Damning with faint praise. December 7, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: blog excellence, blog humor, blog writing, spam
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As faithful readers of our blog know, we get some pretty wacky blog searches (aka search engine queries) on our blog, Poor Richard’s Almanac. We also get a fair amount of spam, which is usually auto-deleted by our blog host, WordPress’s, spam filter, Akismet. Thanks, WordPress!
Still, there are times when Akismet becomes confused. Is it spam, or a legitimate comment? In these cases, it’s marked as spam but filed so we can read it and see if we agree. Often, we can see the reason for the confusion. The comment seems reasonable, but on closer inspection, it bears no relation to the post it’s attached to. Most of these comments manage to be both generic and fawning, various versions of the “Love your blog!” category. We wish they did, but when they link back to a site selling discount drugs or foreclosures, somehow we doubt it.
Today, however, we received a priceless comment in our Akismet spam folder: “I’m happy to report this most recent posting is in reality somewhat good and extensively more desirable than 1/2 the various spam I read today.”
Harrumph! What do you mean, “somewhat good”?!! And excuse us, we’re trying to write legitimate observations here, not spam, various or otherwise. Not to mention that half the spam you read was better than our post?!!! GRRRRRRRRR…
We actually loved this comment, since it embodied the very definition of “damning with faint praise.” (Well, actually, we think the bar was set for this when Dorothy Parker said that Katharine Hepburn’s emotional acting range ran the gamut from A to B.)
We were raised in households that measured accomplishment by expectation: If everyone knew you could make straight As, a B+ was every bit as humiliating as an F (which was, of course, unthinkable). No one handed out rewards for making As; it was simply expected. So a post of ours that’s “in reality somewhat good” lays the lash pretty heavily across our shoulders. We’ll try to do better, we promise. And maybe, if we work really, really hard at it, we could even beat the other 50% of the spam that you’re reading…
What is a soul cake? December 6, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: Hallowe'en, If on a Winter's Night..., Peter Paul and Mary, soul cakes, Sting, trick-or-treating
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Our friend Ben and Silence Dogood began our ritual Christmas decorating this past weekend. We bought a lovely fresh wreath at the nearby Kutztown, PA farmers’ market and decorated it, wrapped it with solar Christmas lights, and hung it on the wall of Hawk’s Haven.
Next, we went to the annual Glick’s poinsettia extravaganza in Oley (still going on today; search for “PA treats, toys, and poinsettias” in our search bar at upper right for details), and succumbed to a small poinsettia for the mantel, bypassing the newest choice, which was a truly blinding Dayglo orange (how did they do that?!!), the gorgeous burgundy and pink varieties, and the color-splashed types (even though our friend Ben secretly harbors a weakness for those).
Instead, we bought a classic red, with its true flowers (the little gold balls on top) cheerfully displayed like Christmas ornaments, and plenty of green leaves setting off the red. Glick’s wrapped the pot in classic gold foil, and Silence artfully arranged a spray of pinecones and tiny gold ornaments spilling over the side—a necessary touch, since the plant will be seen from below to deter cat consumption. (Our cats can’t seem to resist poinsettias, as their ragged leaves bear witness if we set them within cats’ reach.)
Now it was time for the serious stuff. We brought out our boxes of Christmas books, music, and movies (all the movies are versions of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol for our annual Scroogefest). We hauled down box after box of ornaments from the attic. We set out our schwibbogen, the delightful wooden holiday scene handcrafted in Germany and lit with tiny white lights. Then Silence got to work creating her usual mind-blowing mantel scene, hanging stockings, positioning the Creche, setting up the whimsical wooden German incense smokers, and layering ornaments, candles, and greenery so richly that you can look for hours and still not feel like you’ve seen them all.
Our friend Ben’s job during this process is to admire and to keep the Christmas music going (not to mention hauling boxes). And one of our favorite Christmas albums is Sting’s “If on a Winter’s Night…”, so I started with that. Which brings me to the point of this post.
Sting sings a song on “If on a Winter’s Night…” called “Soul Cake.” It sounds like a traditional wassailing song, in which carolers go from house to house singing, then demanding treats, wine, and coins for their efforts. But the treats these carolers are requesting are soul cakes:
“Soul cake, a soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake
An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, any good thing to make us all merry.
One for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him who made us all.”
Playing the CD again reminded our friend Ben that I really should look up soul cakes to see what they were and how they got their name. Did I get a shock when I looked on Wikipedia!
It turns out that soul cakes were originally made and distributed to honor the dead on All Souls’ Day (Hallowmas, aka Hallowe’en) and All Saints’ Day in mediaeval England. They were little cakes made with spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice, and raisins or currants, and were given to “soulers,” typically children and the poor, who went from door to door “souling,” singing for the souls of the dead. Each soul cake eaten (and therefore, each soul cake made and given) was supposed to free a soul from Purgatory.
Does this sound vaguely familiar? If you guessed that this was the origin of Hallowe’en trick-or-treating, you’re right. Who’d’a thunk?!! Thanks, Sting, for inspiring our friend Ben to learn something new! And thanks, Peter, Paul and Mary, whose original 1963 song “A Soalin'” inspired Sting to write “Soul Cake.”
Today, Silence is busy decorating our kitchen table (which is also our dining table) with another artistic outpouring of Christmas cheer. We’re burning frankincense in one of our smokers, which depicts a cheerful forest gnome sitting among mushrooms. And of course we’re playing Christmas music.
Yes, we still have to get a large Norfolk Island pine to replace our beloved psychoactive Christmas tree, whose light display stopped working last year. And we still have to wrap and mail presents and Christmas cards. But just walking into our living room reminds us of the potent magic of the Christmas season, transporting us back in time, to our childhoods, to the Victorian era when our modern Christmas traditions took shape, to the mediaeval world of wassailing and Yule logs, all the way back to a manger in Bethlehem on a certain starry night…
Making popcorn pop. December 5, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: popcorn, popping popcorn, toppings for popcorn
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Silence Dogood here. A big bowl of hot, fresh-popped popcorn is just the thing on a cold day. Our friend Ben and I have a little air-popper, and we like to top our hot popcorn with butter, salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of grated Parmesan. (OFB likes melted butter, but I hate touching grease, so I use cold butter and make popcorn balls around each piece. No fuss, no muss!)
For all you calorie-conscious types who are screaming in horror, let me say that OFB and I never eat popcorn as a snack: It’s either lunch, often with an apple or tomato soup, or supper on a movies-at-home night. And nobody’s making you put butter or cheese on yours! One of our heroes, the famous homesteader Helen Nearing, served her popcorn (and her potatoes, etc.) plain, and memorably said that if someone wasn’t hungry enough to eat plain popcorn, they weren’t hungry enough to eat, period!
For those who aren’t so Spartan, there are plenty of topping options. We find air-popped popcorn a bit too dry for our taste without butter, but if you pop yours in oil, you can skip the butter and try dried herbs like oregano, thyme, and basil; hot pepper flakes, powdered chipotle peppers, or chili powder for the hotheads; brewer’s yeast (we don’t quite get that one, but we believe it’s somehow supposed to taste cheesy); or cinnamon, curry powder, or garam masala. Of course, you can add any shredded cheese your heart desires, or the powdered cheeses you can get from health food stores and catalogues (they have powdered butter, too, which would certainly be less messy, but I confess I’ve never tried it). I’ve always thought that melting brown sugar in butter and pouring it over hot salted popcorn would produce a lovely caramel-corn effect, but have never tried it, either (too gooey).
However, the title of this post isn’t referring to making the flavor of popcorn “pop,” but to actually popping the kernels. As anyone knows who buys popcorn in bulk, as it ages, more and more kernels don’t pop when you heat them. That’s because it’s the moisture in the kernels that makes them pop, and they dry out as they age. And nothing’s more disappointing than seeing all those unpopped kernels in the bowl, or worse still, biting down on one. (I once overheard a dentist, speaking to his technician about a client who’d cracked a tooth, “I can’t believe these people eat popcorn!” Heaven forbid.)
Fortunately, there’s at least one surefire way to keep your popcorn popping, no matter how old it is: Keep it in an airtight jar, and add a few drops of water every couple of months, shaking the jar to distribute the water. Mind you, we’re talking about maybe five drops of water; you don’t want to flood your popcorn or it will mold. A few drops is just enough to increase the humidity in the jar and rehydrate the kernels to full poppability.
I recently read of an even simpler method for keeping popcorn poppable. If memory serves, it was in a book about Tasha Tudor, the beloved children’s book author and illustrator and expert on early 19th-century life. Tasha said that the best place to keep popcorn was in the freezer, where it would stay perfectly fresh and always pop down to the last kernel. Sadly, this technique isn’t an option for me and our friend Ben, since our freezer is always ready to explode with things that actually must be kept frozen. But if you have some extra freezer space, try it and enjoy fully popped popcorn every time!
“Enjoy” is the operative word when it comes to popcorn. It’s stupid to make such a fun, delicious treat, then feel guilty about every mouthful. Instead, do as OFB and I do and eat it as a meal; eat a small bowl; choose low-cal toppings that you really like; eat it at the end of a day of vigorous outdoor activity (and share some with your popcorn-loving dog). But whatever you do, enjoy it, please! Try these tips to make it all pop. And if you have favorite toppings for popcorn (or techniques to keep it popping), we’d love to hear about them!
‘Til next time,
Silence
Weird words. December 4, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: afflatus, bad writing, geoduck, pretension, weird words
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Our friend Ben was just musing about why a West Coast clam would be called a “geoduck,” when it was neither a rock nor a duck. Certainly, it doesn’t resemble either one. Instead, it bears more of a resemblance to an amaryllis just prior to flowering, with a long, stout, stemlike neck extending from a bulblike shell. Maybe it tasted like duck but had really hard flesh?
Having pondered the geoduck’s bizarre name on and off for years, our friend Ben finally headed to Wikipedia, where I saw that not only was it not pronounced as spelled—the correct pronunciation is apparently “gooey duck,” what a delicious thought—but that the name is derived from a Lushootseed (Nisqually) word meaning “dig deep.” These large, long-necked clams do indeed “dig deep,” so foragers seeking to harvest them must also “dig deep” to unearth them. But our friend Ben thinks the more descriptive Chinese name for the geoduck, which translates as “elephant trunk clam,” is far more appropriate.
Our friend Ben can’t say why I was thinking of geoducks this morning, but as I read an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, I was dismayed to see that the columnist had included the word “afflatus” in his article on net neutrality. Afflatus?!! Our friend Ben is not ignorant, but I’ll admit that there’s much that I don’t know. “Afflatus” is certainly a word I was unfamiliar with. What could it mean? A windbag? And why was a columnist for a newspaper that is read by business professionals and investors using a word unlikely to be known by any of them?
Again, according to Wikipedia, “afflatus” is a Latin term, derived from Cicero, that means “inspiration,” but inspiration to the max, “the staggering and stunning blow of a new idea, an idea that the recipient may be unable to explain.” “Struck dumb” and “dumbfounded” come to mind in this context.
The nuance justifies using something stronger than simple “inspiration.” But it does not, in our friend Ben’s opinion, justify resorting to a word that’s no longer in use. That is pretension, plain and simple, not good writing.
Geoduck. Afflatus. What weird words have you found today?
PA treats, toys, and poinsettias. December 3, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: Glick's Greenhouse, Glick's Poinsettia Show, Goschenhoppen Historians, Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas, Pennsylvania German Christmas, poinsettias, The Christmas Show
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Our friend Ben would like to encourage folks in eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and environs to attend two fun and unique Christmas displays this weekend. They’re among Silence Dogood’s and my favorite holiday outings.
First is the Glick’s Greenhouse Poinsettia Show in Oley, PA. Now, before you wonder if our friend Ben has lost my mind, suggesting that you trek over to a Berks County greenhouse to look at poinsettias, this is not just any greenhouse or any old poinsettia display. The huge greenhouses have attracted thousands of visitors on this weekend for 31 years, for live music, free food (including hot popcorn, hot dogs with all the trimmings, and beverages, including, of course, cider), themed wreaths and decorations (this year’s theme is “Once upon a Christmas, the timeless and treasured stories of Christmas”), and more than 10,000 poinsettias, all in perfect condition and beautifully displayed.
Our friend Ben is especially looking forward to the themed wreath display, hoping that many contestants will have chosen my favorite Christmas story, Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, and Clement Clarke Moore’s The Night Before Christmas as their themes. (Wreaths are entered and judged for ribbons from all over the area, and they’re always amazingly inventive.) Horticulturists that we are, Silence and I always enjoy seeing the newest poinsettias on the market as well as the lovely old classics as we pass through the poinsettia displays.
But the thing we love best—the reason we can’t resist the Glick’s extravaganza—is their own beautiful Christmas wreaths. We have never seen nicer wreaths anywhere, and it’s become a Hawk’s Haven tradition to go to Glick’s for the show and buy our Christmas wreath. This year, Silence is agitating for a Norfolk Island pine to replace our huge, beloved one that finally died several years ago. It made a great Christmas tree and lived practically forever, so we may succumb to one this year at Glick’s as well.
Will we buy one of the famous poinsettias? Maybe. Unfortunately, our cats can’t seem to resist them, and while poinsettias aren’t actually poisonous—that’s an urban legend—a chewed-up poinsettia isn’t exactly decorative.
To find out more and get directions, visit Glick’s website (www.glicksgreenhouse.com) or call them at 610-689-9856. They’re on 57 Fisher Mill Road, and Silence, who was in the area with a friend recently, says there’s excellent signage pointing people towards Glick’s on all the area roads. The show runs today, Friday, December 3, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 6; they’re closed on Sunday.
The other event Silence and our friend Ben make it a point never to miss is The Christmas Market, presented in Green Lane, PA (Montgomery County, down Route 29) by the Goschenhoppen Historians at Red Men’s Hall. Say what?!! Well, our friend Ben is not sure how Red Men’s Hall got its name, but the Goschenhoppens were an early group of Pennsylvania Dutch settlers in the area, and the Historians aim to keep their folkways alive with demonstrations of authentic old-time cooking, crafts, gardening, and skills. For the Christmas Market, however, they limit their displays and demonstrations to Christmas-themed Penna Dutch traditions. The result is utterly delightful, as well as informative.
This year’s theme is “Toys for Boys,” so expect to see Christmas train displays and other delights of yesteryear for boys (buwe in Deitsch, the language of the Pennsylvania Dutch, actually Germans) of all ages. There will be decorated Christmas trees and displays of Pennsylvania German Christmas customs and folk practices. And of course, there will be toys, vintage and new handmade ornaments, “clear toys” (colored sugar candy in fantastic forms, like reindeer, used as ornaments and stocking stuffers), and crafts for sale, as well as some gorgeous Christmas cards and fun pet presents that we always find irresistible.
Oh, and did we mention the bake sale? Our friend Ben hopes not. You see, every year, there are unbelievable baked goods for sale at the show. The Historians make them at home, and many are renowned for a particular specialty. Our friend Ben will be very disgruntled—not to say irate—if you arrive in time to buy the last lemon sponge pie or batch of Joanne’s famous hickory-nut cookies and we don’t get any.
This year’s show will be held on this Saturday and Sunday, December 4th and 5th. Find out more on their website, www.goschenhoppen.org.
Both events are fun and, of course, family-friendly. We hope to see you there!
The twelve smells of Christmas. December 2, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: beloved smells of Christmas, Christmas, Christmas fragrances, Christmas memories, Christmas scents, Christmas smells
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Our friend Ben is not, fortunately for all concerned, going to break into song here. Instead, I’d like to talk about the importance of scent in enjoying the Christmas holidays. There are certain smells that inevitably trigger wonderful memories of Christmases past. For me, the smells of Christmas are every bit as important as the sights and sounds. Here are twelve that bring the holidays alive for me (in the order I think of them, not necessarily in the order of importance):
1. Balsam or pine incense. My beloved Mama burned those little sticks of balsam incense that came in a little log cabin incense burner every Christmas. Silence Dogood and I don’t have a log cabin burner, but we still burn balsam and/or pine incense sticks every Christmas season.
2. Frankincense. Our German friends burn cones of frankincense incense in their Santa smokers at Christmas, and we love the treasured fragrance. We were able to find both the incense and a Santa smoker of our own at Christkindlmarkt in Bethlehem, PA, and have been enjoying it at Hawk’s Haven ever since.
3. Woodsmoke. Silence and I love this smell anytime, but when it’s snowing outside, the smoky smell is even more magical, carrying us back to The Night Before Christmas, and reminding me of the many Christmas Eves of childhood, with a fire in my bedroom fireplace and my stocking hung by the chimney with care.
4. Real bayberry candles. Our friend Ben can’t really describe the smell of bayberry, but once you’ve smelled it, you’ll never forget it (in a good way). My parents burned real bayberry candles (made from the waxy berries of the bayberry bush, even the color of the candles is a waxy grey-green) every Christmas, and so do Silence and I.
5. Real beeswax candles. To our friend Ben, few things smell as heavenly as beeswax, with its potent honey scent enhancing the rich gold color of the candles. They’re so expensive that Silence and I typically just keep them on hand to smell them, rather than burn them, and it’s a smell that never loses its charm. In fact, one year our friend Ben thought I’d died and gone to Heaven when I entered a candle stand at Christkindlmarkt and smelled candles that were made of beeswax scented with…
6. Cinnamon. Few things bring out the warmth and comfort of the Christmas season like the smell of cinnamon: cinnamon sticks in mulled cider or hot chocolate, hot cinnamon buns or coffeecake, even the cinnamon-infused pinecones in bags as you walk into the supermarket. Silence and I enjoy cinnamon year-round, in everything from curried carrots to oatmeal. But when the cinnamon sticks come out at our house, you know it’s Christmas!
7. Orange and cloves. The delicious combination of orange and cloves first imprinted itself on the youthful Ben when Mama stuck whole cloves into oranges every December to make pomanders to set out in bowls at Christmas. The whole house was filled with their fragrance. Unfortunately, she often dragooned the kids to help her with this task, and pushing a sharp-pointed clove into a tough orange peel—much less hundreds of them— is not fun! Fortunately, Silence pointed out to the adult OFB that you could pre-punch the holes in the orange with an awl or knitting needle, and the cloves would go right in.
8. Christmas greens. Surely nothing says Christmas like the smell of fresh evergreens, in wreaths and swags as well as fresh-cut trees. Our friend Ben can’t get enough of this smell. It’s the best argument I know of against artificial trees and wreaths. The high-end ones may look realistic, they certainly never need to be replaced or cleaned up after, and they make great display spaces for ornaments. But ah, ah, where is that smell? It’s a good thing Hawk’s Haven is secluded, so no one can see our friend Ben pressing my face into our Christmas wreath every single time I go in or out the door.
9. Snow. Well, maybe snow itself doesn’t actually smell. But the air on those cold, crisp days of winter certainly smells different than the air of spring, summer, or fall.
10. Peppermint. Our friend Ben and Silence are big fans of peppermint year-round, often adding fresh peppermint to our summer salads or simply chewing a leaf when we’re working in the garden. And Silence often enjoys a steaming mug of peppermint tea. But the smell of peppermint at Christmas—candy canes and, especially, those big, soft King Leo peppermint sticks and “pillows” that melt in your mouth (made with pride in our home state, Tennessee)—is a Christmas essential. Santa, please don’t forget to put peppermint sticks in our stockings!
11. Bourbon. By this, our friend Ben really means eggnog. Our family eggnog featured copious quantities of 100-proof bourbon, about the only time the youthful Ben enjoyed this smell (and definitely the only time my siblings and I enjoyed the taste!). The famous Simms Family Eggnog was our family’s holiday hallmark, and no Christmas season would be complete without a bowl. If you think you hate eggnog, Silence promises to post the recipe and make a convert of you!
12. Baking. Hot bread, cookies, pies, cakes—mercy! The heavenly smell of baked goods promises a very, very merry Christmas for everyone. That’s why baked goods nosed out wet dog (also wet coats, mittens, and scarves) and apples, the other major contenders, for Christmas smell #12.
That’s my list. What’s yours? Please remind me of some of the iconic smells I’ve missed!
Curbing Christmas consumption. December 1, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: Christmas, Christmas cards, Christmas catalogs, Christmas ornaments, Christmas shopping, curbing Christmas spending, frugal Christmas ideas
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Silence Dogood here. Buying gifts for other people is one thing. But the aspect of Christmas I most dread is the huge temptation to buy things for myself.
Here’s how it always goes: Let’s say that, like me, you love Christmas ornaments. Now, you already have more lovingly chosen ornaments, family heirlooms, and etc. than you can ever display. You tell yourself, come on, it’s Christmas, so you can buy yourself one new ornament. Then you go shopping. It seems like everywhere you go, at least 50 ornaments are screaming “Buy me! Buy me!” Handmade ornaments. Vintage ornaments. Temptation is everywhere.
Okay, you think, I’ll avoid temptation by limiting my outings as much as possible. But then the Christmas catalogues come piling in the door. Not only are they full of wonderful ornaments, but they virtually explode with gorgeous trees, wreaths, and—my other unfortunate weakness—really stunning Christmas cards.
The two worst offenders in this category are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Chicago Art Institute catalogues. From cards with exquisite Fra Angelico and Giotto angels to breathtaking photographs to delightful cutouts and whimsical creations, these catalogues offer up the creme de la creme of cards, and I always want at least 20 different boxes from each catalogue. And did I mention catalogues with real glass snow globes, old-time toys, colorful Christmas stockings, and delicious Christmas confections?
Fortunately, I’ve discovered a way to make this particular temptation work for me. I understand that it’s looking at these wonderfully creative expressions of Christmas that cheers me up and puts me in the holiday spirit, not necessarily owning them. So I have a folder labeled “Christmas Ideas.” Every time I see a page in a Christmas catalogue or magazine with something I love on it, I tear it out and put it in the folder. Each season, it’s enormous fun to open the folder and revisit the wonderful delights inside, while, of course, adding new ones.
Why “Christmas Ideas,” you ask? Well, who’s to say that one year I won’t unearth my box of tiny white starfish and sand dollars and make my own “White Christmas” wreath with them, rather than ordering one from a catalogue? And sometimes, you can get a great idea from a catalogue and adapt it to your own decor.
This year, I saw that L.L. Bean was offering a live “tabletop tree” with the ornaments attached to ribbons hanging from a bow at the top of the tree. Since hanging ornaments directly on a small live tree like a Norfolk Island pine or, mercy on us, one of those rosemary topiaries that always seem to be everywhere at Christmas, can potentially damage the plant, this struck me as a brilliant solution. And why not extend it to attaching ornaments to ribbons and stringing them on the mantel, on a chandelier, around a door, or on a banister? It seems like a great way to get to display more of your small ornaments while minimizing the risk of breakage from, say, a cat swiping one off its hook.
My “Christmas Ideas” folder has brought me great enjoyment and really helped curb that “I love this and have to buy it or I won’t remember it” impulse. And guess what? I have a second folder labeled “Christmas Gifts.”
The “Christmas Gifts” folder is designed to foil that other dreaded syndrome, the “one for you and two for me” gift-buying orgy. When I see something in one of those catalogues or magazines I’d just love to have, again, I tear it out and put it in the folder. If I see that I’ve put the same item in the folder for the past several years, I’m likely to give that page to our friend Ben (assuming the item is reasonable) as a subtle hint. Otherwise, I just enjoy my virtual Christmas shopping spree!
I can see expanding the idea so that each family member has his or her own “Christmas Gifts” folder. (As long as they clearly understand that this is a playlist, not a shopping list for you or Santa!) Each season, you could all look through everyone’s folders and get ideas for gifts you know would be appreciated.
These tactics are especially helpful in houses like ours where money is tight and space is limited. Just yesterday, I saw a bumper sticker that said “Question Consumption.” What a good idea! A few simple Christmas folders is a great way to start.
‘Til next time,
Silence
Poor Richard's Almanac 