Sept. 30, 2022  Hidden rooms have been built into homes for centuries, whether for hiding valuables or avoiding persecution.  But they have seen a resurgence in recent years, as examples on the internet rekindle widespread nostalgia for the amenity, said California-based architect Todd Mather, who has designed several secret doors for clients.  Sarah Paynter  Read extensive article with pictures of secret rooms at https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/its-no-secret-hidden-rooms-make-homeowners-feel-like-kids-again-01664465555   

Kubbeh is a small pocket of dough that is stuffed with ground beef.  Kubbeh for soup is usually boiled, whereas Kubbeh served on a platter is fried.   Ready in:  45 mins   Serves:  8  submitted by Abba Gimel  https://www.food.com/recipe/red-kubbeh-soup-412070   

Books by M L Longworth and Complete Book Reviews--includes Mystery of the Lost Cézanne: A Verlaque and Bonnet Mystery, Death in the Vines, and Disaster at the Vendôme Theatre (published in October 2022).  https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/authorpage/m-l-longworth.html  Longworth’s Provençal mystery novels have been adapted for TV.   

GAZPACHO  Creative ingenuity, simplicity, nutritious, powerful . . . these are the great powers of this popular and historical “cold soup” with peasant roots.  Eaten from a bowl with a spoon or drunk from a glass, it is one of the most immediate and indisputable references of Andalusian and Sevillian gastronomy.  The principle is impeccable and easy to make:  just good red tomatoes, garlic, soaked bread crumbs, olive oil and quality vinegar, salt and water.  Everything goes in raw, crushed or mashed and later strained to avoid lumps and to facilitate emulsion. Find recipe at https://www.visitasevilla.es/en/tapas/gazpacho   

Gazpacho, a popular soup from the Andalusian area, (an autonomous community of Spain), mostly known now for being served cold, has many different influences from Greece and Rome, but also from the Moor's and Arab culture.  The original soup was blended stale bread, olive oil and garlic, with some liquid like water or vinegar that was pounded together in a mortar.  Different vegetables and almonds that were available were also added.  The soup evolved into different varieties, the most popular around the world is a tomato based variety, served cold.  It is often served heated in certain regions in Spain.  Now Gazpacho has become a generic term for a cold soup that has a vegetable or fruit base or both, that has similar spices to the traditional.  The tomato, cucumber variety of Gazpacho is probably the most nutritious, being that it is mostly fresh vegetables.  It is sometimes called a Liquid Salad.  A Spanish refrain says, De gazpacho no hay empacho.  (You can never get too much of a good thing or too much gazpacho).  It is great for any meal or snack and the left over can be used as a sauce for pasta.  See graphics and link to recipes at https://kitchenproject.com/history/Gazpacho/index.htm   

what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander  If something is acceptable for one person, it is acceptable for another (often of the opposite sex). quotations ▼ One who treats others in a certain way should not complain about receiving the same treatment.  1670s, figuratively using goose/gander for women and men, and literally meaning that the same sauce applies equally well to cooked goose, regardless of sex. Early forms include “as deep drinketh the goose as the gander” (1562) and similar “As well for the coowe calfe as for the bull” (1549).  The expression appears in Dickens when a spy attempting to evade culpability insists, “For you cannot sarse the goose and not the gander.”  Derived terms:  what's good for the goose is good for the gander--sauce for the goose      https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/what%27s_sauce_for_the_goose_is_sauce_for_the_gander#:~:text=Etymology,the%20bull%E2%80%9D%20(1549).   

The first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere is marked by the winter solstice, which occurs on Wednesday, December 21, 2022, at 4:48 P.M. EST.  The winter solstice marks the official beginning of astronomical winter (as opposed to meteorological winter, which starts about three weeks prior to the solstice).  The winter solstice occurs once a year in each hemisphere:  once in the Northern Hemisphere (in December) and once in the Southern Hemisphere (in June).  This is all thanks to Earth’s tilted axis, which makes it so that one half of Earth is pointed away from the Sun and the other half is pointed towards it at the time of the solstice.  We often think of the winter solstice as an event that spans an entire calendar day, but the solstice actually lasts only a moment.  Specifically, it’s the exact moment when a hemisphere is tilted as far away from the Sun as it can be.  https://www.almanac.com/content/first-day-winter-winter-solstice   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2609  December 21, 2022