Miscellaneous

 

Q: If your house was on fire, or if a wildfire was heading your way, and you only had time to save 5 things, what would they be??? Think about it. It could happen to YOU.

** Parmesan Ice Cream? An unusual flavor of ice cream graced spoons in the 1700s: parmesean. The first-ever recipe for Parmesean cheese ice cream was published in 1789. Would you like it?

**In Japan, various flavors of Kit-Kat candy bars are available. These include cough drop, rum raisin, melon with mascarpone, sake wasabi, matcha, strawberry and melty caramel. Which one would you try?

** In Thailand, folks can buy Oreo-flavored Coco-Cola and Coca-Cola flavored Oreos. Really!

** Petrichor is the word for the smell of rain. How would YOU describe the smell of rain?

** Brontology is not the study of brontosauers but is the study of thunder. File that in your "when-I-go-on-Jeopardy" file. 

** Spokane Daily Chronicle, Monday, April 4, 1949: Documents Indicate Woman Died at 117.  Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. "Sarah E. Moore of Rathdrum died there Saturday and her age was determined to have been 117. Mrs. A.A. Berges (Donna's note: her stepmother), with whom the widow of a Civil War veteran had lived, said today that papers among her effects showed conclusively that she was born in South Carolina on April 4, 1832. She had lived with Mrs. Berges for 20 years." Sarah rests in Forest Cemetery in Coeur d'Alene.

Ice Cream Is America!

 

What's more American than ice cream?? "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!" right?

According to an article in The Saturday Evening Post, July-August 2024, "... at any given moment, 87% of Americans have a tub of ice cream in the freezers, pushing the value of the U.S. ice cream market alone to more than $19 billion in 2024. 

Ice cream was what most people ate on Independence Day almost since the very first one; it forms the sweet, sticky bedrock of our childhood nostalgia. (What is YOUR favorite flavor???) 

According to Google ice cream ingredients typical include mild, cream, sugar and flavorings. Some recipes include eggs. Thomas Jefferson was the first U.S. president to serve ice cream to his guests. Here is his original, handwritten, recipe and transcription:

Will you be making homemade ice cream for 4th of July? What recipe do you use?????

Ice Cream, Ice Cream, We All Scream for Ice Cream

 

Who invented ice cream? According to "Grandma" Google: 

An ice-cream-like food was first eaten in China in 618-97AD. King Tang of Shang, had 94 ice men who helped to make a dish of buffalo milk, flour and camphor. A kind of ice-cream was invented in China about 200 BC when a milk and rice mixture was frozen by packing it into snow.

Historians estimate that this recipe evolved into ice cream sometime in the 16th century. England seems to have discovered ice cream at the same time, or perhaps even earlier than the Italians. "Cream Ice," as it was called, appeared regularly at the table of Charles I during the 17th century.

What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Nearly one quarter of Americans will say "chocolate" in some form, with vanilla a close second. My favorite is a long-ago flavor offered by Baskin-Robbins, Mississippi Mud, the thickest, deepest, gooey-ist chocolate one could imagine. 

According to Costco Connections, July 2020 issue: "There's no end to the bizarre and wondrous ice cream flavors in the world."  Here are some examples:

Whiskey & Prune - Australia

Foie Gras - France

Beef Tongue - Japan

Squid Ink - Japan

Crocodile Egg - Philippines

Gin & Tonic - Spain

Garlic - United States

Lobster - United States

Which one would you not never try????