★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥
February 3, 2015

 ★~ Today’s Quote:  If you can do it then why do it? ~ Gertrude Stein

★~ Carrot Cake Day:

Carrot Cake! Domer this is your day (El Morno friend Debbie’s son)!

Cake is a term with a long history, the word is of Viking origin from the old Norse – “Kaka”. Cake denotes a baked flour confection sweetened with sugar and honey; it is mixed with eggs and often, but not invariably, with milk and fat and it has a porous texture from the mixture rising during cooking. The distinctions between bread, bun and biscuit are blurred as techniques for baking and leavening developed and eating patterns changed. Some Roman breads were enriched with eggs and butter and much have reached a cake-like consistency although still named as breads.

According to food historians, our modern carrot cake most likely descended from Medieval carrot puddings enjoyed by people in Europe. No one really knows where carrot cake came from, It looks like it did evolve from the Carrot Pudding of medieval times, during the middle ages sugar and other sweeteners were difficult or expensive to come by in Britain and carrots had long been used as sugar substitutes.

In her New York Cookbook (1992), Molly O’Neill says that George Washington was served a carrot tea cake at Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan. The date: November 25, 1783. The occasion: British Evacuation Day. She offers an adaptation of that early recipe, which was printed in The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook (1975) by Mary Donovan, Amy Hatrack, and Frances Schull. It is quite close to the carrot cakes of today.

“George Washington’s carrot tea cake

2 cups all-purpose flour 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon 2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt 3/4 cup canola oil 2 cups sugar 4 eggs 2 cups grated carrots

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a Bundt pan with cooking spray. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.

In a large bowl, combine the oil, sugar, eggs and carrots, and mix well. Add the flour mixture and stir until smooth. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until a tester comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool in the pan 2 minutes, then turn the cake out onto a rack to finish cooling.”

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1959 –The Day The Music Died – Singers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper were killed when their plane crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, shortly after their last concert at the nearby Surf Ballroom.

♥~ 1971- America’s first man in space, Alan Shepard, landed on the lunar surface with Edgar Mitchell during the Apollo 14 mission.

♥~ 1973 – The No. 1 Billboard Hit was “Crocodile Rock,”  by Elton John. The single was the singer’s first No. 1 song  in the United States.

★~Born Today:

♥~ Charles Lewis Jensen – My dear Daddy and grandaddy extrodinair. Bird watcher, Genealogist, Fig Newton Lover. (I’ll have to update that picture this week)

♥~ 1874 – Gertrude Stein –  When she was 30 years old, she moved to Paris and lived there for almost the rest of her life. She once said, “America is my country and Paris is my hometown.” She covered the walls of her house in Paris with paintings by Cézanne, Picasso, Renoir, Gauguin, and others. Her house became known as “The Salon,” and writers and artists came from all over to get advice and encouragement from her. Ernest Hemingway once said, “Gertrude was always right.”

♥~ 1894 – Norman Rockwell artist: widely known for his realistic, homespun cover art for The Saturday Evening Post; died Nov 8, 1978

♥~ 1950 – Morgan Fairchild (Patsy McClenny) actress: Dallas, Flamingo Road, North and South, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Writer’s Block

★~ Silly Gallimaufry:

This is not my picture–but this is my life. Heck, I have to leave home to unwrap a chocolate kiss.

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I made it to Albuquerque.  My morning adventure included being kicked out of a Uber car and being left at a Dunkin Donuts because the driver decided it was to cold to take me all the way to Midway Airport. I made it, tho, and like child birth all the rest is but a distant memory. Until I use total recall in a follow-up blog post.

See you later alligators. I’m off to a mother/daughter mani-pedi appointment.

Odd Loves Company,