The Tingle Factor Box

Roy's Heritage Hints - The King Of All Pain Killers

Heat is the king of all remedies for the relief of pain. It is a natural antidote, and may be applied to any part of the body by means of hot-water bags. If these are not at hand, a cloth bag may be made and filled with salt, ashes, sand, corn-meal, or any other substance that will retain heat. Whichever substance is used for filling should be well heated in the oven, then placed in the bag and applied to the seat of pain. The bags should be only about half filled. Two bags are better than one, so one can be heating in the oven while the other is being applied.

Glass bottles with good stoppers may be filled with hot water and used in place of rubber bags. Even bricks, flat irons, or logs of wood, heated and wrapped with flannel may be used.

(Signs Of The Time Publishing Home and Health, 1908)

Roy Creates Deliciously Simple Chicken And Grape Salad AND A New Blog Schedule.

The New Year is well and truly upon us, and with it comes new resolutions. One of mine, Roy's and Rover's, is to take a step back a little from The Tingle Factor Box. Our lives have become increasingly busy, and doing three posts a week is becoming difficult. We toyed with the idea of revisiting older posts, and have done that once or twice already, but decided that wasn't for us.

Instead, we will be reducing our posts to one a week. Don't worry - no sections will disappear though. Each month will still contain an item, a recipe or craft and a place to visit! We will also be adding an exciting new section - Roy's Historic Home Hints. We will be posting each week on Friday at 6am, including of course, this Friday.

This week, with the weather hot and many people not wanting to turn on their ovens, Roy decided, it was the perfect time to share a recipe for a delicious, cool salad. Roy loves a salad on a warm day, and one of his favourites is one which my Grandmother used to make. It’s a simple recipe, with just 4 ingredients, but the results are delicious, and everybody who tries it, loves it. So this week, Roy Creates Deliciously Simple Chicken And Grape Salad.

Note: you can increase or decrease the amount of salad you make, as much as you like. It is very easy to double – or more!

You Will Need:

• 1 precooked chicken
• A bunch of grapes (about 1 cup of de-stemmed grapes is enough for one chicken)
• ½ a cup of mayonnaise
• Curry powder to taste – Roy used about 1 and ½ teaspoons, but it will depend on how spicy you like it, and also how fresh your curry powder is.

Method:

• In a bowl, mix together the mayonnaise and curry powder. Taste, and add more curry powder as you think necessary
• Strip the meat from the chicken, cutting or breaking it into bite sized pieces as you go.

• Add the chicken to the curried mayonnaise mix

• Add the grapes
• Stir everything together
• Chill for at least 2 hours to allow the flavours to develop
• Serve with salad vegetables and enjoy!

See you all next week!

Rover Heads For Rocky Shores - Pumice At Bass Point

This week, Rover decided that, with the weather heating up and many people heading to the seaside for holidays, it was the perfect time head to the coast himself. Rover doesn’t much like getting his paws wet, but he loves the coast, particularly the amazing geology of the South Coast of NSW. There are so many amazing rocks to be found – this week he is taking a closer look at pumice.

Rover was amazed to discover pumice on the rocky shoreline of Bass Point in Shell Cove. To get there, first find Addison Street in Shell Cove and then turn into Wentworth Street. From there, take Darley Street (heading towards the coast) and then turn into Boollwarroo Parade. Boollwarroo Parade eventually turns into Bass Point Tourist Road which leads to Bass Point itself.

Pumice is an extraordinary type of rock, which is actually created during volcanic eruptions. In fact, it is an igneous rock, which essentially means it is a solidified version of a molten material, in this case, volcanic material.What makes it so extraordinary in Rovers opinion though is that pumice is a rock which floats! Pumice is full of little holes and gaps which are called vesicles. All these little holes provide space for air, and as a result, a big lump of pumice is much lighter than you might expect, what with it being rock! The vesicles are evidence of the volcanic eruption which created the pumice in the first place. Gasses build up in the volcano, inside the magma itself and eventually the pressure becomes so strong that the magma, and the gasses which are powering it, break through the earth’s crust. When the pressure is released the gas suddenly escapes, blowing out chunks of frothy magma and these are what eventually harden into pumice.

This doesn’t answer the question of what all that pumice is doing at Bass Point though. Not too far away though, towards Kiama, there is a mountain called Saddleback Mountain. This mountain was once a volcanic vent and the area around Kiama was actually the site of two very big lava flows. These flows are now called the Gerringong Volcanics. The basalt which the area is so famous for is one of the resulting rocks from these lava flows. The pumice which Rover found at Bass Point is, no doubt, other evidence of the volcanic activity which defined the geology of this area.

Roy Revisits: Grandma's Yummy, Easy 'Leftovers' Sausage Rolls

This week, with it being a good season for leftover sausage rolls and easy meals, Roy wanted to revisit a recipe which all of his friends love. This recipe is a perfect way to use up leftover cooked sausages from an over-catered BBQ, or cook extras specifically. They are also very popular with children! So this week, Roy Recreates Grandma's Yummy, Easy 'Leftovers' Sausage Rolls.

You Will Need:

• Thin sausages. Grandma used leftover sausages, but we didn't have any, so just cook your sausages in whatever your favourite way is (or have sausages for dinner and cater to have leftovers for tomorrow!) Our sausages were the right length for the pastry, but you might need to cut them in half to make them fit neatly.
• A packet of store bought puff pastry, thawed. You need enough pastry for however many sausages you have. You can make 4 sausage rolls from one sheet of pastry.
• A jar of store bought chutney. Grandma usually used fruit chutney, but whatever you like best is fine.
• A packet of grated cheese.
• Tomato sauce.

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcius and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

• Cut a sheet of puff pastry into quarters, as Roy has done above.
• Spread each quarter with about a teaspoon of chutney.

• Sprinkle a small handfull of cheese down the centre of the piece of pastry (diagonally)
• Lay the sausage on top of the cheese.
• Drizzle with a little tomato sauce

• Wrap the pastry around the sausage, as Roy is doing above.
• Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes, or until the pastry is cooked and the cheese, chutney and tomato sauce are bubbly.
• Enjoy with salad or vegetables and remember they are very hot when they first come out of the oven!

It's Giving Me The Evil Eye! Nazar Amulet

Imagine you are a child visiting a friend. You notice a pretty new ornament hanging up high, and ask if you can look at it. Your friend says of course, and lifts the shiny blue disk down. Yet when you see it up close, you find it quite scary – it’s an evil eye! You don’t want to touch it, because perhaps it might curse you and in fact, you spend the rest of the day avoiding looking at the eye at all, despite your friend assuring you it is actually a protective amulet.

The above scenario is actually almost exactly what happened when I hung up this Turkish Nazar. Many of my young students immediately thought it was an evil eye, and it took quite some effort to explain that it is actually a Nazar given to me by my Grandfather. Instead of being an evil eye, it is an amulet which protects against the evil eye. Eventually the children became curious, and wanted to learn more.

The evil eye, or a curse which is cast on an unsuspecting victim by a nasty glare, is a feature of many different cultures. These cultures believe that a person cursed by the evil eye will be hurt or have some disaster strike. As a result, many different charms and talismans have been created to protect against and ward off the evil eye. Sometimes, these talismans are also referred to as evil eyes, but their purpose is to protect, not to curse and their proper name is a Nazar. Nazars are popular right across Greece, Egypt, the Middle East, Italy and even in Africa! So where did the concept of the evil eye and its protective talismans come from? There are mentions of the evil eye right back in the ancient world, and in hundreds of works by people ranging from Plutarch to Plato. Yet not everybody was all that worried about the evil eye. It was part of life, and people believed in it, but people didn’t really try to protect against it. In some ways, perhaps it was like non-believers today who use the term ‘the evil eye’ to refer to a glare of anger or disgust.

Yet for many, the evil eye is a real threat. It is Alexander the Great who is credited with spreading the superstitions and fear relating to the evil eye throughout his empire and then these beliefs were reinforced by Prophet Muhammad’s statement that the evil eye ‘is fact’. In many of the areas where belief in the evil eye is strong, blue eyes are quite rare. A superstition arose that people with blue eyes have the evil eye and will curse people, whether they want to or not. Thus, many of the talismans which protect against the evil eye, including Nazars, take the form of a blue eye. These talismans, which are often discs or spheres of concentric blue and white circles, are believed to turn back the evil eye on the person who casts it. They are worn as beads, hung in houses and cars and even placed on the doors of newborn babies as a protective shield of sorts. In fact, blue and white eyes are often even painted on boats in the Mediterranean region to protect sailors! Today, Nazars are most common in Turkey, but belief in the evil eye, and use of various protective talismans continues to thrive throughout the world.

Rover Discovers Poets Corner in Bowning - Mayfield Mews Precinct

This week, Rover decided it was time to share the story of an extraordinary home he discovered in a tiny country town. Rover loves to explore small towns, because often they have such a big history to disover, and he was thrilled to discover that this was exactly the case in Bowning. The town may be small, but the precinct known as Mayfield Mews is beautiful, and has a truly remarkable history linked not just to one of Australia’s most beloved poets, but two!

If you would like to visit Mayfield Mews precinct (including the General Store) it is located in Bowning, not far from Yass in NSW. To get there, follow the Hume Highway until you reach Bowning Road. Turn off the Hume Highway into Bowning Road and follow the road until you reach Leake Street. Mayfield Mews is located at number 4 Leake Street. There is plenty to discover, just in the Mews precinct itself, with beautiful homewares, delicious local produce (including the best coffee in NSW apparently!), a nursery with some beautiful plants and ornaments and fascinating antiques and collectables.

Mayfield Mews is essentially a shop, or series of shops, which operate out of a 150 year old coach house and stable complex, which once belonged to Mayfield House, which still stands just next door. Mayfield House itself was built by Richard Stear and initially called Albury House. Soon though it was renamed Mayfield House, perhaps when Richard married Phoebe Albury. Together the Stears also ran the local Bowning Stores which are the general store complex at the front of Mayfield Mews, and just next door to Mayfield House. Of course, none of this explains why the complex is so important. Phoebe though had a very important nephew who stayed with her on and off between 1899 and 1913. This important nephew was Henry Lawson, one of Australia’s most well-known and best loved poets.

Phoebe was one of 12 children and her sister, Louisa, was the mother of Henry Lawson. Henry Lawson was born in 1867 in Grenfell, which is itself a small town not that far from Yass. He lived until 1922, when he died in Sydney, at just 55 years old, after suffering a long illness. He was so important that he was the first ever person who was not a politician to be given a NSW state funeral. Between 1899 and 1913, Henry Lawson was often to be found at Mayfield House, and in fact he wrote many of his famous works while staying with his Aunt Phoebe. In fact, many of his contributions to the newspaper The Bulletin were written at the house. Yet he wasn’t the only poet to visit and stay with Phoebe. Banjo Patterson wrote many of his own contributions to The Bulletin at Mayfield House and both Lawson and Patterson sent the work to Sydney by rail, despatching them at the Bowning Railway Station.

Roy Creates Delicious Jelly Cream Tarts

This week, with the weather turning hot and humid, Roy wanted to avoid turning the oven on. Yet he had some young cousins to stay, and wanted to be able to make some sort of delicious dessert which they could all enjoy. The question was, what to make! Luckily, Roy had recently bought an old Foster Clark cookery book, and it had some wonderful ideas for cold desserts, many of them based around jelly! He was particularly taken with the recipe for jelly tarts, and the results were very popular with his young cousins. So this week, Roy Creates Delicious Jelly Cream Tarts!

You Will Need:

• Shortcrust pastry tarts – you can make individual tarts, or a big tart to cut up, whichever you prefer
• Raspberry jelly crystals
• 1 large tin of peach slices in juice
• 300 millilitres of whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon of castor sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• Grated chocolate (or a Flake chocolate bar) to garnish (optional)
• White or dark chocolate (optional)

Method:

• Make up the jelly according to the packet directions and set aside to cool
• Roy recommends masking the tart case with melted white or dark chocolate, to stop the jelly soaking in. Roy didn't do this - but he would next time!
  To mask a pastry case, melt the chocolate and use a pastry brush to brush a thin layer of chocolate over the inside of the case. Leave to set before filling the tart cases. 

• Drain the peach slices and arrange in a layer at the base of the tart

• Pour over the cold jelly and allow the tart to completely set
• When ready to serve, whip the cream with the castor sugar and vanilla essence until it reaches quite stiff peaks

• Pile the cream on top of the tart
• Sprinkle with chocolate
• Serve and enjoy!

It's Pretty Boring - Fuzzy Felt

Imagine, you are a child living in the 1960s. It is the Christmas holidays and you are having the most wonderful time. Your whole family has gone to the seaside for a week, and you are able to spend lots of time building with the sand on the beach, or swimming in the beautifully cool water. In the evenings, you have a wonderful new box of fuzzy felt to occupy your time. Mother and Father bought it as a special gift for you to use on your holiday. It is amazing the different scenes you can create, all with such a simple toy. Imagination truly is the only limitation!

When I showed the children these boxes of fuzzy felt, their reaction was quite funny. Many children recognised the simple, old fashioned toy, but informed me it was ‘boring’, especially when compared to the interactive toys and devices which are available to children today. The children were surprised however when they discovered just how long this simple toy has been available, and how popular it has been for over 50 years!

Like so many great toys throughout history, fuzzy felt was created almost by accident, during the Second World War. Lois Allan, who lived in Buckinghamshire in Britain, had volunteered to assist in the war effort, and set up a small factory in her home and outbuildings. Her husband was an RAF pilot, and Allan wanted to do her bit from home. The small factory she established, which was manned by local women who also volunteered their time, was dedicated to producing felt gaskets for various war vehicles, including tanks. Many of the women assisting in the work had children and Allan recognised that many of the women could not volunteer their time unless their children had somewhere to go. The solution – she allowed the women to bring their children to work with them, with the various women in the factory taking turns to care for them. Allan allowed the children to play with various offcuts from the gasket making felt, and soon noticed that the children enjoyed using the offcuts of the felt to make fuzzy pictures. This was, in essence, the birth of fuzzy felt!

After the war ended, Lois and her husband recognised the potential of the toys made of felt offcuts and began to work on the design for a set of ‘Fuzzy Felt’ toys, which would work in the same way as the children had improvised during the war itself. Lois Allan had studied fashion in the 1920s, and used her knowledge to design simple shapes, from figures and clothing to farm animals and even Biblical figures. The first set of Fuzzy Felt toys were sold in 1950. For many years, the production of Fuzzy Felt toys was really a cottage industry, with the toys being produced by Allan in her home for more than 20 years! The Allan’s even continued to employ many of the women who had been employed during the war in making gaskets. Then, by 1972, demand for the simple toy had become so great that the manufacture of the toy had to be moved to a proper, dedicated factory. Since their initial creation, more than 25 million sets of fuzzy felt have been sold, and apparently, if you put them all together, they would reach all the way to the moon and back!

Rover Discovers The Birds Who Flew Their Coop - Angel Place Forgotten Songs

Rover loves to be out and about, exploring new places and discovering new things to see. Usually, he plans to visit specific locations, but he often discovers little hidden gems along the way which he knew nothing about. Recently, he discovered just one such place - the Forgotten Songs art installation in Angel Place in the city. He loved the installation, and what it represented, and was amazed that he had walked past the street so often without realising it was there!

If you would like to visit the Forgotten Songs art installation, it is located in Angel Place, which runs between George Street and Pitt Street. The installation is just adjacent to the City Recital Hall, with the bird cages hanging above your head as you walk through Angel Place. You can see the installation at any time, as it is outdoors, but Rover recommends trying to visit when it's not too noisy, so that you can hear the birds!

Today, when we visit the city, we expect to hear the sounds of people, traffic, doors slamming, cars honking - all noises of a busy city like Sydney. Yet once, the sounds of Sydney were very different. For thousands of years, one of the dominant sounds we would have heard in the city was the song of the different bird species who called the Sydney area home. Even well into European settlement, these bird songs would have continued as dominant sounds, yet as the modern city grew and expanded, many of the birds who once thrived in the Sydney area began to disappear. This is what the artwork Forgotten Songs commemorates. 

Forgotten Songs is an artwork by Michael Thomas Hill, which is made up of 120 birdcages, all suspended above the pedestrians head as they walk through Angel Place. The artwork explores how the animals, particularly birds, who once lived in Sydney had to adapt to the changing city and its increasingly urban landscape. It commemorates these birds using the songs of 50 species who once called Sydney home but who have since disappeared from the city, with some finding homes in vegetation on the city's fringes, while others are now only found on the very outskirts of the greater Sydney area or in the country. The sounds of these birds are played in the alley, sounding like phantom birds in the empty birdcages and if you look at the ground as you walk through the alley, you can see the names of the birds who are represented. A lot of research went into selecting the songs of birds which are played with Dr Richard Major and Fred van Gessel selecting the bird species and recording their songs. In fact, the songs even change depending on the time of the day with a whole different set of recordings being played at night, to represent the nocturnal birds who once called Sydney home!