~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
July 17th,2013

★~ Today’s Quote:  Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. ~ Phyllis Diller

★~ Yellow Pig Day!

What the heck is Yellow Pig Day? So there were two guys, Michael Spivak and David C. Kelly, who were math students at Princeton, and their assignment was to analyze the properties of the number 17.  Well, as you can imagine, thinking about the number 17 and ONLY the number 17 for too long probably made them go a little delirious, and they suddenly came up with the idea of a new majestic mythical creature: the yellow pig. They may have been taking a break at the local bar. Their yellow pig had seventeen toes, seventeen teeth, seventeen eyelashes. Now mathematicians in colleges and universities everywhere celebrate Yellow Pig Day by eating Yellow Pig cake and singing Yellow Pig carols. We could make up our own songs! The Yellow Pig of Texas? How about The Yellow Pigmarine?  Feel free to join in!

★~ Peach Ice Cream Day:

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month; his favorite flavor of ice cream was coffee.  Today’s however, we celebrate President Clinton’s favorite flavor of ice cream Peach.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1866 – Authorization was given to build a tunnel beneath the Chicago River. The project was completed three years later at a cost of $512,709. The Washington Street traffic tunnel was in use until 1953.

♥~ 1938 –. Douglas Corrigan, unemployed airplane mechanic. It was on this, a foggy day in 1938, that Doug left Floyd Bennett Field in New York, supposedly headed for Los Angeles. He landed his 1929 Curtiss Robin monoplane about 28 hours later – not in California but in Ireland at Dublin’s Baldonnel Field. Corrigan made the 3,150-mile flight without benefit of a radio or navigational equipment other than a compass. His explanation for the monumental mistake was that he was following the wrong end of the compass needle. (Folks were never sure whether his feat was a mistake or moxie.) He was, however, welcomed home as a hero (ticker tape parade and all) and known forever more as ‘Wrong Way’ Corrigan.

♥~ 1955 – Disneyland opened the gates to “The Happiest Place on Earth” in Anaheim, California. In the famous theme park’s first year of operation, some four million people visited Main Street USA, Fantasyland, Frontierland and Tomorrowland. On its opening day, Disneyland held a gala TV broadcast featuring Walt Disney, Bob Cummings, Art Linkletter and Ronald Reagan.

♥~ 1959 – Mary Leakey, half of the husband and wife team of Dr. and Mrs. Louis Leakey, discovered the oldest known human skull — in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). Zinjanthropus boisei, as the skull was named, was later determined to be 1.75 million years old.

♥~ 1993 – Barbra Streisand’s Back to Broadway was the #1 album in the U.S. for one week. The album is among only a handful of recordings ever to become number one on the sales charts in their initial week of release and to go platinum through their first shipping orders.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1899 – James Cagney  (James Francis Cagney, Jr.) Academy Award-winning actor: Yankee Doodle Dandy [1942]; Mr. Roberts, The Seven Little Foys, Man of a Thousand Faces; died Mar 30, 1986

♥~ 1917 – Phyllis Diller (Driver) comedienne: The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show, actress: Boy Did I Get the Wrong Number

♥~ 1935 – Donald Sutherland actor: Dirty Sexy Money, JFK, Klute, Backdraft, M*A*S*H, The Dirty Dozen, National Lampoon’s Animal House, Outbreak, Commander in Chief

♥~ 1960 – Mark Burnett Emmy Award-winning producer: Survivor [2000]; On the Lot, Rock Star: INXS, The Apprentice, The Apprentice: Martha Stewart

★~ Good to Know: Odd Ice Cream Flavors:  Gourmet or gross? You decide.

♥~ Cinnamon Toast. A soft-serve rendition of the breakfast classic. The authentic bread flavor comes from steeping toast slices in hot milk. The mushy bits are strained out before the butter and cinnamon are added. It’s a brand new flavor at Ample Hills Creamery in Brooklyn. Dig in.

♥~ Durian. The telltale stench of Asia’s notorious “stinky fruit” is significantly reduced once you add the cream and sugar, but the bizarre taste still packs a powerful punch. Available at Chinatown Ice Cream Factory in New York City, where wasabi, black sesame and sweet red bean – the vanilla, chocolate and strawberry of Japan – are also served.

♥~ Garlic. Sebastian Joe’s in Minneapolis makes a roasted garlic almond chip version, but purists can enjoy free unadulterated samples of the sugar-sweetened original at the 2013 Gilroy Garlic Festival, happening July 26-28 in the heart of California’s garlic country.

♥~ Bone Marrow with Smoked Cherries. The folks at Salt & Straw in Portland, Oregon extract beef marrow from cow bones to make this one-of-a-kind flavor. So you get rendered fat, cooked in cream, with a welcome shot of cherry juice. The finishing touch: chopped smoked cherries aged in bourbon.

♥~ Yazoo Sue with Rosemary Bar Nuts. As if straight-up beer ice cream wasn’t funky enough. This concoction from Jeni’s in Columbus, Ohio stars a cherry, wood-smoked porter from Yazoo Brewing Co. in Nashville, then adds cashews, almonds, pecans and Spanish peanuts roasted in a coating of fresh rosemary, cayenne pepper and brown sugar. Too crazy for you? Try Bluebird’s Elysian Stout, made with the rich and roasty chocolate maltiness of Dragonstooth Stout from Elysian Brewing in Seattle, Wash.

♥~ Maple Hickory. Of course – ice cream laced with liquid smoke! That’s hickory wood smoke in watery form, to be precise. That plus maple syrup equals… an opportunity for a topping of crumbled bacon. Available at Bluebird, a microcreamery in Seattle.

♥~ Apricot Noyaux. Apricot ice cream as you might imagine it to be, made with a lovely puree of the actual fruit and sweetened with vanilla. But the artisans at Ici in Berkeley, Calif., throw in a little surprise, infusing the mix with the bitter-almond flavor of noyaux – the nut-like kernels inside apricot pits, which they retrieve, toast and grind before throwing in for a good long soak.

♥~ Nova Lox Nova. This salty-sweet mash-up looks like it belongs on a bagel, but one lick and you know it’s no cream cheese spread. Max & Mina’s in New York City makes it with brine-cured salmon and a dash of pepper. Bonus: it’s kosher!

♥~ Mustard. This one’s on the savory side, so it may work better as a condiment. Heston Blumenthal’s mustard ice cream contains both Pommery grain mustard and sugar, so don’t go spooning it on that pastrami sandwich just yet. First introduced at Blumenthal’s restaurant The Fat Duck in the U.K., it has since gone mass market, at least in Great Britain, where it is sold at Waitrose supermarkets.

♥~ Avocado. A frozen form of guacamole? Nope. The sweetened creamy flesh of an avocado, the makings of a popular dessert drink in Indonesia, is also the stuff inside a new ice cream sandwich from Milk Cult in Washington, D.C. The mobile vendor – traveling by motorcycle, with sidecar converted into a freezer – hits Washington street corners this summer.

♥~ Foie Gras. Creole Creamery in New Orleans charges a premium for this flavor, made with fatty duck liver that’s cooked down and caramelized, with a splash of Sauternes. As if that doesn’t make it fancy enough, a huckleberry ribbon runs through it.

♥~ Sweet Sticky Black Rice. Think rice pudding, only the exotic kind, made with “Forbidden” (and nutrient-rich) black rice that turns purple when cooked in coconut milk. A specialty of Van Leeuwen trucks and scoop shops around New York City.

♥~ Michigan Salad. With this one, Treat Dreams in Ferndale, Mich. delivers all the fixings of the green tossed Detroit area favorite except the lettuce: candied pecans, dried tart cherries and (gulp!) blue cheese.

♥~ Ham and Cheese. The best of the bunch if you happened to miss lunch – dairy plus protein makes half a square meal, after all. The ham and cheese is but one of 75 or so options available on any given day at Heladeria Coromoto in Merida, Venezuela, a shop world-famous for its crazy selection.

♥~ Szechuan Strawberry. Tiny dark red dots of ground Szechuan peppercorn sharpen this sweet strawberry sorbet, a tongue-numbing summer standard for Humphry Slocombe in San Francisco.

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I had to search for this one but I knew I would find it for all you  green chili fans. Avocado and green chile ice cream . In Latin America and Asia, avocados are used in sweet as well as savory applications. It is not uncommon to see an avocado milkshake on restaurant menus. This ice cream is sweet and buttery with an unexpected kick from the green chile.

Ingredients:

1 to 2 fresh jalapeno peppers, minced (pull back on the seeds to cut some of the h
zest of 1 large lime
Juice from 1/2 of 1 large lime
2 ripe, dark-skinned avocados, peeled and mashed
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons sugar
Pinch salt
1 quart good-quality vanilla ice cream, softened
1/2 pint heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks
Zest of 1 large lime, finely grated (for garnish)

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine the peppers, zest, lime juice, avocado, vanilla, sugar and salt. Work in the ice cream so mixture is well blended.

Freeze the ice cream, covered, up to one day. Serve scooped into wine glasses. Top with the whipped cream and sprinkles of lime zest.

Me? I’m sticking with strawberry ice cream and maybe just for today I’ll have a peach cone.

My house has been a flurry of activity. Our adventures up next. Have a wonderful Wednesday (it is Wednesday, right?)

Odd Loves Company!

♥~