Things I've Learned: Public Art, Oatcakes, and Bison

Happy October! In a continuation of my "things I learned this week" posts (I missed last week's, oops), here are some things I learned in the past seven days.

1. #OpenArtYEG and City of Edmonton Public Art Collection -- These are online databases of public art around the city, with photos, maps, and descriptions. #OpenArtYEG is a new project that encourages people to submit "public art (or something strange and beautiful) in the YEG region". There's some neat stuff on the site and I love that the project is encouraging people to open their eyes to their everyday surroundings.

   

   City of Edmonton Public Art Collection

   

   Open Art Map Edmonton (#OpenArtYEG)

2. root vegetables store well in sand -- On a gardening blog that I follow I was surprised to see that the family was storing their carrots in buckets of damp sand. Apparently this is a great way to store root vegetables (carrots, potatoes, radishes, beets, etc.); they keep well for up to six months!

   

   (Royal Horticultural Society -- https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=666)

3. oatcakes -- After reading of the Outlander characters having oatcakes once again, I decided I needed to find out what this delicious sounding food was. As it turns out, they're not so much cakes as flat round biscuits, which -- you guessed it -- are made primarily of oats, sometimes with added flour, cooked on a griddle or baked. They've been a traditional Scotish staple since before AD 43. Here's a modernized oatcake recipe from Frugal Feeding that uses olive oil in place of fat. All you need is oats, olive oil, salt, pepper, and water! I'll have to try it soon.

   

   ("Oatcakes (1)" by Jon Thomson via Wikimedia Commons -- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oatcakes_(1).jpg#mediaviewer/File:Oatcakes_(1).jpg)

4. millinery -- We passed a millinery shop at Fort Edmonton Park and puzzled over what it might sell...low and behold, it was hats! According to Wikipedia, "millinery" is most likely derived from milener, an inhabitant of the fashion hub Milan. Apparently during the fur trade days, Canadian beaver felt top hats were all the rage in European fashion.
5. bison or buffalo? -- Though it's my goal to spot one while I'm in Alberta, I can never remember whether they're bison or buffalo. A little Googling informed me that the great animals that roam the North American plains are bison. Unlike their African and Asian buffalo relatives (same family, different genus and species), bison have a hump and thick beard. Their fur is also very thick, which explains the bison winter jackets we saw at Fort Edmonton Park.

   

   bison (left) and buffalo (right)
   (http://www.diffen.com/difference/Bison_vs_Buffalo)