On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, J C wrote: > there are a million different measurement systems currently > in operation at any time in the history of the empire. According to the OED, a "stick" used to be 25 or 26 small eels. In the middle of a rather-farther-along-than-we-wanted bit of cooking the other day, my gf (who I was forcing to abandon that horrible bottled lemon juice) tried to convert from tablespoons-of-bottled-juice to squeezed-whole-lemons. Four large lemons for two people is a lot. I managed to stop her at 1.75, which was still too much. Still waiting for _Mr. Valabar's Recipe Book_.