broom Breaking News
| Easter emposters everybody to elope eggs. This seems to be a ceremony celebrated by zealous settlers. The hen harvest is hidden behind beehives and hedges. Some sane searchers seek to succeed in saving these. In certain cities it is the custom to compete by crashing the callow creature into another chicken |
caviar. The one has won whose would-be walnut isn’t weak. This ritual is
repeated until the remaining rascal is the ruin of the rest. We embolden you to
eat your egg, never employ eating in entertainment! Happy Holiday! (ALL) |
| (The World) Easter eggs, as pastel painted presents made of enormous eggs are called, tragically turned up too early. The early Easter eggs were seriously sighted in Siberia, where curious children came upon the hidden happiness under some brownish bushes. The eggs were apparently not able to read the |
cool calendars written in Cyrillic creations. So they
thought that their turning up the day they did was quite in order with
Easterly rituals. Sadly, the erring eggs exist no longer, because the
delighted dear children had an early Easter feast. (DD) |
| (Wandsworth) Vicars and Viscounts visited a vivacious venture where wild wood visitors were viewed. However, the worthy worthies were not amused when a harassed horde of rash rabbits ran riot and terribly threw over tables and chairs – vicars with them. The embarrassed ex-duke of Exeter excused | the excess by explaining that the excited exiled rabbits ruined the raffle out of misdirected energies. Those who lost their precarious balance were rather aggrieved and left aggravated. The rash rabbits were sent back into the woods without dinner. (BC) |
Interview with an Easter Ducky
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broom has had all kinds of personalities as interviewees, but the range of
creatures to be asked and to be presented seems still endless. Especially those
creatures that turn up only once a year are well-worth interviewing, since their
presence is a sign for a special season. This spring, Mike Flatley managed to
find a really impressive being that brings the tidings of Easter: an Easter
ducky. MF: I’m really glad you found the time to give broom an interview. Can you tell us exactly what your job is? |
ED: Peep. MF: Ah. I see. You have to look cute and fluffy. Well, little one, may I say so, you are extraordinarily successful in this. ED: Peep, peep. MF: You’re welcome. Do you sometimes assist the Easter bunny? ED: Peep, peep, peep. MF: Oh. Well, I confess, I hadn’t thought of that. But you’re right, the Easter bunny likes eggs without cracks or duckies popping out of them. ED: Peep. MF: What? You’re kidding me. ED: Peep, peep. |
MF: The Easter bunny is chasing you? You poor dear ducky, we’ll give
you shelter. ED: Peep? MF: Yes, you can grow up a healthy duck in here, Brian will surely be happy to have a pond next to his desk. ED: Peep, peep, peep. MF: It was my pleasure, little ducky. Hence, Mr Flatley and Mr Cullen enjoy the company of the little ducky dubbed Rosemary in their office. Easter always harbours some surprises, doesn’t it? (MF) |
Cooking and Slicing
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For your benefit – and that of your family – Harriet Kettle-Stove has kindly
agreed to give you some ideas for an Easter feast in the style of our ancestors.
She has dug out the recipe book of her great-great-grand-aunt Emily-Jane and
found a delicious ensemble of traditional succour and delightful nostalgia. Dear cooks and those who want to try and surprise their family, I am proud to present to you a piece of the never-ending wisdom of my beloved great-great-grand-aunt Emily-Jane, who has been dead for nearly 200 years now but whose notebooks have proved a treasure trove to all of us who belong to her family. Her feasts were always renowned for being especially spectacular and well-cooked, so try and make her proud by cooking Emily-Jane Stove’s Easter Feast 1. Curry Soup Isn’t it great India once belonged to the British Empire? This recipe is one of Aunty Emily-Jane’s ideas for celebrating the Empire. You have to put 4 pieces of meaty veal knuckle into a pan and add 1.7 litres of water. Add 2 large peeled onions studded with three cloves each. Cook until the meat is tender. Take the meat off the knuckle bones and cut it into small dice. Chop one of the onions finely. Now blend 50 g butter and 2 tablespoons of brown rice flour and add the chopped onion. Stir this mixture and the meat into the cooking liquid. Finally stir in the turmeric, mixed pepper and salt to taste. Delicious with a garnish of freshly cooked rice. 2. Buttered Prawns A delicious, easily-made and very welcome starter dish. If you don’t want your guests to start with the soup, serve this as the perfect beginning of your feast. Your prawns need to be beheaded and shelled. Heads and shells must be put into a pan with 150 ml white wine and 150 ml water. Add cayenne pepper | and salt
and a bit of nutmeg, then let it simmer. Toast enough bread for everyone and
butter it on one side. Now take your heads and shells and strain the mixture
into another pan, add a mixture of 4 tablespoons of softened butter and 2
tablespoons flour and stir gently until you’ve got a creamy sauce. Add the
prawns and cook for 2-3 minutes. Serve the prawns with the sauce on toast –
perfect! 3. Dressed Breast of Lamb What is Easter without an Easter Lamb? Here is Emily-Jane’s most beloved recipe for this all-time favourite. Take two breasts of lamb with the bones and add just enough water to cover. Boil them until the bone ends protrude and the rib-bones slip out of the meat easily. Detach the spine and cut off as much excess fat as possible. Then lay the breasts onto a greased baking tray. Brush the surfaces with egg yolk. Chop hyssop, marjoram and tarragon, parsley and onion and mix with dry bread crumbs. Spread this mixture evenly over the lamb meat and grill until lightly roasted on top. Your guests will just love it. 4. Emily-Jane’s Almond Cheesecakes You need one large lemon or orange and pare the rind of it thinly. Those stripes are to be boiled in water until they are soft. Pulverize them with some sugar and put them in a bowl. Then add 110 g sugar, some drops of orange-flower water (the able potioneer can whip this up in a twinkle) and finally mix in 110 g ground almonds. Now that’s ready put it away from nosy children and beat 2 whole eggs and 50 g melted butter and add it to the mixture. Whisk two egg whites until they are almost stiff and fold them into the mix. You need some pastry, now, and perhaps you’ve got a knack for charming it into the tartlet tins. Fill the pastry-lined tartlet tins with the mixture and bake for 20 minutes. Delicious, says everyone who has ever tasted those! Wishing you a very happy Easter and fun with the cooking, love, Harriet Kettle-Stove. |
Horticultural Horrors
In times when the mad bird disease is spreading fast and the snow is falling heavily, Easter has to be adapted to the situation. broom’s very own gardening expert Leslie Pagana Greenacre will provide alternatives to the usual rituals.
The Perfect Easter Egg | The good news first: At so low a temperature the virus cannot survive long. Now, for the bad news: No one can survive long at so low a temperature. If you look carefully around your garden, you might discover the one or the other bush underneath the snow and birds.
Should you be able to spot one, give it a good shake so that it will appear in its whole beauty. Unfortunately, now the next problem arises: What can you put on the twigs? The usual eggs are clearly out of place or everybody will be thinking you’re preparing for a biological attack on the neighbourhood. This year, you will have to do without bird eggs. The other alternatives are either too protected (dragon eggs), too | soft (reptile eggs) or too small (fish eggs). I advice you to look around your home and to take whatever comes in handy: tins, Christmas baubles, balloons, soap and so on. Paint these beautifully and attach a piece of string to it.
Since we have dealt with your bush now, it is time to think about the decoration for the ground. According to your ability you can do anything from ice bunnies to snow chicken. Don’t hesitate to use the birds lying around your garden, they will help you to get a convincing outer appearance. I’m afraid this is all I have time for. My plane is waiting. Easter in Morocco, something I have always wanted to see! Happy Easter Egg Hunt, (LPG) |
Crossword
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| 2 V | VI | |||||||
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Down
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____ ____PP ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____, ____ ____V____ ____ ____ ____! I II III IV II V VI IV VII V IV IV VII VIII V
Editors' Corner
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Easter Revisited Happy Easter, dear readers! We hope you have a wonderful time celebrating with your family and friends the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Or, if you believe in other religions, enjoy at least a quiet, peaceful time. We here at broom have our qualms about the general topic of Easter, as no doubt many of you out there will have as well. It’s not about the hope and love and good tidings that are connected with Easter. No, no, that’s just perfect and as it should be. It’s | more about the
actual idea of never-ending life. The idea of eternity has its very own and peculiar connotations in our world right now. Eternal life is exactly what Lord Voldemort is craving for, which makes it a very two-sided blade to talk about the happy tidings that death is not the end. Unfortunately, death really wasn’t the end for Voldemort. You out there, you who help us spread our motto of Resistance Rocks, please keep up hope that your life will never end in heaven. Please keep up |
your belief that there is a higher being guiding you and guarding you. But
don’t ever try to copy the never-ending life of the saints and Voldemort. All the means of prolonging life
unnaturally will end in you losing hope and kindness and all that makes life
worth living. You’ll be a non-entity for eternity. Don’t try to do that. Have a
happy Easter and be contended that in a spiritual way, you will always live on. Yours in fellowship, Mike Flatley and Brian Cullen. |