A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

hallmark  (HAHL-mark)  noun  1.  A mark of quality, genuineness, or excellence.  2.  A distinguishing feature or characteristic.  After Goldsmiths’ Hall in London, where articles of gold and silver were appraised and stamped.  Earliest documented use:  1721.

golden parachute  (GOL-den par-uh-shoot)  noun  An agreement to pay generous compensation to a company executive if dismissed.  From the idea of a parachute softening the blow of an ejection from a high office and the color golden alluding to the large payment received on dismissal.  Earliest documented use:  1981.

pyrite  (PY-ryt)  noun  1.  A shiny yellow mineral of iron disulfide.  Also known as iron pyrites or fool’s gold.  2.  Something that appears valuable but is worthless.  From Latin pyrites (flint), from Greek pyrites lithos (stone of fire, flint), from its shiny surface and its use for starting fire.  Earliest documented use:  1475.

extrality  (ek-STRAL-i-tee)  noun  Exemption from local laws:  the privilege of living in a foreign country, but subject only to the home country’s jurisdiction. 

Cook's Tour may refer to:  Cook's Tour, a nickname for tours of Thomas Cook  *  "Cook's Tour", an episode of Silk Stalkings  *  "Cook's Tour", an episode of Emergency!  *  A Cook's Tour (book), a book by Anthony Bourdain  *  A Cook's Tour (TV series)  Kook's Tour, a 1970 film  See also  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook%27s_Tour 

The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939.  The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.  Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work.  Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California along with thousands of other "Okies" seeking jobs, land, dignity, and a future.  While writing the novel at his home, 16250 Greenwood Lane, in what is now Monte Sereno, California, Steinbeck had unusual difficulty devising a title.  The Grapes of Wrath, suggested by his wife Carol Steinbeck, was deemed more suitable than anything by the author.  The title is a reference to lyrics from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", by Julia Ward Howe.  Steinbeck scholar John Timmerman sums up the book's influence:  "The Grapes of Wrath may well be the most thoroughly discussed novel--in criticism, reviews, and college classrooms--of 20th century American literature."  The Grapes of Wrath is referred to as a Great American Novel.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath 

If you’ve traveled to Wölffer Estate Vineyard on Long Island, you might have seen winemaker Roman Roth walking around with a full glass of pale golden liquid in his hand.  As he makes his way through the property, Roth likes to hold the stem and raise the vessel to guests—especially now that it has become safer for them to visit, something worthy of a toast.  What you might not know, though, is that his glass usually contains a mixture of water and verjus, not chardonnay or sauvignon blanc.  “It’s lovely to have something sour, refreshing and nonalcoholic during the day,” he says.  At Wölffer Kitchen Amagansett, you can order a leveled-up version of Roth’s drink:  The Free Spirit cocktail is a mixture of sparkling water, verjus, blueberries and raspberries on ice, garnished with a basil leaf.  Verjus, the juice of unripened wine grapes (vert jus is French for “green juice”), is a treasure made from what some might consider to be trash.  Grapes can struggle to develop the fully ripened, concentrated flavors required for winemaking if there are too many of them on the vine, fighting for sun exposure.  So, just before veraison, a stage during which grapes start to change color and sugars accumulate, growers assess the crop load and remove clusters to give the remaining fruit a chance at maturity.  Some years, Roth says, he has cut 30 percent of his crop.  Why let it rot on the ground when it can be turned into something that celebrates its youth?  Although it has been around since the medieval era, verjus, sometimes called verjuice, still isn’t a household word.  But those who have tasted the bright, crisp liquid—mainly chefs—make salad dressings with it or finish a braise with a couple dashes, giving the rich, meaty stew a light, subtle lift impossible with vinegar.  Though the acid is tamer than that of vinegar, you still don’t want to drink verjus straight.  Try mixing it with sparkling water, or in the Verjus Spritz.  Once opened, store your bottle in the fridge and use it within two to three months.  Julia Bainbridge  https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/06/08/verjus-recipes/ 

What's the origin of the phrase 'Truth is stranger than fiction'?  This proverbial saying is attributed to, and almost certainly coined by, Lord Byron, in the satirical poem Don Juan, 1823:  ' Tis strange - but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction; if it could be told, How much would novels gain by the exchange!  How differently the world would men behold!   How oft would vice and virtue places change!  The new world would be nothing to the old, If some Columbus of the moral seas Would show mankind their souls' antipodes.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/truth-is-stranger-than-fiction.html 

In 1858 Josiah Henson (1789-1883), a Maryland-born slave, wrote an autobiography titled Truth Stranger than Fiction.  Henson was supposedly the real-life Uncle Tom in Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.  https://www.trivia-library.com/b/origins-of-sayings-truth-is-stranger-than-fiction.htm

In 1897 Mark Twain released a travel book titled “Following the Equator:  A Journey Around the World”, and the fifteenth chapter presented the following epigraph:  Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. — Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.  Pudd’nhead Wilson was the name of a fictional character in a novel Twain published a few years before the travel book.  Find other phrasings at https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/07/15/truth-stranger/ 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2390  July 14, 2021