Shea butter is fat that’s
extracted from the nuts of the shea tree.
It’s solid at warm temperatures and has an off-white or ivory
color. Shea trees are native to West
Africa, and most shea butter still comes from that region. Shea butter has been used as a cosmetic
ingredient for centuries. Its high
concentration of vitamins and fatty acids—combined with its easy-to-spread
consistency—make it a great product for smoothing, soothing, and conditioning
your skin. Find 22 reasons to use shea
butter and how to use it at https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care/what-is-shea-butter
“Skedaddle” first appeared
in written accounts of battles in the American Civil War used to mean “to
retreat quickly; to flee” (“As soon as the rebs saw our red breeches … coming
through the woods they skedaddled,” 1862). In military use there were
definite overtones of cowardice under fire in “skedaddle,” but as the word
quickly percolated into civilian usage, it came to mean simply “to leave
quickly” or “to run away.” There are a
number of theories about the origin of “skedaddle,” but no definite answer to
the puzzle. The relatively sudden appearance of “skedaddle” as a
fully-formed word, with no known ancestors in English, tends to argue for its
importation from another language. There
are theories that attempt to trace “skedaddle” to various Swedish or Danish
words but fail on lack of evidence. It is more probable that “skedaddle”
is rooted in the Irish word “sgedadol,” meaning “scattered,” or the Scots word
“”skiddle,” meaning “to spill or scatter.” http://www.word-detective.com/2009/06/skedaddle/
Before it became the
sweet summertime treat it is today, the watermelon was one foul,
functional fruit. In fact, the wild
watermelons of ancient times would hardly be recognizable to even the most
seasoned Citrullus connoisseurs of today.
Firm, seedy, and pale green on the inside, they were characterized by
their bland or bitter taste. But despite
their rather unpalatable flesh, they were evidently important fruits to keep
around. In fact, they were cultivated
for hundreds of years before they began to taste like something worth
plating. But if not a flavorful fruit,
what were these watermelons good for?
According to the work of Harry S. Paris, a horticulturalist at the
Agricultural Research Organization in Israel, ancient Egyptians likely
harvested the round fruit for its water.
Wild or “spontaneous” plants, Paris writes, can be
sources of clean water during the long, dry season, and can
provide food for livestock and animals.
Abbey Perreault https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-are-watermelons-from?utm_source=Gastro+Obscura+Weekly+E-mail&utm_campaign=fdb9f41ad8-GASTRO_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_06_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2418498528-fdb9f41ad8-71793902&mc_cid=fdb9f41ad8&mc_eid=aef0869a63
Israeli couscous may be
Israeli, but it’s definitely not couscous.
Couscous is ground semolina (crucially without being mixed with either
egg or water) rubbed together with wet hands until tiny granules form and are
then dried. Israeli couscous, on the
other hand, is tiny balls (about the size of larger peppercorns) of true pasta
made from both wheat flour and semolina then toasted. Asparagus is a natural mate to Israeli
couscous. Its brightness and astringency
pairs well with the earthiness of the pasta.
Tomato confit completes the picture by bringing sweetness, acidity, and
color to the dish. Excerpted from Modern
Kosher by Michael Aaron
Gardiner. Copyright 2020 Rizzoli New York. https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/israeli-couscous-with-asparagus-and-tomato-confit serves 4
Cinéma
vérité ('truthful cinema') is a
style of documentary filmmaking, invented by Jean Rouch,
inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with the use of the
camera to unveil truth or highlight subjects hidden behind crude reality. Many film directors of the 1960s and later
adopted use of the handheld camera, techniques and cinéma vérité styles for
their fiction films based on screenplays and actors. They often had actors using improvisation to
get a more spontaneous quality in their talks and action. Influential examples include director John Cassavetes, who broke ground with his
film Faces. The techniques
(if not always the spirit) of cinéma vérité can also be seen
in fiction films from The Blair Witch
Project to Saving Private Ryan. Cinéma vérité was also readily adapted to use
in TV fiction programs, such as Homicide:
Life on the Street, NYPD Blue, both the UK and American
versions of The Office, Parks &
Recreation and Modern Family. It has also been the
subject ripe for parodies and spoofs such as the acclaimed mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap and
Emmy-nominated TV series Documentary Now (the latter paying
homage to the style of such CV classics as Grey Gardens and The
War Room). See comparisons of cinéma
vérité to observational cinema and direct cinema at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cin%C3%A9ma_v%C3%A9rit%C3%A9
The
Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios (HAHS) program, part of the National Trust
for Historic Preservation, is a growing consortium of 44 sites established in
1999 out of an initiative developed by Dr. Wanda Corn, a professor of art
history at Stanford University, that acknowledged that artists’ homes and
studios were unique museums, not only housing collections of artists’ works but
also exploring artists’ relationships with the built environment—and preserving
that built environment. See Inside the Homes and Studios
of 13 American Artists by Stefanie Waldek--a new book guides readers through the historic spaces of
artists from Edward Hopper to Jackson Pollock at https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/inside-homes-studios-american-artists Enjoy beautiful pictures. Thank you, Muse reader!
Thanks to
its odd appearance and elusive history, the Mexican sour gherkin is always confused with a cucumber or
pickled cucumber. To confuse matters even further, it is also
referred to as “cucamelon” or “mouse melon”.
And did you know: A commercial
London skyscraper is also nicknamed gherkin due to its resemblance to the
fruit? But we need to say it
upfront: The Mexican sour gherkin is
NOT a cucumber. Yes, they both belong to the same gourd
family “Cucurbitaceae” and the gherkin is often called a “miniature cucumber”
but they are from different cultivar groups.
Only one species i.e. Cucumis Sativus is considered a cucumber, but the
Mexican sour gherkin which is 1-3 inches in size belongs to Melothria, another
genus entirely. So it is not an actual
cucumber, but an honorary one. https://food.ndtv.com/food-drinks/what-is-a-gherkin-is-it-different-from-a-pickled-cucumber-1620893
Writing
better user stories with Gherkin and Cucumber by Michael Williams https://medium.com/@mvwi/story-writing-with-gherkin-and-cucumber-1878124c284c
The
public library is no stranger to crisis and has often flourished in times of
wider emergency. The idea of providing
tax-based local libraries was born during the first major crisis of industrial
capitalism, against the backdrop of Chartist agitation. Whereas some European countries got bourgeois
revolutions (in 1848), Britain got public libraries; the Public Libraries Act,
which allowed local authorities to establish free public libraries, arrived on
the statute book in 1850. In 1850, in looking forward to the Great
Exhibition scheduled for the following year, the Art Journal warned
that Britain had yielded the ‘palm of excellence’ to French, German and
Bohemian manufacturers in respect of goods that contained a critical
artistic-design element. Library
promoters argued that increased exposure to art and design through the
provision of art books and artefacts in attached museums would improve the
quality of manufacturers because taste would be universally elevated and
workers’ skills improved. While
acknowledging the economic power of art, Edward Edwards, the country’s first
public librarian, believed libraries could help relieve the alienating,
dehumanising effect of industrialisation.
He suggested that giving artisans access to books would not only ‘solace
the intervals of toil’ but also ‘put new meaning in the toil, and new life in
the toiler’. Linked to this was the idea that a
library offered sanctuary from an urbanising society in which the pace and
stresses of life were rapidly increasing.
In 1914, many librarians went to war, and there were other interruptions
to service, but reading for light relief as well as about the causes of the
conflict and other international matters increased in popularity. Technical and commercial departments were
inaugurated in the context of the reconstruction effort, which was partly aimed
at guarding against the spread of revolutionary ideas. Reconstruction also gave rise to reformed
legislation (in 1919), which allowed county councils to open libraries, thereby
giving library access to millions in rural areas for the first time. During the Great Depression of the 1930s,
libraries offered distraction from the misery of daily life. In the Second World War, 50 libraries were
destroyed or severely damaged. Those that survived the bombing were
blacked out, but the opening hours of many were lengthened and a massive boom
in reading was accommodated, as people sought diversion and ways to maintain
morale. Alistair Black https://www.apollo-magazine.com/public-libraries-in-times-of-crisis-covid-pandemic/?utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=LJTW&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=articles
THOUGHT FOR JULY 20 The most valuable possession you can own is
an open heart. The most powerful weapon
you can be is an instrument of peace. - Carlos Santana, musician (b. 20 Jul
1947)
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2231
July 20, 2020
