Many New York City bagel shops use Kraft-owned brand Philadelphia cream cheese as the base for their own spreads, but unlike the rest of us, bagel makers buy a raw, unprocessed, and unwhipped version of Kraft's cheese to work with.  Even that is hard to come by.  "We continue to see elevated and sustained demand across a number of categories where we compete," a Kraft spokesperson was quoted as saying, adding that shipment were up 35 percent from last year.  "As more people continue to eat breakfast at home and use cream cheese as an ingredient in easy desserts, we expect to see this trend continue."  So in the interim, New York bagel shops—some of which are measuring the amount of cream cheese they have left in days—are resorting to whatever they can do to get the spreadable stuff.  The New York Times reports that another NYC institution is struggling due to supply chain issues:  Bagel shops across the city told the paper that they can't find enough cream cheese to keep their products schmeared.  "I've never been out of cream cheese for 30 years," Joseph Yemma, who owns the Brooklyn-based distributor F&H Dairies, told the paper.  "There's no end in sight."  Mike Pomranz  December 6, 2021  https://www.foodandwine.com/news/cream-cheese-shortage-nyc  Thank you, Muse reader!  

Khaled Hosseini (born 4 March 1965) is an Afghan-American novelist, physician, activist, humanitarian, and UNHCR goodwill ambassador.  His debut novel The Kite Runner (2003) was a critical and commercial success; the book, as well as his subsequent novels, have all been at least partially set in Afghanistan and has featured an Afghan as the protagonist.  Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, Hosseini's father was a diplomat; after periods living in Iran and France, when Hosseini was 15, his family applied for asylum in the United States, where he later became a naturalised citizen.  Hosseini did not return to Afghanistan until 2000 when he was 36, where he likened the experience to feeling "like a tourist in [his] own country".  After graduating from college, Hosseini worked as a physician in California, a situation he likened to "an arranged marriage".  The success of The Kite Runner meant he was able to retire from medicine in order to write full-time.  His three novels have all reached various levels of critical and commercial success.  The Kite Runner spent 101 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, including three weeks at number one.  His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) spent 103 weeks on the chart, including 15 at number one.  And the Mountains Echoed (2013), his third novel, remained on the chart for 33 weeks.  In 2018, Hosseini published an illustrated short story, Sea Prayer, inspired by the death of Alan Kurdi, a three year old refugee who drowned when trying to reach Europe from Syria.  Proceeds from sales went to the UNHCR and the Khaled Hosseini Foundation.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaled_Hosseini 

Grisaille (French:  grisaille, lit. 'greyed' from gris 'grey') is a painting executed entirely in shades of grey or of another neutral greyish colour.  It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture.  Many grisailles include a slightly wider colour range.  Paintings executed in brown are referred to as brunaille, and paintings executed in green are called verdaille.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grisaille 

The origin of the Nutcracker, a classic Christmas Story, is a fairy tale ballet in two acts centered on a family’s Christmas Eve celebration.  Alexandre Dumas Père’s adaptation of the story by E.T.A. Hoffmann was set to music by Tchaikovsky and originally choreographed by Marius Petipa.  It was commissioned by the director of Moscow’s Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, in 1891, and premiered a week before Christmas 1892.  Since premiering in western countries in the 1940s, this ballet has become perhaps the most popular to be performed around Christmas time.  The story centers on a young girl’s Christmas Eve and her awakening to the wider world and romantic love.  The composer made a selection of eight of the more popular pieces before the ballet’s December 1892 premiere, forming what is currently known as the Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, as is heard in Moscow Ballet productions.  The suite became instantly popular; however the complete ballet did not achieve its great popularity as a Christmas performance event until almost 100 years later.  The Christmas ballet was first performed outside Russia in England in 1934.  Its first United States performance was in 1944 by the San Francisco Ballet, staged by its artistic director and Balanchine student Willam Christensen.  The New York City Ballet first performed George Balanchine’s Nutcracker in 1954 but the holiday ballet did not begin to achieve its great popularity until after the George Balanchine staging became a hit in New York City.  The now well known Christmas story has been published in many book versions including colorful children-friendly ones.  The plot revolves around a German girl named Clara Stahlbaum and her coming-of-age one Christmas holiday.  In Hoffmann’s tale, the girl’s name is Marie or Maria, while Clara–or “Klärchen”–is the name of one of her dolls.  In the Great Russian Nutcracker, she is affectionately called Masha.  https://www.nutcracker.com/about-us/history-of-nutcracker

At the Steubenville Nutcracker Village you will find the world’s largest collection of lifesize nutcrackers.  The nutcrackers are displayed throughout Fort Steuben Park and Market Street.  Each nutcracker is six feet tall and masterfully crafted to represent various themes.  In addition to the Village you can also enjoy time at the Advent Market which is also located at Fort Steuben Park.  New this year is Fort Steuben Gingerbread Village.  The Village is open until January 8, 2022.  The village is free and open to the public.  To learn more about Steubenville’s Nutcracker Village CLICK HERE.   https://myohiofun.com/the-nutcracker-comes-alive-in-ohio/ 

Books, it turns out, were not only among the first commercially produced Christmas gifts; the book business played a central role in turning Christmas into the commercialized holiday that we know today.  “Publishers and booksellers were the shock troops in exploiting—and developing—a Christmas trade,” Stephen Nissenbaum writes in The Battle for Christmas, his social history of the holiday.  “And books were on the cutting edge of a commercial Christmas, making up more than half of the earliest items advertised as Christmas gifts.”  Michael Bourne  https://lithub.com/how-the-book-business-invented-modern-gift-giving/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2471  December 20, 2021