large denomination bills.:-)
As for the 'shots' (which we call 'jabs') the NHS offers these to the elderly and 'vulnerable groups'. There is some concern that by the time the vaccine has been produced the virus has mutated and the injection is of not much use to the patient.

Bees have a general radius of two miles or so and it is hard to control how organic the flowers are in that area. However, organic bee farmers plant fields of crops for the bees to visit and bees also go to plants that might not seem to flower. Trees can have minuscule flowers that bees visit, like red maple, one the earliest flowering plants.

The use of pesticides has been detrimental to lots of bee producers. Sevin dust in particular can easily wipe out an entire hive because the bees carry the dust on their feet back to the hive. That's why if you have to use Sevin, use the spray.
Bee farmers don't use glass houses though :)

One of my friends owns an apple orchard, and due to the reduction in the bee population in recent years, has to rent bees every spring. The beekeeper can pretty safely market the honey that is produced as "apple blossom honey." However, at the slightest hint that all is not well with the bees, the beekeeper packs up his hives and hightails it out of there, leaving my friend's orchard virtually bee-less.

I used to buy honey at a farmers market in southern California. The honey was all different colors and had very different tastes. I asked about it, and the "honey lady" said that indeed the hives were simply placed in fields of whatever crop was named on the label. Not 100%, but close enough. I told her that gave me an image of a rural paradise teeming with flowers and bees, and she said I wasn't too far off in her case, but that is not always true. She said that quite good honey is produced in suburban areas, but you can't be sure of where or what the bees feed on.

I surely miss that honey, I've never found as good here in Massachusetts.

One of my aunts used to keep bees. One year the honey was really dark, and she said it was because she had a bumper Concord grape crop. She couldn't use all the grapes, and the bees just swarmed over them as they got riper and riper (and sweeter and sweeter) on the vines.

My sister and I both had the flu one year after our Christmas gathering (we figured because the two of us had done all the work). She called me and asked me if my skin hurt, which it did, and said her doctor told her if your skin hurts, it's the real flu.

Hot tea (Tetley) is served here with skim milk (or possibly 1%) and two packets of Splenda. "Hot, strong and sweet" -- Yes, I am! LOL! I do have a collection of older teapots called "Ever-hot" (and by various other names) that come with a aluminum cover and a felted cover just inside that one to keep the tea hot in the pot! Really excellent design and recommend this type of teapot highly!

Coffee (brewed in an electric perculator) is served with half-and-half and two packets of Splenda.

Honey is supposed to be very good for burns ...... and the FIRST time I read about this ...... was in a Barbara Cartland romance novel back in the very early 80s. Really! She believed in using organics -- and supported the use of honey!

Jan

The discussion on honey brought to mind the problem of feeding honey to babies under a year old.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1491189.stm