September 30: Mulled Cider Day
Food of the Day for the Year Goal
Day 86

Mulled apple cider. I made Muesselman’s Hot Mulled Cider and wondered what  makes mulled apple cider different from regular cider.

Have you been mulling this over in your mind? Or are you one of those people who just knows these kinds of things? I could say to you, “Hey, what does it mean when someone says the apple cider is MULLED apple cider?” and you would shoot back, “Hot apple cider, or ‘mulled,’ cider, is heated to a temperature just below boiling, with cinnamon, orange peel, nutmeg, cloves, or other spices added to it.”

When it comes to facts, I am rarely certain of my answer. For example, if you asked me, “Katybeth, do you remember who killed Voldermort’s snake Nagini in the last Harry Potter movie?” I would feel 100 percent confident of my answer, “Neville killed the snake”—but would still add to my answer, “…but I could be wrong.”

This means, of course, that I will never be someone’s lifeline on the Who Wants to Be A Millionaire Show. Let’s face it—if you are going for the million dollars, you do not want the person you have chosen as your lifeline to answer your question and then add as you hang up, “…but I could be wrong.”

However, if you are ever in the grocery store buying yogurt, I could save your marriage with my intuitive approach to problem solving.

On Cider Day, I had to go to the grocery store. I was zooming through the aisles and stopped to throw some yogurt into my cart when an elderly man looked at me and said, “I wish buying yogurt was that easy for me.” He had his grocery list in one hand and cell phone in the other hand, and he told me, “All my wife wrote on the list was yogurt, but not what kind of yogurt. She gets so upset when I buy the wrong thing, but she won’t answer her cell phone.”

I smiled kindly at him and knew I could help.

“There are a lot of choices of yogurt,” I explained. “Do you eat yogurt for breakfast?”

“Every morning on my cereal.”

“What kind of yogurt do you put on your cereal?”

“My wife and I have been eating the same kind of yogurt for the last ten years; we like plain vanilla. She buys the large size, and it lasts us seven days.” (Notice he knew exactly how long the yogurt lasted.)

“Do you think your wife wants you to buy the large vanilla yogurt?”

“Oh! Well, I bet she does! I don’t know why she doesn’t just put that down on the list. Thanks for being so helpful.”

I had a feeling he was going to have a similar problem with the next item on his list, cereal.

Intuitive problem solvers rarely get into arguments about the “right” answer because they know they could be wrong and are seldom confused by facts when they are trying to solve a problem. They do become exasperated, though. I bet when Mr. Vanilla Yogurt unloads the groceries, the first words out his mouth to Mrs. Vanilla Yogurt will be,“I hope you wanted vanilla yogurt, because all you wrote on the list was yogurt.” Mrs. Vanilla Yogurt is going to look at him like he is out of his mind. What else would she have wanted? They have been eating the same damn yogurt for ten years.

There is room in this world for both fact people and intuitive people, and I can prove it: They usually end up marrying each other or being best friends.

When you are solving a problem, do you like to work with facts or do you problem solve intuitively? Muse with me..! Odd Loves Company.

♥

Kb

Ingredients:
2 quarts Apple cider
2 cinnamon sticks
2 whole Allspice berries
2 Whole cloves
1 orange, thinly sliced

Directions:
Place all ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer–
pour into mugs and enjoy!