Enslaved laborers brought
sesame seeds to South Carolina in the 1700s and planted them for use as cooking
oil. Plantation owners in colonial Charleston explored the potential cash
crop as an alternative to olive oil, but sesame-based substitutes remained a
limited field throughout the 19th century.
Instead, home bakers put the nutritious plants to use. They mixed savory, nutty seeds with brown
sugar, butter, and small amounts of flour to create a thin, crispy wafer.
Since benne (pronounced
“benny”) is simply the Bantu word for sesame, you may think benne and sesame
are completely interchangeable terms for the same ingredient. But there are differences between a
traditional benne seed and a modern sesame seed. Each benne wafer only uses 1/2 tsp. of cookie
dough. Half a teaspoon! Do you know how many cookies that made in this
recipe? At least 14 dozen. That’s
over a gross of cookies (a gross is a dozen dozen, or 144). https://www.pinchmeimeating.com/benne-wafers/
"I send you a cipher
to be used between us, which will give you some trouble to understand, but,
once understood, is the easiest to use." Thomas Jefferson wrote United
State Minister to France Robert R. Livingston in 1802. Jefferson had used ciphers before with
official as well as unofficial correspondence; letters to James Madison, John
Adams, James Monroe, Robert Livingston, among others include communication in
cipher. It was a way to keep
"matters merely personal to ourselves" as well as a way to "have
at hand a mask for whatever may need it."
Cognizant of the diplomatically sensitive situation Meriwether Lewis
would be in while exploring the northwest, Jefferson prepared a cipher for use
during the expedition and sent it to Lewis while he was preparing for the
journey in Pennsylvania with astronomer, mathematician, and surveyor Andrew
Ellicott. The cipher, derived from the
Vigenere cipher (that was widely used in Europe and was considered unbreakable
until the 1830s), was a twenty-eight-column alphanumeric table. The correspondent would write the first line
to be ciphered and then write out a keyword above, repeating it for the length
of line (for Jefferson and Lewis the keyword was to be
"artichokes"). The
correspondent would use the up-and-down letter pairs to determine the coded
letters, almost as if plotting points on a graph. Knowing the keyword the recipient could then
translate the seemingly unintelligible message.
Read more and link to information on World Heritage Site Monticello at https://www.monticello.org/thomas-jefferson/louisiana-lewis-clark/preparing-for-the-expedition/coded-messages/jefferson-s-cipher-for-meriwether-lewis/ See also https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2018/08/jeffersons-cipher-pic-of-the-week/
What 100 Writers Have Been Reading During Quarantine by Emily Temple
The extensive article includes books listed by Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency: (Douwe Draaisma, Why Life Speeds Up As You Get
Older Abbot Christopher
Jamison, Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life, Evelyn
Waugh, the Sword of Honour trilogy, W.
H. Auden and Shakespeare’s sonnets (via LA Times). Marisa Meltzer, author of This Is Big lists Donna
Tartt, The Secret History and Peter Mayle, A Year in Provence (via The Strategist). Jon
Mooallem, author of This
Is Chance! The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held It Together
mentions Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees (via The Strategist) https://lithub.com/what-100-writers-have-been-reading-during-quarantine/
IF I DIE
BEFORE I WAKE (1938) by Sherwood King Later adapted by Orson Welles into The
Lady from Shanghai starring Rita Hayworth, this was one of a pair of
pre-war mysteries by Raymond Sherwood King.
Set among the wealthy elite of Long Island, it is narrated by Laurence
Planter, an ex-sailor working as a chauffeur.
This book is by far the best known title in the rather sparse
bibliography of King, a reputed child prodigy and finger print
expert. This seems to have been King’s second novel. His first, Between Murders, was first
published in 1935 as by “Sherry King” and reprinted in the UK in 1941
as Death Carries a Cane. His
postwar works, as far as I can gather, only includes some articles, the
odd short story and the novella length A Price for Murder (1957). posted by Sergio https://bloodymurder.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/if-i-die-before-i-wake-1938-by-sherwood-king/
Producer William Castle purchased
the rights to Sherwood King's novel "If I Die Before I Wake" for
$600. The novel was later used as the
source for the Orson Welles film The Lady from Shanghai (1947). https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0455271/
The
origin of the lemon has not yet been determined, although science suggests it
may be northwestern India, where they have been cultivated for more than 2,500
years. Arab traders brought the lemons
to the Middle East and Africa sometime after 100 C.E. It is believed to have been introduced into
southern Italy around 200 C.E.; and was being cultivated in Egypt and in Sumer,
the southern portion of Mesopotamia a few centuries later. At first, lemons were not widely cultivated
as food. It was largely an ornamental
plant (as were tomatoes), until about the 10th century. The Arabs introduced the lemon into Spain in
the 11th century, and by 1150, the lemon was widely cultivated in the
Mediterranean. Crusaders returning from
Palestine brought it to the rest of Europe.
The lemon came into full culinary use in Europe in the 15th century; the
first major cultivation in Europe began in Genoa. Lemons came to the New World in 1493, when
Christopher Columbus brought lemon seeds to Hispaniola. Spanish conquest spread the lemon throughout
the New World, where it was still used mainly used as an ornamental plant, and
for medicine. Lemons were grown in
California by 1751; and in the 1800s in Florida, they began to be used in
cooking and flavoring. The name “lemon”
first appeared around 1350–1400, from the Middle English word limon. Limon is an Old French word, indicating that
the lemon entered England via France.
The Old French derives from the Italian limone, which dates back to the
Arabic laymun or limun, from the Persian word limun. https://thenibble.com/reviews/main/fruits/lemon-types.asp
Mom’s Spanish Rice Joan
Hallford https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/mom-s-spanish-rice/
July 26, 2020 Olivia de
Havilland, who starred in dozens of movies through the 1930s and '40s, has died
at age 104. She died at her home in
Paris of natural causes. "The
life of the love interest is really pretty boring," de Havilland said. "I longed to play a character who
initiated things, who experienced important things." But Warner Bros. wouldn't give her those
roles and it had her under an ironclad seven-year contract. The decades-old studio system had been
challenged in court before, but none of those efforts succeeded until de
Havilland sued in 1943—and won. What's known as the "de Havilland
law" was the decision that finally ended Hollywood's studio system and
gave writers and actors creative independence.
Selena Simmons-Duffin
Sir
Osbert Lancaster, CBE (4
August 1908–27 July 1986) was an English cartoonist, architectural historian, stage
designer and author. He was known for
his cartoons in the British press, and for his lifelong work to inform the
general public about good buildings and architectural heritage. The only child of a prosperous family,
Lancaster was educated at Charterhouse School and Lincoln College,
Oxford; at both he was an undistinguished scholar. From an early age he was determined to be a
professional artist and designer, and studied at leading art colleges in Oxford
and London. While working as a
contributor to The Architectural
Review in the mid-1930s, Lancaster published the first of a
series of books on architecture, aiming to simultaneously amuse the general
reader and demystify the subject. Several of the terms he coined as labels for
architectural styles have gained common usage, including "Pont Street Dutch" and
"Stockbrokers' Tudor", and his books have continued to be regarded as
important works of reference on the subject.
THOUGHT FOR JULY 27 In any
free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is
permanent, unresolvable, and necessary. - Kathleen Norris, novelist and
columnist (1880-1966)
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2234
July 27, 2020
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