The pinto bean is a variety of common bean.  In Spanish they are called frijoles pintos.  It is the most popular bean by crop production in Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States, and is most often eaten whole (sometimes in broth), or mashed and then fried.  Prepared either way, it is a common filling for burritos, tostadas, or tacos in Mexican cuisine, also as a side or as part of an entrée served with a side tortilla or sopapilla in New Mexican cuisine.  In South America, it is known as the poroto frutilla, literally "strawberry bean".   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinto_bean#   

Pinto bean recipe   https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016030-a-big-pot-of-simmered-pintos    

bespoke  Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown University linguistics professor, told The New York Times that "Americans associate it with the British upper class", adding that the word for Americans tapped into "our individualism.  We want everything made specially for us.  Even when it comes to salad bars."  As of 2012, there were 39 applications using the term bespoke at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with half of those having been filed only in the previous 18 months.  The Wall Street Journal said that the term had started to proliferate in corporations and among investors a few years before that.  A writer in The Independent said that consumers no longer wanted to "keep up with the Joneses", but wanted to set themselves apart, saying that the bespoke drive was anti-tradition, and about a desire to be different rather than identify collectively with others.   Newsweek described the word as "monstrously distorted, abused and otherwise mangled into near meaninglessness", saying that anything can now be labeled "bespoke".  The same Newsweek writer used the word as a verb to describe ordering a custom-made pair of glasses ("bespeaking a pair of spectacles").  One French bespoke shirtmaker was said to offer 400 shades of white, to satisfy vendor-customer relationships and desire for custom-made items.  The New York Times devoted an article to bespoke cocktails, which they described as "something devised on the spot to a customer's precise and sometimes peculiar specifications".  In another article, The New York Times described bespoke perfumes' taking the "world of personalization to an entirely new level".  A 2016 article in The New York Times describes a satirical video about bespoke water and observed:   "The B word has become an increasingly common branding lure employed by interior design companies, publishers, surgeons and pornographers.  There are bespoke wines, bespoke software, bespoke vacations, bespoke barber shops, bespoke insurance plans, bespoke yoga, bespoke tattoos, even bespoke medical implants."   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bespoke   Thank you, reader.    

In Ancient Greek Theatre, there is an interesting similarity among the plays written during that time: there is always a chorus included.  Nowadays most people would associate a chorus with musicals, but playwrights like Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles included a chorus in their regular plays.  The chorus consisted of a group of 12 to 50 players who spoke or sang their lines in unison, wore masks, and functioned as one actor rather than a large group of many performers.  The purpose of the Greek chorus was to provide background and summary information to the audience to help them understand what was going on in the performance.  They commented on themes, expressed what the main characters couldn’t say (like secrets, thoughts, and fears) and provided other characters with information and insights.  Because Greek theatres were so large, the members of the chorus had to work hard to look and sound like one person.  Their diction and lines had to be presented crisply and clearly so the entire audience could easily hear them.  Their gestures were overly exaggerated.  Frequently a chorus leader, called a coryphaeus, would aid with comprehension.  https://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/exploring-greek-chorus   

A beef on weck is a sandwich found primarily in Western New York State, particularly in the city of Buffalo.  It is made with roast beef on a kummelweck roll, a roll that is topped with kosher salt and caraway seeds.  The meat on the sandwich is traditionally served rare, thin cut, with the top bun getting a dip in jus and spread with horseradish.  The sandwich, along with Buffalo wings and sponge candy, is one of the three best-known food specialties of Buffalo.   The origin and history of the beef on weck sandwich is not well established but is thought to predate the 1960s development of Buffalo wings by approximately a century.   It is believed that a German baker named William Wahr, who is thought to have immigrated from the Black Forest region of Germany, created the kummelweck roll while living in Buffalo, New York.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_on_weck    

November 26, 2025