What do you call the covering on the end of a shoelace?  An aglet.  The metal hoop that supports a lampshade?  A harp.  The indentation at the bottom of a wine bottle?  A kick or punt.  Does pin money have anything to do with pins?  In its earliest use it meant money to buy pins.  By the 16th century, the phrase meant money to buy incidentals.  The Book of Answers:  The New York Public Library Telephone Reference Service's Most Unusual and Entertaining Questions

Arkansas Black is one of those apples that apparently holds no middle ground among apple fanciers; they either love it or hate it . . . period.  For those who despise the apple I prefer to think it’s just a case of misunderstanding.  Arkansas Black is a fine apple with many exceptional merits that deserves more respect but, in order to properly enjoy the fruit one must exercise a bit of patience and give the apple a little extra time to become “all it can be”.  The apple is thought to have originated in the mid to late 1800’s in Bentonville, Arkansas, possibly discovered and raised by a settler named John Crawford.  Believed to be a seedling of Winesap, the apple has many qualities similar to its better-known parent, namely a tart, tangy flavor and the ability to stay firm, crisp and flavorful after many months in storage.  In fact, the apple reaches its peak in flavor and texture after a long period in cold storage.  When first picked in October the apple can be as hard as a rock and almost as flavorful.  Trying to enjoy the apple at this stage will usually lead to disappointment.  However, after an extended period of storage, the apple undergoes a dramatic change and becomes a rather fine dessert apple.  The sharp tartness mellows significantly into a rich sweetness that will surprise the skeptic who might have expressed some disdain with a freshly-picked apple.  Arkansas Black has always been favored as a quality dessert apple for fresh-eating but, like its parent, Winesap, it also has the well-earned reputation for producing outstanding cider.  It is not an especially juicy apple but its sharp flavor makes a very good aromatic cider, particularly when blended with a sweeter cider apple. In addition, Arkansas Black is a wonderful cooking and processing apple. It holds its shape well when cooked so is popular for baking whole and pie making.  If you’re looking for world-class apple pie, combine a tangy Arkansas Black with a sweet Porter apple.  Outstanding!  Arkansas Black is a triploid apple with an extra set of chromosomes.  Like all triploid apples it produces sterile pollen and is thus incapable of pollinating other apple varieties. 

http://bighorsecreekfarm.com/arkansas-black-story/

Best Books of 2017  See Amazon editors' top 100 picks in print books and Kindle books, and picks for the best books of the year in literature and fiction, mystery, thriller, and suspense, romance, cooking, food, and wine, children’s books, and more at https://www.amazon.com/b?node=17276804011

Best Books 2017  annual survey by Book World Editors of the Washington Post  https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/entertainment/best-books/?utm_term=.0d5aa492a883

Best Books of 2017  https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/107026.Best_Books_of_2017

Best Books of 2017  https://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2017

100 Notable Books of 2017  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/books/review/100-notable-books-2017.html

In Spain, it's not what you drink at midnight on New Year's Eve that matters most, but what you eat:  a dozen green grapes, representing good luck for each month of the coming year.  And they must be eaten right at the stroke of midnight.  If you're lucky, you can find seedless grapes.  That makes them slightly easier to wolf down with each chime of the bells atop a clock tower in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square—the Spanish equivalent of Times Square.  (Some people surgically de-seed the grapes beforehand with knives or toothpicks.  Others claim that's cheating, and manage to skilfully perform the same extraction inside their mouths.)  The countdown goes fast.  So at the exact moment when revelers across Europe are cheering and yelling out the countdown to midnight, Spaniards are silently swallowing grapes.  While many Spaniards swallow the grapes in the privacy of their own homes, the Palace Hotel throws one of the largest and fanciest New Year's Eve parties in the city.  It orders hundreds of kilos of grapes for the occasion.  "They deliver them in big crates, and we have to dole them out into cups—12 each," says the bartender Ortiz.  He often does a dry-run demonstration, a few minutes before midnight, for any foreigners celebrating New Year's at the hotel, who might not be familiar with this Spanish tradition.  There is one more distinctly Spanish New Year's tradition:  wearing red underwear.  It's another good luck charm for the coming year.  Lauren Frayer  http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/12/27/506484561/in-spain-new-year-s-eve-is-all-about-the-grapes-save-the-bubbly-for-later

Old-Fashioned Oliebollen by Karin Engelbrecht   Traditional 'oliebollen' (literally, 'oil balls') have often been called the precursor of the donut, the popular American treat.  In fact, it seems very probable that early Dutch settlers took their tradition over to the New World, where it evolved into the anytime-anywhere snack the donut is today.  In Holland, however, they pretty much remain a seasonal treat:  made and enjoyed specifically to ring in the New Year.  Oliebollen can be made with raisins and currants and even bits of chopped apple, but we prefer them without fruit.  A seasonal snowfall of white powdered sugar and earthy ground cinnamon are a must, however.  Find recipe and link to more information on Dutch food--including boerenkoolstamppot met rookworst--which could be considered The Netherlands' national dish at https://www.thespruce.com/old-fashioned-oliebollen-1128444

Blend words:  bit, from binary and digit; cellophane, from cellulose and diaphane; emoticon, from emotion and icon; infomercial, from information and commercial; vog, from volcanic dust and smog 

"Apposite" and "opposite" sound so much alike that you would expect them to have a common ancestor--and they do.  It is the Latin verb ponere, which means "to put or place."  Adding the prefix ad- to "ponere" created apponere, meaning "to place near" or "to apply to," and that branch of the "ponere" family tree led to "apposite."  The word is used to describe something that applies well to or is very appropriate for something else, a notion perhaps suggested by the close proximity of two objects.  To get "opposite," the prefix ob- was added to "ponere" to create opponere, meaning "to place against or opposite."  The related verb componere, meaning "to put together," gave us "compound" and "composite."  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apposite

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1808  December 6, 2017  On this date in 1998, two brand-new Christmas carols debuted in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during the “Welcome Christmas” choral concert of the Plymouth Music Series organized and conducted by Philip Brunelle.  The two carols, “Sweet Noel” by Joan Griffith and “The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn” by Richard Voorhaar, were the prize-winning submissions entered in a contest arranged by the Plymouth Music Series and the American Composers Forum.  Composers Datebook  Thought for Today  I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree. - (Alfred) Joyce Kilmer, journalist and poet (6 Dec 1886-1918)