~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
June 10th

★~ Today’s Quote: Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I’m taking with me when I go. Erma Bombeck

★~ Herb and Spice Day:

Spice up your life! I am the blogger who does not cook, so I cannot really talk about herbs and spices much, beyond salt, pepper, cinnamon and mint. I do know that my spice cabinet boasts a lot of curry, thyme, tarragon and oregano. I also have a couple of very expensive spices a recipe could not live without.  I can never remember what spices are living in my spice cabinet, and I always forget to look before heading out to the grocery store, so I am pretty sure I have least four jars of nutmeg. I do remember what the difference between a herb and a spice is, so be prepared to be impressed: Herbs hail from the leafy part of the plant; spices are seeds, fruits, roots or bark. Speaking of herbs — mint is wonderful in ice tea, and today just happens to be Ice Tea Day!

★~ Ice Tea Day:

I love ice tea. I drink it all summer long and have from the time I was a dumb little kid. I brew Lipton Tea at home, and add mint and lots and lots of sugar.  Here are a couple of my ice tea pet peeves. Nothing annoys me more than ordering ice tea out, finally opening enough packets of plain, ordinary sugar to bring it to just the right sweetness and then, the moment my back is turned, a well-intentioned but evil waiter tops off my ice tea glass and screws up my tea to sugar ratio. What annoys me even more are people that comment on how much sugar I add to my tea. I actually hide empty white sugar packets and hope nobody notices. I do not like artificial sweeteners, and it takes a lot of white sugar to get my tea just right. I have no idea why people feel the need to comment on my ice tea habits, and when they say “why don’t you have a little ice tea with your sugar,” I really want to shoot them.

Cheers! Happy Ice Tea Day.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1902 – A kindly gent named Americus F. Callahan patented (U.S. No. 701,839) what he called the outlook or see-through envelope. The rest, of course, is accounts payable history…

♥~ 1943 – The Ball Point Pen was patented — again — by Laszlo Josef Biro of Budapest, Hungary. Biro (painter, writer, sculptor, medical student, hypnotist, inventor), and his brother George, had patented the Biro pen in 1938. In 1940, as war engulfed Europe, the Biro brothers emigrated to Argentina, where a fresh patent was applied for on this day.

♥~ 1972 – Sammy Davis Jr. earned his place at the top of the popular music charts for the first time, after years in the entertainment business. His number one song, The Candy Man, stayed at the top for three consecutive weeks.

♥~ 1976 – Paul McCartney and Wings set a record for an indoor concert crowd as 67,100 fans gathered at the Kingdome in Seattle, WA to hear the former Beatle and his new group.

♥~ 1988 – An American clergyman claimed the TV cartoon character “Mighty Mouse” had been shown snorting cocaine. CBS producers denied the claim and said he was only sniffing flowers.

★~Born Today:

♥ ~ 1881–  Leo Tolstoy Author,  Tolstoy two greatest novels, were War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877)

♥~ 1895 – Hattie McDaniel Academy Award-winning actress: Gone with the Wind [1939]: 1st African-American to win Oscar; Judge Priest, The Little Colonel, Showboat, Saratoga, Since You Went Away; died Oct 26, 1952

♥~ 1915 – Saul Bellow Nobel Prize-winning writer: The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Dangling Man, The Victim, Henderson the Rain King; died Apr 5, 2005

♥~ 1922 – Judy Garland (Frances Ethel Gumm) singer: Over the Rainbow, The Trolley Song, You Made Me Love You, The Man that Got Away; actress: The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, A Star is Born, Easter Parade, The Harvey Girls, Judgment at Nuremberg; mother of Liza Minnelli and Lorna & Joey Luft; died June 22, 1969

♥~ 1928 – Maurice Sendak author, illustrator: Chicken Soup with Rice, Where the Wild Things Are

♥~ 1965 – Elizabeth Hurley, Model, actress: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Christabel, Orchid House, Passenger 57

★~ Did You Know:

♥~ Pepper, be it white, black, or green, contains an alkaloid of pyridine called piperine. Piperine acts as an irritant if it gets into the nose. It stimulates (or irritates) the nerve endings inside the mucous membrane. This stimulation will cause you to sneeze.

♥~ Cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) is a tree belonging to the Lauraceae family. The bark of the tree is what is used as a spice.

♥~ The most expensive spice is Saffron The female reproductive organ of a flower saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) are the dried filaments known as Saffron. More than 75,000 of these stigmas must be hand picked to produce one pound of Saffron threads.

♥~ Salt  the most popular seasoning in the world is not a spice.  Salt is a mineral.

♥~ Pepper is a spice-and comes from the small dried fruits of a tropical vine

♥~ Turmeric, a bright orange spice commonly used in curries contains an antioxidant called curcumin. Recently a connection between curcumin  might play an important rile in pain relief; mimicking prescribed painkillers. It might play and especially important role in anti-inflammatory relief.

★~ Today’s Silly:

At a resort, a young guy  and an old guy are sitting on the beach, sipping iced tea.

The young guy says, “Hey, how about a round of golf?”

“Nah,” the older fellow replies, “tried it once, didn’t like it.”

“Well, how about a swim? ” the young guy suggests,

“Nah,” the older fellow responds, “tried it once, didn’t like it.

“Young guy says, “Well, how about a game of tennis?”

“Naw, tried it once and didn’t like it. But my son will be here soon. He’s usually up for a game or two.

“The younger guy replies, “Your only child I presume?”

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It’s Friday! Perhaps you are celebrating the Queens Birthday this weekend with a three day weekend! Cole’s official last day of school is today! Summer has official begun, so it is a fabulous Friday for us! Do you have a busy weekend or will you be sipping ice tea while enjoying a lazy, hazy summer weekend?

If you have a morno moment leave me a comment! Odd Loves Company!

♥
Kb