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

★~ Todays Quote:  It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. ~Walt Disney

★~ Repeal Day – Prohibition ends:

The turn of the twentieth century was a dark and desperate time in America. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which had been calling for the prohibition of alcohol for many years, believed that it was the cause of many, if not all, social ills. On January 16th, 1919, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, outlawing alcohol and ostensibly putting an end to drunkenness, crime, mental illness, and poverty.

Prohibition lasted for thirteen long years, but December 5th, 1933 marked a return to the rich traditions of craft fermentation and distillation, the legitimacy of the American bartender as a contributor to the culinary arts, and the responsible enjoyment of alcohol as a sacred social custom.

Cheers!

★~ Day of the Ninja: ( you probably didn’t even see it coming)

In feudal Japan, ninjas were real, and really sneaky. Under cover of darkness, dressed in black, ninjas were hired assassins and spies. Ninjas didn’t strut around showing off their ninja-ness.

I would suggest wearing black today and going about your day with intense focus and concentration. See how often you can enter and leave a room unnoticed. Eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. Sneak up on someone and give them a kiss from behind or a cuff to the head (depending on your relationship), and if they are the jumpy type be prepared to duck. Another ninja quality is being prepared. Or you could just watch the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai.

★~ Sacher Torte Chocolate Cake Day:

The story of the world-famous Original Sacher-Torte began in 1832, when the all-mighty “coachman of Europe,” Wenzel Clemens Prince Metternich, ordered the creation of a particularly palatable dessert for his spoiled high-ranking guests.

“Take care that you do NOT make me look a fool tonight”, he warned. That very day, however, his chef was unavailable! The order was reassigned to a 16-year-old cook in his second year of apprenticeship. The quick-witted Franz Sacher presented a soft and fluffy chocolate torte to Wenzel’s guests, who were simple delighted. When Sacher ended his apprenticeship and became a fully qualified chef, he again cooked up his torte and offered it on a large scale. He was successful, and soon the “torte by a man named Sacher” was in great demand. The Original Sacher-Torte made it into the Guinness Book of Records in 1998, when the Hotel Sacher Wien made a single  torte with a diameter of 2.5 meters (8.2 feet). Wonder how they put it in the oven to bake?

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1868 – The first American bicycle school opened in New York City. It announced courses for velocipede riding.

♥~ 1876 – The Stillson wrench was patented by D.C. Stillson of Somerville, MA. What the heck is a Stillson wrench you ask? Actually, it was the first practical pipe wrench.

♥~ 1933 – Drinkers toasted the end of Prohibition in the U.S. It had been 13 years between (legal) drinks. The long dry spell ended at 5:32 p.m., when Utah became the last of 36 states to ratify the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (repealing the 18th Amendment, which had prohibited all booze).

♥~ 1985 –A bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite claret (initialed by Thomas Jefferson) sold at Christie’s London for 105,000 British Pounds ($157,500).

♥~ 2008 –Japan approved a law granting citizenship to all children born out of wedlock to Japanese fathers, as long as the fathers acknowledge the children. This, regardless of the nationality of the mothers of the children.

★~ Born Today:

★~ Antoinette’s Birthday! Antoinette’s Birthday!

El Morno’s one and only gluten free goodie saucy Aussie celebrates a new decade. In honor of this auspicious occasion, we will review what we know and is rumored about Antoinette:  Please greet her with “Ni to you!” As she is a huge Monty Python fan and this is her favorite way to be greeted. She always wears high heals, drinks her cuppa with milk, not cream or half-half, would never sport a skirt with an apple appliqué, can sew up curtains, reports, and tea parties in a single bound, and speaks and swears in Italian fluently.  Speaking of sewing… Antoinette the Saucy Aussie was a Disco queen who made her own  80’s designer gear. Often still sewing in the car on the way on the way to the party to hang out with Bill, Sam and Perry.  Antoinette loves to watch foreign films and travel. Speaking of  drama she has been known to come out of the bathroom sputtering and coughing  every time her  friend has smoked one lone cigarette. This went on for twelve years. Did you know that she was going to Paris in a few short months? She adores Cadbury chocolate, is interested in dark handsome, funny and rich–not necessarily in that order, and can be intense, so you might have to throw her pencil case out the window to get her attention or hold her books hostage and insist that she come out and play with you!  We are so  glad you come out to play with us every morning Antonutella. Happy! Birthday too you!

♥~ 1901 – Walt (Walter Elias) Disney cartoonist: 1st color-animated cartoon: Steamboat Willie; creator of: Mickey Mouse, Disneyland; Emmy Award-winning producer: Disneyland film series [1955], Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color [1962-1963]; died Dec 15, 1966

♥~ 1932 – ‘Little’ Richard (Pennimann) singer: Good Golly Miss Molly, Tutti Frutti, Slippin’ and Slidin’, Long Tall Sally, Rip It Up, Ready Teddy, The Girl Can’t Help It, Lucille, Keep a Knockin’; preacher

♥~ 1934 – Joan Didion author: Run River, After Henry, Democracy, A Star is Born

♥~ 1973 – Shalom Harlow fashion model [Donna Karen, Ralph Laure, Marc Jacobs, Isaac Mizrahi, Christian Dior]; actress: In & Out, Head Over Heels, Happy Here and Now

♥~ 1985 – Frankie Muniz actor: Malcolm in the Middle, My Dog Skip, The Andy Dick Show, Dr. Dolittle 2

★~ Did You Know: 

♥~ During the early 1800′s, temperance societies offered two pledge options: moderation in drinking or total abstinence. Those who pledged the preferred total abstinence  wrote “T.A.” on their pledge cards, they became known as “teetotalers.”

♥~ Prohibition was in large part heralded by the Women’s Christian Temperance (WCT) Union purpose was to create a “sober and pure world” by abstinence, purity and evangelical Christianity.

♥~ Gotta love the Church ladies…. The  WCT suggested the government distribute poisoned alcohol beverages through bootleggers.They acknowledged that several hundred thousand Americans would die as a result, but thought the cost well worth the enforcement of Prohibition. When the president of the WCTU, learned that government agents had clubbed a suspected bootlegger then shot down his unarmed wife as she ran to his aid, responded “Well, she was evading the law, wasn’t she?”

♥~ Early temperance writers often insisted that because of their high blood alcohol content, “habitual drunkards” could spontaneously combust and burn to death from inside.

♥~ Because the temperance movement taught that drinking alcohol was sinful, it was forced to confront the contrary fact that Jesus drank wine. Its solution was to insist that Jesus drank grape juice rather than wine.

♥~ During Prohibition, temperance activists hired a scholar to rewrite the Bible by removing all references to alcohol beverage.

♥~ Bill McCoy was a bootlegger well known for selling quality imported goods: the original “real McCoy.”

♥~”Bathtub gin” got its name from the fact that alcohol, glycerine and juniper juice was mixed in bottles or jugs too tall to be filled with water from a sink tap so they were commonly filled under a bathtub tap.

♥~ The speakeasy got its name because one had to whisper a code word or name through a slot in a locked door to gain admittance.

♥~ New York City had about thirty thousand (yes, 30,000) speakeasies.

♥~ In Los Angeles, a jury that had heard a bootlegging case was itself put on trial after it drank the evidence. The jurors argued in their defense that they had simply been sampling the evidence to determine whether or not it contained alcohol, which they determined it did. However, because they consumed the evidence, the defendant charged with bootlegging had to be acquitted.

♥~ Notorious bootlegger Al Capone made sixty million dollar per year (untaxed!) while the average industrial worker earned less than $1,000 per year.

♥