I thought today I would offer up a short quiz on Food. I was motivated by spending a few hours yesterday with my better-half making some of our good old down-home hot salsa with many of the ingredients coming from our garden. I sliced and diced veggies until my hands cramped but as always it was well worth the effort. The end result was 21 pints and three quarts of killer hot salsa. We’ve spent years creating and adjusting the recipe and we make a batch every Fall for our own use and gifts for family and friends during the holidays. As always the answers to this quiz will be listed below. Let’s see how you do.
1. What breakfast food gets its name from the German word for “stirrup?”
2. What drink is named for the wormwood plant?
3. What two spices are derived from the fruit of the nutmeg tree?
4. What product was introduced in Japanese supermarkets after a survey showed half the country’s young people weren’t able to use chopsticks?
5. What flavor ice cream did Dolly Madison serve at the inaugural festivities in 1812?
6. What did the homesick alien get drunk on in Steven Spielberg’s hit film from 1982, E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial?
7. What popular treat did 11-year-old Frank Epperson accidentally invent in 1905 and then patent in 1924?
8. What favorite recipe of her and her husbands did First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy have taped to the wall in the White House kitchen?
9. What popular soft drink contained the drug lithium-now available only by prescription-when it will was introduced in 1929?
10. What food product is named after Hannibal’s brother Mago?
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Answers
Bagel, Vermouth, Nutmeg & Mace, Trainer Chopsticks, Strawberry, Coors Beer, The Popsicle, The Daiquiri, 7-Up, Mayonnaise.
I like finding information in history that I’ve never heard before. Here are two samples of incidents that apparently are not common knowledge. Enjoy!
HARRY CARAY
We don’t know where or when the “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” seven-inning sing-along began, but one early claim and perhaps the one that popularized it was the result of a prank. In the 1970’s, baseball broadcaster Harry Caray, then a play-by-play announcer for the White Sox, was known to sing along to the song while in the broadcast booth, which was normally with the microphone off. Bill Veeck found out about this and one day unbeknownst to Caray he turned the broadcaster’s microphone on and piped Caray’s rendition to the fans. The fans absolutely loved it, and when Caray moved to the crosstown Chicago Cubs, he kept it going.
FORT SUMTER
Here’s a little tidbit from the Civil War era. Officially, the siege of Fort Sumter had a death toll of just two men, both Union soldiers. But those deaths weren’t at the hands of the Confederacy. Fort Sumter, low on provisions and undermanned, was unable to thwart the Confederate bombardment. Major Robert Anderson, the commander of the fort agreed to surrender after less than two days of bombardment, under the condition that his men be allowed to give a 100-gun salute when lowering the American flag. During that ceremony, some ammunition went off accidentally, killing Pvt. Edward Galloway and Daniel Hough, the only casualties.
I’ve stated many times as to my love for limericks especially those written by Isaac Asimov. Along with Isaac you must give a shout out to John Ciardi as well. He and Asimov had great fun trying to outdo each other with their written limericks. They even jointly published a book about their limerick feud which is a classic. These four limericks were written by John Ciardi for that book in response to a few that Asimov had written. I’ve read their book many times and still enjoy their bawdy humor. I hope you will enjoy it as well.
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The Times tells the world what is doing; Who’s winning, who’s losing, who’s suing, Whose striking, who’s stealing, Who’s dying, whose healing, But won’t say a word on who’s screwing.
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The girl who is really unbeatable Is the one with whom sex is repeatable. Who’s eternally screwable And always renewable, And who, most of all, is found eatable.
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There was a young woman named Cora Lee Who said, “I will do it immorally On top and bottom, Any way that I’ve got them, Vaginally, anally, and orally”.
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There once was a wicked old squire Who burned with libidinous desire. After screwing a nun And the minister son, He took all the girls in the choir.
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THE BOOK IS TITLED – ISAAC ASIMOV & JOHN CIARDI – A WAR OF WORDS
My life has been relatively interesting even though I spent a large part of that life in courthouses, courtrooms, and dealing with an ungodly number of attorneys, both good, bad, and some really bad. The general rule of mine was to ignore almost everything attorneys said to me and that served me well for three decades. They made me a believer of an old saying quoted by Edgar Allen Poe, “BELIEVE ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE AND NOTHING YOU HEAR”. I have a few friends that are actually very good attorneys and that just tells me there are exceptions to every rule. Today’s post is one of my favorite stories about attorneys. If and when you’re ever required to hire an attorney make sure you don’t get one like the one I’m about to tell you about.
Clement Vallandigham was an attorney and former US Congressman. In 1871, while defending a murder suspect in court, he argued that the alleged victim had not been murdered and could’ve accidently shot himself. Vallandigham took out a gun, held it as if at the scene of the crime and thinking it was unloaded, he pulled the trigger. Good news: He proved his point and his client was acquitted. Bad news: Vallandigham died from an accidental gunshot wound to the head.
Are there any wanna-be botanists out there? If so, todays post should really interest you. Finding interesting trivia about plants was a serious challenge but I’ve had some success. Here are twenty items you never knew about plants and botany. Here we go . . .
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At 167 calories per 3.5 ounces, avocados have the highest number of calories of any fruit.
The foxglove plant can help prevent congestive heart failure.
The cellulose in celery (mostly in its stringy fibers) is impossible for humans to digest. Most of the celery passes right through your digestive tract.
Juniper berries smell so strongly of evergreen trees that they have been chewed as a breath freshener.
Orchids have the smallest seeds. It takes more than 1.25 million seeds to weigh one gram.
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Oak trees do not have acorns until they are 50 years old or older.
Pollen is considered the “male” part of a plants reproductive system.
The greens, you see covering ponds might actually be a carpet of duckweed – the smallest plant with a complete root, stem, and leaf structure.
Cayenne pepper stimulates the appetite, as do the herbs dill, celery, dandelion, caraway, anise, garlic, leek, mint, tarragon, saffron, and parsley.
The word “herb” is from the old Sanskrit word bharb, meaning “to eat”.
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A lemon will lose 20% of its vitamin C content after being left at room temperature for eight hours, or in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
The eggplant is a member of the nightshade family, along with the potato and tomato.
An uncooked apple is 84% water.
If you wash an area of skin that has been exposed to poison ivy within 3 min. after exposure, the chemical urushhiol does not have time to penetrate the skin.
The herb peony, when dried and chewed, can help heal a cold sore.
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A banana is technically an herb because it grows on dense, waterfilled leaf stalks that die after the first fruit is produced. Botanists call the banana plant a herbaceous perennial.
Bananas are one of the easiest fruits to digest and trigger very few allergies. This is why they are an ideal food for babies.
It takes a coffee bean plant five years to yield consumable fruit.
The most widely cultivated and extensively used nut in the world is the almond.
Plant life in the oceans makes up 85% of all the greenery on earth.
I’m what most of you crazy avid sports fans would call a “fair weather fan”. I confess to that description to a certain degree. Only one sport has ever been all-consuming for me and that is baseball. I spent the better part of my youth playing baseball in Little League, high school teams, American Legion teams, and one local semi-pro team. Playing baseball was my life. Being on the field and playing was heaven for me but it has made watching modern baseball absolute torture. I was never bored while I was playing but watching it now is painful.
Todays blog will return me to those early years of baseball and will test those of you super-fans who have knowledge of the history of the sport. Here are some nicknames of well-known players from the past. Lets see how you do! As always the answers will be listed below.
WHO?
High Pockets
The Iron Horse
Goose
Little Poison
Three Fingered
Gabby
Bucky
Rube
The Trojan
Lippy
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Answers
George Kelly, Lou Gehrig, Leon Goslin, Lloyd James Warner, Mordecai Peter Brown, Charles Leo Hartnett, Stanley Raymond Harris, George Edward Waddell, John Joseph Evers, and Leo Durocher.
As most of you are well aware, I love limericks. And I don’t discriminate, I like them dirty, sexy, sassy, and any other way you can think of. With that in mind I recently discovered a book, a very small little book of limericks that were written more than 25 years ago. They’re not dirty, sexy, or sassy, but they are cute. These are silly limericks that will make you grin just a little and were almost certainly written for children. So if your let loose your inner child for just a bit you should enjoy these immensely.
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A ghost in the town of Khartoum Asked a skeleton up to his room. They spent the whole night In the eeriest fight As to who should be frightened of whom.
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A glutton who lived on the Rhine When asked what time he would dine, Replied, “At eleven, Four, six, three and seven, And eight and a quarter to nine.”
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A cheerful old bear at the zoo Could always find something to do. When it bored him to go On a walk to and fro, He reversed it, and walks fro and to.
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There was an old fellow named Green Who grew so abnormally lean, And flat, and compressed, His back touched his chest, And sideways he couldn’t be seen.
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There was the man from the city Who met what he thought was a kitty. He gave it a pat And said, “Nice little cat.” Just look at him now – what a pity!
This blog is titled Every Useless Thing and I’m feeling today that you all must certainly need a huge dose of useless information. Just when I thought I’ve heard the weirdest s**t possible I just keep finding more and more and more. After all the years of my doing trivia it still amazes me how often I find things that boggle my mind. Let’s see if that will happen to you today.
The waist produced by a single chicken in its lifetime could supply enough electricity to run a 100 watt bulb for five hours.
The odds of being struck by lightning are one in 10 million.
Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
In 1992 convicted killer Robert Alton Harris stated just before entering the gas chamber: “You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the Grim Reaper.”
The highest score ever achieved for one word in a Scrabble competition was 392 for the word caziques down two triple-word scores.
Mike Love, Pancho Villa, and Zsa Zsa Gabor were each married nine times.
Groucho Marx ate his first bagel at the age of 81..
Harrison Ford’s first film role was as a bellboy and his only line was “Paging Mr. Ellis”. Ellis was played by James Coburn.
Click Eastwood, Yasser Arafat, Elizabeth Taylor, Patrick Swayze, Sting, Luciana Pavarotti, Rowan Atkinson, and Ted Kennedy all survived plane crashes.
The odds of being killed in a road accident are one in 15,800.
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One of My Favorite Bands
The rock group 3 Dog Night obtained their name from an old Australian saying.“On a freezing night in the outback, a man would need to sleep with one dog to keep warm on a cold night, two dogs on a very cold night and three dogs on the coldest night.”
Now that the NFL preseason has kicked off, I can once again turn into the fanatical Steeler fan that tends to irritate everyone in Maine or New England. I’m not as rabid as some fans but I am criminally loyal to the Pittsburgh Steelers. I swore when the season started this year I was never going to be a Steeler fan again because of their lousy record in actually playing football in playoff games.
Sorry, but I once again lied. I’ve now decided to include the Tampa Buccaneers as my backup team if the Steelers suck again this year. I’ve always been a Baker Mayfield fan and I would love to see him in the Superbowl if the Steelers don’t or can’t make it.And one additional comment: Tell T.J. Watt to get with the program. Doesn’t he realize by now he’s letting his ego send a wrong message to the fan base (my personal opinion). He sounds a little whiny for the big bruiser that he is. Also, his post seasons are nothing to brag about either.
Today’s post is a trivia quiz on sports for those crazy-ass sports fanatics that are waiting to show me how good they are. We shall see. As always the answers are at the bottom.
Where did the territorial-capture board game Go originate, 4000 years ago?
During a serve in American racquetball, what is the first surface the ball must hit after the racket?
How many unique numbers are used in Sudoku?
When did Ralph Samuelson invent waterskiing?
What is the minimum number of moves needed to achieve checkmate in chess?
Which of these sports is not represented in the Olympics? Basketball, Cricket, Dressage, or Handball
Sam Roth hit the fastest tennis serve ever recorded in 2012. How fast was it?
Who holds the record for most points (100) in a single NBA game?
Who invented the game of Scrabble
When Bingo started sometime around 1929, what was it called?
1896
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Answers
China, The front wall, 9, 1922, 2, Cricket, 163 mi./h, Wilt Chamberlain, Alfred Mosher Butts, Beano.
I want introduce you today to a few limericks which have been laundered. I guess laundered means a lot of the truly vulgar language has been cleaned out and made more readable to entertain a larger group of people. I discovered these limericks in a very small little book published in 1960. They were newly written at the time but they’re still just as enjoyable as they were then.
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A herder who hailed from Terre Haute Fell in love with a young nanny goat. The daughter he sired Was greatly admired For her beautiful angora coat.
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There was the young laundress named Singer Whose bust was a round pink humdinger. But flat, black and blue It emerged into view The day it got caught in the wringer.
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A merchant addressing a debtor Remarked in the course of his letter. That he chose to suppose A man knows what he owes And the sooner he pays it the better.
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The bashful young bachelor Cleary Of girls was exceedingly leery. Then a lady named Lou Showed him how and with who He could render his evenings more cheery.
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And here’s a tongue twister for you.
Drew drew Lulu in a tutu, Lulu in a tutu Drew drew, Lulu drew Drew, too, Drew drew a few anew, Till who knew who in the hell drew who.
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