A Story for Piña Colada Day

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Happy Piña Colada Day! Possibly it is a bit early where you are to indulge – it’s only 8:15am here. If so, then indulge in THIS classic tune ’till the bar bell goes off.

Lyrical Musings

The residents of TransAtlantic Towers often discuss this song and its story. We’re puzzled as to how and why this song ends the way it does. I mean, don’t get me wrong – I like a happy ending as much as anyone else. I hope those two kids worked it out and lived happily ever after.

But does it make sense as given? Surely, once they arrived at O’Malley’s, one or both would ask in affronted tones, “What the hell were you doing placing/answering personal ads?” Then there would be a row, someone would huff off. Or they’d make up over piña coladas. But I feel there may be unresolved issues in that relationship.

And that’s not the only potential dust up linked to the fruity tropical drinks. Just try to establish who invented it. See, it’s like this – there were these two Puerto Rican bartenders. Come to think of it sounds like the beginning of a joke (“two Puerto Rican bartenders walk into a bar…”) but it is really the beginning of a great cocktail mystery. Continue reading “A Story for Piña Colada Day” →

On The Cookbooks We Create

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Jay Rayner has been doing a weekly column on notable cookbooks – notable to him, to cooking, to cultural moments. I happen to love Rayner’s writing style and always read him anyway but these columns, every Sunday for the last few months, I have especially enjoyed. This week is the last one and it touches on the ‘cookbooks’ we create for ourselves, often not books at all but folders full of clippings, binders full of notes, etc.

It reminded me of my mother’s ‘cookbook’ which encompassed both folders full of clippings, spirals full of her absurdly neat handwriting. No, seriously you have no idea – she may drive me nuts but there is NO DENYING the woman has the best handwriting on earth. Don’t even start me on her colour-coded note taking. But I digress… Continue reading “On The Cookbooks We Create” →

It’s Popcorn Day! Celebrating Our Favourite Banged Grain

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Every year, on January 19th, the United States of America celebrates Popcorn Day. And short of Thanksgiving (last Thursday in November), Apple Pie Day (May 13th), Root Beer Float Day (August 6th) or Peanut Butter And Jelly Day (April 2nd), I can think of no other food holiday that is as quintessentially American.

We love the stuff.  It’s everywhere.

No movie or baseball game is complete without it.  According to the good folks at Encyclopedia Popcornica, Americans consume 16 billion quarts of popped popcorn every year, equaling 52 quarts per person. A quart a week for each of us, then.

Popcorn is so ingrained (ahem) in American culture, that we not only eat it at ball games and the movies, we eat loads of it at home, and – like the Balkans, who must have got the idea from us – we use it to decorate Christmas trees.

We even briefly used it as packing material. American films are often derided by foreign critics as “popcorn entertainment.” Popcorn even played a major role in the development of that other great American invention, the microwave oven. Continue reading “It’s Popcorn Day! Celebrating Our Favourite Banged Grain” →

Happy Crème Brûlée Day

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Today is Walk On Stilts Day, Scotch Whisky Day, Norfolk Day, and Crème Brûlée Day.

Now, I do not have stilts and even if I did – I have no idea how to walk on them. I don’t drink Scotch Whisky unless I am on a tour of a distillery of the same and I am not only not in Norfolk, I have no real connection to the place. So, that leaves Crème Brûlée Day. Happy Crème Brûlée Day!

When We Say ‘Barbecue’, Do We All Mean the Same Thing?

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As we just had lovely weather this weekend (and it looks like we might have more happening more frequently over the next couple of weeks, grill covers are being removed and Brits are starting to talk of BBQ.

Here’s the thing though. When they say BBQ – they mean grilling. They don’t mean BBQ in the sense that many Americans means BBQ (the cooking of meat for long periods of time at low temperatures with smoke from a wood fire).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of grilling. But it isn’t BBQ just because you use the grill. BBQ is a multi-faceted, often-debated, regionally varied thing in the States.  Of course, it will necessarily follow that laying out my views on what each style is and means, others will have differing views and won’t hesitate to share them.

That’s fine. It’s a big broad, barbecue-y world – and I did mention ‘often-debated.’ Continue reading “When We Say ‘Barbecue’, Do We All Mean the Same Thing?” →