Hot Buttered Rum Day is officially celebrated on January 17th. The drink was popular in both England and America. It was particularly in the Northeast region of the United States as a cold cure up until the 19th century, while the English were drinking hot buttered ale in the 1600's. It was also known in America as 'Dutch Rum' at first and was one of the traditional drinks of the 'Knickerbockers', -- the New Yorkers of Dutch extraction, who heavily populated New York in the early 19th century.So here's to Hot Toddies of all varieties!
My writing teacher Angela sent me this photo. My writer's group that I lead is called the Tokyo Writer's Salon, so this was a cool find. I decided to write about this for a photo- writing assignment in my online class. *yes crazily enough I have one off line class, one online class, and my writers group.... need my head examined. But in reality each class moves slowly and just gives me some good ideas and starting points for morning writing before work...
"In Germany the pig to symbolize good luck because it is entirely edible - from snout to foot. And we have those little pink pigs made out of marzipan with a penny in its snout...for good luck.So where ever you and what ever your tradition-- Happy New Year and best of luck for a fantastic 2008. Thanks for reading the Fancy Glass, I hope to learn more, post more, and especially cook more in coming new year.
Chocolate plays its part at the New Year, symbolizing the rich and sweet hopes that the giver has for the recipient's year.
Nuts mark the turning of the year and often are given as the start of any new enterprise. The French give jars of cooked chestnuts in sweet syrup on New Year's Day.
Bread should be well-rounded - the way you want your year to be. "No long loaves, because they have ends where good luck might escape. The same goes for pasta: round, not straight.''
Greens and lentils represent money or coins and are thought to bring riches. Italians eat lentils with sausages, symbolizing money and the purse to hold it in. In much of the Orient, fish is eaten for prosperity, noodles for long life and rice for fertility.
Cabbage, even sauerkraut, is supposed to help cure `the morning after the night before' making it an ancient remedy for another famous New Year's Day tradition - hangovers."
We first visited the tiny palace of Linderhof. Very ornate, and quite gogeous. (and very cold!) and then we stopped in a lovely Alpine village of Oberammergau (famous for it's once a decade performance of the passion play of christ- which has been going on since the Plague times.) Oberammergau is filled with lovely Alpine houses and shops with frescos painted on the walls. It is really like walking through a postcard.
I love this time of year, fall turns to winter, Christmas on the horizon and a silly little thing that makes my day-- GINGERBREAD LATTE. Now I know there are some people that don't like starbucks. I am not one of them.
Japan's food safety scandal hits Mister Donut TOKYORead the rest about this, the latest in world-wide bad business practices- here.
- A widening Japanese food safety scandal hit an internationally popular doughnut chain on Wednesday, with Mister Donut acknowledging it used out-of-date syrups in some of its drinks earlier this year.Mister Donut - the iconic franchise launched in the United States in 1955 and brought to Japan in 1970 - served "Fruity Milk" drinks made from expired melon-and strawberry-flavored syrups at shops across Japan, its operator Duskin Co. said.
The syrups, some almost 30 days past their expiry date, were used to prepare 1,075 servings of Fruity Milk sold at 181 Mister Donut outlets, according to Duskin spokesman Akira Kita. The drink was pulled from stores Wednesday.
