Room With a View

With the limited housing crisis it seems like a shame that any living area would sit unused especially one with a spectacular view but this 1,076 square foot apartment has never been lived in. The apartment in question is atop the Eiffel Tower and was secretly included in the design of the tower for Eiffel's own use though he only used it to entertain and as an office where he tinkered with scientific experiments. Today it still sits vacant though it can be toured and is staged with wax figures of Eiffel, his daughter and Thomas Edison who was one of the previous visitors to the room. 

Break Some Eggs

 It's been established at length that Humpty Dumpty was never referred to as an egg like being but that's not entirely true. In Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" published in 1871 there is a chapter titled "Humpty Dumpty"* though that was the first account of Humpty as an egg like being. Well before the book during the English Civil War (1642-1649) Humpty Dumpty was the name of a cannon stationed on the walls of Colchester. The wall became heavily damaged and the cannon fell and broke into many pieces and couldn't be salvaged. Or if you don't like that rendition the name Humpty Dumpty was also used to refer to overweight people and could have been Charles I himself.  

*“…the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human: when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw clearly that it was Humpty Dumpty himself. ‘It can’t be anybody else!’ she said to herself. ‘I’m as certain of it, as if his name were written all over his face.'”

Squashing the Pumpkin

 Since pumpkins have taken over the latter part of the year it should follow that people would want to know more about the fruit other than pumpkin spice rarely contains pumpkin. The kind of pumpkins that are carved and used for decorations haven't been used to make pie filling since around the late 1920s as the "field" pumpkins are stringy and have little flavor. Today Libby produces 85% of the world's canned pumpkin but the man responsible for developing the actual type of pumpkin used by Libby's was a farmer named Elijah Dickinson and the pumpkin itself is called a Dickinson and is more closely related to a butternut squash than a field pumpkin. Maybe all things pumpkins should be renamed Dickinson so the anti-pumpkin brigade can take a break and enjoy a Dickinson Spice Latte or some Dickinson pie. 

Thank the Shoe Repairman

 Originally November 11 was known as Armistice Day from when the Allies and Germany signed an armistice to end WWI on November 11, 1918. As time moved on and the war to end all wars didn't end all war many thought the term Armistice Day was outdated. One of those people was a shoe repairman by the name of Alvin King who had lost family in WWII and thought all veterans should be honored on November 11. King formed a committee  and in 1953 the town of Emporia, Kansas celebrated the first Veterans Day. Emporia's congressman like the idea and took it to Washington where fellow Kansan President Eisenhower signed a bill to change Armistice Day into Veterans Day in 1954. Thanks again to all you veterans, you are appreciated. 

Thanksgiving Maps

 The holiday that foodies look forward to is nearly upon us and the folks gathering data at Google have compiled maps indicating pie/potato preferences by state which seems like it would be fairly accurate though in the case of Oregon there has to be some glitch as no one I've ever known makes tamale pie for Thanksgiving dessert, not to mention the data also pointing to Oregon serving potato leek soup for the Thanksgiving potato dish, so my conclusion is there was another reason Oregonians googled tamale pie and potato leek soup en masse but who am I to argue with Google's data? 

Crappy Job?

 At a glance the title "groom of the stool" sounds less than glamorous but at the time it was prestigious position held by men of influence. By now you're probably wondering what the job description was if one was groom of the stool, the job entailed carrying the close stool, a luxurious portable toilet that followed the king on his travels. One close stool made for Henry VIII was decorated with ribbons and gilt nails complete with its own leather carrying case. The tradition fell out of favor when there were two female monarchs, Queen Mary and Elizabeth I who had their own domestic staff. 

 

That Takes the Cake

Most everyone is familiar with German chocolate cake that yummy concoction of buttermilk/chocolate cake layered and topped with coconut and pecan but wait...is it really German? Do German cakes traditionally have coconut and pecan? No they do not. The German chocolate cake was originally called German's chocolate cake after Samuel German an employee of Baker's Chocolate. The recipe was created in Dallas, Texas in 1957 to showcase a new presweetened chocolate that was German's own formula.