The Mexican writer Amparo Dávila (1928–2020) is known for uncanny, nightmarish short stories full of strange visitations and sudden violence.  Born in 1928 in the Zacatecas region, Dávila moved to Mexico City in 1954 and became the secretary and protégée of the prominent writer Alfonso Reyes.  Though never prolific, she eventually won almost every major award in Mexico, and in 2015 the country’s first prize for fantastical fiction was named after her.  Very little of the food in Dávila’s stories sounds typically Mexican, and I contacted her translators to ask why.  It turned out that they had met Dávila before she died.  She entertained them at home and served agua de lima, a lemonade-like specialty she made from citrus fruit grown in her garden.  Matthew Gleeson, who lives in Oaxaca and cooks a lot himself, told me that the food in Dávila’s stories is nothing like the local dishes he knows “from pre-Hispanic foodways, which are still so prevalent and so deep and rich.”  Valerie Stivers  Read extensive article with pictures and recipes at https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/10/07/cooking-with-amparo-davila/   

USA State Flag Descriptions - All 50 States  https://www.allstarflags.com/facts/state-flag-descriptions/  

The first director of Missouri’s State Fruit Experiment Station, J. T. Stinson, introduced the saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away".  The health benefits of eating fruit have since been incorporated in the FDA recommendations for a healthy diet.  Former director Paul Shepard, in a 1951 article on his research projects in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, foretold that "There's a good day coming when vineyards will garland the Ozark hills and wine flowing from the presses will bring wealth to the growers."  Marilyn Odneal  https://ag.missouristate.edu/statefruit/history/centennial-fes.htm   

Originally a “bill” was any piece of writing, especially a legal document (we still speak of bills being introduced into Congress in this sense).  More narrowly, it also came to mean a list such as a restaurant “bill of fare” (menu) or an advertisement listing attractions in a theatrical variety show such as might be posted on a “billboard.”  In nineteenth-century America, when producers found short acts to supplement the main attractions, nicely filling out an evening’s entertainment, they were said in a rhyming phrase to “fill the bill.”  People who associate bills principally with shipping invoices frequently transform this expression, meaning “to meet requirements or desires,” into “fit the bill.”  They are thinking of bills as if they were orders, lists of requirements.  It is both more logical and more traditional to say “fill the bill.”  https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/22/fit-the-bill-fill-the-bill/   

November 8, 2021  Sidesgiving by Tejal Rao  I write about my wholehearted love of vegetables once a week in The Veggie, New York Times Cooking’s vegetarian newsletter, so maybe it’s no surprise to learn that I wouldn’t miss the turkey at all.  It’s important to edit your menu thoughtfully, taking into account textures, colors and flavors.  And it’s always nice to have a touch of tang on the table, like a properly tart cranberry sauce.  Simple mashed potatoes and mixed roasted root vegetables with whole garlic cloves and sprigs of thyme are the anchors of my table, and they’re not going anywhere—ever.  But this year, I’m planning to make Deborah Madison’s sweet potatoes with miso-ginger dressing.  I’m drawn to the technique of steaming, then pan-frying, which yields tender insides and beautiful browned edges.  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/11/08/dining/vegetarian-thanksgiving-side-dishes.html 

November 10, 2021  A memorial ceremony marking the 46th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a return to an in-person event at Split Rock Lighthouse, after last year’s ceremony and beacon-lighting were moved to an online-only event amid the pandemic.  The memorial observance at the historic lighthouse is held each Nov. 10, on the anniversary of the 1975 sinking of the freighter in a Lake Superior gale, with the loss of all 29 men aboard.  The Split Rock ceremony has been an annual tradition since 1985, the 10th anniversary of the wreck.  The "Mighty Fitz" would have passed several miles offshore from Split Rock on its final voyage.  The freighter left Superior, Wis., on Nov. 9, 1975, with a load of iron ore pellets, and made its way across Lake Superior as a November gale intensified.  The ship, its captain Ernest McSorley, and its crew spent hours battling wind and waves, making its way toward Whitefish Point.  On the evening of Nov. 10, McSorley radioed to the nearby freighter Arthur M. Anderson that the Fitzgerald was "holding our own."  Soon after, the Fitzgerald sank without giving a distress signal.  The loss of the ship and crew was memorialized by singer Gordon Lightfoot in the now-iconic song he released the following year.  And while the annual Nov. 10 ceremony is held on the anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, it also remembers those lost in other shipwrecks.  Andrew Krueger  See graphics at https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/11/10/split-rock-ceremony-to-remember-edmund-fitzgerald-crew-on-46th-anniversary-of-wreck   

Louise Erdrich writes what she knows.  Her 18th novel, The Sentence (Harper), out November 9, 2021, is about a bookstore in Minneapolis haunted by a one-time customer; Erdrich owns Birchbark Books in Minneapolis, which features birch trees as part of the decor and a confessional-turned-forgiveness booth.  Her last novel, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning The Night Watchman (2020), about a man fighting the federal government seeking to move tribes off of their land, was also rooted in the familiar:  the life of her grandfather, who was the tribal chair at the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.  Riza Cruz   Louise Erdrich share her most memorable reads at https://www.yahoo.com/now/louise-erdrich-hanya-yanagihara-beloved-150000662.html 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2455  November 12, 2021