The Bookless Club: Do you cook with alcohol? Any tips?

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This week’s question for readers:

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Question: Do you cook with alcohol? Any tips?

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Send your answers by email text, not an attachment, in 100 words or less, along with your full name to Jane at [email protected]. We will print some next week in this space.

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Last week’s question for readers:

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Question: Do you have an example of how language failed, either catastrophically or amusingly?

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• Many moons ago, I took a German course at UBC. I had spoken German when I was little, but had lost most of it. The patterns of the language and the pronunciation came easily to me, but the vocabulary not so much. One day, my mom is cooking dinner with the fan on and I’m in the next room studying. I called out to her, “Mom, what does “wieder” mean?” She calls back, “Again,” and I called, louder, “What does wieder mean?” She responds, “Again.” This went on much longer than it should have before she came around the corner and said, “Cindy, ‘wieder’ means again!”

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Cindy Heinrichs

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• As a teacher I always try to encourage good manners. One young student was requesting something but didn’t use “please”. When I asked him what’s the magic word, he thought for a moment and with all sincerity replied “Abracadabra?” The only time in 40 years I got that answer. It still makes me smile to remember that moment.

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Sara Zenter

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• At my first job in Fort Langley, when I was 13 years old, the boss told me to start “5 to 9” the next day. Wanting to make a good impression, I stood outside and marched in proudly at 8:55 a.m., ready to work. The owner stared at me like I’d just dropped in from another planet and said, “You realize it’s 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., right?”

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Terri Axani

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• Your story made me laugh and reminded me of the time my mom asked my brother what time he was going to be home. He replied 6:30-7. To which my mom replied, “Wow! Denny, you’re so precise!”

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Rick Ripoli

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• A British classic is “four candles/fork handles” by the Two Ronnies. I loved your medical reference. As a doctor arriving in Canada, I found abbreviations differed, for example: ICU for ITU. Sometimes the same letters had different meanings in different fields. Some chats were strings of acronyms. I call them BA’s — bloody abbreviations.

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Ralph Jones

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• Before dinner at my grandmother’s house 75 years ago, we bowed our heads and closed our eyes for grace. The words sometimes changed, but Grandma always included the line, “Bless this food for its intended use. Amen.” My young ears heard: “Bless this food and the tomato juice”. I always wondered why tomato juice needed special mention but never asked.

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Dianne Dilts

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• Our adventurous 20-year-old son embarked on a sailing adventure with a buddy who happened to own a small, four-person sailboat. The goal was to transit the Panama Canal, reach Peru, and go mountain climbing. After several mishaps en route, including a demasting, my husband received a phone call from our son asking if it would be OK if he bought an outboard motor. My husband, not realizing they had a small dingy on board, said, “But what would you put it on?” To which he heard the answer, “American Express”.

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Name Withheld

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• I had a friend who occasionally misspoke in the most amusing ways. For example, instead of “varicose veins,” he would call them “various veins”. And once he warned us to beware the “March of Dimes”. My favourite was his story about the fantastic Thai island where he vacationed, an island that had all the “extinct” birds.

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Denis Vogel

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• Some years ago, my husband and I were at lunch with a friend. The server asked our friend if he would like the soup or salad? Our friend answered, “Yes please.” To which the server asked, “Which one?” Our friend answered again, “The super salad!” This exchange went back and forth a couple of times until the server clarified: “The soup OR salad?”