Anne’s story 1931: Return to sender

In January 1931, Anne was living with Claire, who had some limited correspondence with Florence, Anne’s mother. The period from 1923 to about 1930 was quite difficult for Florence, but the detailed information is a little scant. The details are probably available in her voluminous correspondence and notes (much of which my mother still has),…

Book review: The Unconquered, by Scott Wallace

Image by CIFOR via Flickr An adventure in the Amazon is always at the top of my bucket list, even though I’ve could have crossed it off after my 2009 trip to Peru. The Unconquered is subtitled “In Search of the Amazon’s Last Unconquered Tribes” and that pretty much sums it up. Published in 2011, the…

The popcorn pop-off: Orville Reddenbacher vs. house brands

I enjoy unbuttered popcorn as an evening snack – generously sprinkled with Spike seasoning. I just googled “spike” and had to go to page 5 of the search results to find my family’s favourite all purpose seasoning. We’ve been studying the variability in popcorn efficiency – defined as the percentage of kernels that fully pop into edible…