Category Archives: food

JUST DESSERTS

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When I’m in Indianapolis, I stay with my friends, Rick and Karen, who have a condo downtown, a few blocks from Monument Circle.  They know all of the fine downtown restaurants—I think, in fact, that Rick has a couple of places that have tables for him whenever he goes in—and, worse, they know all of the dessert places.

The most recent visit involved three excellent dinners and three visits to dessert places none of us had any business going into.  The last night we went to something called The Sugar Factory.

I should have turned and run as fast as I could the other way.

Of all the items on the menu, I thought the Strawberry Cheesecake Milk Shake sounded the most tasty and probably the simplest of the desserts.  Boy, was I ever wrong.

There was the milk shake in a sugar-topped glass and a straw.  But the straw was there mainly to hold the other elements together. Whipped cream and candy strawberries topped the shake itself, topped by the cheesecake and more whipped cream, a real strawberry, and then a strawberry/chocolate cupcake topped by more whipped cream.

God help me!  I ate and drank it all.  The cupcake was nothing to write a blog about but the cheesecake was pretty good and the strawberry milkshake was just the right thickness and flavor.

The eight-block walk back to the condo was done at a fairly leisurely pace.

I had planned to spend a fourth night, after the race, but I decided to stick around only long enough to take the pictures I wanted and then head home early, listening to the rest of the race on the radio (it is, after all, about a 400-mile drive).  I told Rick I was leaving early because I didn’t think I could survive another dessert.

If my doctors were to look closely at my blood samples, I am sure they would find I don’t have white blood cells.  I have vanilla blood cells.

Once a week Nancy and I get together with a couple friends for game night—dominoes, Rummikub, Five Crown, Swoop, stuff like that.  Halfway through the evening, or when we change games, is dessert time.  No matter what the basic treat is—brownies, cobblers, cake, whatever—ice cream is the vital ingredient.  Always too much ice cream.

On our refrigerator, amidst the numerous pictures of grandchildren, cartoons, the next shopping list and assorted refrigerator magnets, is an advertisement I found in a 1916 Jefferson City newspaper. I look at it the way some people consider their bumper stickers, “He said it. I believe it. So it’s true.”

In 1916 the ad assured buyers that Weber’s ice cream was safe to eat, produced in sanitary surroundings, and was not the impure foods of the time found in grocery stores, themeat sometimes hanging openly in the windows.   Eat our ice cream and you’ll be alive tomorrow to eat more.  That kind of message.

But in today’s FDA-regulated food environment, I am comfortable reading it another way—that ice cream is an essential food group.

I think it is a genetic flaw.

While doing some family research a few years ago, looking for references to my great-grandfather, a Union (with Sherman) Civil War veteran, I uncovered a family secret

A longer article in the Decatur (Ill.) Evening Bulletin from July 6,1896 telling me that Robert Thomas Priddy and his partner, A. A. Cooper, both experienced dairymen, had bought “the milk depot and ice cream business “in the basement of Fay’s meat market on the west side of Lincoln Square.”

A year later:

I inherited my addiction to ice cream from an ancestor who was with Sherman at Vicksburg and later helped capture Little Rock.

He died in 1925.

In the old family photographs, he’s thin. It’s clear he didn’t dip into the inventory as often as he could have.

I wonder what he would have thought of that Strawberry Cheesecake Milkshake at The Sugar Factory.

 

 

 

Notes From a Quiet Street

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(being miscellaneous unconnected topics flitting through an aging mind)

This was The Quiet Street a couple of weeks ago. . Soon it will be a quiet ugly WINTER street. Just skeletal trees—the walnut tree on the right already had denuded itself. Snow now and then that turns to dirty slush. We are nearing the time of discontent.  The inner curmudgeon, who hides when it is warm and the trees and yards are lush and green, is beginning to emerge.

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Went to the drive-through line at a fast food restaurant the other day to pick up a large Coke and the lady at the window called me “sweetheart” twice within five seconds when she handed it to me.

Please, if you are an employee of a retail establishment, don’t call your customers “sweetheart,” or “dear,” or “honey” or any other such enderments. Especially if your customer is a curmudgeon who also doesn’t like people to wish him a good day. Be aware your customer, curmudgeon or not, is probably gritting his or her teeth as they walk or drive away.

Every now and then when somebody says, “Have a good one,” I respond, “I do.”  Not that they listen. Sometimes they personalize it: “You have a good one.” I am sometimes tempted to ask, “How do you know?” Maybe one of these days one of them will wonder what I meant.

Serves them right.

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A friend was talking about setting his clock radio on a country-western station that played such awful music that he was instantly awake and motivated into instant action—to turn off the radio.  It reminded me of hearing, during a Sons of the Pioneers Concert (with Roy Rogers Jr.) in Jefferson City a couple of years ago, one of the guys defining the difference between western music, which the Sons do, and country music. It went something like:

“Western music is about the outdoors—the trails, the mountains, the open plains, the sky, the cattle.  Country music is about the indoors—cheatin’ and lyin’ and  cryin’ and diein’.”

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We watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Washington Football Team a few days ago.  They used to be the Washington Redskins but finally decided to abandon the name after years of hearing Native Americans and others complain that the team name was a racial slur.  This is the second year the team hasn’t had a name and didn’t even have a “W” on the helmets in the game against the Chiefs.

We’ve decided the owners need some help in picking a new name.  Perhaps you have some suggestions you could offer in our response box below:

–Washington Anonymous Sources (The Washington Anons for short)

–Washington Leakers

—Washington Insurrectionists

—Washington Peaceful Tourists

—Washington Bureacrats (likely to be considered a slur, too)

—Washington Statesmen (well, somebody needs to be statesmen in that town)

—Washington Monuments

—Washington Lobbyists

—Washington Campaigners

—Washington Partisans

—Washington Deficits

—Washington Malls

What’s in YOUR head? No profanities allowed and remember children watch these teams play.

The Cleveland baseball team will be the Cleveland Guardians next year. Chief Wahoo bit the dust a couple of years ago and the team removed the “Indians” sign from the stadium a few days ago.

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A lot of today’s young people are not attracted to church because the music isn’t their kind of music.  Old Rugged Cross and Onward Christian Soldiers don’t resonate with them. The other day our pastor read the lyrics to an old favorite hymn—-and reading hymn lyrics can sometimes change our understanding of what the song (or the original poem) was all about.  I, for one, like to read hymns.

The Broadway Musical Hamilton is interesting to your vigilant observer because it displays a previously-unrealized musicality that can exist within Rap. When do you suppose church hymns carrying that Rap musicality will catch on—and whether that new kind of music will make church more meaningful to the “Nones” and the “Dones.”

Wonder what Organ Rap would sound like.

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And finally, this headline we could not resist from a few days ago:

COLLEGE COACHING VETERAN JOE LEE DUNN HAS PASSED

Passed what?   A kidney stone?  A nickel he swallowed?

Have his teams always just run with the ball?  Was it a completion?  Did get get a touchdown?  First down?

Ohhhhhhh.  It means he died. We trust that the headline was intentional because it was fitting. However…..

I have a long collection of obituary first paragraphs containing dozens of phrases that people use to avoid saying “died.”

One of my journalism professors told the class one day that “passing away” is a quarterback who hurls the ball downfield. It sails over the hands of he receiver, clears the goalposts and is last seen disappearing over the top of the stadium.

“THAT,” he said, “is passing away.”

People die.

The Dark History of Missouri’s first Thanksgiving

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Today’s the day.

Your obedient servant hates to be at home for much of Thanksgiving Day. Working in the newsroom on Thanksgiving morning was a refuge.  The Missourinet always worked holidays because news happens on holidays, too (a major oil spill at Christmas during the Ashcroft administration, for example), so the news staff split the day with one person on duty in the morning and a second one working the afternoon.

The reason for seeking refuge in the newsroom?   To avoid the hours of agony of smelling the turkey being cooked.  Better to get home about 1 p.m. so the torture would last only a short time.  Giving thanks on Thanksgiving Day for the opportunity for newsroom refuge all morning was never publicly expressed but was an unspoken message from your servant to his ultimate master.

Missouri did not formally celebrate Thanksgiving until 1844.  And there is a tragic part of that story.

Governor Thomas Reynolds, a Kentucky native who had been the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois and after that, served three terms in the Illinois House.  He moved to Fayette, Missouri and quickly was elected to the Missouri House where he immediately became the Speaker.  After a few years as a circuit judge, he became our seventh governor in 1840. His greatest achievement as governor was eliminating imprisonment for debt.  And on October 16, 1843 he proclaimed the official celebration of Thanksgiving in Missouri:

WHEREAS, it is considered right and proper that we should gratefully acknowledge the goodness of God, displayed in the preservation of our lives, our civil and religious liberties, and our republican institutions, and for every blessing, temporal and spiritual, which we enjoy, and

WHEREAS, the protection of the State from invasion, insurrection and intestine commotion, and the citizens from pestilence and plague, equally demands a return of thanks to Him whose arm has brought this protection;

Now, THEREFORE, under a full sense of obligation and duty, and in accordance with the request of various religious denominations, I, Thomas Reynolds, Governor of the State of Missouri do by this public proclamation recommend to the people of the State, that, without any distinction of sect, denomination or creed, they observe Thursday, the thirtieth day of November, next, as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for his favor extended to us nationally and individually. “Duly signed and sealed under date October 16 1843.

What was the first Thanksgiving like in Missouri?  Amitai Etzioni and Jared Bloom, in their 2004 book, We Are What We Celebrate: Understanding Holidays and Rituals, offer William J. Hammond’s account in the Missouri Republican:

It was the first Thanksgiving Day observed in this state…and you may suppose the most was made of it…There was all sorts of frolicking…

In the morning the…Churches were thrown open for religious exercises and all were crowded to overflowing. The afternoon was observed by the gathering together of all the members of families…as I had no fireside to go to…nor no relation to talk with…the afternoon was spent with me walking like a lost sheep waiting to be gathered into the fold. But the afternoon would not last always, and night came, and with it, my time for fun. There were Methodist Sewing Societies, Presbyterian Tea Parties, and Balls in abundance and it was some time before I could make up my mind which to attend. I finally decided to stick to first principles and go to a Methodist Sewing Society.

The one which I attended was held at Mrs. McKee’s…At an early hour quite a company was assembled…All passed very pleasantly until about 8 o’clock, when Miss Mary took a particular spite against the Piano and commenced hammering it, with vocal accompaniment, which frightened me considerably and I sloped. The evening not being far advanced, I…[gave] the Presbyterians a pop by going to their Tea Party; they had a splendid supper, good speeches were made by several gentlemen, and I regretted that I did not go there first as I never spent my time more agreeably.

Governor Reynolds did not live to celebrate the first official Missouri Thanksgiving that he had proclaimed. On the morning of February 9, 1844, after breakfast and a prayer, Reynolds retired to his office at the first Executive Mansion.  He put a rifle to his forehead and pulled the trigger. He left behind a note: “In every situation in which I have  been placed, I have labored to discharge my duty faithfully to the public; but this has not protected me for the last twelve months from the slanders and abuse of my enemies, which has rendered my life a burden to me. I pray God to forgive them, and teach them more charity…Farewell.”

Walter V. N. Bay, who wrote a history of Missouri’s early judges and lawyers, said, “At the time of his death his prospects for distinction were greater than those of any man in the state, for his finial habits, pleasant demeanor, and unquestioned integrity had made him exceedingly popular, and it was a mere question of time as to his elevation to the Federal Senate.”

Bay, however, suggests “truth and candor force us to state that many of [his] friends attributed the suicide to a very different cause…To be more specific, they believed it grew out of his domestic troubles.”

He is buried in the Woodland-Old City Cemetery in Jefferson City, not far from the grave of Governor John Sappington Marmaduke, whose father, M. M. Marduke, finished out Reynolds’ term.

While there was much “frolicking” in Missouri on that first state-declared Thanksgiving Day, there undoubtedly were several people who recalled the governor who had so little to be thankful for that life was no longer possible.

(Photo Credits:  Missouri Encyclopedia/State Historical Society of Missouri; Bill Walker (tombstone in Woodland Old City Cemetery, Jefferson City).

THANKS AND GIVING

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(Thousands of people will not gather around a sumptuous Thanksgiving table this week.  They will be serving a meal to many thousands more who cannot afford even a modest Thanksgiving table at home—or even afford a home.  Or a table. Perhaps, says Dr. Frank Crane in this column from the first year of the Woodrow Wilson administration, those who are serving and those who are being served understand the day the most)

LEARN THANKSGIVING FROM THE HAVE-NOTS

The President has proclaimed the annual day of Thanksgiving.  Probably that comes to you as a joke. ”What have I to be thankful for?” you ask and then begin to run over the list of your grievances.

But go and see the have-nots, and maybe you will learn something, if you are not a hopeless whiner.

Visit the have-not nations.  Live a while in Russia or Mexico, have your opinions suppressed, your property confiscated, your life threatened, all without justice; perhaps then you may get a few thrills when you look at the American flag.

Return in your mind to former ages. Feel how it seems to have the nobility despise, curse and rob you and treat you as a dog; to have a state church clap you in prison or roast you in the public square for daring to think; to have solemn magistrates condemn your mother to be hanged as a witch; to have your daughter outraged by the lord of the manor and your sons killed fighting his battles.

If your skin is black, go back…and live among the have-nots of Liberty, and be sold in the market place as chattel.

If you are well, turn to the have-nots of health to the hospitals where the crowded prisoners of  pain would give the world to walk and eat and work as you now do. Go to the dim chamber of the invalid and listen to the consumptive’s cough, the dyspeptic’s groan, the ravings of the fevered and the suffering and smitten. Then, if you are anything of a man, come out and hire someone to kick you for complaining, ever.

The have-nots of sound; observe the deaf and dumb not to gloat over your advantages, but to realize what music and the voices of people and the gift of speech mean to you.

Watch the pathetic faces of the have-nots of light; and, seeing the blind, learn to be humbling grateful toward the fate that grants you the light of heaven.

Do you know the have-nots of love? Consider them and if one heart ever so simple loves you, be thankful.  Mark the deserted wife, her dreams shattered, her heart broken, her children fatherless, and the burden of care upon her shoulders; and if you have a husband that’s half decent, be thankful.

Go to the wrong, betrayed husband; look upon him; and if  you have a faithful wife who believes in you and is glad because of you, be thankful.

Little girl, little boy, have you and mother that hugs you up and a daddy that’s proud of you? Think of the have-nots, the boys and girls whose mother is still and gone or whose father is no more, and be as thankful as you can.

Have you children?  Call to mind the have-nots, the mother whose loneliness is most bitter of all, the loneliness is that most bitter of all, the loneliness of empty arms, of a breast where once cuddled a curly head.

Then think of the worried, wretched, remorseful, perverted of those whose conscience stings them and if you have the comfortable self-respect of decency, be thankful.

Visit, in your mind, the wide realm of the dead. You have the unspeakable gift of life. You walk in the sun, and breathe the sweet air, and get the message of the trees, the mountains and oceans; for you the flowers blow, and the snow falls, and the hearth light burns, and children’s voices sound and the light of love kindles in someone’s eyes.

Be thankful for life.

Think of the have-nots and reflect. Who am I that I also should not also be among them?

 

Fat

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(Dr. Frank Crane wanted to help people be better through positive thinking and in his writings he took that responsibility seriously. But Dr. Crane was not a man without humor. Our Centers for Disease Control says we are a nation of fat, that the prevalence of obesity was 42.4% in 2017-2018, the most recent year the CDC has weighed the facts and the facts show we’re plumping up. The Centers say that in 1999-2000, only 30.5% of us were, shall we say, overly insulated against the cold. As we are now into the season of over-indulging, we call upon Dr. Crane to offer some light-hearted positive thinking about this heavy topic.)

THE FAT MAN

Every once in a while, said the fat man, somebody comes along with some medicine or treatment or system of exercise or plan of starvation to reduce my flesh.

What do I want to reduce it for?  It all feels good.  And every time I lose weight I get peevish.

What’s the matter with people, anyhow, that they can make fun of fat folks?

They are the salvation of the race. They keep humanity cheerful.

Optimism is mostly a matter of adipose tissue.

Fat people like to eat and drink. They don’t have food fads. They enjoy breakfast, dinner, and supper, and a bite between. And that’s the kind of people mother likes to cook for, and the rest of the family like to live with.

People with appetites are human.

Human folks are those who make joys of life’s necessities. Must we eat? They make eating a celebration.  Must we drink? They adorn with songs the inserting of liquid into one’s anatomy. Must we labor? It shall be to music. Must we exercise? It shall be a game.

It’s your fat men that keep humanity form dying of the dry rot. They make existence a poem. They see the jokes of destiny.

Fat men have the sources of humor in them. Some lean persons have been funny, but what would they have amounted to had there been no fat persons to laugh at them?

Your skinny ones take themselves too seriously. They are reformers, prohibitionists, revolutionists, suffragettes. Their gospel is: Whatever is, is wrong.

Why do men admire slender women? They nag.

Slim women are neat, orderly, everything-in-its-place. They are good housekeepers, meaning that they keep the house fit for everybody but the husband and children.

And why do women admire slim men, with no girth? Such men are fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. They beat their wives, if they are vulgar; and persecute them more subtly, if they are cultured.

Take it from me, girls. Pick out a nice, large, round, juicy man, that likes to feed, and whose conscience is not wormy, marry him and, as the Good Books says, “let your soul delight itself in fatness. “

It doesn’t follow that because a man’s fat he’s a slob. Napoleon was roundish. Samuel Johnson was obese, and so was Boswell, who write about him.

The world and an overcoat, it was said, could not contain the glory of Victor Hugo. And believe me, he was some eater. Here’s one of his meals: veal cutlets, lima beans, oil, roast beef and tomato sauce, omelets, milk and vinegar, mustard and cheese, all swallowed rapidly with great draughts of coffee.

They called Rossini “a hippopotamus in trousers,” and for six years before his death he couldn’t see his toes.

Alexander Dumas could eat three beefsteaks to any other man’s one; and Balzac looked more like a hogshead than a human being.

Besides, added the fat man, if everybody was fat, there would be no war.  It’s the lean men that fight.

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Dr. Crane appreciated being alive

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(In these times of sickness we might find ourselves dwelling on the things that we miss more than we spend time dwelling on the things we don’t realize we have. When conditions might prompt otherwise repressed thoughts of our mortality, it can be better for us to dwell on the day we are given.  To do so, Dr. Frank Crane suggests, makes us something we might prefer NOT to think we are—)

THE SENSUALIST

Do you know, said my old friend Miss Dean, professor of English literature in Blank College, and about the last person in the world you would accuse of being gross, she being a typical highbrow, blue-stocking, and all that sort of thing—Do you know, she said, that the older I grow the more I am getting to be a sensualist?

I am duly shocked, I replied, but suppose of course you intended to shock me so as to bring out some unusual truth. So go ahead.

What I mean is that I am more and more inclining to the belief that we do not emphasize enough the sheer delight of merely being alive. If we would oftener take stock of our little satisfactions, the unnoticed sensations of pleasure that we habitually slur over and take for granted, we would increase the average of our contentment.

I got to thinking this morning of how many things there are in my daily experiences that are agreeable.  I was amazed at how many ways there are in which Nature contrives to make me feel good.

For instance, to begin at the beginning of the day, I like to get up.  I dearly love the first minutes of being awake. To stretch my limbs and shake off sleep, to roll out of bed and put my nose out of the window and drink in the fresh early air, and see the young sunlight, not yet glaring and hot, but full of the promise of life, a sweet light and soft, and to see the trees seeming so glad and virile—oh! It’s great!

And then I like my bath. I like to get all my clothes off and enjoy the touch of the air on my skin as if I were an animal.  We are all animals, but it does us good to go back healthily to animality some time during the day—touch, like Atlas, our mother Earth and the elemental air and light from which come our tides of strength.

I love a good souse in the water. I love the feel of the towel when I rub dry. I like dressing. Putting on clothes with me is always an interesting ceremony.  From lacing my shoes to coming my hair, it is more than a routine—it is a ritual.

I love breakfast.  Thank goodness, I have an appetite. I don’t eat much, but I love to eat.  And when I think of all the living creatures upon the earth, oxen and sheep, birds and horses and fishes, that share with me this delight of taking food, I have a sense of intimate communion with the universe.

Why do some people speak contemptuously of eating?  To me it’s wonderful to think of the infinite ministries of matter to our spirits by way of the palate. Eggs and butter, fish, flesh and fowl, grains and fruits, honey, cream, and, best and most angelic of all—water!  What are those all but Nature’s children vying with each other to please their human guest?

Then there are a thousand other things I like. I like the sun, and to sit in the shade, to walk, and to rest afterward. I like colors, the reds, browns, and blacks of my books, the green of my blotter, the yellow of my pencil, the blue of my rug, and all the other numberless shades, with their blendings and contrasts, that make up the vast orchestra of color continually playing for my benefit.

I like breathing.  Did you ever stop to think how delicious air is?

I like the thousand and one things that we usually refer to as boresome. I like to have my hands manicured. I like to ride on the trolley-car. I like my favorite rocking chair. I like my pen and my pad of paper, and to see words grow under my hand. I like a good novel. I like a good road and a hedge and a clump of bushes. I like to ride in a taxicab through the crowded streets. I like to look at multitudes. And I like to be alone.

I like walls and pavements. I like new gloves and nice underwear. I like, oh! Passionately, a new hat and a gown fresh from the maker. I like for a man to talk to me as if I interested him. I like little children. I like old folks. I like big husky workmen lifting loads. I like people who get excited over purely intellectual problems. I like to make money and to spend it. I like to see young people in love. I like a church, and a theatre, and bridge, and a roomful of chat and laughter. I like jokes, and music, and soldiers marching.

I fear I am a hopeless sensualist. For Stevenson’s jingle grows on me:

“The world is so full of a number of things

I’m sure we should all be happy as kings.”

The history of Christmas yogurt

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The following is based on a true event. The names have been changed to protect the innocent and any resemblance of the names used in this account and the names of real people is entirely coincidental.

To: all staff   From: Gala Landowski, coordinator of interoffice activities

This Friday will be the Christmas Party potluck. There are signup sheets in each department area. Please try to have your food items picked out by the end of the day.

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To: Gala Landowski, CIA   From: Armand LeSoir, Accounting Department

The Accounting Department will be meeting tomorrow to determine what brand of unflavored yogurt to contribute.

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To: Armand LeSoir, AD   From: Gala Landowski, CIA

We are emphasizing the use of home-grown products from producers throughout the state.

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To: Gala, CIA From: Armand, AD

A very good idea, Gala. I have a good friend who has an organic yogurt farm outside of Clarence, Missouri. In fact, he says the recent harvest of yogurt berries was exceptional and produced some very high quality product this year. His is one of the few farms in Missouri to escape the serious outbreak of yogurt blight this year, or as some call it, Yogurt Rust. He grows his yogurt organically with no pesticides, insecticides, or artificial sweeteners. Each berry is carefully picked and processed by the highest-trained immigrant workers, some of whom have worked for him since they were thirteen years old. All of them carefully wash their hands after they use the bathroom.

The yogurt plants on his farm are nourished only by manure from organically-grown Angus cattle fed only organically-grown grass and high-quality organic grains. His plants have been carefully bred, using the highest quality yogurt berries from Bavaria and Latvia which are known for their hardiness, with berries from France which have a certain tartness balanced by berries from South Carolina that are known for southern sweetness. These in turn have been bred to the famous Missouri wild yogurt berry, which was a favorite of our pioneer settlers after being introduced to Missouri by the legendary Johnny Yogurtseed. The result of all of this careful work that has spanned generations of his family is an outstanding natural and well-balanced organic yogurt.

I shall make every effort to obtain some of my friend’s yogurt for the event Friday. However as many of you know, the Corps of Engineers is holding back billions of gallons of water in reservoirs in the Dakotas and Montana so people in those regions have lakes on which to go ice fishing and to experience other winter activities that we in the South would never understand. Because the Corps has taken that step, the navigation season on the Missouri has been shortened considerably because of lack of water in the channel which, in turn, has made it impossible for the yogurt barge companies to operate.

You might remember that last week the final yogurt barge of the season didn’t get downstream quickly enough and one of the tows struck a snag near Boonville and settled on the bottom of the river. Only the fact that the tow had a double hull has kept us from having a major environmental disaster. The interior hull protected against a major yogurt spill but the frigid weather and the cold water has caused the yogurt to congeal, making it impossible for salvage crews to pump it out into their smaller boats. They won’t be able to remove the yogurt until a few days before the spring navigation season.

By then the yogurt—because it is organic and therefore contains no preservatives—will have rotted and will be usable only as feed for captured feral hogs. I understand a University of Missouri study done by the College of Agriculture, Food, Natural Resources, Home-Produced Ethanol, and Quilt-Making has recently shown that rotted yogurt produces a chemical change within the brains of feral pigs that transforms them into pets suitable for children who sometimes come to regard them as large and hairy potbellied pigs.

Fortunately my friend had insurance that will cover his loss and he did hold back some of his crop in a yogurt storage bin so he might be able to provide us with enough yogurt for our part of the party. The situation has produced a significant supermarket price increase to excessive levels for organic yogurt this winter. If my friend cannot provide some yogurt from his storage bin we won’t be able to afford to buy some at the supermarket and will be forced to look for other items for the food crawl. Should you find something other than yogurt on Friday, please understand that we have been forced to provide it with the greatest reluctance.

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From: Darrell Upton, Coordinator of Pencils and Stationery   To: AS, AD

If my memory is correct, the “first” yogurt was created by a special kind of bacteria—most definitely ORGANIC in nature.

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From: AS, AD   To: DU, CPS

Your memory is accurate to a point, Darrell.   In fact, the first yogurt bacteria was carefully cultivated by Neanderthals who found them in a cave near what is now Lascaux, France. It was found growing mysteriously and voluntarily in the dark recesses of a large room in the cave. (Did you know, by the way, that an analysis of my saliva by National Geographic shows that I am 1.8 percent Neanderthal, which is above average?) The leader of the group that found it was known as a sage because of his great intellect and his willingness to experiment in a primitive scientific way. He rubbed his finger through the bacterial growth and tasted it. He survived the experiment and, in fact, thought it tasted rather good. After consulting with others in his clan, it was decided the bacteria should be grown as a food source, a delicacy. Through experiments and using various ground herbs mixed with virgin’s urine, it was determined the bacteria could be grown rapidly enough to supply a small amount of food for the group.

The testing process took a considerable length of time during which various members of this Neanderthal band stood watch inside the cave to protect the precious small growing area. Although Neanderthals were not as intelligent as we are today, they nonetheless were as easily bored as we can become, especially in the dark. They took to carrying small lamps fueled by the oil of the glands of certain goats indigenous to the area into the cave and also took some ground- up berries native to the area. While waiting for the bacteria to flourish, they used the juice from the berries to paint some figures on the walls of that cave.

In time, this clan was able to get the bacteria to reproduce in a peat bog in a shaded area outside the cave and as the bacteria evolved it became capable of growing in the daylight and if not harvested for a lengthy time, formed into berries with reproducing seeds. Thus were born the earliest yogurt berries, the progenitor of the berries raised by my friend near Clarence.

In the middle of the 19th Century, some explorers discovered the cave and were dazzled by the great cave paintings those early yogurt developers left behind those thousands of years ago. Little did they know the other historic activity that happened in that cave, an early experiment that led to one of society’s most useful foods. Few know the name of that early clan elder, the sage, but this story was told to me in my youth by my high school science teacher who claimed to be a direct descendant of that Neanderthal family.

The old sage/scientist’s name was Yog, and the product became known as Yog-urt, which is Neanderthal meaning “Food from the Finger of Yog.”

At some indefinite time, it appears the Neanderthals had enough berries that they traded with some ancient Greek traders who found the berries flourished on Mount Oikos,

And the rest is history.

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To: AS, AD   From: Barbara Singlemom, Human Resources

Wow!   I heard it was newborn baby poopoo (thus very organic and all naturelle). Your story is much more interesting.

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To: BS, HR   From: AS, AD

Barb, you’re partly correct. Modern scientists who have reverse-engineered the yogurt berry have determined that the original bacterium began in the feces of the Miniature Jurassic Tyrannobat that lived in the cave before the species became extinct.

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To: AS, AD   From: BS, HR

Well, we all have much to think about now each time we enjoy our cup of Yoplait.

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To: BS, HR   From: AS, AD

Yo-Plait, in fact, was the first virgin whose urine was used in those early experiments.

If we are not able to get enough yogurt from my friend near Clarence, our department will provide some sourdough biscuits for the crawl.

Did you know there is a “Sourdough Citizen Science Project” that has sequenced the DNA of sourdough starters from throughout the world to better understand the sourdough microbial biodiversity? You can Google it.

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Must be a local delicacy

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Travel opens minds with many people. The chance to see different people living in different situations is always a plus, not because the traveler is lured into sympathy, or sympathy that reaches condescension, or feelings of superiority (“There but for the grace of God—“) but because it generates an opportunity to experience life outside of ourselves and an understanding that we are not better or worse off, we are just different.

So it is with this sign that my recent traveling companion, Jim Coleman, noticed when we were  in Indianapolis for the Brickyard 400:

Notary and fruit. Fried notary.   We quickly admitted that we had never had notary, fried, stewed, boiled, broiled, barbecued, or any other way. Beer-batter fried notary. Breaded notary. Notary with apple chutney. And fruit. Add pineapple and you have Hawaiian Notary, we suppose.

Maybe having notary with fruit was something the new fry cook brought with him or her. Until then, perhaps the place served plain notary and business had started to drop off so a new chef was hired to bring new tastes to the notary.

Since this sign was at a gas station/convenience store, we were left to wonder if notary could be sliced and sold in a deli sandwich (cold or microwaved) with lettuce and tomato included in the pre-wrapped package—packets of mayonnaise, catsup, and mustard sold in separate squeezy things.

We also don’t know if this is a place where the police get their fried notaries instead of doughnuts. Must be a reason it wants them to be blessed.

We didn’t have time to sample fried notary, unfortunately. We were on our way to a friend’s place for some fine Italian food. There is such a thing as an Italian notary but the place we went to didn’t have any. I guess we’ll just have to go back to Indianapolis another time.

We’ll let you know if notary tastes anything like chicken.

Although we didn’t get to taste notary, your traveling observer can tell you that he has tasted—-get this now:

Pasties. 

For those whose minds are infiltrated by the seamier side of entertainment, pasties are known as things with or without twirly tassels that add, uh, titillating movement to some stage performances in places usually favored by men.   If you get my drift.

But if you are in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and you see a sign for Pasties, chances are you’ll be walking into a family-friendly eating place, not some version of a bar.

In fact, Calumet, Michigan has a mid-August annual Pasty Fest. And not a shred of clothing is shed to show off the pasties there.

Up there, Pasties are baked pastries. You can make one in your home. You take a flatbreak pastry circle, put some uncooked meat or meat and vegetables on top of it and then fold the crust in half to create a pastry semicircle. Crimp the edges for form a seal and bake it.

Don’t try to wear it. Eat it. It’s good.

Although the word is spelled the same, it’s pronounced “Past-ee” when referring to the food. It’s “Paste-ee” when referring to the dancing accessory, likely because it is somehow pasted on.

Pasties, the food,  seem to have started in England as a way for miners to carry cooked sandwiches to work with them. They arrived in the UP (people up there are known as “Yoopers.” If you want to see one without driving all the way up there, stop by my house. I have one living with me.) with various European ethnic groups that showed up to work the cooper mines.   You’ll also find them as part of the culture of the Iron Range in northern Minnesota.

Wonder how a notary pasty would taste.

(photo credits:  Your humble observer, alamy, npr)