Dog On A Root

Cheese balls are always a hit at parties. You can make them up a day ahead and then serve them with crackers for the enjoyment of all. But when you’re making a cheese ball for Christmas, why not turn your “Cheese Ball” into a “Christmas Wreath” in keeping with the season? This will really impress your guests or your host and their guests if this is your contribution to someone else’s party. Both recipes use the same ingredients. Or with the addition of some crushed Ritz Crackers you can also turn this recipe into smaller Cheese Balls to be presented as individual servings. Stuff Required: 16 oz cream cheese (2 x 8 oz/250 gm packs) 8 oz sharp cheddar cheese (1 x 8 oz/250 gm tub of MacLaren’s Imperial Sharp Cheese) 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce 1 tbsp onion, finely chopped 1 dash of hot sauce 3 tbsp red bell pepper, finely chopped, divided 1 dash red hot peppers flakes 3 tsp parsley Ritz crackers, crushed (optional for preparation as “Individual Cheese Balls” preparation. Do This: jim’s

- jim Young "Gosh, oh gee, how happy I'd be, if I could only whistle." - Donald Gardner This is kind of wild. I recently uploaded to YouTube, a short video I made to accompany a Dog On A Root Article entitled “The Ghosts Of Christmas Past” . The background music in the video included four songs: “My Two Front Teeth” (written 1944) and performed by Spike Jones and his City Slickers in 1947 “Nuttin’ For Christmas” (written 1955) and performed by Barry Gordon in 1955 “Mele Kalikimaka” (written 1949) and performed by Bing Crosby in 1950 and “Christmas in Killarney” (written 1950) and performed by The Irish Rovers in 2002. Not that it counts for anything in the world of copyrights, but none of the composers of these songs are alive today. Performers Spike Jones and Bing Crosby are also deceased. When my video was uploaded to YouTube, I received a “copyright issue” notice. According to YouTube, “A copyright owner using Content ID has claimed some material in (my) video.” T

- jim Young “Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?” - Joni Mitchell Tomorrow will be the first day of December, but Christmas has already arrived at our home in the little village of Loring in Northern Ontario. In fact, Christmas arrived a couple of weeks ago here with the official lighting of Santa’s Stable to announce the arrival of my favourite season. The older I get, the faster time passes it seems, so I like to extend Christmas for as long as I can to make sure I get the most out of it for each remaining season I have left. Just as all things do for everyone, Christmas has changed for me over the years. Some traditions have been passed down from generation to generation while some traditions have fallen by the wayside. Still other, newer traditions have been created that will generate fond memories of their own in years to come, for however long they may come. Sometimes I wistfully long to relive some of the old traditions.  So I do.  Mostly,

- jim Young “Think outside the box to get the box there on time.” During this Christmas Holiday Season* shoppers everywhere are looking for great deals. And great deals they will find whether they are shopping online or in brick and mortar outlets. The philosophy seems to be, if more people are spending their money, prices go down. Banks follow that philosophy too. When people are borrowing more money, interest rates tend to go down. You know who doesn’t do this? Canada Post. Canada Post increases shipping surcharges during the Christmas Holiday Season claiming it’s required to “support additional staff, vehicles (and) extended hours”. Don’t businesses hire additional staff during the Christmas Holiday Season?  Don’t businesses extend their hours during the Christmas Holiday Season? How do they do it?  I think the concept is that profits increase when sales increase and while a share of those extra profits may be applied to those extra costs, overall there is a financial gain for the

  - jim Young When most people think of Santa Claus, they picture him flying around on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by eight (or nine if it’s foggy) tiny reindeer, delivering toys all over the world. But this year, you might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Santa also “Delivering Magic” from a red and white Coca-Cola Holiday Truck as he tours across Canada. Photo by Yvonne Metcalfe Images Beginning in St. John’s Newfoundland on November 13, Santa will visit over 100 communities as he travels coast to coast, ending up in Victoria, British Columbia by mid-December, giving Santa time to make his way back to the North Pole to prepare for his world wide tour on Christmas Eve. St. Nicholas of Myra Santa, as we know him today, has been associated with Coca-Cola for many years and Coca-Cola is, in part, responsible for how we see Santa Claus today. The very first Santa, St. Nicholas of Myra, was born in 280 A.D. and did not look anything at all like the Santa we know today. St. Nicho

The number of “Servings” in a recipe is always open for interpretation. It all depends on who you are serving. Children? Teenagers? Adults? Seniors? It might also depend on just how hungry the people you are serving are. For example, this recipe claims to serve two. That’s one pound of ground beef divided in half plus the balance of the ingredients. Despite what you might think when you look at my physique, a half pound of ground beef, plus pasta, plus vegetables is a lot for me to eat. My Shirley and I might typically eat a Quarter-Pounder at McDonald’s. Well, My Shirley wouldn’t. She would likely order a Big Mac which has less than a quarter pound of ground beef.  Of course there’s also the bun, pickles, lettuce, sauce and cheese. We’d likely split medium fries as well. Somehow eating a half pound of ground beef at one sitting however, just seems like a lot to us, no matter what you might serve it with. So the “2 servings” in this meal are usually split between My Shirley and I and w