Month: November 2009

the swine flew

“Thinking again?” the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin.
“I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried.
“Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly….”
— Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 9.

Everyone knows that pigs can’t fly.

Except, of course, when they do. And fly they do, in all sorts of lore and literature, song and show, and even in a few airborne vessels. This ThThTh list is hog-wild for the swine of the skies.

A list of flying pigs

  • when pigs fly: an expression by which a speaker can convey the opinion that a given event will never happen. As in “this blog will be awarded a Pulitzer when pigs fly.”
  • when pigs grow wings: an expression that means “when pigs fly”
  • Pigs Have Wings, by P.G. Wodehouse. A book by the author of the Jeeves and Wooster series.
  • Flying Pig: a character on Kids in the Hall, portrayed by Bruce McCulluch. He is a winged pig who flies and “entertains people at bank-machines and other of life’s many lineups.” (See him in flight on YouTube.)

    flying pig kith

  • Pigasus: various references to winged pigs. The name plays on Pegasus (a winged horse)
  • Cincinnati: this city has adopted a winged pig as a mascot. The city has a Flying Pig Marathon.
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    A flying pig mug I bought at the Cincinatti airport.
  • references to flying pigs are used in many different business such as restaurants and art galleries . I’ve bought bread adorned with a winged pig from a bakery called When Pigs Fly. There’s evenFlying Pig Eyewear.

    • logo 111 flyingpig f

  • winged pigs have become so ubiquitous as to be commonly used for decoration, such as adorning weathervanes
  • “Pigs on the Wing”, a song by Pink Floyd
  • The first recorded pig flight took place in England in 1909. (source)

    The first historically recorded flight of a pig took place on British soil, at Leysdown in Kent in 1909. The pig was carried aloft by J.T.C. Moore-Brabazon, later the First Lord Brabazon of Tara, in his personal French-built Voisin aero plane.

    The pig was placed into a wicker basket, which was in turn strapped to a wing strut of the aero plane. A hand-lettered sign attached to the basket read: ‘I am the first pig to fly.’ Brabazon purposefully carried the pig aloft, thereby disproving the long help opinion that ‘pigs can not fly.’

  • More recently another flying pig made the news after a flight on a commercial airline

    • piscrew pigs in spaceship

  • Pigs in Space: these pigs from the Muppet Show have mastered not just flight, but space flight.

  • ad astra per alia porci: Steinbeck’s motto “To the stars on the wings of a pig” (found via the blog On Pig’s Wings, taking its name “from Steinbeck, whose motto, described his status as a ‘lumbering soul but trying to fly.'” )
  • Can’t get enough flying pigs? Lots more about them can be found at Porkopolis, a website devoted to all things porcine. Be sure to check posts in the category “flight,” and the informative post A Brief History of Pigs and Flight. Flying pigs have their own Wiki page, too.

11:11 on 11/11

img 2539It’s 11/11 once more, and I’m all set to post at 11:11. Seeing as I’ve already posted a list of eleven things (that goes up to 11), I thought I’d try something different. Below are 11 bits from my photo library that evoke 11:11. Can you identify what they are? (Click on the image to see the full photo.)

1111 battlo 1111 tines
1111 portico 1111 crib 1111 porch
1111 bench

1111 fence 1111 kyoto
1111 masher 1111 volklingen
1111 parking lot

apples and crisp fall days

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Big bins of apples.

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I love the fall. I especially love fall in New England, with the stunning foliage and trips to pumpkin patches and apple orchards. (And you know we’re big fans of Apples in this household.)

On Sunday we paid a visit to a local apple orchard that has an apple tasting each year.

We’d been apple-picking at this orchard in previous years, but I wasn’t sure what to expect for the tasting. It turns out that it was a very low-key event, with not too many people. But there were a whole lot of apples.

Inside the barn/farmstand building, they had set up a long row of wooden bins, each with a different kind of apple. In front of each bin was a little bowl with apple slices, and attached to each bin was a tag with the name of the variety, and bits of information about the cultivar and its history. I felt like I should have taken notes. (For example, I wish I could remember to tell you which kind was the most popular apple in the US in 1900.)

I knew that the orchard claims to grow over 50 varieties of apples, but I thought they’d perhaps have a dozen or so available to taste. I was quite impressed that they had probably closer to 2 dozen kinds out on display with samples set out for tasting. It turns out the folks at the orchard store apples that are typically only available earlier in the season specifically for the tasting weekend.

In spite of all the varieties, I ended up choosing a couple of bags of some familar apples: Macouns (a Mac variety) and Empires (which I love for making applesauce). And now I should have plenty of apples to make an apple crisp.

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The orchard has this gigantic walk-in refrigerator. I wish had someone in there for scale.

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Apples of my eye.

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Theo, post-smooch-from-Phoebe.

Sevilla Tapas tour

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Three glasses of Manzanilla sherry being poured at El Riconcillo, the oldest bar in Sevilla.

I’ve been meaning to share some more stories and photos from our trip to Spain, which was (shockingly) now over a month ago. I have largely given up on sharing a detailed chronlogical account of the trip, so I’ll dive in here.

In Sevilla, my mother and I had the fantastic opportunity to go on a tapas tour with azahar, Sevilla blogger extraordinaire of casa az and Sevilla Tapas. (Yes, you should be jealous. It was an absolutely fantastic evening: the company, the sights and the food could not have been better.)

To make you even more jealous, I thought I’d share with some highlights of our evening. With photos.

We met up with az around 9:30 p.m. on a Friday, after I got Theo settled in for bed. (John was kind enough to be the one to stay home with Phoebe and Theo.) We arranged to meet at a little park near our apartment, which was bustling with folks heading out for dinner, and then walked through Sevilla’s maze of streets and alleys to our destinations. We went to 3 very different places for tapas, each with a distinct charm and menu.

Our first stop was El Rinconcillo, which az tells us is the oldest bar in Sevilla. I loved the decor of the place, which was dominated by dark woods, patterned tiles, and shelves well-stocked with bottles. (Not to mention hanging hams.) We stood at the bar.

Our second stop was Modesto, a more modern, bustling bar-restaurant with friendly waiters and lots of outside tables. (We sat inside at the bar, though.)

Our third and finally stop was La Sal, a charming and elegant small restaurant specializing in fresh seafood dishes. We sat inside at a table by the window.

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Peering in through the wide open window of El Rinconcillo from the sidewalk.

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The bartenders wrote the tabs on the bar in chalk. They’d cross out the numbers once the tab was settled.

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My glass of sparkling water at Modesto.

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Some olives and az’s beer, and a really big bowl of really big capers.

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The Land Squid.

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One of the waiters at Modesto gave us red carnations. Az put one in her hair.

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Tuna tataki at La Sal. I think the stuff on top was something leeky. The sardines, which az cut in 3 for us to share, are in the background.

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The very yummy goat cheese salad with carefully halved (not roasted) tomatoes.

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I liked the way this wine rack glowed, but felt a bit awkward about taking a picture of it while there were people sitting at the table in front of it. Happily, we stayed so late (enjoying the food and conversation) that we were the last ones there!

Az also posted about this night, though in a more timely manner! In case you missed her post back in September, check it out: “girls night out.”

If you want to be tormented by photos and descriptions of delicious food about daily, you might want to follow Sevilla Tapas on twitter. (Or join the Facebook fan page.)

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This post is trying to pass itself off as a Monday Mission. The assignment for this week was to write a post in the form of a menu. I actually did such a task once before about 2 years ago, and you should totally go read what I wrote before, because I re-read it, and I cracked myself up. (“cereal: it’s what’s for dinner“) Also, go check out the other Monday Missions at Painted Maypole. The illustrious Painted herself has a brilliantly creative menu posted that I would have liked to have written myself!

roasted caramelized pears

I made a discover recently: I love to roast things. Mostly I roast vegetables, but a couple of months ago, I decided to try roasting pears. Now I have a new food love.

Roasting pears is really easy, and if you use juicy ripe ones, you get the added bonus of caramel flavor without adding even a bit sugar. Here’s what I do:

  1. Start with ripe pears. I like to use Bartlett, once they’ve turned from green to yellow. I find things work best with pears that have gotten somewhat soft, but not totally mushy.
  2. Cut pears in half, peel, and cut/scoop out the cores.
  3. Arrange them flat side down in a single layer in 13×9 glass baking pan, or your roasting pan of preference.
  4. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour.
  5. When finished, the pears will be lightly browned and the juices that have run from the fruit will have mostly evaporated and caramelized.
  6. Remove the pears from the pan with a spatula. Put a tablespoon or two of water in the baking pan, and stir around with the spatula, scraping the caramel from the bottom of the pan. (You may want to let the pan cool a few minutes first, especially if using a glass pan.) Poor the resulting caramel/juice mixture over your pears, which will absorb most of the liquid.
  7. Serve warm. (I like them as they are, but I imagine they’d be good with vanilla ice cream, as well.) (They’re also pretty good cold, for that matter.)

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1. The ingredients: some ripe bartlett pears.

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2. Some pears that have been halved, peeled and cored.

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3. Pear halves arranged in a baking pan.

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4. Roasted pears just out of the oven. (Okay, I did add a bit of extra cut-up pear. You don’t want the pan too full, though, or the juices won’t caramelize.)

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5. Some of the caramelized juices stuck to the pan.

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6. Roasted caramelized pears, ready to eat.

The October Just Posts

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Welcome to the October Just Posts, the latest edition of our monthly round-up of blog posts on topics of social justice. Holly and I appreciate your continued support.

This month’s nominators:

If you have a post in the list above, or would just like to support the Just Posts, we invite you to display a button on your blog with a link back here, or to the Just Posts at Cold Spaghetti. If you would like to have a post included next month, you can find out how to submit posts and all sorts of other stuff about the Just Posts at the information page.

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remember, remember

four lobes of the cerebral cortexIt’s the 5th of November. Which makes me remember some things about remembering.

I’m fascinated by memory, and clearly I’m not alone, judging from the large number of movies, stories, songs and such that feature themes of memory. Or loss of memory. Here’s a ThThTh list of some things I can remember:

    Some memory-related things that come to mind

  • The poem about Guy Fawkes day:

    Remember, remember the fifth of November,
    The gunpowder treason and plot,
    I know of no reason
    Why the gunpowder treason
    Should ever be forgot.

  • remember the Alamo!
  • mnemonic devices: phrases, poems or other sayings used to aid the memory for specific facts, such as:
    • Roy G. Biv (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet: the order of colors in the rainbow)
    • homes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior: i.e. the Great Lakes)

    (more mnemonic devices here)

    • string on finger

  • string tied around a finger: if you need to remember something, you can tie a string around your finger as a reminder that there was something you were supposed to remember. This relies on you being able to remember what it was that you hoped to remember.
  • souvenir: a keepsake or memento, typically from a visit to a place to which one has travelled. From the French verb souvenir, “to remember”
  • memento: an object kept to remember a time, place or event. From the latin remember:

    L. memento “remember,” imperative of meminisse “to remember,” a reduplicated form, related to mens “mind.” Meaning “reminder, warning” is from 1582; sense of “keepsake” is first recorded 1768. (from etymology online)

  • Memento (2000): a movie about a man who loses his ability to form new memories.
  • The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004): a movie in which people can undergo a process of selective memory erasure.
  • Chester Tate: A character on the 70s TV show Soap who spends several episodes with amnesia.
  • “Tabula Rasa,” a Buffy episode: A spell gone awry causes the main characters to forget who they are. Hilarity ensues. (Seriously, it’s a really fun, funny episode.)
  • “The Forget me Knot,” an episode of The Avengers in which Emma Peel forgets who she is. (This was Diana Rigg’s last episode on the series.)
  • “Forget Me Not,” an amnesia episode of Gilligan’s Island (Okay, I didn’t actually remember this one, guessed that there was an amnesia episode.)
  • For that matter, there are probably plenty of episodes from sci-fi shows like those in the Star Trek and Star Gate universes.
  • The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996): Geena Davis plays an amnesiac ex-spy
  • The Bourne Identity (2002): Matt Damon plays an amnesiac ex-spy
  • Who am I?/Wo shi shei (1998): Jackie Chan plays an amnesiac spy.
  • Total Recall (1990) Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a spy whose memories were re-written
  • lots more movies and shows with a memory (or loss of memory) theme can be found here:
  • “I Don’t Remember,” a song by Peter Gabriel

    I don’t remember, I don’t recall
    I got no memory of anything at all

  • “I can’t forget,” a song by Leonard Cohen. I can’t forget, but I don’t remember what.
  • “Only a Memory,” a song by the Smithereens
  • The Persistence of Memory: famous Salvador Dalí painting with melting watches
  • memory: a card game also known by the name “concentration”
  • memory: a computer component for storing data

    • ddr ram

  • Remember when Chris Farley interviewed people? Remember how he interviewed Paul McCartney? That was awesome.

    Chris Farley: You remember when you were with the Beatles?
    Paul McCartney: Yes.
    Chris Farley: That was awesome.

That’s more like it.

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Theo improves his web surfing skills.

You’ll be happy to know that I’ve solved the Mystery of the Feed Reader Mess. I hate to spoil the plot for those of you who haven’t read all about it, but it turns out that the problem was alien frog creatures.

(In case it isn’t clear to you, I am setting the bar very low with this NaBloPoMo business.)