The Tingle Factor Box

Roy Creates Devilled Meatloaf

This week, Roy decided it was time to share a recipe a friend of his had requested last year. Roy loves meatloaf, and apparently so does this friend, and she asked him if he had a recipe for a meatloaf with a curried sauce over it quite some ago. Luckily for her, not only does Roy’s Grandmother have a recipe for just such a delicacy, she was happy to share it. Meatloaf is a great cool weather dish, so Roy thought this would be the perfect time to share it. So this week, Roy Creates Devilled Meatloaf.

You Will Need:

• About 750 grams of mince
• 1 medium to large onion, finely chopped
• 2 eggs
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• 1 teaspoon of curry powder
• ½ a teaspoon of mixed herbs
• 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire Sauce
• 1/3 of a cup of milk
• 1 teaspoon of soy sauce

For the Sauce:

• 1 dessertspoon of sugar
• 1 and ½ teaspoons of dry mustard
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 3 tablespoons of fruit chutney
• 1 and ½ teaspoons of curry powder

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees

• Put the mince, onion, eggs, salt, pepper, flour, curry powder, herbs, Worcestershire Sauce, milk and soy sauce into a large mixing bowl.

• Roughly mix everything together with a wooden spoon and then use your hands (clean of course!) to thoroughly combine everything. You want to make sure the mix is holding together so you can form it into a roll shape
• Spray a large baking dish with oil or lightly coat with butter

• Shape the mince into a loaf in the dish. You want it to be an even shape, with a reasonably flat top, ready for the sauce.
• Put the meatloaf in the oven for 20 minutes, turn the oven down to 180 and cook for a further 10 minutes

• Mix all of the sauce ingredients together so that they are well combined.
• Take the meatloaf out of the oven (without burning yourself) and pour the sauce over, making sure that it is evenly spread over the whole meatloaf
• Return the meatloaf to the oven and cook for a further 15 minutes or until the juices flow clear when you press a skewer into it.
• Leave the meatloaf to stand for 5 or 10 minutes before cutting it.
• Serve with vegetables or salad and enjoy.
• This meatloaf is also great cold, so leftovers are always welcome.

It's Cute, But Useless - Mechanical Pencil

Imagine you are a gentleman living in the 1800s. You are an important man, and it is always necessary to have the means to take a note, or write a note to a colleague or friend. Yet carrying a pen is difficult, as the nib tends to poke holes in your pocket, and pencils leave stains. Luckily, your wife solved the problem on your last birthday, presenting you with a small, but very elegant mechanical pencil which fits neatly in your waistcoat pocket, and does not cause any staining. Best of all, there is a ring attached to the top to ensure the pencil is easily found, hanging from your watch chain. You are lucky to have such a thoughtful wife!

When I showed the children this small, silver pencil, they thought it was ‘cute, but useless’. They are used to large pencils, with long, sharp ‘leads’ to write with and this pencil seemed far too small to ever be of use as it was too small to even sit comfortably in the hands of young children. They were also confused about how to make the lead protrude, and therefore wrote the pencil off. When I showed them that not only did the pencil have a thick lead which poked out of the end when needed, but also extended to a more comfortable size, the children were very impressed by the thoughtfulness of the design, and several decreed that ‘on second thought, I want one!’

Pencils have a remarkably long history, with humans using some sort of ‘writing’ implement as far back as ancient times to leave marks on the walls of caves. The pencil as we know it though traces its roots back to the Roman empire and the Roman stylus. The stylus was a thin, metal rod used to leave a light mark on papyrus or other material. Some styluses were actually made of lead, and this is what we still call the core of a pencil, though it is not what is actually inside! Pencils actually have a core of graphite, which came into popular use in about 1564, when a large deposit of graphite was found in Borrowdale in England. Graphite left a darker mark than lead, but it was fragile and broke easily. It needed some sort of case to keep it safe and prevent it being broken.

At first, pencils using graphite were made by wrapping the graphite stick in string, but soon hollowed out wooden sticks were used to hold the graphite core – thus the wooden cased pencil which we still use today was born. Wood was not the only substance which could be used to keep the graphite safe in a pencil though. By the late 19^th century mechanical pencils had become popular. At this time, pencils were used everyday by people, and messages were often received by a person in the same town within hours of the message being sent. Having a pencil and paper on your person was, of course, useful. Mechanical pencils were perfect for this, as they used metal bodies to keep the core of graphite safe. They couldn’t be sharpened in the usual way though, and so systems were devised where the core would be raised and lowered with a twist of the shaft or a press of a spring. Many of these pencils were very small and had a loop on the end, like the one I showed the children. These pencils were very popular, fitting on a watch chain, or for a lady on a chatelaine, and being easily found and used.

It's Massive! Fossilized Oyster Shell

Imagine, you are a mother living thousands of years ago. You have children to look after, and all of the other family members to support too, so when the men go out hunting, you can't rely on them alone to bring home enough food to feed everybody. As a young, healthy woman you have to do your part, collecting fruits and grains, and of course the shellfish which are found in the shallows of the sea near where you live. Oysters are a wonderful food, so plentiful and easy to find, they can be used to feed the family when the hunt is unsuccessful.

Roaming Roy Finds An Aussie Village - Australiana Village

This week, Roy wanted to tell you about somewhere really historic. He had his cousins visiting earlier this year and wanted to show them somewhere special, and unlike anywhere else. There was only one place which would fit the bill – Australiana Village. For many years this place was closed, but I had told Roy about it, and about the trips which his Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle, Aunt and I used to make there, particularly on Australia Day. When I was little, it was one of my favourite outings. Roy had to visit and share this place with his cousins, and with his online friends.

If you would like to visit Australiana Village it is located in Rose Street, Wilberforce. There is plenty to see with the site being a huge open air museum, but it is not like your normal museum at all. There are heritage houses with ‘house museum displays’, but there are also shops in the original buildings. There is farm machinery, animals, horse and sulky rides, Cobb and Co Coach rides, and plenty of other things to do. The open air museum is open every Sunday, but also on special days, so check their website to find out when the next special open day will be.

Australiana Village was created by Bill and Marie McLachlan. They had travelled to Los Angeles in 1961 as judges for the World Water Ski Titles and while they were there they came up with the idea for Australiana Village. There were lots of very historic buildings in the wider area around Wilberforce and many of them were under threat. They decided to save them by building their own historic village. With the help of Silvo Biencoti, they moved each building, in a single piece, from its original location to the Australiana Village Site. This was a massive undertaking, with buildings being taken through daytime traffic, powerlines having to be lifted and even some telegraph poles having to be taken down for the trips!

Instead of simply giving the buildings a new home, the McLachlans brought them to life, arranging them as the main street of a village. There is a post office, police station, general store, stables, smoke house, shops, barber, blacksmith and of course heritage homes. One of these heritage homes, Rose Cottage, is the oldest slab hut in Australia and is the only building which was not moved to the site, but was originally built in its present location. The McLachlans have since died, and for many years Australiana Village was closed to the public but in 2010, on Australia Day, after a community battle to save the open air museum it was reopened. It is now being restored to its former glory, and has been a film set, with Wild Boys filmed there!

Roy Creates Weetbix Spice Drop Biscuits

Recently, Roy found a packet of Weetbix in the back of the cupboard. Roy doesn’t eat Weetbix usually, so he started looking for something else to use them for. He remembered being given a little booklet of Weetbix recipes some time ago, and decided this was probably the best place to start. There were lots of interesting recipes in the booklet, and Roy might give a few others a try some time in the future, but he decided the most intriguing was for biscuits. He has made Weetbix Slice before, but had not heard of a biscuit recipe. He was really impressed by the results, so this week Roy Creates Weetbix Spice Drop Biscuits.

You Will Need:

• 125 grams of butter or margarine
• ½ a cup of sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 1 cup chopped dates
• ½ a cup chopped walnuts
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ of teaspoon mixed spice
• 1 cup of crushed Weetbix. Make sure to crush the Weetbix finely because you don’t want big lumps. We found it took 3 to 4 Weetbix to make 1 cup
• Glace cherries, cut into quarters

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line baking trays with baking paper

• Cream the butter and sugar together. You don’t need to use electric beaters, just make sure the butter is softened and a wooden spoon will be fine.
• Add the egg and beat it in

• Sift the flour and spices together and add to the butter, sugar and egg mix. Mix well

• Add the dates and walnuts and mix thoroughly
• Roll teaspoons of the mix into balls (the mix is sticky so Roy rolled the dough with two spoons, picking the dough up with one and then using the other to shape the dough and scrape it off the spoon)

• Drop the spoonfuls of dough into the crushed Weetbix and roll to coat
• Put the balls onto the trays, flatten with a fork and top with a quarter of a cherry
• Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the biscuits are golden
• Cool, store in an airtight container and enjoy!

What Is It? Ceramic Fuse

Imagine you are living in the mid 20th century, in a modern house with all modern conveniences. You have a new electric oven, a refrigerator, an inside lavatory (bliss), and of course, you have electricity. It is wonderful to have so many modern appliances, and electricity is such a wonder. You know many people have had it for years, but the old neighbourhood you lived in was not electrified, so it is still a marvel to you. The only thing which does make you nervous is that apparently, if you don’t have the correct fuses, and don’t know how to look after them, electricity can be very dangerous. You have an electrician coming to check things over for you and teach you about them today though, so that will be wonderful.

When I showed the children this ceramic fuse holder and fuse, they had no idea at all what it could be. Of course, the children know about fuses, on a basic level, with their parents occasionally telling them that ‘I have to fix the fuse’ or ‘the fuse has blown’, but most have never seen a fuse. Even those who had seen a fuse did not recognise this one though, as it is an old fashioned type made of ceramic and is much larger than the household fuses we use. In fact, there were parents who did not recognise it! The fuse did intrigue the children though as they had never thought of electricity being old enough to have evolved so much. It is also a huge fuse, much bigger than fuses which would be used in a home. It is far more likely to have been used in a factory, or perhaps even on the railways.

The history of fuses is, perhaps unsurprisingly, closely tied to the history of electricity. However, electricity actually has a longer history than many realise. The oldest and most natural of all electrical sources is lightning, and this has, of course, been around since time immemorial. The ancients knew about static electricity, and about lightning, but this was not created by man. As early as 1660 though, people were experimenting with creating electricity. In this year Otto Von Guericke created the first electric generator. He used his machine to show that electricity could be conducted over a substantial distance (several feet) along wet string. In the 1700s several English scientists conducted experiments with electricity and this was also the era when Ben Franklins famous kite experiment was conducted. In 1752, just as a storm was beginning to break out, he flew a kite with a metal key attached to the end. The key was hung close to a jar and, although there was not yet any lightening, electricity was conducted along the wet kite string, through the key and sparks were seen jumping into the jar until eventually the jar could not carry any more charge. This experiment proved that lightening and electricity were the same thing.

It was not until 1800 though until Alessandro Volta created the first ‘battery’. At the time it was called the voltaic pile and it was made up of a stack of zinc, copper and acid or salt soaked disks which could store electricity. Volta knew the electric cell worked, but he didn’t know why. None the less, he was an important figure in the history of electricity and the volt is named after him. It was Charles Edison who brought electricity to the world though, when he created the electric lightbulb in 1879. He wanted to bring electric light to every home and he built the first electric generating station which provided electricity to one square mile of New York City in 1882.

So what is a fuse and why do we use them? Fuses are essentially a safety mechanism, placed in an electrical circuit to control and limit the flow of electricity. If too much electricity is passing through the fuse the fuse will break (blow) and the flow will stop which makes electricity much safer. Essentially, they are designed to be the weakest link in the flow of electricity. Today there are many different sorts of fuses (though ceramic ones are pretty unusual, and this one would not have wire inside it), but they all serve essentially the same purpose, to make electricity safe. Today we have 'safety switches' which make using electrictity safer still, but we also still use fuses and most people still keep some fuse wire in their fuse box!

If anybody knows any more about this fuse, please let us know!

Roaming Roy Crosses A Bridge To A Secret History - Cockle Creek Bridge

This week, Roy decided he really wanted to check out a bridge. Roy loves bridges. There is just something about them which grabs his attention. Whether it is a stone bridge, metal, wooden, big, small, they just fascinate him. So, he was looking for an interesting bridge to visit, which was close to home. When he found one at Bobbin Head in Kuringai Chase National Park he was stunned. He must have driven over the Cockle Creek Bridge hundreds of times, but he never knew it was particularly significant!

If you would like to visit the bridge over Cockle Creek, it is located in Bobbin Head, not far from Hornsby. To get there you can enter from Bobbin Head Road in North Turrumurra or from Kuringai Chase Road in Mount Colah (enter from the Old Pacific Highway into Yirra Road, then turn into Belmont Parade and from there into Kuringai Chase Road). While you are at the park, why not go for a bushwalk, enjoy a meal or take in the mangroves!

The bridge over Cockle Creek at Bobbin Head is very significant, though the reason why seems to be little known. Certainly, Roy and I had no idea the bridge was the first of its kind in Sydney, or that it was heritage listed by the RTA. This bridge, which while it’s a nice bridge doesn’t appear particularly exciting, was the first pre-stressed concrete bridge to be built in Sydney. So what is a pre-stressed concrete bridge and why is it important? Pre-stressed concrete is a way of making concrete which overcomes its natural weakness. Concrete which is normally reinforced, with metal bars, cannot be used to make a long spans because it’s weak over such a long distance. Pre-stressed concrete has pre-tensioned ‘tendons’ put in it, which are usually cables. The cables are pre-tensioned and then the concrete is poured over them and this gives much greater strength. Following the success of the Cockle Creek bridge this method of bridge construction became popular in Sydney.

Why go to such effort for a small bridge in an out of the way place like Bobbin Head? At the time the bridge was built, 1956, Bobbin Head was a popular pleasure ground. There was a swimming pool, play equipment, a miniature train, restaurant, boat sheds amongst other attractions and people loved to visit. Bobbin Head was named a National Park in 1894 and from this time onwards the area was popular with visitors. The problem though was that Cockle Creek ran through the pleasure ground area, so a bridge had to be built to enable people to come from both directions, and to utilise both sides of the pleasure ground. The first attempt was made in 1902 and 1903 when a causeway was built, but this was washed away in 1915. A new bridge was the built of timber but by 1925 the bridge and a wharf had been washed away. A temporary bridge was built, and then a proper one was constructed in 1930.  Yet again, it was washed away in 1942. Storms were a real problem when it came to building a lasting bridge. It was important that people could pass under the bridge in boats, as this was one of the main pastimes, but the bridges just didn’t seem to be strong enough to survive the storms which hit the area. Then, in 1956, a new type of bridge was trialled, the pre-stressed concrete one. It’s still there today.

Roy Creates An old Fashioned Egg And Bacon Pie

This week, Roy decided he felt like indulging. He loves bacon and eggs, but even more, he loves a good bacon and egg pie, where the bacon and eggs cook together in a pastry crust. It isn’t the health food of a nation, but as a treat, a bacon and egg pie is one of Roy’s favourites. It is also very old fashioned and Roy knows many people who have never even heard of it! It is also delicious hot, but is just as good cold, so it's perfect for picnics and lunchboxes. So this week, Roy Creates Old Fashioned Bacon And Egg Pie.

You Will Need:

• A packet of frozen puff pastry. You won’t use it all, but you need to have enough to line a pie dish and cover the pie.
• 4 or 5 raw eggs. Roy made a very big pie in a deep dish, so he used a dozen eggs. You can of course use as many as you like.
• 250 to 300 grams of bacon, rind removed and chopped.
• Cooking oil spray

Optional:

• Finely chopped onion
• Chopped tomato
• Grated cheese

Method:

• Spray a pie dish with a little cooking oil and then line it with the puff pastry. If you need to join two pieces of pastry, run your fingers along the seam with a little cold water to help the pastry stick together. Use a fork to lightly press the pastry onto the inside of the dish and cut off any excess pastry.
• Put a piece of baking paper inside the pastry and fill with pastry weights (rice or beans will do fine, but don't try to cook with them afterwards!) Rest the pastry in the fridge for 10 minutes, and then blind bake for 10 minutes
• Remove the pie weights (Roy uses the baking paper to lift them up and put them into a dish).
• If you are using onion or tomato sprinkle over the pastry.

• Spread the chopped bacon evenly in the pastry shell

• Crack the eggs into the pie, on top of the bacon. You might want to spread the whites around a little, and if the yolks break don’t worry too much.
• If you like, sprinkle a little cheese over the eggs.

• Cover the pie with another sheet of pastry and press the edges down to seal. Put a few holes in the top to stop it bursting.
• Bake the pie until the pastry is puffed and golden. This will take about 20 to 30 minutes. During this time the eggs and bacon will have cooked too.
• You can eat this hot, but the most traditional is to let the pie cool in the refrigerator and serve cold, cut in wedges.

Wouldn't The Bread Burn? Early Toaster

Imagine you are a housewife living in the 1940s. You have a large family to feed, and they have to be fed quickly in the morning so that you can send your husband to work and your children to school. Thank goodness for your new, electric toaster! You can make two slices of toast at a time, quickly and easily, so that you can just keep churning out pieces of toast until everybody is fed, ready to go and out the door. Then, when the house is quiet, you love to make your own toast, sit down with a cup of tea and relax before a day of housework and cooking.

When I showed the children this toaster, their immediate guess as to what it was was both amusing and understandable. All of the children immediately told me ‘I know what that is, it’s a heater what’s so interesting about that?' When they realised it opened on both sides though, they became a little unsure about their guess, deciding that it must be something else. None managed to guess the real purpose of the little machine though, as it bears no resemblance at all to toasters they are familiar with. When I told them what it was though, they thought it was interesting, but possibly unsafe. As one child put it ‘the outside would be so hot, and the toast is so close to the heating bit, it might catch fire!’

The history of toast is really quite surprising. You might imagine that toast is as old as bread itself, but this is not strictly the case. Bread has been around for thousands of years in various versions (some of which were really quite different to what we think of as bread today). Even the cave men made their own basic bread. Toast as we know it though is a reasonably recent invention in comparison. Toasting probably came about because stale bread is hard and unpleasant to eat and somehow, somebody discovered that if the bread was held in the fire briefly, it became crisp and pleasant. However, this could, according to some food historians, not happen until bread could be sliced. Torn bread would have burned in the fire because it had rough edges. We do know though that the Ancient Romans and other civilisations at that time were familiar with toast, and indeed the word comes from the Latin Toastum which means torching or burning!

As time went by, people began to look for better ways to prepare toast. At first forks or sticks were used, but soon wire frames which the bread could be put into were invented. These frames could then be held near the fire. Forks or cages were the toasting technology of choice for centuries, with really no alternative way of making real toast coming about until electricity was invented. The first electric toasters started to be sold in Britain shortly before the turn of the 20^th century and became available in America in 1909. The toaster only toasted one side of the bread at a time, and the operator of the toaster therefore had to flip the toast over. In 1919 Charles Strite created the first modern, pop up toaster, but the original format, single side toaster, like the one I showed the children, remained popular for many years. Toasters did not really surge in popularity until about 1930 though, when Wonder Bread introduced the first ‘sliced bread’. Suddenly toasters became a must have item and sales surged. Today, almost all, if not every household would have this humble device in the kitchen.

Roaming Roy Finds A Spanish Front - James Theatre Dungog

This week, with Mothers Day here, Roy thought it was time to take his Mum and Grandma to the local cinema. He thought a cinema would be interesting to write up, but it couldn’t be any old theatre though, it had to be one which was interesting and different. When he heard that the James Theatre in Dungog had reopened, he was very excited and wanted to share some of his photos of the building which he took on a visit a few years ago.

The James Theatre, which many people will know of due to the Dungog Film Festival, is located in Dungog, not far from Gloucester. To get to Dungog you can come by either Clarence Town Road or Stroud Hill Road. There is plenty to see in Dungog, with parks, local shops, a tourist information centre and cafes. The theatre itself is at 6 Brown Street, which is not far from the local train station.

James Theatre, which is also known as the Dungog Theatre or Dungog Picture Show is reputedly the oldest purpose built cinema still operating in Australia. It is a beautiful, Spanish style building, which adds character and charm to the historic town. The first film to be screened in the town was shown in the School of Arts in 1897, which was not long after films were first shown in America and Europe! The history of the theatre on the current site though doesn’t begin until 1912, when the Dungog Electric Lighting Company, set up theatre seating and a screen. There was seating for 1000, but the theatre at that time was an outdoor theatre with no roof.

In 1917, James Stuart on whose land the theatre was operating, took over the business and began constructing a building (including a roof!) to house the theatre. The original building didn’t look quite the same as the one we see today though as in July 1930 the theatre had a massive overhaul and facelift to accommodate the ‘talkies’. It is thought that the Spanish style facade was added on to the original building at this time, and the screen moved to the other end of the hall. There was seating for 650 people in the newly renovated theatre, and the front section had a flat floor and removable seats to allow for dances and other community activities. A stage, supper-room and dressing rooms were also added. In 1980 the theatre was purchased by the council as a community centre and the cinema continued to operate until 2011. After a short hiatus, new projection equipment has been installed and the cinema has reopened, though the film festival which it is famous for remains under threat, with a new community group attempting to reinvigorate and relaunch the festival.