Roy Cross's Blog

This is the last ‘Free Resources’ message for 2023. I’ll not be back till Tuesday 9^th January, so here’s some longer reads to keep you going. Enjoy your Christmas break if you’re having one!

1. What I miss – or may simply have missed – in the 2023 edition of the British Council’s Global Perceptions report is any discussion of what young people think are the most important issues and challenges facing us today. Over 1,000 young people from each of 18 G20 countries were interviewed, with Russia not being included (but being much discussed) this time round. South Africa is the only African member of the G20. PDFs of whole report and conclusion only below.

2. Climate is certainly one thing that young people around the world give very high priority to. Thanks to Dave Reay for pointing me in the direction of this very comprehensive report on COP 28 https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop28-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-dubai/ Best dipped into rather than read straight through!

3. Two reports on AI and Education next: first, the UK Department for Education’s summary of the responses to their ‘call for evidence’ on Generative artificial intelligence in education:

https://consult.education.gov.uk/digital-strategy/generative-artificial-intelligence-in-education/

second, the British Council’s comprehensive literature-review-cum-forecast on Artificial intelligence and English language teaching: Preparing for the future

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/publications/case-studies-insights-and-research/artificial-intelligence-and-english-language

PDFs of both below.

3. The most recent issue of ELTJ (English Language Teaching Journal) has, as usual, a number of open access articles https://academic.oup.com/eltj/issue/77/4 PDFs of four that caught my fancy below:

i) CELTA tutors’ beliefs about online tutoring practices by Anna Hasper and Gary Barkhuizen https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article/77/4/479/7084637

ii) Exploratory action research: experiences of Nepalese EFL teachers by Sagun Shrestha, Suman Laudari & Laxman Gnawali  https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article/77/4/407/6693606

iii) In the Key Concepts in ELT series, English-medium instruction (EMI) by Ute Smit https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article/77/4/499/7197470

iv) Academic Coloniality in ELT: the case of an Algerian University by Walid Daffri & Hadjer Taibi. https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article/77/4/470/7083635

PDFs of all four below.

5. And, finally and more recent than I’d imagined, the world’s first ‘Word-Cross Puzzle’https://lithub.com/can-you-solve-the-very-first-published-crossword-puzzle/

1. If Christmas is something you simply can’t ignore in your part of the world, Onestopenglish have a variety of resources for Christmas lessons here, many of which (not all) are free to access https://www.onestopenglish.com/

2. OUP have clearly been taken to task for not practising what they preach. “We hope”, they say, “that you enjoyed our paper on Multimodality – but you may be asking yourself “Why wasn’t it multimodal?” Ask no more! We’ve created a digital, interactive version of the paper filled with videos and resources to help you explore the topic more easily!” Better late than never and it works well! https://oup.pagetiger.com/oup-multimodality-in-elt/nov-2023

3. Bookpocalypse: AI and the Risks to Literature and Free Expression was the title of the annual English PEN HG Wells Lecture that Monica Ali gave at the end of last month in Newcastle, exploring the threat that AI may pose to novelists and creatives in the future https://youtu.be/BWD4P5VFtrQ?feature=shared

The transcript of Monica’s lecture is here https://pentransmissions.com/2023/12/01/bookpocalypse-ai-and-the-risks-to-literature-and-free-expression/

and a reminder that the PEN blog, Transmissions, is here https://pentransmissions.com/

4. Three from BBC Radio 4 that I’ve enjoyed on my way up and down the A1 between Cambridge and Richmond recently:

i) Andrew Scott’s reading of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in ten fifteen-minute episodes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rx6hl

 ii) this year’s Reith Lectures by Ben Ansell, Our Democratic Future, in which he asks how we can make politics work for all of us in the 21st century https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9 The last lecture of the four is broadcast tomorrow.

iii) Annie Ernaux’s The Years, miraculously compressed https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001t2xz

5. And, finally and soothingly, Sheep in Winter by John Clare https://poets.org/poem/sheep-winter

1. As usual with Green Action ELT events, scroll down the page a little* for more information on this one on at 14:00 UK time tomorrow, Friday 15 December, Showcasing 2023: inspiring environmental stories from ELT https://green-action-elt.uk/events/ Registration here https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYkceyhrjopE9a7nIzpBobH5EzRW0dFdE9z#/registration

* Old fogey that I sometimes feel, I used to think that all files and still think that all web pages should have the most recent stuff on top! (The MS Word editor flagged ‘old fogey’ and warned me that ‘some age-related terms may strike your readers as biased’.)

2. Three pieces I’ve read recently on the war in Palestine:

i) a forthright interview with the former prime minister of Qatar in Der Spiegel, possibly too forthright for the interviewer’s comfort https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/former-qatari-premier-on-the-gaza-conflict-the-worst-thing-would-be-a-ceasefire-without-a-plan-a-bb9af49a-5c72-4767-8fc5-baac68cf67e3

ii) a piece (that I hope you can access) by Martha Giessen in The New Yorker, In the Shadow of the Holocaust, that puts the Der Spiegel interviewer’s discomfort into historical perspective https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust Let me know if you can’t access that second one, and I’ll see what I can do for you.

iii) Selma Dabbagh’s post on the LRB blog about the situation in Gaza, Don’t Look Away https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/december/don-t-look-away

3. Two pieces on ‘male language’ from The Conversation:

i) a little more on that word ‘rizz’ by Tom F. Wright from Sussex University, Rizz: I study the history of charisma – here’s why the word of the year is misunderstood https://theconversation.com/rizz-i-study-the-history-of-charisma-heres-why-the-word-of-the-year-is-misunderstood-219673

ii) a whole lot of other words I’d never heard or read before in this piece by Robert Lawson from Birmingham City University, A dictionary of the manosphere: five terms to understand the language of online male supremacists https://theconversation.com/a-dictionary-of-the-manosphere-five-terms-to-understand-the-language-of-online-male-supremacists-200206

4. I think there’s something in what John McWhorter says in this guest post on the Persuasion blog, Say No to Police Profanity https://www.persuasion.community/p/say-no-to-police-profanityMcWhorter teaches linguistics at Columbia University and writes for the New York Times.You can find his podcast, Lexicon Valley, here https://substack.com/@johnmcwhorterand here’s his most recent piece for the NYT, Black Students Are Being Trained to Think They Can’t Handle Discomfort http://tinyurl.com/3psk23my

5. And, finally, with its origins in Bokhara in Uzbekistan, a piece from Taste by Jason Diamond, The Many Garlics of My Childhood https://tastecooking.com/the-many-garlics-of-my-childhood/

Blog version: https://roycross.blog/

1. The culmination of the European Centre for Modern Languages’ 6th ‘medium-term programme’ of projects, Inspiring innovation in language education: changing contexts, evolving competences, which ran from 2020 to 2023, is the conference tomorrow and Wednesday, 13^th & 14^th December, f2f in Graz and online.

Programme here (and PDF below)  https://www.ecml.at/ECML-Programme/Programme2020-2023/Conference2023/tabid/5804/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

and live stream from 13:00 UK time tomorrow and 08:00 UK time on Thursday here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6VeykCphsc

2. There was talk on the radio this morning of politicians ‘simply parroting empty platitudes’. The good news is that they now have real competition https://news.northeastern.edu/2023/04/21/parrots-talking-video-calls/

3. The December edition of HLT (Humanising Language Teaching) is just out https://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec22/ No immediately obvious geographical focus this time. Try the following:

Telegram as a Tool for Remote Teacher Training by Juana Sagaray, Maria Teresa Fernandez & Wendy Arnold https://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec22/page/?title=Telegram+as+a+Tool+for+Remote+Teacher+Training&pid=4125

What is ‘Zoom Fatigue’ and How Does It Affect Language Teachers? by Jill Hadfield and Lindsay Clandfield https://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec22/what-is-zoomfatigue

PDFs of both articles below.

4. If you don’t know what umuzigo w’inyongera means or even what language it is, ask Google Translate, as I did. Without batting an eyelid, it identified the language as Kinyarwanda and offered ‘additional burden’ as the translation – a more difficult challenge than my usual enquiries about the position of the accents on French words!

The authors of this newly published paper, Umuzigo w’inyongera: girls’ differential experiences of the double-burden of language and gender in Rwandan English medium secondary education,Lizzi O. Milligan, Aline Dorimana, Aloysie Uwizeyemariya, Alphonse Uworwabayeho, Terra Sprague, Laela Adamson and (Harry to his friends) Kuchah Kuchah, as you can see from the paper title, translate umuzigo w’inyongera as ‘double burden’, which I reckon just beats Google Translate to the draw.

“Decades of research have consistently demonstrated the negative role of an unfamiliar language of learning and teaching in children’s educational experiences and outcomes across sub-Saharan Africa. Concurrently, there has been substantial literature that has highlighted the role of contextualised gendered norms  and  practices  in  constraining  girls’  educational  access,  experiences  and  outcomes. However, there has been extremely limited consideration of the impact of the language that girls learn in.”

Download here https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09500782.2023.2288635

and PDF below.

5. One TeachingEnglish event that wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the programme that I posted the other day was Robin Skipsey’s Facebook Live talk this Thursday, 14^th December, at 10:00 UK time, How do we support literary obstacles in the young teen classroom?

You can join the 349 people already interested at the time of writing here https://www.facebook.com/events/883446160162306/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[]%7D&locale=en_GB

Ever so slightly mistitled, I suggest!

6. And, finally, gleaned from a footnote in Keiron Pim’s biography of Joseph Roth that I’m much enjoying reading, a tram-ride through Vienna in 1906 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6SrB6r3MA

1. Here (below) is a useful one-page summary PDF of TeachingEnglish activity in December. Scan the QR code in the bottom right hand corner to subscribe to their newsletter for yourself, or sign up directly here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/subscribe-our-newsletter

The TeachingEnglish team are also looking for speakers for their online events https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/call-speakers-2024-5 Don’t be shy now!

2. The final event in LanguageCert’s ‘Energise Your Classroom’ series of webinars, Using Music to Inspire Language Learners, is next Wednesday, 13^th December at 15:00 UK time. Registration here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/2516934794964/WN_vMlVl3ETSvSxTbcrYpOElg#/registration

3. I pinched this one from Timothy Shanahan’s blog, Shanahan on Literacy from The ELT Buzz News Report, Why Main Idea is Not the Main Idea – Or, How Best to Teach Reading Comprehension https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/why-main-idea-is-not-the-main-idea-or-how-best-to-teach-reading-comprehension

More Buzz here https://eltbuzz.substack.com/p/the-elt-buzz-news-report-741

4. The London Review of Books try quite hard to have you buy a subscription to their podcast, Close Readings. The good news is that you don’t have to! Info on the whole series, including the paid-for options, here https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings

Try Irina Dumitrescu & Mary Wellesley on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/medieval-beginnings-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight

or Mark Ford & Seamus Perry on Katherine Mansfield’s short stories https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/the-long-and-short-katherine-mansfield-s-short-stories

5. My Hajj is an account which taught me a lot by Adnan Mahmutović from Stockholm of the haji trip he made earlier this year to Medina and Mecca https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2023/november/my-hajj-adnan-mahmutovic

6. And, finally, my favourite saxophonist, Jan Garbarek https://youtu.be/bLOlcYD3VkY?feature=shared

1. Hmm! I’d never heard the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year, rizz, until this morning (and it’s not in my MS Word dictionary either, not yet anyway) https://corp.oup.com/news/rizz-crowned-oxford-word-of-the-year-2023/ Are they possibly trying too hard to be cool?

This was the eight-word shortlist from which rizz emerged as the winner https://corp.oup.com/news/eight-words-go-head-to-head-for-oxford-word-of-the-year-2023/

Other dictionaries’ ‘words of the year’ were announced a little earlier https://roycross.blog/2023/11/17/friday-17th-november-cambridge/

2. I was looking for another New York Times article that I wanted to ‘gift’ – a long essay on AI – this afternoon and couldn’t find it, but I stumbled over this collection of short films about immigration to the USA, with an introduction by Viet Thanh Nguyen the author of The Sympathizer, instead, From Here to Home: five films about immigration and belonging https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/19/opinion/opdocs-immigration.html (Don’t think I need to ‘gift’ it, so just the standard URL.)

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on The Sympathiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sympathizer

3. And then I found the AI article under my nose on today’s front page! Inside the A.I. Arms Race That Changed Silicon Valley Forever https://tinyurl.com/y3f66984

“ChatGPT’s release a year ago triggered a desperate scramble among tech companies and alarm from some of the people who helped invent it.”

4. There may be a very simple reason for some countries’ greater success in international education surveys like the PISA test: having the same teacher for longer. Here’s Diane Ravitch’s Blog: Adam Grant: What We Can Learn From International Assessments https://nepc.colorado.edu/blog/adam-grant

Coincidentally – honest! – the 2022 PISA test results were published today: https://www.oecd.org/publication/pisa-2022-results/

5. Two ‘and finallys’ today, as I’m not sure how this works if you don’t have a Telegraph account: Ed Cumming’s account of the supermodel, Aitana López This woman is Spain’s hottest model – but she’s not real https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/04/aitana-lopez-ai-influencer-social-media-artificial/You can register for a free Telegraph account.

6. And today’s second ‘and, finally’, an old fogey video from the BBC archive, 1977: Skateboarding Craze Hits the UK https://youtu.be/VfJjmMLbQoA?feature=shared

1. Oak National Academy here in the UK is in the news at present, as a result of the UK government’s plans to have Oak offer free curriculum resources to schools, described in apocalyptic terms by The Bookseller as “an unprecedented and unevidenced intervention that risks causing irreparable damage to the school sector as we know it”.

Oak have been quick off the mark: here’s an introductory lesson on the history of the English language https://www.thenational.academy/teachers/programmes/english-secondary-ks3-l/units/the-oral-tradition-7424/lessons/the-english-language-cgw36d#slide-deck and there’s many more of Oak’s ‘time-saving teaching resources’ here https://www.thenational.academy/#teachers

Here’s the whole of that piece from The Bookseller, outlining the controversy from a publisher’s perspective https://www.thebookseller.com/news/high-court-decides-judicial-review-claim-over-oak-national-academy-can-proceed

2. Stacks more resources here, in the Education & Training Foundation (ETF) resource library https://www.et-foundation.co.uk/resources/resource-library/ Put ‘ESOL’ or ‘English’ in the search bar, if that’s what you’re after, as ‘ELT’ doesn’t produce any results. Thanks to Nik Peachey for this one!

3. Can technology narrow the equity gap in language education? is – nay, was! – the title of the next PIE webinar at 13:00 UK time this Thursday, 30^th November. I got my dates in a muddle. But you can register to watch the recording here (at double speed if you like) https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_A9nIU1nwSUiZhZDpjPXsFA#/registration

4. There’s a new ‘position paper’ out from OUP, written by Hayo Reinders, Supporting Refugees: a primer for language teachers https://corp.oup.com/news/new-paper-equips-teachers-and-schools-to-support-refugee-learners/

“In recent years, many language teachers have experienced having one or more refugee learners in their classes. Such learners often have specific educational, social, and affective needs, which many teachers feel they are ill equipped to deal with. This position paper is written with such teachers in mind, particularly those who have not received specialized training in teaching refugee learners.”

 5. And, finally, some great Venn diagrams from Matt Shirley. Try #2, A Little Venn I Made and #4, Tag Someone Who Listens To Bad Music Loudly https://www.boredpanda.com/hilarious-relatable-charts-matt-shirley-2/

1. The application process for A. S. Hornby Educational Trust scholarships for study in the UK has just opened for English language teachers from outside the UK to study on the one-year MEd TESOL at the University of Exeter from September 2024. The deadline for receipt of applications is 1 March 2024, and there are two (online) application forms to complete, the Exeter University one, which you need to do first, and the Hornby Trust one, both to be found here https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/funding/award/?id=4676

More info about the scholarships and the Hornby Trust more generally here https://www.hornby-trust.org.uk/scholarships#Scholarships

A life-changing experience, say previous Hornby scholars!

2. I missed this balanced article by Ann Veitch in EL Gazette the first time round back in July, Is EME beneficial to students? https://www.elgazette.com/is-eme-beneficial-to-students/

“In basic education (BE), the perception of governments, parents and learners is often that learning subjects through English is advantageous for educational and career success, but there is little (if any) evidence to support this view.

“In higher education (HE), there are many perceived advantages to EME, including economic growth, university prestige, access to intercultural learning, increased student revenue and increased competency in English, However, again, evidence to support most of these benefits is limited or lacking, partly due to a lack of monitoring and evaluation of EME programmes.”

PDF below (which I hope doesn’t get me into trouble with the editor-in-chief).

[PDF x 1]

3. Here’s a peach (rhymes with Veitch) of a freebie from Peachey Publications, Cooperative Learning and the Sustainable Development Goals https://payhip.com/b/obOwr Big file so not attached to e-mail but on WhatsApp and the blog.

“With its practical approach and rich content, this book equips teachers with the tools they need to foster collaborative environments, enhance language proficiency, and cultivate global citizenship through engaging and impactful lessons.” (I still haven’t quite come to terms with ‘impactful’ but that’s my problem, not Nik’s!)

4. What should those of us who voted ‘remain’ in the Brexit referendum make of this article from PLOS One, I wonder? Cognitive ability and voting behaviour in the 2016 UK referendum on European Union membership https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289312(PLOS stands for Public Library of Science.) PDF below.

Plus a recent Radio 4 Analysis programme on The Democratic Brain, which explores similar territory https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001r1gn

“Our brain is a wonderful machine, but it can also short-circuit. What happens to us when emotions and politics intersect, when the democratic, listening brain is cut off, or when we succumb to ‘hate speech’? Research using the latest brain scanners shows that the older part of the brain called the amygdala is ‘triggered’ by emotional responses out of proportion to the impacting stimulus. So, perhaps are we after all wolves in human clothing? Not necessarily: we have also developed the frontal cortex which the scans show is stimulated by rational argument. What can scanning the brain reveal about our political affiliations? Can the field of neuro-politics improve political discourse or leave us open to manipulation?”

5. And, finally, some absurd trolley problems from Neal https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/ More good stuff from him here https://neal.fun/ Not quite sure who Neal is, mind you – he might be a bot!

Three online events to start with today:

1. Next Tuesday, 28^th November, at 15:00 UK time, the 2023 Mercator Multilingualism Lecture with Dr Sharon Unsworth from the Centre for Language Studies at Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen, What (not) to expect when raising or working with bilingual children. More info & registration here https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lIV4lLo_SvWhz8PRnP9jwg#/registration

“Children growing up bilingually acquire their two or more languages in much the same way as monolingual children. At the same time, there are clear differences. When raising or working with bilingual children, it’s important to know what these differences are so that you have realistic expectations about what children should or should not do.”

PDFs with Sharon’s full abstract and biography below, in both Frisian and English, so you can parallel text practise your Frisian!

2. The next free NATESOL online event, at 16:00 UK time next Wednesday, 29^th November, is How to provide an inclusive environment for autistic learners with, waiting for, or without an autism diagnosis with Carly Miller from Leeds University. Register here: www.natesol.org 

 “Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition, and it is estimated that more than one in one hundred people are autistic. However the process to get an autism diagnosis is not quick and learners arriving from other countries may not have been given a diagnosis. So how do we provide an inclusive environment when we do not know which members of our classroom might be experiencing barriers?”

PDF of flyer for Carly’s talk below.

3. This next one’s a workshop, not a talk, so be prepared to work – and talk! Next Thursday, 30^th November, at 15:00 UK time, sees the final CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, to give it its full title) online workshop in the 2023 series, Putting mediation into practice, with Enrica Piccardo & Brian North.

More info here https://www.ecml.at/News3/TabId/643/ArtMID/2666/ArticleID/2864/Putting-mediation-into-practice.aspx

and registration here https://coe-int.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Ikf-2grzspHtf4kUouyf5DKUrf3Z31kr3s#/registration

PDF of blessedly short background reading below!

4. Dyslexia is another condition that’s often undiagnosed. Boelo van der Pool, originally from The Netherlands and now living in Spain, has put together a very useful free guide, Teaching English to Students with Dyslexia which you can download here https://boelovanderpool.com/ PDF below as well just in case that’s easier.

5. And, finally, more positive in nature than Tuesday’s last item, the winners of this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2023/oct/11/2023-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-winners-in-pictures

A bit of a climate theme today …

1. The next Green Action ELT online event, at 14:00 UK time this coming Friday, 24^th November, is Green activism: how far can we go? with Linda Ruas. It asks the question, “How far can we go in our language classes to encourage our learners to become environmental or climate activists?”

More info here https://green-action-elt.uk/events/

and registration here https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYrdO-opjktGdFRFdrm-h3TvfAKLR0mwAuQ#/registration

There’ still time to enrol in the TeachingEnglish Climate Action course I mentioned a while back, if you missed it first time round https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/training/climate-action-language-education

Interesting that they seem to have no misgivings on the activism score: the blurb states that this free course “aims to help you integrate environmental issues in English language teaching and develop the skills you need to take and sustain meaningful and impactful action to protect the environment in your local context”.

2. A long piece on Greta Thunberg and Palestine which raises lots of issues, some usefully annoyingly, by no fewer than six journalists from Der Spiegel, Has Greta Thunberg Betrayed the Climate Movement? https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-potential-rift-in-the-climate-movement-what-s-next-for-greta-thunberg-a-2491673f-2d42-4e2c-bbd7-bab53432b687

3. Here’s a TeachingEnglish lesson plan (for both face-to-face and online classes) intended for primary age learners from the ages of 8 to 12 with A2 English (but would also work, I think, with older pupils with less strong English) on The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) intended to introduce the SDGs and the thinking behind them to your learners https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-resources/teaching-primary/lesson-plans/level-2/sustainable-development-goals Lots of downloads, of which two below, the f2f lesson plan and the f2f worksheet

4. Grazzia Maria Mendoza Chirinos and Leticia Araceli Salas Serrano co-edited the recently published book, Empowered Women in ELT: A collection of Worldwide Stories, “a collection of narratives from worldwide, empowered, and inspiring women who share their achievements, sources of inspiration, paths and how they overcame their challenges”. Neatly book-ended by two expatriate Argentinians, who wrote the foreword (Annie Altamirano) and the epilogue (Dario Banegas)! https://sites.google.com/view/empoweredwomenineltseries/volume-1-stories?authuser=1

Book download here (and PDF below) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sqs0jbtMJgc_aFfMp5mNC70jtdTK5P6x/view

5. And, finally and damagingly to one’s remaining faith in the essential goodness of human nature, from the comments on a New York Times recipe for Cheesy Hasselback Potato Gratin: comment from Person A: “I’d remove the butter, cheeses, and cream and use olive oil and a few other herbs (rosemary and the like). Would work better for my Mediterranean taste” [1 like]; reply from Person B: “It’s fine you don’t like this kind of recipe but it’s not necessary to tell us what you made instead. These notes are to help people with the recipe. We don’t need to know about you. Go ahead and have a peanut butter sandwich. Or a slice of pizza. Just don’t write us notes about it please” [473 likes]. Recipe here so you can make your own mind up whether it’s worth making – I think I agree with Person A! https://tinyurl.com/3j774m8c