What is yerba maté?

Search: yerba mate

Why: We are trying to eat like cavemen, so I've been going to Whole Foods a lot and trying various expensive healthy-looking things. On the back of the Guayaki Yerba Mate $3 organic "Pure Mind" drink thing:

In 1996 after our co-founding Argentine partner passed us our first mate gourd, we immediately felt the balanced, nourishing and unparalleled energy.

In college, I had some Yerba Mate Latte All Night Samba tea that I skulled during all-nighters. I pictured the plant behind it to look like coffee beans, not like a gourd.

Answer: First, the yerba maté plant is a South American evergreen shrub related to holly. The fruit is a red drupe. (Do you know this word? Drupe? More importantly, do you know the word drupelet? Every little bubble on raspberry or blackberry is called a "drupelet." Impress your friends.) The leaves of the plant contain caffeine.

The drink maté (also chimarrão or cimarrón) is just the leaves of the yerba mate plant put inside a hollowed-out calabash gourd. You drink it with a silver straw.

And there are more modern versions that use modern materials. Progressive!

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: Speaking of Whole Foods / eating like cavemen, if you like to make homemade kale chips single every night (and why wouldn't you?), try these awesome things from Kaia.

They are crunchy as all get-out, super tasty, and sickeningly good for you.

How can I make rock candy at home?

Search: make rock candy

Why: I don't know if I've mentioned this (I have), but we've been making our own sweet tea vodka at home because Firefly, while goddamn delicious, is also goddamn $20 a bottle. The only real ingredients are tea, vodka, and simple syrup. A few weeks ago, Chandler made some simple syrup on the stove, and then we abandoned our apartment to dogsit at his sister's house.

We've been back many times, of course - poor Maddie is there all alone. Just last night, I noticed that the simple syrup - still sitting on the stove - had hardened into a thick shell with some liquid underneath. (like this, kind of)

And now I have a hankering for rock candy. (I would eat what's in there, but it has pieces of basil in it from a different experiment, and possibly a few dead flies. Plus it's been sitting there for literally 3 whole weeks.)

Answer: Oh god, it's so easy! There is a nice photo tutorial here, but I will show you how simple it is first. All you need is:

• Water
• Granulated sugar
• Flavoring extract or oil (optional)
• Food coloring (optional)
• Glass jar
• Thread or skewer
  

And here is what you do:

1. Wet the thread or skewer and roll it in the sugar. This will give the sugar crystals something to "grab" when they start forming.

2. Make some simple syrup by dissolving sugar in boiling water.

3. Add coloring & flavors. (Sidenote: We just got a SodaStream - which is awesome - and I wonder if those flavor syrups would work with this. I WONDER.)

4. Fill the jar with the simple syrup.

5. Dangle the thread or skewer inside the surp (tie it to a pencil or pin it) so it hangs about an inch above the bottom of the jar. Don't let it touch the sides.

6. Put in a cool, dark place. Crystals should start to form in 4-6 hours. Allow to grow to the size you want; larger candy can take up to a week.

Or you can just get a kit. It looks like a really good garnish, either way.

Source: Candy.About.com

The More You Know: Wait, is everyone thinking about "hankering" now? What is the origin of the word "hankering"? Me too. To "hanker" means:

c.1600, of unknown origin, probably from Flemish hankeren, related to Du. hunkeren; perhaps an intensive of M.Du. hangen "to hang." If so, the notion is of "lingering about" with longing or craving.

Did someone really propose in the food court of the CNN building?

Search: cnn food court

Why: On Facebook:

Edie - Were you eating in the food court when Train helped the guy propose to his girlfriend?
Rebecca - no!! I think it happened Sunday because I had no idea!! I wish I had been!!
Edie - Eric knows a guy who was sitting and eating in the back ground of the clip that was on cnn.com and works there.

At first, I thought they were talking about this food court marriage proposal, which I saw on the Internets around Valentine's Day and then on ABC News this morning:

Answer: Yep! It was a soldier, and he had the band Train sing the song "Marry Me" to help him out. WHAT! At 8:48 -

Source: CNN.com

The More You Know: All this talk of public proposals is making me thirsty.

What does "estery" mean?

Search: estery definition; ester

Why: On the label for Samuel Adams Rustic Saison (available in the Sam Adams Summer Styles variety pack):

Incredibly complex yet refreshing, Rustic Saison is brewed in the farmhouse beer tradition. Unique floral, fruity, and estery flavors are imparted from its Belgian yeast. These flavors are layered with a citrusy and herbal hop character for a bright and satisfying brew.

Answer: "Tastes floral / fruity"! I see these 3 things:

• Ester - Volatile flavor compound naturally created in fermentation
• Estery - Aroma or flavor suggestive of flowers or fruits
• Fruity/Estery - Flavor and aroma of bananas, strawberries, apples, or other fruits

People throw that word around quite a bit on homebrewing forums.

An ester is an organic compound formed when an acid and an alcohol combine and release water.

Esters formed from simple hydrocarbon groups are colorless, volatile liquids with pleasant aromas and create the fragrances and flavors of many flowers and fruits. They are also used as food flavorings. Larger esters, formed from long-chain carboxylic acids, commonly occur as animal and vegetable fats, oils, and waxes. Esters have a wide range of uses in industry.

Source: Beer Terminology, TheFreeDictionary

The More You Know: The Kentucky Derby is tomorrow. What's the origin of the word julep, you ask? It comes from the Persian word گلاب Golâb, "rose water." It used to refer to any sweet drink that was used as or contained medicine, but now it just means delicious, delicious sugary minty bourbon.

What kind of tea is sweet tea usually made of?

Search: sweet tea

Why: We are making sweet tea vodka. I have a lot of tea - mostly green, a little black, some not really "tea" at all. Did you know that black, oolong, green, and white teas are all made from the same Camellia sinensis plant? It's true! The leaves and buds are just grown, harvested, or processed differently.

Answer: Black tea! True facts:

• The oldest known recipe for sweet iced tea - published in an 1879 community cookbook called Housekeeping in Old Virginia by Texan Marion Cabell Tyree - called for green tea.
• Most early sweet tea was made of green tea.
• During WWII, the U.S. was cut off from the major sources of green tea (Asian places), so we only had the tea that came from British-controlled India, which was all black.
• Since WWII, Americans have been drinking mostly black tea as iced tea.
  

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: The custom of drinking tea and having that whole snack/mealtime in the British Empire originated when Catherine of Bragança married Charles II in 1661. She brought the practice of drinking tea in the afternoon with her from Portugal.

Anyway, we ended up just using some Irish Breakfast to make our sweet tea vodka. I mean, Irish breakfast indeed!

What is an oast house?

Search: oast house

Why: On Farmville (I play it!), you can buy one for your farm in the English countryside. It looks like a teepee, and also what the hell is it and why does it sound so Canadian.

Answer: It has to do with beer-making! An oast is a kiln that is used to dry hops. This is what the inside of that thing looks like:

Brimstone! It's another name for sulfur.

And here's a real one:

Source: The Free Dictionary

The More You Know: Are you now thinking about hops and where hops grow and what hops look like and other things like that? You can read all about them right here.

What's the origin of the word "broker"?

Search: broker etymology

Why: Last night, Jessica Fletcher's niece was a real estate broker. The night before, her stockbroker was murdered! As far as I can tell (not very far), a broker is just a go-between or a middle man. In this economy, he's probably even broker than I am. Hey-o!

Answer: It has nothing to do with "break" or the past tense "broke"! Instead, it all started with the pointy tool Frenchmen of yore used to tap their wine kegs. Its history went like this:

• broche - Old French: "pointed tool"
• brochier - "to broach, tap, pierce (a keg)"
• abrokur - Anglo-French: "tapster, retailer of wine"
• "wine dealer"

• brocour - Anglo-Norman "small trader"
• "retailer, middleman, agent"

And in Middle English, of course, the word was contemptuously used to refer to peddlers and pimps. (Read about pimps here [and male mistresses here]).

Source: EtymOnline

The More You Know: "Go for broke" comes from a Hawaiian pidgen phrase for "shoot the works," used by gamblers risking all their money on a single roll of dice. During WWII, the 442th Infantry, a unit composed of mostly second-generation Japanese-Americans, used the phrase in their fight song (1:15):

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is the most highly decorated unit in American military history for its size and length of service, with 7 major campaigns in Europe, 21 Medals of Honor, 52 Distinguished Silver Crosses, 560 Silver Stars, and 9,486 Purple Hearts. You can watch this 1951 movie about them online here.

What spices are sweet?

Search: sweet spices

Why: I am about to drink my 4th cup of tea today (Podrea; thanks Hillary!). Though I don't usually sweeten tea, it is starting to taste a bit monotonous (monoflavorous?). Sugar is bad for you, and honey - while "natural" and "better for you - has a great deal of calories. The only other thing I see in the spice rack is cinnamon.

Answer: There aren't many! A few herbs are sweetish, but not really the sort of thing you want to put in tea. Here are some options:

• Allspice - Sweet spice of Caribbean origin with a flavor suggesting a blend of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. May be purchased ground or as whole dried berries, which can be bruised to release more flavor.
  

• Basil - Sweet, warm flavor with an aromatic odor, used whole or ground.

• Chives - Mild, sweet herb related to the onion.

• Cinnamon - Popular sweet, aromatic spice that comes from the bark of laurel trees (WHAT!). It is sold ground or in sticks and used to flavor baked goods.

• Cloves - Rich East African spice used to provide flavor to both sweet and savory recipes, from baked goods to pickling brines.

• Nutmeg - Popular baking spice that is the hard pit of the fruit of the nutmeg tree.

• Pumpkin Pie Spice - A blend of cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves used for pumpkin pie, gingerbread, cookies, sweet potatoes, and applesauce. (Is this a real thing?)

• Tarragon - Fragrant, sweet herb used fresh or dried to season vegetables, salads, light meats, seafood, and eggs.

Source: Herbs, Spices, and Seasonings

The More You Know: Also maybe some sort of mint - like peppermint, which is a hybrid between spearmint and watermint.

What's the origin of the word "carabiner"?

Search: karabiner

Why: The 40 oz. wide Klean Kanteen comes with a loop cap that clips right onto a Kanteen® S-Biner.

Answer: It's from German!

Shortened from the German word Karabinerhaken, "carbine hook" - that is, one used to attach a carbine rifle to a belt

Source: Glossary of Caving Terms

The More You Know: Why does German capitalize seemingly arbitrary words? Well, for one, they're all nouns. ALL nouns are capitalized, and, of course, proper names and titles (Frietag, Deutsche Bank, Frau Jones). They do not, however, capitalize adjectives of nationality: "American car" is amerikanisches Auto; "German wine" is deutscher Wein. They don't capitalize "I" (ich), but they do capitalize all formal forms of "you" - Sie, Ihnen, Ihr. It's all very complicated. There's a whole Bund für vereinfachte rechtschreibung ("Federation for Simplified Spelling") that regulates things like this; new rules went into effect as recently as 2005.

Which came first: A&W Root Beer or restaurants?

Search: a&w

Why: We passed some restaurants on the way back from Las Vegas.

Answer: Root beer!

• 1919 - Roy Allen starts selling root beer for 5¢ at a stand in Lodi, CA. He opens another stand in Sacramento, believed to be the country's first drive-in.

• 1922 - Allen partners with Frank Wright. Get it? Allen & Wright.
• 1933 - The root beer is such a success that they have over 170 franchised outlets in the Midwest and West.

• 1950 - With over 450 restaurants operating nationwide, Allen retires and sells the business to Gene Hurtz, who forms the A&W Root Beer Company.
• 1971 - Cans and bottles of A&W root beer are sold on grocery shelves.

Source: AWRestaurants.com

The More You Know: A&W Root Beer and A&W Cream Soda were among the first flavors offered by Jelly Belly in 1976. (The others were Very Cherry, Tangerine, Lemon, Green Apple, Grape, and Licorice.) Buy me this:

Where was Orangina first made?

Search: orangina

Why: Eliza told Corbett that French people pronounce it to rhyme with "vagina." A French guy on the Métro said that's wrong. Lisa brought me back a giant Orangina from Italy. The bottle had an orange [the fruit] thing in the top of it.

Answer: France! By a Spanish pharmacist! And it was first sold in Algeria!

1935 - At the Marseilles Trade Fair, a Spanish pharmacist, Dr. Trigo, presents his new invention, Naranjina, a sparkling and natural drink made of orange juice and pulp. Seduced by the recipe, Leon Beton buys the concept and launches it on the Algerian market.

1951 - Jean Claude Beton, who took over the company from his father in 1947, creates "La Compagnie Française des produits Orangina" at Boufarik, in Algeria.He starts producing Orangina for France, where the product reawakens the joys of summer and the youthful spirit that blossomed after World War II.

What fun sexy ads!

Source: Orangina.eu

The More You Know: Watch this f-ing crazy 2007 advert to hear how exactly the French pronounce it. Also, what is your favorite part? Mine is the lapdancing octopus with boobs.

Is it OK to use moldy ginger?

Search: moldy ginger

Why: Chandler has been making ginger ale, but today, the ginger root looks like this:

I don't know what that yellow Hershey Kiss thing is. I think it's like a potato eye.

Answer: I don't know! Maybe! But maybe not, so maybe just throw it away and go buy some more.

Here are some postings from a LiveJournal thread called "Can I Eat This?" (which would be a good name / idea for a blog, in case anyone out there needs something to do):

• if it were a really big piece and you cut off a good portion around the moldy part then it might have been safe, but sometimes its better safe than sorry...
• I would have cut off the mold and used it.

But I store my fresh ginger root in a jar full of white sherry so I don't have to worry about mold.

• I store mine in the freezer. Doesn't stick to the grater when its frozen either.

The Herb Gardener details the art of Preserving Ginger:

Select and clean a piece of ginger root. I don't peel the outer skin off mine until I'm about to use it, so leave that intact. Place it in a glass jar and cover it completely with sherry. Any grade of sherry will do, but if you're a sherry purist, by all means use the good stuff. The sherry will saturate and preserve the ginger. Slice the amount you need, then peel and mince it.

Source: LiveJournal, The Herb Gardener,

The More You Know: Homemade ginger ale tastes pretty good. Here is the system Chandler has been using:

• Dissolve 1 c sugar in about 1/2 c water in a saucepan and let cool.
  
• Combine 2 T fresh grated ginger, the juice of 1 lemon, and 1/4 t of dry active yeast in a clean 2 liter plastic bottle.
  
• Add the simple syrup from the pan, fill the rest of the way up with filtered water and seal it up.
  
• Leave at room temp for 2 days or until it's too tight to squeeze, then refrigerate. Filter through something like a tea strainer or cheesecloth, either as needed or the whole bottle at once.
  

The only things are that a) it smells like a rancid corpse [forever] and b) it looks like this:

Don't forget that ginger is good for you! Eat it in candy! (I have this.)

Should I squeeze opened soda bottles to preserve the carbonation?

Search: squeeze bottles carbonation

Why: Mike's dad Mike was all, "MIKE! Are you the one who's been doing this to all the bottles?"

Daniel said Daddy Seymour did that to all his bottles one time, too.

Answer: No! It will actually make whatever is in it (probably club soda) go flat even faster.

The bottle will "want" to snap back to its original shape and create a mini-vacuum that "sucks" CO₂ out of the pop. Looked at another way, the CO₂ is going to come out of solution until the pressure equalizes, and since the pressure is starting out lower (i.e., the volume of trapped gas is smaller, which is the same thing in this case because the bottle will expand easily to its original volume), there is more "room" for the CO₂ to come out of solution.

Physics!

Source: Ask MetaFilter, Ask a Scientist

The More You Know: Apparently this is what you should do:

Most effective? Keep the bottle as cold as possible, pour your soda into a GLASS container when you drink it (plastic has all sorts of "nucleation sites", or imperfections off which bubbles seem to launch themselves, depleting your soda of precious CO2 rather rapidly).

You can also buy little pressurizer things (like Fizz Keepers) that may or may not actually do anything.

How long does it take for roofies to start working?

Search: how long before roofies take effect

Why: In Lifetime movies, the dizzy spins seem to happen almost immediately.

Answer: Somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes! The effects peak within 2 hours, and they may persist for more than 8 hours, depending on the dosage!

Source: OHS, Yahoo! Answers

The More You Know: Rohypnol is a trade name. The generic name of the drug is Flunitrazepam. It's marketed as a strong hypnotic and powerful sedative, anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, amnestic, and skeletal muscle relaxant drug. Before it's mashed up and poured in your lycheetini, it looks like this:

I want to see a picture of a kirin

Search: kirin; qilin

Why: Chandler and I had a nice talk about Japanese beer names and their meanings. A quick review:

• Asahi - "morning sun"
• Ichiban - "number one"
• Kirin - "giraffe"
• Sapporo - a city in Hokkaido, which is the northernmost big island / prefecture of Japan
  

BUT! I just looked this business up again (because the eavesdropping waitress giggled a little, what a b) and turns out the name kirin actually comes from the name for "a mythical horned Chinese deer-like creature that is said to appear only when a sage has appeared." WHAT!

Answer: Omg it's so majestic!!

The name may also be spelled qilin, kylin, kyrin, or qilin (pronounced "kay-lun" in Cantonese).

It is a good omen that brings serenity and prosperity. It is often depicted with what looks like fire all over its body. In most drawings, its head looks like that of a Chinese dragon. The qilin is sometimes translated as unicorn in English, because it is superficially similar to the unicorn in being a hooved imaginary beast having a single horn on its head.

Here is a statue of one in front of Beijing's Summer Palace. Zuul Y/Y?

The Qilin could recognise whether a person was guilty or not. Although it looks fearsome, the Qilin only punishes the sinners; when it walked on grass, it could not trample it. Being a peaceful creature, its diet did not include flesh.

In Japanese, the qilin is called a kirin. Japanese art tends to depict the qilin as more deerlike than in Chinese art. The word kirin has come to be used in modern Japanese for a giraffe.

But that thing on the Kirin label is a magical fire unicorn. Why don't I have a giant tattoo of it on my person? Yet?

Source: Knowledge Rush, Google Images

The More You Know: I feel as though someone is pulling my leg with this shit. Who still needs something to wear to the My Little Pony party?

Will white wine really remove a red wine stain?

Search: white wine remove red wine

Why: Chandler saw a guy try it, but didn't see the aftermath, and I had full-on doubt that it worked. Then I just got an article to edit about removing wine stains, and it says, "Pour White Wine on a Red Wine Stain."

Answer: Kinda! Through neutralization. It is a good first step:

When red wine is spilled onto your carpet or clothes, white wine can be your true companion. White wine will neutralize red wine and will make it easier to lift the color off of your carpet or clothing. Simply pour white wine over the stained area and very gently blot the liquid up with a thick towel (be very careful not to rub as this will force the stain into the carpet or clothing fibers).

Once you have the majority of the spill blotted up, take your favorite carpet shampoo or clothing stain remover, whichever the case may be, and clean as you would if the wine stain were a bit of dirt on the carpet or clothing.

Source: Wine.about.com

The More You Know: That thing Mikhail Gorbachev has on his head is called a port wine stain vascular birthmark.

Where do hops grow?

Search: where do hops grow; humulus

Why: I went to the Ghost River Brewing company the other day (I've been out of town!), and the guy said - among other things - that hops are what adds flavor to the beer, that there are more varieties of hops than there are of grapes, and ... I can't remember. They feed their beer waste to cows. Anyway, if all beer needs hops, are there farmers who just grow hops? Where does it grow naturally? Because people make beer all over the world.

Answer: All over! It is native to native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. On this list, there are varieties that grow in America, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, New Zealand, Poland, and Slovenia. There is a Japanese hop, but it is used for ornamentation.

In America, there are hops farms and breeding programs in Oregon and Washington. One English variety is called the Fuggle.

These are in Belgium:

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: The hop is part of the family Cannabaceae, which also includes the genus Cannabis, which is I think you know what. Like that thing, only the female flowers are used.

Also, we tried the Saranac Summer Brew the other day and it was pretty good. It's real sweet, like honey in a cup. Get your paws on it.

Why does the Starbucks mermaid have 2 tails?

Search: starbucks mermaid two tails

Why: I was looking at this clock on Etsy. You can see that early versions of the Starbucks logo were downright lewd. You can only see her fins today.

Answer: Because it's not a mermaid; it's a melusine! But first: the company is named after Starbuck, Captain Ahab's first mate in Moby Dick. In keeping with this theme, CEO Howard Shultz wrote:

Terry [Heckler] also poured over old marine books until he came up with a logo based on an old sixteenth-century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed mermaid, or siren... That early siren, bare-breasted and Rubenesque, was supposed to be as seductive as coffee itself.

Here is the hiccup: a Siren is half-woman, half-bird. A mermaid, of course, is half-woman, half-fish. In Greek mythology, both creatures seduce men and drown them. In fact, some languages use the same word for both bird and fish creatures, such as the Maltese word sirena.

But that's neither here nor there.

The whole sex-symbol status of mermaids hinges on the question which part is "woman" - upper or lower. "The other type of mermaid" that hapless Fry was referring to would have problems attracting suitors, of course. And how do you do it with the normal type?

Wise mythologists came up with the answer, of course. And the answer is a two-tailed mermaid sometimes called a Melusine.

Voilà! In European folklore, she is a woman up top and a fish or serpent from the waist down. Sometimes she has wings or two tails. She barely ever wears a shirt.

So Starbucks had that chick on its earliest logo:

Then this, this, and this. She even has a belly button in the middle one.

And now a coffee bag has another stylized "siren" mermaid melusine on it, but I'm not posting it because I don't even like coffee. You can look at it here. It's also on the clock up there.

Source: DeadProgrammer's Cafe, Brand Autopsy

The More You Know: Though Dead Programmer posted that like 5 years ago, NENA left him this comment a month ago. Do you agree or disagree?

NENA 1 month ago

DO U THINK SIRENS DO EXIST I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW BECAUSE
THOSE MYTHICAL CREATURES ARE VERY INTRESTING I HOPE
ONE DAY I COULD FINDON U KNOW THEY ALSO SAY IF U FIND ONE
THEY COULD GRANT U A WISH .. IF I FIND ONE I WOULD WITH IF I COULD
BECOME LKE THEM LIKE A MERMAID WELL
ITS ME DONT CARE WAT PEOPLE SAY ITS MY BELIEF