National Carrot Cake Day

It is supposed to be National Carrot Cake Day. Carrot cakes get a lot of attention because we all know carrots are good for us. That gives us permission to eat twice as much of the cakes, despite the sweet, rich icing. You can feel the good things and the bad things fight it out inside, to paraphrase Mark Twain. The most impressive carrot cake in New Orleans was at Smith and Wollensky, where one slice could feed a family of four until they left town after the hurricane.

Today in 1815, the first factory making cheese for wide distribution and sale opened in Switzerland. Before then, cheese was the produce of farmers, who usually made their cheeses with milk they produced themselves. This historic moment opened the way for the eventual emergence of cheese in an aerosol can.

This is the day in 1967 when Jimi Hendrix recorded Purple Haze. Little did he know it would inspire a raspberry- flavored beer made in Abita Springs decades latter. He probably wouldn't have cared. Abita Brewery's Purple Haze beer remains one of its signature brews.

tangelo, n.--A large citrus fruit, a hybrid of grapefruit and tangerine. It has the slightly bitter flavor of the former and the loose skin and sweetness of the latter. An interesting variant is the ugli fruit, a chance hybrid found growing wild in Jamaica. The ugli has either an orange or a lemon in its family tree, and is sweeter than a standard tangelo. Its skin is very soft but thick, and easily pulled away from the sections of juicy fruit inside.

Crisp is a ghost town in southwestern Missouri, fifty miles northwest of Springfield. What put it out of business was the damming of the Sac River, forming a reservoir called Stockton Lake. If you can even get to Crisp (it will require a hike), there's not much to do but head out in search of lunch. How does the Hog Wild Barbecue sound? Three miles.

Carrot and parsnip tops are so closely related to parsley that you can use them for any parsley purpose. One day, I will include them in the sauce for oysters Rockefeller.

The only time a chef uses parsnips is when he's trying to create the illusion that you're eating something you can't get at home. Most of the time, though, it's not something you'd want to get at home.

Dr. Henry Heimlich was born today in 1920. He popularized a method of saving a choking victim so well that the technique is now known as the Heimlich Maneuver. He published a story about it called "Pop Goes The Cafe Coronary" in 1974. Shortly after the article came out, a restaurateur used the technique to save a woman who was choking on a carrot. The maneuver consists of putting one's arms around the chocking victim from behind, holding a fist in the other hand. and giving a quick, forceful upward thrust to the abdomen right below the rib cage. This often dislodges whatever is blocking the air passages. It's not without risk, but it has saved many lives.

This is the feast day of St. Blaise, who lived in the third and fourth centuries and became widely venerated across Europe. He is the patron saint of Dubrovnik, Croatia, where the cathedral named for his is much visited. He is the saint whose intercession is called upon by those wishing not to have diseases of the throat. In Catholic churches everywhere, a blessing of the throat with two candles is given on this date. This is a blessing I always try to get, because I live by talking and swallowing.

On this date in 1946 Holiday, a large-format, slick, beautiful travel magazine, published its first issue. There was nothing comparable at the time, and it dominated the field for years. One of its most influential features was the Holiday Restaurant Awards, given annually and proudly displayed by restaurants that received them. In the 1970s, Holiday was merged into Travel to create a mediocre magazine that stopped publishing in 2003.

Norman Rockwell was born today in 1894. He was most famous for his Americana-drenched covers for The Saturday Evening Post, but those paintings were so evocative of American culture that they've lived on long beyond the magazine. Rockwell's depiction of Thanksgiving dinner, "Freedom From Want," created the ideal for all Thanksgiving dinners, one that is still revered even by people who haven't seen the painting.

Football player Eric Curry was born today in 1971. . . Actress Joan Rice made her entrance today in 1930. . Joanna de Bourbon, the queen consort to Charles V of France, was born today in 1338.

"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie."--Garfield the cartoon cat, by Jim Davis.

"Better to have loved amiss than never to have loved."--George Crabbe, English writer, died today in 1832.