National Spumone Day

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Labor Day 13

Today is the birthday in 1647 of French-born inventor Denis Papin. He invented the pressure cooker. He noted that water boils at a higher temperature when under pressure, thereby cooking food faster. But he missed on the big chance. He saw that the lid of a pressure cooker had tremendous force pushing it up (in fact, he created a pressure valve to keep the thing from blowing up), and figured that this could be made into some kind of engine. But he didn't quite finish that invention, leaving it to James Watt.

It's National Spumone Day. The importance of spumone in New Orleans was demonstrated when Angelo Brocato's--New Orleans premier maker of Italian ice cream for over 100 years--reopened in 2006. Its antique ice cream parlor on North Carrollton Avenue was welcomed back to action by a genuine festival. Spumone is a Sicilian-style layered ice cream. The way Brocato's makes it, the layers are pistachio, torroncino (vanilla with ground almonds and cinnamon), a bright yellow, lightly lemony flavor that has an Italian name I can't remember, and strawberry. It's sold in wedges, six of which make a half-gallon of ice cream. It's the best-selling flavor at Brocato's, with good reason. The mix of flavors is delightful, all of them rich and light at the same time.

Today is the birthday in 1893 of Dorothy Parker, one of the great writers on the party scene in New York in the 1920s through the 1950s. She wrote mostly for The New Yorker, and was a prominent member of the Round Table of authors at the Algonquin Hotel. She was most famous for her humorous, light verses, along the lines of this famous one: "Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses." She was the first to observe that "Eternity is two people and a ham." And she wrote the definitive poem about martinis, a subject she knew much about:I love a good martini
One, or two at the most
After three I'm under the table
After four I'm under the host.

The inventor of granola was born today in 1867. Swiss physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner postulated what dietary experts are telling us now: that we should eat less meat and refined carbohydrates, we should eat more vegetables, fruits, nuts, and whole grains. He created a mix he called muesli, of oats, nuts, and dried fruit. This evolved into granola in this country. I don't know whether to thank him or curse him.

Today in 1970, Eric Burdon and War's record Spill The Wine peaked on the pop charts at Number Three. Spill the wine. . . dig that girl. That's almost the entire lyric of the song. Eric performed a classic New Orleans song, House of the Rising Sun, with his group of the time, The Animals.

Spuds is a rural crossroads in northeast Florida, sixteen miles southwest of St. Augustine. It began as a station on the Florida East Coast Railroad, now abandoned here. Spud's is in farming country, but despite the name of the place sugar cane is the main crop in the area, not potatoes. Just west is a large marsh off the wide St. John's River; fish can be caught in the tributary called Deep Creek. Spuds is just off a main four-lane highway; drive south on it three miles to the town of Hastings, and you'll be able to eat at the Hastings Cafe there.

cevapcici, [cheh-VOP-chi-chi], Croatian, n., pl., dim.--A small sausage-shaped roll of chopped meat, usually beef but sometimes including lamb. They're grilled, sometimes on a skewer, and almost always served with raw onion rings. One of the most popular treats at parties held by the many Croatian families in Southeast Louisiana, cevapcici are surprisingly more delicious than their plain appearance suggests. You can't stop eating them. The word is the diminutive plural of cevap, which evolved from the Turkish work kebap (kebab). Modern Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and the other Slavic states in the Balkans were under the control of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years until a century ago, and picked up many elements of its cuisine.

If a pizzeria doesn't offer calzones, there's a strong likelihood that the place is using pre-made, partly-baked dough for its pizza crusts. Which puts it in the lower end of the quality scale.

Captain James Cook claimed Australia for Great Britain on this date in 1770. His ships were the first European ones to land there with empire in mind. . . The last of some eleven million VW Rabbits was completed on this date in 1984. The design is still around, but they call it the Golf now, which has always been its name in Europe. . . Basketball pro Michael Curry was born today in 1968, and by strange coincidence Denise Curry, also a basketball player who won gold in the 1984 Olympics, was born on this date in 1959. . . The soft-rock group Bread hit Number One with Make It With You on this date in 1970. . . On a more classical note Candido Lima, a pioneer in creating serious music with computers, was born in Portugal today in 1939. . . Peppermint Patty, a flirtatious tomboy who called Charlie Brown "Chuck," appeared for the first time today in 1966 in the comic strip Peanuts.

"Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone."--Jim Fiebig, relationship author."I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream."--Heywood Broun, American writer of the mid-1900s.

"When your companions get drunk and fight, take up your hat and wish them good night.”--Unknown.