🌼 happy solstice 🌼
It is a common folk belief that the summer solstice is one of the most potent days to collect herbs.
In some Slavic countries folks would harvest 77 1/2 herbs for the solstice wreath. The 1/2 herb is the herb that everyone looks for but no one can find. It is the plant that cures all ailments, a panacea plant.
The fern flower is also said to bloom on this night. If one can find it, any wish of theirs would be granted. The stipulation is that you may receive your heart's desire, but you cannot share it with anyone else.
Today is a day of magic and medicine.
The ticking of the clock becomes slower as we melt into the languid liminality of the longest day of the year. The air smells heavy with the musk of blooming flowers and swaying grasses. It's easy to let the eyes droop under such a spell.
May you have a moment to let this moment linger ✨
I wonder what he has to say about safety now
This is really weird and haunting
"The Necklace" is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant, which tells the story of a woman named Mathilde Loisel who lives in poverty but has a strong desire for wealth and luxury. One day, Mathilde is invited to a fancy ball and, because she has no suitable dress or jewelry, she borrows a necklace from a wealthy friend. At the ball, Mathilde feels like a queen and is the center of attention. But when the night is over, she discovers that she has lost the necklace, and in a panic, she and her husband spend the next ten years of their lives working hard to pay off the debt of buying a new one.
After ten years, they finally pay off the debt and meet the friend who lent her the necklace. It is then they find out that the necklace she borrowed was a fake, and it was worth only a fraction of what they paid for the new one. The story ends with Mathilde realizing that the whole time she had been living a life of luxury and wealth, it was all a facade, and the necklace was never real. The story is a commentary on the destructive power of vanity and the illusion of wealth and social status.
Book: 100 Great Short Stories
A bird in the hand is worth 2 in a bush... 💯 Sometimes this site is like a flock of seagulls. I want to run...so..far...away...
They certainly knew how to cut the lawn in style in the 50s.
Comfort Lawn Mowers. The “Power Mower of the Future” is shown demonstrated on Oct. 14, 1957. The lawnmower has a 5-foot-diameter plastic sphere in which the rider sits on an air-foam-cushioned seat. It has its own electric generating system for operating running lights, a radio telephone, air-conditioning, and even a cooling system to provide a chilled drink on a hot day.
1985
Sun Wah Barbecue at 77 Mulberry (Chinatown)
Manhattan did not legalize BBQ Duck* until 2011, despite Peking Duck being popularized in America by the US President in 1972.
Until then, health inspectors issued fines and Chinese restaurants were forced to throw away BBQ duck not kept at 140+ degrees.
In 1982, California had already passed the Peking Duck Law introduced by Gov. Jerry Brown after a UC Davis study proved this centuries-old Chinese way of roasting duck was safe. Canada had already approved roasted duck in 1978.
President Nixon had popularized Peking Duck with his 1972 visit to China, spurring greater US demand for authentic Chinese cuisine.
The new 1965 Immigration Act had lifted restrictions imposed on Asians, Africans, Latin Americans, and Southern/Eastern Europeans, opening doors to new food like Gyros (spit-cooking), Prosciutto (dry-cured), Sushi (raw fish) and Tandoori Chicken.
NYC health inspectors, however, were notoriously adverse to new cuisine, new ways of cooking and new ways of storage/prep. The health code had not anticipated other cultures.
Even for French Charcuterie and sous-vide cooking, which got raided. Let alone kimchi, sushi and tandoori ovens. Kosher bakeries were also fined for food handlers without beard restraints.
An ABC system was introduced in 2011 by NYC's health dept. But language/cultural barriers can downgrade a restaurant to B or C grade, while 87% of Manhattan restaurants got an A grade from health inspectors.
Food protection courses and standards were only available in English, Spanish and Chinese.
“There are some very clean sushi practices that will knock you from an A to a B, and if the chef is particularly inflexible about deviating from what they think is the best sushi in the world, you could have a really good sushi restaurant with a B,” noted food science expert Dave Arnold.
Photo Eugene Gordon
The word “pemmican” is attributed to the Cree: pimihkān from pimihkēw, meaning “he makes grease, makes pemmican.” The Lakota, or Sioux, of South Dakota called a similar food wasná. Pemmican, or wasná, was an important survival food for those living in the Plains, prepared during the summer when game and forage was plentiful and eaten in the winter when subsistence was more difficult. While the Plains Indians would’ve used bison and occasionally venison most frequently, a wide range of other ingredients was turned into pemmican, depending on location and the availability of game. Meats like bear and fish were common in other parts of North America, and additions to improve flavor might’ve included wild berries – such as saskatoon, chokecherries, currents, manzanita, blueberries and cranberries – nuts, honey and even seaweed.
modernized version includes deer jerky, blueberries, cranberries, pumpkin seeds and wagyu fat — pictured below
Fleishhacker Pool, the largest swimming pool in the United States, was located right next to the San Francisco Zoo for 47 years. Its storied history includes movie stars the 1920’s and 1930’s such as Johnny Weismuller, Esther Williams and Ann Curtis. The pool — so large that lifeguards used wooden row boats to make their way across — was also used by the military for drills and exercises, and was an ideal pool to host swimming meets and races.
Fleishhacker Pool opened on April 23, 1925. The pool was 1,000 feet long and 150 feet wide. A diving pool measured 50 feet square and 14 feet deep with a tiered diving tower. The main pool had a capacity of six million gallons and could accommodate 10,000 swimmers. Salt water was pumped into the pool at high tide through a pipeline from the ocean and then pumped out at low tide.
The ancient city, Derinkuyu, lay abandoned for decades until, in the 1960s, a local man noticed his chickens were disappearing through a gap in his basement that had opened up during renovations, the BBC reported. After knocking down a wall, he found a tunnel — and accidentally rediscovered the sprawling, subterranean city.
Now part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, Derinkuyu is open to visitors, though they can explore only eight of its 18 levels.
Derinkuyu is an 18-level underground city in Cappadocia. At its deepest point, it reaches 280 feet below the Earth's surface. Cappadocia is particularly suited to underground dwellings — its landscape is made of a volcanic-ash rock called tuff, which is pliable and dry, making it easy to carve with simple tools.
✍️: Insider 📷️: Natalia Moroz/Getty Images
The Eiffel Tower was intended to be a temporary structure for the World's Fair in 1889, but it was nearly dismantled and sold for scrap metal. It was saved because of its potential use as a radio antenna, and it now serves as a tourist attraction as well as a working broadcast tower.
Source: https://weeklyrecess.com/article/why-was-the-eiffel-tower-almost-demolished
“Grandma, how do you cope with pain?”
“With your hands, honey. If you do it with your mind instead of relieving the pain, it toughens even harder.”
“With your hands grandma?”
“Yes, our hands are the antennae of our soul. If you move them; knitting, cooking, painting, playing or sinking them into the ground, you send care signs to the deepest part of you and your soul lights up because you’re paying attention to it. Then signs of pain will no longer be necessary.”
“Hands are really that important?”
“Yes my daughter. Think of babies: they start to know the world through the touch of their hands. If you look at the hands of old people, they tell you more about their life then any body part.
Everything that is done by hand is said to be done with the heart. Because it’s really like this: hands and heart are connected.
Masseurs know well: when they touch someone with their hands, they create a deep connection. It is precisely from this connection that healing comes. Think of lovers: when they touch their hands, they make love in a more sublime way.”
“My hands grandma.... how long I haven’t used them like this!”
“Move them, my love. Begin to create with them and everything within you will begin to move. The pain will not pass away. And instead what you do with them will become the most beautiful masterpiece and it won’t hurt anymore. Because you have been able to transform its essence.”
~Elena Bernabe