~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
June 8, 2012

★~ Today’s Quote: Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.

★~ Best Friend Day:

As we grow older, more friends become best friends in different ways. There is a childhood best friend that knew you back in the days; the best friend that you raised your children with over the years; the best friend you may only talk to twice a year, but it only takes you a few moments to catch up; perhaps the best friend you gossip with at the office; or, perhaps, the sister or brother that was once a thorn in your side but grew up to be your best friend.  While our list of best friends may have grown to include more people, what makes a friendship “best” is sharing our most important secrets, hopes, dreams, aspirations, and disappointments with each other throughout the day or over the years.

★~ Name Your Poison:

“Name your poison” is what bartenders in the movies say when someone sidles up to the bar. However, it can also mean ‘make a choice.’ Maybe it’s the choice about how you plan to kill someone — Hamlet killed his father by ear poisoning! (Is that true?) I seem to remember that it is, but I don’t know for sure. It’s Friday, it’s summer, choose your poison and have some fun.

★~ Jelly Doughnut Day:

Permission to eat a jelly Doughnut granted! Perhaps that will be your poison for the day.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1786 – Commercial ice cream was advertised for sale for the first time — in New York City. Could this be the reason why we have celebrated both Chocolate Ice Cream and Rocky Road ice cream in the last couple of weeks?

♥~ 1947 – Lassie debuted on ABC radio. It was a 15-minute show about an extraordinary dog. Lassie’s barking on the radio was provided by the star of the movie Lassie Come Home, a collie named Pal. Animal imitator Earl Keen provided the whines and other dog noises. The announcer was Charles Lyon; Marvin Miller and Betty Arnold played Lassie’s owners. The sponsor was Red Heart dog food.

♥~ 1948 – Television was born and Milton Berle ushered in the television era for the next 18 years as the host of the Texaco Star Theater. Known as Mr Television he sold millions of television sets ultimately making TV the most popular form of entertainment in America. Mr. Television … Uncle Miltie … Milton Berle made generations of televisions  laugh till tears ran down their faces. Those were simpler times. Those were the days…

♥~ 1988 – All Nippon Airways announced that painting eyeballs on its Jets cut bird collisions by 20 percent. Update April 2000: All Nippon Airways will remove the eyeball markings, which proved useless in preventing birds from flying into the engines and causing damage.

♥~ 1991 – Battle Creek, Michigan, served breakfast to 44,938 people at the world’s longest breakfast table, a new world record

★~ Born Today:

♥~ 1867 – Frank Lloyd Wright architect: Pennsylvania’s Falling Water, NYC’s Guggenheim Museum; “No house should be on any hill or on anything, it should be of the hill, belonging to it …”; died Apr 9, 1959

♥~ 1933 – Joan Rivers (Joan Alexandra Molinsky) comedienne; author: Bouncing Back: I’ve Survived Everything… and I Mean Everything …and You Can Too!; TV host: The Tonight Show, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers; “Can we talk?”

♥~ 1940 – Nancy Sinatra singer: These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, Sugar Town, Somethin’ Stupid [w/pop, Frank], Jackson [w/Lee Hazelwood]; actress: The Wild Angels, Speedway

♥~ 1957 – Scott Adams cartoonist: Dilbert

♥~ 1966 – Julianna Margulies actress: The Good Wife, ER, The Newton Boys, What’s Cooking?, The Mists of Avalon

♥~ 1970 – Kelli Williams actress: The Practice, Zapped Again!, Switched at Birth

★~ Did You Know: A few summer ‘Poison” ideas to get you started…Cheers!

♥~ The Long Goodbye: “The Long Goodbye is a smooth, crisp twist on gin classics with curious herbacious notes from the chartreuse. The Dolin Blanc is slightly sweeter than a dry vermouth, more of an aperitif, and mixes swimmingly with gin.” You should swim in it all summer long.

2 oz dry English gin
0.5 oz Dolin Blanc Vermouth
Dash of citrus bitters
Stirred
Wash a frozen cocktail glass with a tiny splash of Yellow Chartreuse, garnish with a lemon twist

♥~ The Artist: Drouin Calvados is mixed with homemade pear-apple cider shrub and a splash of verjus and some Ratafia de Bourgogne. The drink is then topped up with Billecart-Salmon Champagne. A few dashes of Peychaud’s Bitters and Vieux Pontarlier Absinthe finish the cocktail. In the 19th century, shrubs were vinegary syrups derived from fruits that could be mixed with water for a cool drink. The Artist brings back the venerable shrub and introduces it to French brandy and champagne.

♥~ West Indian Planter’s Punch: This recipe comes via Charles Baker, an early 20th century bon vivant who roamed the world on a quest to quench an insatiable thirst. The West Indian Planter’s Punch is an old concoction of the Caribbean and American south, perfect to cap off (or maybe begin) a long, languorous day in the sun.

2 dashes of Angostura bitters
1 oz lime juice
.75 oz simple syrup
2 oz Appleton reserve (or other Jamaican rum)
Shake with ice and strain into ice-filled collins glass. Top with soda.
Garnish with orange wedge, lime wheel and cherry.n

♥~ Hurricane: Complex import laws in the wake of Prohibition forced bars to purchase large stocks of rum whenever acquiring scotch (a far more prized commodity). Pat O’Brien, a New Orleans legend, came up with the Hurricane as a means to slough off all his excess rum on carousing, booze-addled sailors. He served the long drinks in empty hurricane lamps. These days on Bourbon Street, they tend to appear in plastic cups.

1 oz. Appleton VX
1 oz. Rhum JM (80 proof)
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz. Passion fruit syrup
shake briefly w strain into Hurricane glass with crushed ice

♥~Strikes Off:  Plying his trade during Prohibition, famed American bartender Harry Craddock took up residence in London’s Savoy Hotel in 1920. In 1926, following the end of paralyzing General Strike in the U.K., he toasted his well-heeled, plutocratic patrons with this luscious potion of gin. Swedish punch, another obscure liqueur re-entering the U.S. market after a long exile, is sweet, rummy, and spicy and opens up gin’s botanicals like a garden in full bloom.

.75 oz Bittermens Citron Sauvage (can substitute with lemon juice)
.75 oz Swedish Punch
1.5 oz Dry Gin

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Off an running with my sweet mom again today.  Summer vacation has officially begun for Cole so happy day’s are here again.

I love this video of the baby hippo learning to swim.

Odd Loves Company!