Friday, January 18, 2019


Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association v. Zackary Blair et al has the potential to change the way American consumers buy wine.  At the heart of it is a Tennessee law that requires liquor retailers to be residents of the state for a certain amount of time before getting and renewing a license.  Is the law protected by the 21st Amendment, which has given states control over alcohol laws since Prohibition was repealed?  Or does the law violate the Constitution's Commerce Clause, which prevents states from erecting business barriers with other states?   But the courts have ruled that states do not have unlimited power over alcohol sales.  In 2005, the Supreme Court's Granholm v. Heald decision struck down bans on out-of-state winery shipping in New York and Michigan, claiming they violated the Commerce Clause as the states allowed in-state wineries to ship directly to consumers.  The majority ruled that the 21st Amendment did not allow the states to discriminate against out-of-state wineries.  Since then, 43 states have allowed some form of winery-direct shipping to their residents, opening up more wine options to consumers.  The Sixth Circuit Court cited Granholm as one of the reasons it found Tennessee's residency law unconstitutional:  It discriminates against out-of-state retailers who want to do business in the state, while allowing in-state retailers to do so without a waiting period.  Read more at https://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/Will-the-Supreme-Court-Upend-Wine-Laws

What kind of milk is feta cheese made from?  Can it be made with cow's milk?  The simple answer is no—at least not in the European Union.  Real feta must be made of at least 70 percent sheep's milk and up to 30 percent goat's milk, and it must be produced to definite specifications.  Many cheeses on the market call themselves "feta" or "feta-type" cheeses, but there are standards for how genuine feta is made and what kind of milk is used.  Feta cheese dates back to the eighth century B.C. when cheese made with sheep's milk was stored in brine.  The cheese itself may come about thanks to an accidental discovery—milk curdled when it was transported inside animals' stomachs.  Feta is made using curdled milk.  Similar cheeses are made with cow's milk—one  called "telemes" is even produced in Greece.  But cow's milk cheeses or combinations using cow's milk as an ingredient are not the same.  The taste is very different.  Bulgaria makes a similar cheese that's creamier and much saltier.  France's version is also creamy but more mild.  Any cheese that uses more goat's milk than sheep's milk—or cow's milk instead of sheep's milk—tends to lack the sharp bite of feta.  Keep in mind, too, that feta cheese from other countries can be quite similar when it's made with the right percentages of sheep's and goat's milk, but those countries can't legally label their products as "feta" due to a 2005 EU court decision.  Nancy Gaifyllia  https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-feta-cheese-p3-1705625

The Thief of Bagdad: An Arabian Nights Fantasy" (1924)  At both the start and end of the film:  "It is written in the stars:  Happiness Must Be Earned"  Fairbanks, a co-founder of United Artists, and first president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was an early advocate for filmmaking being treated, taught, and preserved as "Art."  He made sure his own personal archives were donated to the Museum of Modern Art, which still holds the original nitrate negative of this film.  All this in a period when silent films were widely assumed to have no commercial value after their original theatrical release ended.  They used optical illusion tricks--such as painting the upper portions darker colors and using reflective flooring--to make it look even bigger on screen.  Fairbanks was a big fan of such special effects shots (all of which had to be done "in camera" at the time) and used all the tricks in making this film.  He also filled his screen with a cast of thousands:  Literally--over 3,000 extras in some shots.  To do that the studio sent buses through Los Angeles each day with signs offering people free rides to see Fairbanks shooting a film.  These became his extras.  100s had to be turned away.  Watch him running and leaping about, balancing from railings, gliding up stairs.  It's hard to believe he was 40 years old at the time this film was shot.  Consider one scene where is shown escaping from pursuers by jumping into and out of enormous Persian urns--each taller than an adult.  That's actually him jumping between those.  No camera tricks.  Each urn had a small trampoline placed inside,  He had to practice for months to develop the necessary height and accuracy to do this stunt.  https://bobpariseau.com/blog/2018/6/16/the-thief-of-bagdad-an-arabian-nights-fantasy-1924-on-blu-ray-they-sure-dont-make-em-like-this-anymore

Red eggs are made by dipping hard-boiled eggs in red food dye.  To make the eggs take on the dye more easily, they are often boiled in water with salt and vinegar, which makes the shells more porous.  The eggs are allowed to cool, after which they can be offered to family, friends and guests to the full-moon party.  In countries with a high Chinese population, slight variations on these customs are made.  In Malaysia, friends and family are given yellow glutinous rice coloured with turmeric, red eggs and sweet red glutinous rice cakes (ang koo).  These cakes (kueh) are shaped as round balls if it is a boy, and little tortoise shapes if it is a girl.  The sticky-rice cakes are filled with sweet mung bean paste and stem from Nyonya cuisine, a fusion of Chinese and native Malaysian cultures. 

Sambuca, a hilltop town on the Italian island of Sicily with views over the Mediterranean island and nearby beaches, has placed dozens of dwellings on the market for €1, or just over a dollar.  The deal is aimed at reviving a community that, like many other rural spots in Italy, has suffered from depopulation in recent years as residents move to bigger cities.  The new owners must commit to refurbish their choice of the crumbling 40- to 150-square meter dwellings within three years, at a cost starting from €15,000 (about $17,200).  They'll also need to cough up a €5,000 security deposit that will be returned once the restyle is complete.  Sambuca is known as the City of Splendor and its fertile patch of land is dubbed the Earthly Paradise.  Sambuca is called "Sicily's barn" for its huge amount of grain production.  Old millstones still make bread and pasta using traditional methods and ancient Saracen black wheat varieties, such as sweet-flavored Tumminia.  Signature dishes include busiate short pasta with qualeddu (a wild large leaf yellow flower), sausages and breadcrumbs, and macco di fave dried beans soup with wild fennel.  Cucciddatu is a doughnut with pepper, cheese and sausages.  Grandmother-recipe omelettes are made with blue borage flowers and lemon.  Vastedda is a special string cheese of sheep milk, flat as a pizza.  The sweet-toothed can indulge in almond cupcakes and cassateddi, fried sweet ricotta-filled ravioli covered in sprinkled sugar.  Contact info:  case1euro@comune.sambucadisicilia.ag.it  Silvia Marchetti  See pictures at https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/one-dollar-home-sambuca-sicily-italy/index.html

Learn about Italian liqueurs and spirits including Amaretto (sweet liqueur made of almonds) and Sambuca Romana (strong, syrupy and aromatic liqueur made with star anise and white elderflowers served as a digestive or, with the addition of water, as a long, refreshing drink.  If you order this in a restaurant, you will typically see 3 coffee beans floating in it, signifying health, happiness and prosperity.  The number three is often considered lucky in Italy.  https://www.lifeinitaly.com/wines/the-most-famous-italian-liquors

They were the little cotton sprouts that could:  a handful of seedlings that poked themselves up from the dirt inside a small biosphere on China's lunar lander, Chang'e-4.  Yes, the plants were stunted compared with the earthbound control plants.  But they had just survived a space launch and difficult journey to the moon, and were growing in the low gravity and high radiation of extraterrestrial space.  They were the first plants ever to grow on the lunar surface.  Now they're dead.  The announcement was made at a January 16, 2019 news conference. Rafi Letzter  Read more and see picture at https://www.livescience.com/64521-sad-moon-cotton-dies.html

Much-loved poet Mary Oliver died January 17, 2019 at her home in Florida at the age of 83.  Oliver got a lot of her ideas for poems during long walks—a habit she developed growing up in rural Ohio.  Oliver published her first collection, No Voyage and Other Poems, in her late 20s.  She went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.  Tom Cole and Nicole Cohen  Read her poem "The Summer Day" and link to her poem "When Death Comes," at https://www.npr.org/2019/01/17/577380646/beloved-poet-mary-oliver-who-believed-poetry-mustn-t-be-fancy-dies-at-83

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  January 18, 2019  Issue 2024

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