~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
November 8th, 2012

★~ Today’s Pun: “I went to the store to buy some soup but they were out of stock.”

★~ Abet and Aid Punster Day:

Laugh instead of groan at incredibly dreadful puns. All-time greatest triple pun: “Though he’s not very humble, there’s no police like Holmes,” from the register of worst puns of Punsters Unlimited. Or another one of El Morno’s favorites: To write with a broken pencil is pointless. or if you ever need an ark to save two of every animal? I noah guy. Ok I will stop now. Care to share a pun so we can all groan in celebration of Punster day?

★~ National Cappuccino Day: 

Let’s start today with a Cappuccino.  The Cappuccino was created in Italy in the 1600’s. It got its name from an Italian order of monks known as the Catholic Capuchins—a group of friars that wore dark brown hoods, similar to the color of the drink.

Prepared with espresso, hot milk, and a cap of foam, cappuccino is the customary way to jumpstart your day in Italy. In Western Europe, it’s just the opposite: cappuccino is most popular as an after-dinner drink. Treat yourself to a kick of caffeine.

★~Harvey Wallbanger Day:

It has to 5 o-clock somewhere… Though vodka may be the dominant alcohol of this classic cocktail by pure mass, the drink is differentiated by its distinct layer of Galliano on top.

Ingredients:

– 1 1/2 oz. vodka
– 6 oz. orange juice
– 1/2 oz. Galliano
– Orange slice

Mix the vodka and orange juice in a mixing glass with ice, then strain into a cold highball glass — the temperature will help allow the Galliano to float on top. Once the orange juice base has settled, carefully serve the Galliano on top, creating a floating layer. Garnish with an orange slice if you’re feeling fancy. Click to read how the Harvey Wallbanger was invented. 

★~ Cook Something Bold and Pungent:

pics on Sodahead:

Chop some garlic! Slice the Limburger cheese and peel the horseradish! Add onions to your favorite burger, and don’t forget the sauerkraut and garlic! Or perhaps whip up some Garlic-Basil mash potatoes. http://www.bhg.com/recipe/vegetables/garlic-basil-mashed-potatoes/ or maybe Ginger-Apple-Glazed Chicken. http://www.bhg.com/recipe/chicken/ginger-apple-glazed-chicken/

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1308 – Duns Scotus of Duns, Scotland (died today) was a medieval scholar and inventor of the Dunce Cap.  Duns Scotus believed that cone shaped hats increased learning potential and that knowledge would flow from the point of the cap, down and into the head of the wearer, making that person smarter.

♥~ 1895 – Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (Röntgen), a scientist, took the first X-ray pictures on this day in 1895. Roentgen may have been a clever scientist; but he had no business savvy. He never patented his X-ray machine and never received any money for it.

♥~ 1965 – “Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives…” The voice of McDonald Carey introduced the popular soap opera, Days of Our Lives, which debuted on NBC-TV

♥~ 1971 – The album “Led Zeppelin IV,” which included the song “Stairway to Heaven,” was released.

♥~ 1980 – Bruce Springsteen’s album, The River, hit #1 for four weeks in the U.S.

♥~ 1987: Greg Mutton set the Guinness world bathtub racing speed record in Australia by racing a 6-horse outboard bathtub 36 miles in one hour 22 minutes 27 seconds.

♥~ 1991 – Philippe’s sandwich shop in Los Angeles, which had served a 10-cent cup of coffee since 1978, was forced to raise the price to 11 cents because of a new state snack tax.

★~ Born Today:

♥~ 1847 – Bram Stoker, the Irish novelist and short story writer best known as the creator of Dracula, despite writing 19 books. Check out todays Google Doodle.

♥~ 1900 –Margaret Mitchell Pulitzer Prize-winning author: Gone with the Wind [1937]; died Aug 16, 1949

♥~ 1931 – Morley Safer TV correspondent: CBS News: 60 Minutes

♥~ 1949 – Bonnie Raitt – Grammy Award-winning singer [1990]: Runaway, The Boy Can’t Help It, Something to Talk About, Sweet Forgiveness; actress: Urban Cowboy; musician: guitar; daughter of actor, John Raitt

♥~ 1952 – Christie Hefner magazine executive: Playboy; daughter of magazine’s founder Hugh Hefner

♥~ 1977 – Tiffani Wood, Australian singer, songwriter, Bardot, winners of the Australian Popstars reality show, (2000 Australian No.1 single ‘Poison’, and 2000 Australian No.1 self-titled album). Now solo.

♥~ 1985 – Jack Osbourne, son of Ozzy and star of MTV The Osbournes TV Show.

★~ Did You Know: A couple of bold spice stories in honor of cook something bold day.

 ♥~CINNAMON STORKS: In ancient times, the origins of cinnamon were a mystery to the Western world, and Arab merchants wanted to keep it that way. To hike up the price, they spun an elaborate tale, claiming that giant birds collected cinnamon sticks from far-off lands and used them to build nests on cliffs. To get the precious sticks, traders laid out massive chunks of ox meat, which the birds grabbed and carried to their nests. But because the slabs were so large, the nests would collapse, allowing the clever merchants to collect their prize. Europeans bought this story until the late 1400s when the Portuguese found the real source of cinnamon—lush groves in Sri Lanka. Once they’d figured it out, the Portuguese struck a deal with the Sri Lankans to monopolize the trade and built a fort there to protect their assets. They were displaced by the Dutch in 1658, who were subsequently displaced by the Brits in 1796. But by then, the trees had been exported worldwide, so there was little need to fight for a cinnamon fix.

 ♥~THE POWER OF CUBEB COMPELS YOU:  With notes of allspice and clove, cubeb comes from a plant that’s a close relative to black pepper, and it tastes somewhat similar. So it’s no surprise that cubeb was used as a cheap stand-in for its far more expensive cousin during the Middle Ages in Europe and through the 1800s in the U.S. Today, cubeb is rarely found outside Indonesian cuisine, but it’s a key ingredient in a ritual far more interesting than dinner: exorcisms. In his 17th-century book Demoniality, Italian priest Ludovico Maria Sinistrari recalls that cubeb did wonders for a “young maiden of noble family, who was tempted by an Incubus that appeared to her both by day and by night.” He tossed a few kernels of cubeb into her bedroom, and “the Incubus came, but never dared enter.”

♥~DEATH BY (FAKE) SAFFRON: The saffron you sprinkle on your paella is the most expensive spice in the world, fetching as much as $1,000 per pound. And for good reason: Saffron comes from the stigma of a sterile flower that no longer exists in the wild. The saffron we eat is the result of 3,000 years of breeding that began in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Stranger still, a pound of saffron requires 50,000–75,000 flowers—enough to cover a football field—and would take days to pick. Throughout history, saffron has been lauded as a cure-all. In the fourth century BCE, Alexander the Great took saffron baths to soothe his battle wounds. During the 14th century CE it was a go-to treatment for outbreaks. Even today, recent studies show that saffron can help treat Alzheimer’s, breast cancer, depression, and an array of other ailments. No wonder counterfeiting has been such a problem over the years. In the 1300s, Germany enacted the Safranschou code, which made saffron tampering punishable by death. One convicted tamperer was roasted over a fire of his flavorless saffron.

♥~24-KARAT PEPPER: Grow a Piper nigrum shrub, pick its red berries, boil them until they turn black, dry them in the sun, and you’ve got pepper—the most popular spice in history! Long before shakerfuls hit every diner in America, pepper originated in the mountains of India, where it was referred to as “black gold.” This was a misnomer—pepper was worth more than its weight in gold, and individual peppercorns were even accepted as currency at the time, and it wasn’t just India. In Dutch, the term “pepper expensive” is used to describe something extremely pricey, which explains why the country waged war against the Portuguese in the 1590s to get a piece of the trade. The spice remained costly for centuries. Even in 19th-century England, shady suppliers would dilute pepper, mixing in charcoal or floor sweepings to stretch its street value. Since then, however, pepper’s price has plummeted as it became more widely grown. As for the stuff you’re sprinkling on your scrambled eggs, don’t worry—it’s pure.

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Our Saucy Aussie El Morno Friend shared New Zealand Elvish flight Safety video and I watched the whole thing. So clever and cute.

Don’t for forget to enter to win a box of Frosty Paws in Odd Frosty Paws Contest. The big drawing will be tomorrow.

Care to share a pun so we can all groan in celebration of Punster day?

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