Monthly Archives: November 2013

Thanksgiving for Hanukkah

Happy Hanukkah! The festival of Lights officially begins at dusk on November 27, 2013. Tonight when the first candle is lit there will be fried food in my house. I will be eating traditional latkas tonight. Tomorrow I will eat turkey by candle light to celebrate Thanksgivikkuh and save a couple of calories.    A latka is a potato pancake with a poor man’s pedigree, a history, a tradition and a soul. But potato latkes weren’t originally a part of Hanukkah cuisine.

The holiday dates back to 168 BC, when the Syrian-Greek King Antiochus captured Israel, and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. On the outskirts of Jerusalem, guerrilla warriors called Maccabees continued the fight.

Once the battle was over, the Maccabees rid the temple of idols and lit the golden menorah with a little purified olive oil they found, just enough to burn for one day. A miracle happened and the  oil lasted for eight days – the exact time it took to press fresh oil. To commemorate the Miracle of the Oil Jews all over the world eat foods fried in oil on Hanukkah.

Over the centuries, those who wanted to observe the tradition developed recipes using ingredients available in the countries they lived. In the Middle East and the Mediterranean fresh-pressed olive oil is used to fry foods, because Hanukkah falls at the end of the olive-pressing season. Italian and Moroccan’s serve chicken fried in olive oil, and Greek, North African and Turkish people make different kinds of olive oil-fried puffs of dough for dessert. A doughnut by any name.

For villagers living in Ireland, Germany, Russia or Poland, pickings were slim in winter, and potatoes were cheap and available from the root cellar. Grating and making potatoes into little patties to be fried, fed hungry children with just a few potatoes and very little fuel. Without olives to press schmaltz, fat rendered from a chicken, duck or geese was used for frying like todays French fries.

There is no single correct latke. Purists like their latkes to be all potatoes, with a pinch of onion, while others fry patties of   grated carrots or other vegetables such as Jerusalem artichokes, beets, turnips, zucchini or squash.  You see it is not the potato that takes center stage on Hanukkah but light.

Interestingly enough, though, when I researched the word “latke,” I learned that  the word latke comes from Yiddish, a language spoken by East Europeans and that some sources claim it derives from the Old Russian oladka, a diminutive of olad’ya, from Greek eladia, the plural of eladion, which means “a little oily thing” and comes from elaia, which means “olive.”

 

Norwich Post Office Move

On Monday November 18th 2013 Joseph Mulvey announced the U.S. Post Office was seriously looking to relocate the Norwich central post office from 340 Main Street to 292 Salem Turnpike.

The need for a move is certainly understandable. The current historic building while lovely and majestic to look at is not handicapped accessible, has a great deal of unused square footage and little accessible parking. The new building was built as a distribution center and so is not pretty to look at or historic but most of all it is on the very edge of town and difficult to get to.

To get there drive yourself past the Norwich Walmart, past the Dime Bank and it is on your left. Certainly there is another storefront located within the city of Norwich that is more convenient and has parking. The old Friendlies on Salem Turnpike for example would be a fine Post Office. The round building at the top of Chelsea Harbor Drive has a for rent sign. At least people could have access to it. There are lots of other places across Norwich that would be wonderful locations for a central postoffice but the biggest thing is that it must be accessible to the people and not just the ones with personal cars.

Letters to the Editor and to facebook don’t count. To have your voice heard send a letter by snail mail to -Joseph J. Mulvey, U.S. Postal Service, 2 Congress Street, Room 8, Milford, MA 01757-9998 before December 3, 2013. YOU must send a letter to have your voice be heard. YOU must take the responsibility onto yourself. YOU can do this. Don’t just wait around for someone else to speak for you.

A Huntington Thanksgiving

When I start thinking about Thanksgiving I wonder about a Rebecca Huntington document stored in the Leffingwell House Museum document safe. On one side at the top is sritten Norwich and on the other November.  It is very large and has more than one mystery attached to it. Mystery One – Who were Rebecca and Sally Huntington? Their signatures are written on the back. Mother and daughter or two sisters? What happened to them? Mystery Two – Was this meant to someday be a  wall hanging or needlework? Mystery Three- The same quote is above and below “Thanksgiving” as a place holder for another quote or a truth to be emphasized – “A true friend is the greatest contentment in the world.”   Mystery Four –  1797 is written on the back of the document but is it possible that was added at a later date? Mystery Five – There is a script on the back but not the date, not the place, not the author. The script on the back reads – “This day there was a terrible storm of rain and the highest wind ever was known which carried away the market house at the landing and blue down a great number of barns some stone and of great proportion of the fruit trees, fences etc, the meeting house at Plainfield was blown down the meeting house at Poquetuc and the meeting house at Mont ville received material injury. Mr Christopher Stone great barn blew down in which were fourteen horses Three of them were killed about twenty cattle were under the barn but none of them were killed but much bruised.”

I discovered where the quotes of Modesty and Virtue were from Joseph Addison, Spectator No. 231 and 243. I welcome help on the others. All spelling and punctuation is unchanged.

MODESTY – “Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard, to virtue. It is a kind of quick and delicate feeling in the soul, which makes her shrink and withdraw herself from everything that has danger in it. It is such an exquisite sensibility, as warns her to shun the first appearance of everything which is hurtful.” Joseph Addison, Spectator No. 231

VIRTUE – “As virtue in general is of an amiable  and lovely nature, there are some particular kinds of it which are more so than others, and these are such as dispose us to do good to mankind. Temperance and abstinence, faith and devotion, are in themselves perhaps as laudable as any other virtues; but those which make a man popular and beloved are justice, charity, munificence, and, in short, all the good qualities that render us beneficial to each other. The two great ornaments of virtue, which show her in the most beneficial vein, and make her altogether lovely, are cheerfulness and good  nature. Love learning. Joseph Addison, Spectator No. 243

TRUTH – Truth is the bond of union; and the basis of human happiness without this virtue there is no reliance upon language, no confidence in friendship and no security in promises or oaths. Lov your company

WISDOM 1– There is nothing which gives one so pleasing a prospect of human nature, as the contemplation of wisdom and beauty the latter is peculiar to that sex which is called fair and when both meet in the person the character is lovely and desirable Remember thy creator in thy youth Remember thy creator in thy youth

SENSE – Good sense and good nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise, good nature, by rebirth I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reason, which, of necessity, will give allowance

WISDOM 2 – Wisdom is glorious and never fadeth away ; yet she is easily seen of them that love her and found of such as seek her. For she goeth about seeking such as are worthy of her  (undecipherable)  herself favourable unto them in the way, and meeteth them in every thought.

SECRECY – Secrecy is the soul of designs, upon it commonly defends their success, and the more important an undertaking is, the more care ought to be taken not to discover it. Take care, my son, when you form any resolution, however inconsiderable it be, that nobody perceive it. Without the precaution, you have reason to fear, it may happen to you as it frequently does to mine, the whole effect of which terminates in smoke, if they take but the test air. The miser abstains from things necessary, to furnish superfluities to others, and will not think themselves obliged to him for the favour

Predicting Snow with Old Wives Tale

This morning snowflakes danced past my window so I guess it is time for the annual retelling of my favorite winter old wives tale. I once learned this tale and instantly had to test it that year and subsequent years and it keeps on being true with some minor adjustments.

Premise: The date of the month of the first snowfall in which the paw prints of a cat can be seen predicts the number of snowstorms for that winter season.

I pray every year that the date of the first snow fall will be within the first fifteen days of the month. I live by Backus Hospital so those are the snowfalls I track. You have to be responsible for keeping track of the storms where you live or work.  I have done this at home, at work, and in a 5th grade classroom. Its just fun and my logic is that every snowfall brings us one step closer to the last storm of the season.

Only  snowfalls count as storms but you can track other precipitation as well for accuracy. For my chart I use the following as column titles: Predicted Snow Storm Number, Date of storm, amount of storm, type of other precipitation.

Do this alone, with family, or with friends. It is just for fun. See if it works! Now remember no snow until early December – very early December.

From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science class.

I tried taking the on-line HarvardX: SPU27x Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science class.

I cook. I read recipe books for fun. I watch the cooking shows. I took lab sciences in high school. OK so that was 40 years ago but I should still be able to do this. Wrong. Oh so wrong.

The text is Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking. It is a kitchen classic, the bible food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn to for an understanding of where foods come from, what exactly they’re made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious and it’s just been fully revised and updated. I missed that part. The revised and updated.

Now it is all about the culinary movement known as “molecular gastronomy” or fancy edible (sometimes) science experiments. Each week we are to answer questions from the on-line lecturers, questions that require that you apply the mathematical ideas of the week, and the option of either answering a question based on the scientific/mathematical ideas of the week—or going to your kitchen and to do the experiment and find out the answer yourself.

So far I have learned I do not like my eggplant with pomegranate and buttermilk nor do I like pomegranate seeds as an edible decoration. I have also learned I care more about taste and texture than how much the bottom pancake in the stack compresses.

This time I admit I have truly bitten off more than I can chew.

Arrested Development: Norwich Brownfields

Congratulations and well done to Elanah Sherman for assembling and coordinating the “Arrested Development: Norwich Brownfields” exhibit at Otis Library through Dec. 30.

It is a well thought out presentation that leads the viewer from the observable problems of rundown, polluted properties through the physical and financial processes of where they are today. There is focus on Red McKeon Park in Occum. Bringing the observer from what was there years ago, what happened, and then the plans for what the planners hoped for followed by the reality of finances, the clean-up, and the process to what is there today, clean-ups that remain, and a plan for the future while the property is being used by the community today.

No efforts were made to hide the long incomplete list of over 130 properties located throughout the city that need environmental cleanup assistance. There is no effort to disguise where in the process of diagnosis or actual cleanup the various properties are. That by itself is a tremendous step forward toward the public understanding that appearances can be deceiving and that there is work being done to clean up and develop the properties and to make them better and to get them back onto the tax rolls. Most importantly it is an importantly step toward educating the public, and that includes me, on how long it takes and the financial mechanics involved to clear and clean these Brownfield Blights.

For the opening, Sherman brought together the people that worked on the Occum Park to explain their various roles and how long it took and why it took so long. It was one of the best discussions, with Marjorie Blizzard and Bill Warzecha I have attended and I was saddened that a private recording done by a student for private use is the only one available. Yes I am saying that the discussion was that good. It really should have been recorded and broadcast so that more people could see it and share in the information.

The photographs by Therese Carlos, a student at Three Rivers Community College are very nice too.

If you have the opportunity please go to the second floor of the Otis Library and see this exhibit. It is really important for tax payers and residents to see the progress being done even if the places look a wreck and it doesn’t look like anything is being done. Elanah, Thank you and well done!