Hello Evylinda
I’m very sorry too, but I won’t be able to participate this afternoon - we are invited at my mother’s for lunch - and this usually takes a bit more time… 
I wish you all a very pleasant Skype Session.
Cheers Urs
Hello everyone,
Please keep in mind that here in the Netherlands, we just set our clocks back one hour (as we observe Day Light Savings Time and our switch of the clock was last night). So if your country doesn’t observe Day Light Savings or your country hasn’t switched time yet, please keep this in mind. If 3-5 is going to be a problem for some people now, I can easily switch the sessions back to 2-4. Either is fine for me.
Take care,
Megan
Hello Megan,
3:00 - 5:00 PM Amsterdam Time for the Skype session is o.k. for me.
Take care!
Mujibur
Hello,
I would like to enumerate some words ending with a silent letter ‘b’.
Yesterday on the Skype session I told a lamb recipe, and when I said several times [læm] from the silence I thought that they don’t know what about I spoke about?
-Do you know the lamb?
-No.-they answer
-it says baa, baa,
So somebody said I see! Lamb. And she corrected the pronunciation lamb
- No.- I said - the ‘b’ is silent than the word lamb as in the word comb.
That’s why I looked up the words with silent ‘b’ at the end.
dumb, = unable to speak
limb = an arm or a leg; part of animal such as a wing
jamb = (as in a door jamb), a vertical post at the side of the port or window
bomb, = a weapon designed to explode
tomb, = a large grave for example in the cemetery
climb, = go up sth toward the top
comb.=
crumb-breadcrumbs
doubt = a feeling being uncertain about sth.
plumber = a person whose job to repair the water pipes
thumb = one of our fingers
lamb
numb = if a part of your body is numb you cannot feel anything because it went to numb
womb= the organ is women and female animals in which baby develop
to succumb=cappitulate/yield,/ give in,/ throw in the towel ;to succumb to an illness = not able to fight an illness, dies; succumb to a temptation;
Hello
There was another word which was strange on the Skype session “paprika” -its a very important spice in Hungarian cooking. I began to explain, but I felt that some people didn’t understand.
I found a youtube about Hungarian Paprika [ˈpæprɪkə]
Hungarian Paprika
youtube.com/watch?v=Lirvonx6F8w
Dear Megan,
I was watching on TV this terrible storm in the GB. And it was said that it menaces the Netherlands and Belgium also. I immediately thought of you and your family.
I hope that it will calm down in your country.
HOW ARE YOU?
Later I saw that you put on my names on the Skype list. Many thanks.
Take care,
Kati
Hello Everybody who were on the Skype session on 27th October.
I promised to send to you the recipe our Hungarian stuffed cabbage. To my great surprise I didn’t find one original recipe. Its cause could be that the most important , the sauerkraut can sometimes be found in the recipes, but the cabbage leaves which are also “pickled” taste like the sauerkraut. They are replaced with fresh cabbage. Its a very great difference. We always make a huge batch because the dish keeps for a week and gets better and better everytime it’s reheated.
In Hungary on the market there are stalls where you can buy sauerkraut and pickled leaves and every kind of pickled things (cucumber, paprika, green tomatoes, cloves etc.) There is a village where at every house is written: Sauerkraut for sale.
Customs vary- told myself when I didn’t find our recipe anywhere on the Internet.
Here is our recipe.
INGREDIENTS
- 20-24 pickled cabbage leaves
-
1 kg sauerkraut -
1/2 kg leg of pork meat -ground at home -
1/2 kg leg of beef -ground at home -
one pair of smoked sausage thickly sliced -
1/2 kg smoked spareribs-cut at next to the bone -
1/2 cup half-cooked long grain white rice - 1 medium onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup)+ little olive oil
-
1-1/2 to 2 teaspoons salt -
3/4 teaspoon black pepper -
savory
Preparation:
1.steam the onion in a small olive oil until it is soft and translucent
1/a. In a ball you combine the ground pork and beef,salt, black pepper, steamed onion, and half cooked rice, using your hands works best. (I don’t add eggs to eat because the egg hardens the stuffing. The half boiled rice can keep together the stuffing.)
2. I remove the hard outer vein from the leaves.
3.. Place a small amount, about the size of your palm, into the center of a cabbage leaf and fold leaf over, tucking in the sides of the leaf to keep meat mixture inside.
4.In a large pot place the sauerkraut combined with the half of smoked sausage
5..Pilled up the stuffed cabbages and put among them one-one cut smoked ribs and the savory
6.Put the other half of sauerkraut combined smoke sausages on the top and put on it savory.
7 .Pour on it hot,boiling water that just cover it. Put a lid on it. Cook it a very slowly for about 2 hours. You can’t put salt in it as the smoked sausage and the smoked rib are salted. If at the end you taste it and it isn’t salty you can add salt to it -this is a matter of taste.
Dear Kati,
Thanks for your concern. Several European countries were hit by this storm. My friends in Denmark were also talking about it. I wouldn’t say it was really serious. Some very high winds with rain at times. Some trees were uprooted. It was hard to drive when the rain was pouring and the wind was blowing very hard. Sadly, there were a couple of deaths as a result but all in all we weathered it quite over here. This kind of weather happens occasionally over here. Compared to hurricanes, tornado’s, floods, volcano’s, earthquakes and such, it was pretty mild.
Take care,
Megan
Serious enough to have led to deaths in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and France! I wouldn’t call that ‘not really serious’.
Hello Megan,
I always listen to the weather which comes from the West because after 1 or 2 days they arrive here. For example when there was this terribly high flood in Germany, we thought that the Danube also would be flooded out. It was the highest flood in Hungary, it was a record flood.
As Hungary is in the Carpathian basin, it is rounded by mountain chains, we are protected from extreme weather.
But once it happened something extreme. It happened on a summer day , the sun was shining , the sky was blue without any clouds. I was sitting in the garden, and I was reading.
Once I felt something cold on my back. I returned and I didn’t believe to my eyes I saw this.
Until this day I never saw a tornado only on films. I jumped up and ran into the house to close 6 doors and windows. When I arrived to the sixth casement window I couldn’t close them, I tried to close them with my all strength and the tornado push them inside, towards me… I couldn’t dare to finish them press, and I saw that in the garden everything flew away horizontally they looked like biscuits.
It lasted only about 10 minutes. Where it had run away it tore away the titles from the roof and broke them into pieces like biscuits. It was interesting because it went through on the village in an oblique straight stripe but on this stripe it carried away not only the titles but removed the lots of roofs from the houses and tore up trees by the roots.
As so quickly it arrived as quickly it left the village. On this stripe looked like as a bomb would have exploded.
It was only two carpenters in the village. When I arrived to their place they couldn’t give me an appointment because others were quicker than me. Luckily at night it wasn’t raining and next day a jack-of-all-trades repaired our roof.
I can’t never forget it. I called by phone my husband and told him what happened and when he saw the spectacle he asked me a strangled voice : Tell me how happened.
Take care:
Kati
Dear Beeeneees,
I said “really serious”. I’ve seen worse winters that have taken more lives than this storm that blew through. Compared to other storms, it wasn’t very serious. I’m not saying the death toll isn’t sad but there are storms out there which are considerably worse.
Take care,
Megan
Hello Everybody,
If you have a stiff neck and shoulders of the long sitting at your laptop.
I found two years ago an article about the acupressure points which helps surely.
Now when I looked for this link I saw that in the last two years they put on a lot of articles about these acupressure points.
You have to write : Acupressure points for stick neck.
I have been trying this one with a good result:
chinese-holistic-health-exer … rcise.html
Bye.
Hello Everybody,
If you have a stiff neck and shoulders from the long sitting at your laptop there is
help.
I found two years ago an article about the acupressure points which helps surely.
Now when I looked for this link I saw that in the last two years they put on a lot of articles about these acupressure points.
You have to write : Acupressure points for stick neck.
I have been trying this one with a good result:
chinese-holistic-health-exer … rcise.html
Bye.
Hello Megan
I checked the time when my train is due on Friday 1th in the afternoon - and - (lucky guy that I am) - I WILL be able to attend to the most part of the Session, that is:
from 3 p.m till 4.30 my / your time.
I’m looking forward to it - see you then :):)
Cheers Urs
Why the coach potatoes didn’t exist in the 1950’s years?
I have an English friend who told me that in Great Britain few families had Tv in the 50’s years.
When there was a good film or a TV match or a political event they rang the neighbour’s door-bell and asked whether they didn’t disturb if they watched the TV at their place. She said to me :only in 1952 when the accession of Elisabeth2 to the throne was scheduled, the rumour had it that it would be shown on TV.
Then the people rushed the electronics shops and bought TV sets. From this time the TV could be found almost every flats. Then people didn’t become coach potatoes they chose carefully what it is worth watching.
The situation was similar in Hungary. At first in the 60-s years there was a TV set in some flats. People came together there, they carried stools to sit somewhere and at least 20 people were watching the TV. I remember Armstrong’s second moon landing on the Apollo 11 was broadcasting. We were in a village where there was one single TV set in the village, that room was full of people because everybody wanted to see the great event.
In the beginning the TV wasn’t rival to the cinema.
Halloween
Yesterday we had the festival of Helloween. Do you know or celebrate this event?
It was originally a Christian Festival but now people dress in strange costumes. Like ghosts or devils etc. Children go to houses to frighten people in a friendly way. It is called ‘Trick and Treat’.
Many people hold parties and tell ghostly stories but it all an excuse party, to drink and to be merry on this occasion that comes from medieval times.
A Brief Overview of the Decade (1950-1960) -1.part
The decade when the TV sets became one of the pieces of furniture in Europe.
The “Cold War” continued to chill the air in both hemispheres during the 1950s, while an array of former colonies forged new identities and created a non–aligned force dubbed, by the Marxist writer Frantz Fanon, the “Third World ”. As the decade began, however, the Cold War suddenly heated up on the peninsula of Korea when the Soviet–equipped North Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th parallel and invaded the Republic of South Korea . Lead by the U.S., the United Nations reacted by sending a multi–national force to repel the North Korean Army in what was nominally called a “police action”. The Korean War had started, and Dwight D. Eisenhower would be elected President in 1952 by promising to end it.
In the U.S. the Communist “Red Scare” was in full flower. Alger Hiss, a former State Department official, was convicted of perjury for denying he had once spied for the Soviet Union. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were convicted of organizing an international Soviet spy ring. Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean, officials at Britain’s embassy in Washington, escaped to Moscow when it was discovered they were Soviet spies. Then, when U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed that he had a list of 205 Communists who had infiltrated the State Department, he became an unstoppable anti–Communist crusader using his Senate committees to accuse, harass and often destroy many innocent people. (It wouldn’t be until 1954 that the Senate would censure McCarthy and end his Communist witch–hunt.) Meanwhile, in televised hearings, the Senate Crime Investigating Committee, chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver, began exposing America’s criminal underbelly and inaugurated what would become known as “electronic journalism”.
2.part
As the “Arms Race” escalated, the threat of a nuclear Armageddon became part of everyday life. The Soviet Union tested their own atomic bomb in 1950, and during the next few years both the U.S. and the Soviet Union developed and repeatedly tested the even more powerful hydrogen bomb. It didn’t take long for the hydrogen bomb tests to create a huge demand for underground fallout shelters and, along with the American family’s mass migration to the suburbs, these shelters came to symbolize the decade.
The ‘50s were the decade of:
-
the American Civil Rights Movement;
-the merging of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) into a labor superpower;
-the authorization by Congress of a massive 40,000 mile interstate highway system;
-and the launching by the Soviet Union of the first space satellite, Sputnik, which shifted the “Space Race” into high gear . - This was also the decade when the structure of DNA was discovered;
-when the Salk vaccine proved to be effective against Polio;
-when the Census Bureau utilized the first computer to use magnetic tape instead of punch cards;
-when Fidel Castro assumed power in Cuba;
-and when white–collar workers outnumbered blue–collared workers for the first time in U.S. history.
On the lighter side, this ten year span also gave us
-Elvis Presley,
-Rock ‘n’ Roll,
-and the Motown sound;
-the “I Love Lucy” TV show and Ed Sullivan;
- beatniks;
-McDonald’s;
-hula–hoops;
-the Barbie doll;
- Disneyland, Davy Crockett and the Mickey Mouse Club.
For the motion picture industry, this would be the decade of changing technology and competition from television. While the “studio system” fought for survival, foreign films, independent production companies and freelance movie stars undermined the very foundation and power of the old Hollywood studios. By the end of the decade, business executives and accountants had replaced the Hollywood “Movie Moguls”, and virtually all of the early motion picture pioneers had faded away.
Hello dear Megan,
How are you doing? Hope the storm do not cause damage to you and to your family.
I had marked with enough advance a routine medical consultation for today (time in Brazil - at 4:00 PM). But he’ll be only available tomorrow morning (time in Brazil - at 10:00 AM). So, I will not be able to attend the Skype session, November 1st 2013.
Please give my seat to another interested friend.
Sorry.
Best wishes,
Henrique Siqueira
vThe hearings were a fiasco for McCarthy.
He constantly interrupted with irrelevant questions and asides; yelled “point of order” !
Whenever the testimony was not to his liking; and verbally attacked witnesses, attorneys for the Army, and his fellow senators.
Adeptly manipulated the media, told ever more outrageous stories concerning the communist conspiracy in the United States, and smeared any opponents as “communist sympathizers” to keep his own name in the headlines for years.
The climax came when McCarthy slandered an associate of the Army’s chief counsel, Joseph Welch. Welch fixed McCarthy with a steady glare and declared evenly, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” A stunned McCarthy listened as the packed audience exploded into cheers and applause.
McCarthy’s days as a political power were effectively over. A few weeks later, the Army hearings dribbled to a close with little fanfare and no charges were upheld against the Army by the committee. In December 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy for his conduct. Three years later, having become a hopeless alcoholic, he died.