Jude said:Well, I'm the one who started the privacy thing. The context was not
actually about specific ingredients, it was because she (my assumption;
could be wrong, don't DARE ask gender!!) was posting these delicious
sounding menus but they sounded very light and summery to me. I was
thinking from the way she wrote and the types of foods described that
she was here in the U.S., as many of us are, but then her menus led me
to believe that perhaps she was in a hemisphere that's living
summertime right now. So I asked. When she declined to answer, I said
okay, no big deal. Seems like that coulda been the end of it. But no,
this is Usenet, things always have to go too far.
And I still think it's appropriate to ask continent/hemisphere, even
when someone doesn't want to give a city, state, country, or anythig
too specific. It helps me to garner a good mental picture. Are they
sitting down to eat tuna in cucumber cups in a 20 degree blizzard? Much
different that eating it outside on the deck when it's 80 degrees with
a nice breeze. Location helps to create a complete picture, that's all.
As an example.......please, nobody take offense at being named! It
would be a little odd to think of Barb Schaller living in, say,
Ecuador, because she's been posting about heartier winteery foods that
wouldn't match up so well around the equator.Or Pandora. It would be
difficult to picture her living in Fargo, North Dakota, based on the
recipes she posts and the ingredients she uses. Am I making any sense?
You are making perfect sense.
I did not take the least offense when somebody asked me where I lived
because they couldn't believe what I said I'd had to pay for morels,
compared to what they pay in Chicago. Somebody's approximate location is
often relevant to the discussion - it's not as if you want their street
address.
She was almost certainly American from the way she wrote, but I thought
the menus were very peculiar. It was the sort of food I'm eating here,
now, in the middle of summer when the temperature can hit 40C - she
said, I think, that wherever she was the temperature was 40F, which by
Melbourne standards is a bit chilly.
We are of course assuming she *was* a she. There wasn't enough to go on.
I remember I always thought the long ago ubertroll Mrs Beeton was a bloke.
Christine
