~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
August 5th

★~ Quote: “I will not eat an oyster. I want my food dead. Not sick, not wounded, dead.” –Woody Allen

★~ Today is Oyster Day:

Slimy, ugly-looking bottom feeders that taste SO good! It’s time to celebrate these hard-on-the-eyes bottom dwellers because it’s NATIONAL OYSTER DAY!

It’s a pearl of a day indeed.

What to sip while you slurp down your oyster? Some people sip Sauvignon Blanc or perhaps a creamy Chardonnay as they slide their oysters down, but I’m going to suggest you guzzle instead of sip as you slurp, because today is International Beer Day. Many kinds of beer work well with oysters: Porter, Stout, or IPA. Strong flavors work well to cleanse the palate in between bites so that the fishiness of the oysters is not overwhelming. A good, clean break in between bites is highly desirable. Just in case you were wondering….

★~ International Beer Day:

Beer drinkers rejoice—it’s International Beer Day! Founded in 2007, this international holiday was created to celebrate the production, consumption, and enjoyment of beer.

Did you know that beer may have been invented before bread? That’s right! Legend has it that our prehistoric ancestors brewed the first beer from grain before they baked the first loaf of bread!

Whether you’re a lager-lover or a cask ale connoisseur, raise your glass for International Beer Day!

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1914 – Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street in Cleveland, Ohio became the first intersection in the U.S. to be equipped with an electric traffic light. The lighting ceremony occurred on this day

♥~ 1924 – The comic strip Little Orphan Annie debuted in the New York Daily News. Annie and her little dog, Sandy, were creations of cartoonist Harold Gray.

♥~ 1957- “American Bandstand,” hosted by Dick Clark, made its network TV debut on ABC. The first record played was Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day.”

♥~ 1975 – Singer Stevie Wonder signed the recording industry’s largest contract: $13 million over a seven-year period.

♥~ 1990 – The world’s tallest cake was completed. The cake was baked and served at the Shiawassee County Fair in Corunna, Michigan. The cake was just over 101 feet tall (1,214.5 inches), consisting of 100 tiers of equal height.

♥~ 2002 – 1,135 mothers in Berkeley, California, set a new Guinness record for “Most Women Breast-Feeding Simultaneously.” The previous record was held by 767 Australian women. To promote the health benefits of breast-feeding, the Berkley moms marched from a park for the mass nurse-in at a nearby theater.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1906 – John Huston Academy Award-winning director: Treasure of Sierra Madre [1948]; The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, Prizzi’s Honor; father of Academy Award-winning actress Angelica Huston; died Aug 28, 1987

♥~ 1930 – Neil Armstrong
NASA astronaut: command pilot of Gemini 8 [launched Mar 16, 1966],  Armstrong was first man to land a craft on the Moon and first man to step onto its surface

♥~ 1945 – Loni Anderson actress: WKRP in Cincinnati, The Jayne Mansfield Story, Easy Street, Necessity, Nurses

♥~ 1956 – Maureen McCormick actress: A Very Brady Christmas, The Brady Bunch

★~ Did You Know: 

♥~ The ancient Babylonians were the first to brew. If fact, they took their beer so seriously if you brewed a bad batch you were drowned in it.

♥~ The oldest known written recipe is for beer.

♥~ Beer is the second most popular beverage in the world, coming in behind tea.

♥~ In the middle ages clean water was often difficult to find so many people drank beer instead. So they could die happy? No. Because the alcohol made it safer than water.

♥~ Vikings believed that a giant goat whose udders provided an endless supply of beer was waiting form the in Valhalla–viking heaven.

♥~ Monks brewing beer in the Middle Ages were allowed to drink five quarts of beer a day.

♥~ The first brewery in America was built in Hoboken, NJ in 1642.

♥~ In Japan, beer is sold in vending machines, by street vendors and in the train stations.

♥~ Samuel Adams Triple Bock is the strongest beer in the world with 17% alcohol by volume. The strength is achieved by using champagne yeast.

♥~ The most expensive beer in the world is   called “Tutankhamen” and is prepared according to the recipe recovered by a group of University of Cambridge archaeologists in Queen Nefertiti’s Temple of the Sun in Egypt. It costs US $52 a bottle, and is produced in limited and numbered edition.

♥~ If you collect beer bottles your are a labeorphilist.

♥~ The portable beer cooler was invented in Australia in the 1950s

♥~ To keep your beer glass or mug from sticking to your bar napkin, sprinkle a little salt on the napkin before you set your glass down.

♥~ King Gambrinus is the Patron Saint of Beer. St. Arnold is  he patron saint of brewing

★~ Thought for the day:

There once was an oyster
Whose story I tell,
Who found that some sand
Had got into his shell.

It was only a grain,
but it gave him great pain.
For oysters have feelings
Although they’re so plain.

Now, did he berate
the harsh workings of fate
That had brought him
To such a deplorable state?

Did he curse at the government,
Cry for election,
And claim that the sea should
Have given him protection?

‘No,’ he said to himself
As he lay on a shell,
Since I cannot remove it,
I shall try to improve it.

Now the years have rolled around,
As the years always do,
And he came to his ultimate
Destiny stew.

And the small grain of sand
That had bothered him so
Was a beautiful pearl
All richly aglow.

Now the tale has a moral,
for isn’t it grand
What an oyster can do
With a morsel of sand?

What couldn’t we do
If we’d only begin
With some of the things
That get under our skin. ~ anonymous

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It’s going to be a fabulous Friday! If you have a beer or an oyster (or both), send Odd-El Morno a picture so we can enter you in our August food-of-the-day contest. We will have a random drawing at the end of the month and some lucky winner will receive bake goods from Emily.

Do you enjoy oysters? I had my first raw oyster in New Orleans on Bourbon Street when I was about 10. I didn’t ask for another one, but it wasn’t bad. Years later, I enjoyed one again. One seems to be my limit. I do love lots of pearls, though! Cole, of course, loves oysters and is encouraging me to buy a dozen at the fish market.

I like very cold bottled beer on a very hot day at a baseball game with a bag of peanuts. I also enjoy taking a swig of someone else’s beer. Coors, Budweiser, Miller—it doesn’t really matter that much to me. How about you? What kind of beer do you enjoy?

Leave a comment if you have a Morno moment. Odd loves company!

♥
Kb