Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Can peanuts be grown in Washington state? CB’s Nuts is endeavoring to find local sources for Pacific Northwest peanut lovers. The salmonella outbreak and resulting peanut recall made several small food producers realize they were several steps removed from the original source of their peanut ingredients. Some suppliers even refused to reveal where their peanuts were from, citing competitive issues. CB’s is working with local researchers and farmers to see if peanuts can become a successful crop here.
The Obamas’ first state dinner takes place on Tuesday and honors India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The secrecy surrounding the event planning can go only so far when a gigantic tent can be seen on the South Lawn of the White House, a guest chef has been brought in, and an estimated 400 guests have received engraved invitations. The Prime Minister’s vegetarian diet will certainly inform the menu and Chef Marcus Samuelsson of New York’s Aquavit has been invited to join the line led by White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford. Details about the china selection, flower arrangements, and other pertinent trappings will be revealed by the First Lady to both the press and twenty girls from her high school mentoring program on Tuesday afternoon. The Obama Foodorama blog has continuing coverage (and the press credentials to help keep it first-hand and accurate).
Kerry Taylor Auctions’ next sale on December 8th will include a collection of clothes that belonged to Audrey Hepburn. They are, strictly speaking, hand-me-downs that she gave to her longtime friend Tanja Star Busmann after she was done with them. Also included is the wedding dress made for Hepburn’s planned nuptials to James Hanson which she called off. At her request, the dress, created by the Fontana sisters, was given to a “beautiful, poor Italian girl.” The bride kept it in a box for her happily married life and it was recently recovered for a Fontana retrospective.
Take (insane) rally car racer Ken Block’s tricked out Subaru WRX STI, replace the tires with snow cat tracks, crank it up to 400 horsepower, and you’ve got the “ultimate backcountry shred car.” It’s called the TRAK STI and it was supposedly outed in a YouTube video earlier this year, then was officially announced this month along with the requisite official YouTube video of Block going nuts in the snow.
Connecticut has reduced the marketing budget for its Commission on Culture and Tourism to $1, down from $4.3 million. Local tourist spots such as the Mark Twain House and the Goodspeed Opera House are looking at increasing their own marketing. The casinos (I still can’t believe my home state has 3 huge casinos) have been hit hard as gamblers are putting down less. At the tourism office they’ll be depending a lot more on Visit Connecticut! website updates. Maybe they should put that $1 in the nickel slots.
Chinese mycologist Shu Chun Teng studied at Cornell in the 1920s and, after returning to his native country, “spent the next decade traveling on horseback gathering molds, lichens, yeasts, rusts and morels in the forests, fields and marshes of his homeland.” During the Japanese invasion he had his collection smuggled to the United States. He was punished during the Cultural Revolution for his dealings with foreign countries and died in 1970. Last week Teng was honored at a ceremony at the Chinese Academy of Sciences where the President of Cornell University returned the vast collection of fungi to China. Teng’s daughter is certain that her father would be happy that it was back home.
Royal Carribean’s The Oasis of the Seas barely fit underneath the Great Belt Fixed Link (a Danish bridge) on its maiden voyage. The ship is five times larger than the Titanic and features telescopic smokestacks that can be lowered for tight situations. As the world’s largest cruise ship it has the superlative amenities to match its title for 6,300 passengers. One of the four pools has high-dive platforms. There’s a skating rink and a small golf course. A bar in its “Central Park” neighborhood moves between three decks. Built in Finland, it cleared the Great Belt bridge with a half-meter to spare.
When the Boston Globe set out to expose the splendor of college presidents’ homes this past summer, only Wellesley College president Kim Bottomly allowed them access to her house. An often historic campus residence is a perk for many private college presidents. The Globe sought to juxtapose their luxurious accommodations against staff salary freezes, program cuts, and layoffs. They were left to glean what information they could from online real estate sites on house values and observations from staff and students, mostly on the homes’ exteriors. President Bottomly was careful to point out that she was merely a custodian of the 1854 house which is frequently used for college events.
When I visited the L.A. Times site a few days ago, the Connecticut highway of my childhood was up on the front page. The Merritt Parkway was recently added to the World Monument Fund’s watch list and the L.A. Times article discusses the balance between preservation and safety for this beautiful and, yes, old-fashioned highway. It’s a charming countryside thoroughfare that doesn’t exist in L.A., which I guess is what makes it of interest in a place where you can spend several hours of your day in a smoggy eight-lane freeway.