~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
October 18, 2012

★~ Today’s Quote: Success isn’t permanent and failure isn’t fatal. ~ Mike Ditka

★~ Chocolate Cupcake Day:

Cupcakes! Chocolate Cupcakes! My Oh My What a beautiful day!

Cupcakes first emerged during the 19th century in the United States. There are two theories about how they got their name. One claims that the miniature cakes were originally baked in cups. The other suggests that the name comes from the recipe, which was measured out by the cup—one cup butter, two cups sugar, three cups flour, four eggs, one cup milk, one spoonful baking soda. Here are a few cupcake recipes followed by a few cupcake baking tips.

Decadent Warm Chocolate Cupcakes With Molten Centers 

Guinness and Baileys Irish cupcakes 

Chocolate Marshmallow Madness Cupcakes 

Baking Tips: 

Use real ingredients: Real butter, good chocolate, and decent vanilla. If you buy a boxed cupcake mix buy a good one,  not Walmart generic.

Don’t over mix:  Over mixing the batter creates a dense, tougher cupcake. Nobody likes a tough cupcake.

Baking is a science: MEASURE LEVEl. Thank your Mrs. Tucci (Mother of good friend David Tucci).

Consistency is key: Put the same amount of batter in each cupcake tin. I use an ice cream scoop.

Cool off:  There’s no bigger mess that trying to frost a hot cupcake with cool icing. Just sayin’

★~ No Beard Day:

Today men are apparently encouraged to grab their razors and liberate their long-suffering physiognomies from their tonsorial oppressors (in a word, shave). Strike that stubble, butcher that beard, hack off those handlebars and say “so long” to that soul patch.

Personally, I think some men look great in a beard. I liked Joe’s beard. What is your opinions about beards?  Do you think the faces of Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp look better smooth or scruffy? Who do you think should keep their stubble … and who should lose it?

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1867 –  Anniversary of transfer of Alaska, from Russia to the US. The transfer became official on Sitka’s Castle Hill.

♥~ 1904  –  A.J. Liebling. American journalist and author who said, “Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.”

♥~ 1924 – The term ‘The Four Horsemen’ was used in a New York Herald Tribune article by columnist Grantland Rice. The referenced Four Horsemen were the backfield of the University of Notre Dame which had beaten Army, 13-7.

♥~ 1929 – Today is ‘Persons Day’ in Canada. The On this day the Judicial Committee of England’s Privy Council ruled that women were to be considered as persons in Canada. Previously, under English common law, women were persons in matters of pains and penalties, but were not persons in matters of rights and privileges.

♥~1954 – The comic strip Hi and Lois appeared in newspapers for the first time. Created by Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker (and Dik Browne). The strip appears in more than 1,100 newspapers around the world in 37 countries and is translated into ten languages.

♥~ 1961 – Le Bateau, by French painter Henri Matisse, went on display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The painting attracted large numbers (over 100,000) of viewers. For 47 days, nobody realized that Le Bateau was hanging upside down.

♥~1983 – Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton received some gold to add to their collections — for their smash, Islands in the Stream.

★~Born Today:

 

♥~ 1927 –  George C. (Campbell) Scott Academy Award-winning actor: Patton [1970

♥~ 1935 – Peter Boyle Emmy Award-winning actor: The X-Files [1995-1996]

♥~ 1938 – Dawn Wells Miss Nevada [1959]; actress: Gilligan’s Island [and reunion movies: Rescue from Gilligan’s Island, The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island], 77 Sunset Strip, The Cheyenne Show, Maverick, Bonanza

♥~ 1939 –  Mike Ditka Pro & College Football Hall of Famer: Chicago Bears Rookie of the Year [1961]; Philadelphia Eagles; Dallas Cowboys tight end: Super Bowl V, VI; Chicago Bears head coach: Super Bowl XX; TV sports analyst: NBC Sports

♥~ 1951 –  Pam Dawber actress: Mork & Mindy,

♥~ 1989 – Joy Lauren, actress: Desperate Housewives

★~ Did You Know: 

♥~ One ancient king grew angry because another ruler sent him a beardless youth on an errand to the court. The young man reportedly told the king, “Had my master known that you set so much store upon a beard, he would have sent you a goat.” There’s no record of the king’s response.

♥~ Beards were dangerous in hand-to-hand combat. Alexander the Great made all his soldiers shave before the battle of Ardela, though some let their hair grow long in back, to show they had no fear of being grabbed from behind.

♥~ Three hairs from a king’s beard stuck in a wax seal gave extraordinary solemnity to any royal document.

♥~ In the 1700s Peter the Great taxed Russian beards at the rate of 100 rubles per beard. The lower classes paid a kopek.

♥~ Beards have been regarded as emblems of wisdom: Philosophers were always bearded (Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Hadrian, Shakespeare). “Lose your beard,” it was said, “ and you lose your soul.”

♥~ Beards hide the unhandsome looks of men with no chins, or the man who’s been kicked in the face by a horse.

♥~ Not one of the signers of the American Constitution wore a beard or even a mustache.

♥~ The longest beard in the world measures 2.37 m (7 ft 9 in) and belongs to Sarwan Singh (Canada). It was measured on the set of Lo Show dei Record in Rome, Italy, on 4 March 2010.

♥~ No sitting president has worn facial hair since Taft. Charles Evans Hughes was the last bearded major-party presidential nominee; he lost to Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

♥~ It has been said that voters do not trust men in beards or any facial hair, that a candidate for office must be conservative and clean-cut.

♥~ The historical decline of beards have both practical and cultural-religious reasons in America, the safety razor taking credit for the former and the Puritans for the latter.

♥~It’s been 96 years since we had a major-party presidential nominee with a beard.  But what if, in the last desperate days of the campaign, the Democratic and Republican candidates decided to pay homage to their presidential forebears by growing out some facial hair? The website Slate gives us some FUN examples of what our Presidential candidates might look like if they suddenly sported beards.

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Sharing a laugh to go with your El Morno cuppa, or your afternoon tea.

It’s a Dog’s Life….Rascal and her friend Bailey.

Proof Cole doesn’t dine on donuts every night for dinner! Yesterday, after Cole’s dermatologist appointment, we walked by Ruth Chris Steak House and the wafting smells, lead us through the door for an impromtu steak dinner. …. MMMM Good.

Wising you a terrific Thursday!