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MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What’s With The Whole “Spill The Beans” Thing?

(*in best Dwight Schrute voice) FALSE: the phrase “spill the beans” did not originate when Kevin Malone dropped his huge pot of chili in season five of The Office. People actually started talking about spilling the beans more than 2000 years ago!

Back in ancient Greece, they had a voting method that involved uncooked beans. If you wanted to vote “yes” on a particular issue, you’d place a white bean in the voting jar; if you wanted to vote “no”, you’d use a black bean. The jar wasn’t see-through, so, since the votes were meant to be kept secret until the final tally, someone who accidentally happened to knock that jar over in the middle of voting was both literally “spilling the beans” & figuratively spilling the beans about the results.

While we don’t know for sure exactly when the phrase spill the beans actually came into use, we do know that people have used the word spill to mean “divulge” or “tell” at least since the 16th century. The earliest known reference in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a letter written by Spanish historian Antonio de Guevara written prior to his death in 1545.

Writers started pairing “spill” with “beans” in the 20th century, with the 1st known mention by Thomas K. Holmes in his 1919 novel The Man From Tall Timber: “‘Mother certainly has spilled the beans!’ thought Stafford in vast amusement.”

Basically, it’s still a mystery why people decided that beans were the perfect food to represent spilled secrets. But, as for whether you imagine hard, raw Greek beans or tender, seasoned beans from Kevin Malone’s ill-fated chili, that’s entirely up to you.

If you’ve got a Mundane Mystery you’d like me to “spill the beans” about, send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What’s The Difference Between Soup & Stew?

With the chill in the air we’re feeling now, you couldn’t be blamed for daydreaming about diving into a big ol’ hearty bowl of soup. Or, perhaps, stew. Either will certainly warm & fill you up, but they’re certainly not the same thing. So, what’s the difference?

Both liquid-based, soups & stews can contain a variety of ingredients, from vegetables to meat, fish to potatoes, and lots more. Actually, both can contain the exact same ingredients. So, what sets your mom’s trademark beef stew with potatoes, carrots, and peas, apart from your spouse’s signature beef soup with potatoes, carrots, and peas? It actually all boils down to the amount of liquid used to make it.

To make soup, your ingredients usually get fully submerged in stock or water. For stew, you just barely cover them in liquid. With less liquid used for stew, it thickens during the cooking process & creates a gravy-like sauce, which makes the solid ingredients the stars of the dish. Some recipes even call for flour or a roux to make the stew even thicker & heartier. And, since it isn’t as liquid-laden as soup, stew is commonly served over noodles or rice or other grains.

The cooking process, itself, is usually different between soups & stews, as well: some soups can be made in as little as 20-30 minutes, while stews will always require more time to simmer. Because of the time needed, a lot of stew recipes will suggest you use a slow cooker, while most soups can just be made in an uncovered pot on the stove. Because of the time required to stew stew, its ingredients are often cut bigger than the ones in soups, since they have more time to cook & soften. What it doesn’t explain is why I can’t get soups & stews off my brain now! Either one, I’m game!

If you’ve got a Mundane Mystery on your brain, send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Are Decaf Coffee Pots Orange?

Much like an orange traffic cone gives you a heads-up about nearby roadwork, the orange spout & handle of a decaf coffee pot is a signal to both the people who drink coffee & the servers who pour it. But, that color wasn’t chosen simply for its eye-catching qualities. Orange is a bit of branding left behind by the original purveyors of decaf joe.

Decaffeinated coffee first came to America with a German company called Sanka, a combination of the words “sans” (“without”) and caffeine. Sanka sold its decaffeinated coffee in glass jars with orange labels. That orange packaging was the company’s calling card, because it was the first decaffeinated coffee brand to hit the market & consumers looked for that color whenever shopping for decaf.

In 1932, General Foods purchased Sanka & began promoting it. To help spread the word about decaf, the company sent orange Sanka coffee pots to coffee shops & restaurants around the U.S. And, even if waiters & waitresses weren’t used to serving 2 types of coffee, the orange spout & handle made it easy to distinguish the decaf from the regular.

The scheme was so successful, orange eventually became synonymous not just with Sanka, but all decaf coffee. And, when other coffeemakers began to offer & market their own decaffeinated alternatives, they used the same color Sanka had already made popular.

So, if you’re thinking about sipping a cup of joe now, be sure to ask for the orange pot. You don’t need all that caffeine this late in the day. (You’re welcome.)

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

{Katie’s Kitchen} Artichokes

Brought to you by Catoctin Mountain Orchard 

I love artichokes, but we probably only have them once or twice a year! Last night, I made them for Tim and I and tried a new and better way of cooking/steaming them.

I had two artichokes- so to prepare them, I washed them and then cut off the top of the artichoke. You can clip the pointy ends of the leaves, if you want, but I did not and it is fine, too.

Then, I stuffed two garlic cloves within the leaves of the artichoke.

Take a large pot and add water to the bottom, enough to cover the bottom of the artichokes stem down. About an inch to 1 1/2.

Before you actually add the artichokes, add juice of two lemons to the water, salt and bring to a boil.

Place the artichokes in the water stem down, cover and turn the heat to medium. Watch that the water doesn’t completely evaporate and turn the artichokes a few times so they steam evenly, cook for about 30 mins.

Once finishes, the leaves should easily pull apart and you should be able to open the artichoke to separate the leaves. I like to sprinkle parmesan cheese all over and serve with melted butter.

This time I tried a new aioli for it, too– take mayonnaise, add minced garlic and lemon juice, then dip your leaves! It was yummy!

Ingredients:

  • 2 artichokes
  • 2 lemons
  • 2 cloves garlic

Aioli

  • Mayonnaise- 2 tbsp.
  • lemon- juice from half lemon.
  • 1 clove minced garlic

 

{Katie’s Baby Blog} Family Christmas Pics!

Planning a day around family photos can be challenging, especially when you have a two year old! She definitely needs a nap first…so hopefully we can time things out for photos after 3pm, she needs to eat something so she isn’t whiney, and getting her dressed quickly before the photos so she doesn’t get something on her in the time between getting there can be a challenge, too! Exhausting!

Luckily, my cousin did our Christmas photos this year, so she was flexible with our schedule!

No, I’m not planning on sending Christmas cards, this year. Honestly, it’s too much work for me- being pregnant and chasing around Lily, I just said, “One less thing is easier for me!” But…we did want the cute photos since we haven’t taken any as a family since Lily was 10 months old.

So, I woke Lily up from her nap and in a whirlwind she was dressed and had her hair done before she could even really open her eyes. Side note- most days Lily is a little bit of a grouch when she wakes up from a nap, she always has been!  Then, we got to the photo shoot and luckily she was distracted by the Christmas trees and big ornaments and agreed to sit on Daddy’s lap so we could snap a few pictures! We did have to coax her with M&M’s to get the one’s of her by herself. Done in 20 minutes…and look how sweet they turned out!!!

Also– managed to get one of me and the belly with baby girl, too!

Here are a few!

<3 Merry Christmas!

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why No Elbows On The Table?

Certain table manners go without saying: chewing with your mouth closed protects others at the table from seeing your half-chewed food; a napkin on your lap protects your pants from crumbs. But, why is eating dinner with your elbows on the table, which both feels & seems right, so frowned upon?

Well, it originally served as a way of proving you were not a threat to other diners. Table manners came about as a means of preventing people from leaving their terrestrial bubble to start a fight. Elbows on the table, in theory, disrupted the border created the utensils; people saw it as a lack of restraint. Others around the table would get jittery when someone started showing bad manners, since it meant that the taboo wasn’t working, and that the ill-mannered person was unpredictable, a wildcard.

It’s certainly not a new rule. In the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes, one is supposed to feel just as ashamed of “stretching your elbow at dinner” as he/she would “breaking an oath or a covenant”. More recently, however, the no-elbows rule has become less about preventing brawls & more about avoiding other dinner disasters. By keeping your elbows off the table, you’re helping to ensure that you don’t put your elbow in the soup or gravy (or anything else).

Keeping your elbows off the table also prevents you from exhibiting bad posture which, historically, indicated an uncivilized upbringing. These days, a slight slouch at dinner may not get you labeled as a caveman/cavewoman, but leaning on your elbows might make it difficult for the folks on either side of you to have a conversation.

With that said, though, even those with better-than-average table manners have been known to break the rules. As a matter of fact, in a 1937 interview, famed ettiquette expert Emily Post even confessed to gracing a tabletop with her elbows from time to time. When questioned about it, she said: “It really makes no difference.”

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: “Dinner” Or “Supper”…Which Is Right?

The difference between Dinner & Supper isn’t just a regional thing or a matter of dialect, they really do mean different things.

Well, at least they used to.

Regardless of whether it was eaten in the morning, afternoon, or evening, dinner has historically meant “the largest meal of the day”. The word “dinner” comes from the non-Classical Latin word disjējūnāre, which is defined as breaking a fast.

Supper, however, is more time-specific. Stemming from the Old French word souper, it means an evening meal that’s generally lighter than other meals served throughout the day. So basically, supper & dinner have more to do with the quantity of food served than the time of day that you eat them.

In the 1800s, some rural Americans began calling their midday meal dinner, leaving supper for the evening meal. That was related more to occupations than locations, however. In parts of the Midwest & South, where farmers needed plenty of fuel to get them through the day, the midday meal was bigger (thus, “dinner”). While, in the evening, supper would typically consist of a light soup, which they referred to as “supping”. (In fact, the word supper is related to “suppe”, the German word for soup). This is still the norm in some parts of America, as “supper” is most commonly used for the evening meal in Wisconsin, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa, as well as in large parts of the South.

However, outside of those areas, “supper” isn’t really used much anymore, especially among younger generations, as dinner is, by far & away, the more popular term nationwide. Whatever the case, you’re probably thinking about eating your nightly meal right now, and couldn’t care less what it’s called…you just want it in your belly!

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What Happens If Someone Objects At A Wedding?

It’s a well-known rom-com movie trope: at the wedding of a woman who’s loved by someone else besides just the groom, the minister utters those fateful words “speak now or forever hold your peace”, and…out comes an objection. Think “The Graduate”, “Four Weddings & A Funeral”, even “Shrek”. Usually, this steers the plot toward a quirkier happy ending. But, what happens if someone doesn’t hold their peace & speaks up at a wedding in real life? Is that really a thing? And, if so, why?

11th-hour objections in real-life aren’t all that common, but they’re not unheard of. It’s not illegal to speak up, but personal issues don’t invalidate a union. It was the Catholic Church that started soliciting objections during 12th century wedding ceremonies as a way to reveal any reasons why it might be unlawful for a couple to get hitched. Maybe the groom had a different wife in another town, or perhaps the bride & groom were actually half-siblings…those sort of reasons. Because, without the bureaucratic processes & databases that we have today to help keep track of everyone’s personal details, back then it was up to the community to help ensure each marriage was legally permissible.

Nowadays, any potential snafus come to light when a couple tries to secure a marriage license, which is usually completed before the ceremony. If you happen to still be legally married to your previous spouse, the county clerk will usually remind you of that little detail. So, because the whole “speak now or forever hold your peace” thing is essentially obsolete now, that’s why it’s often cut from a lot of weddings these days.

But, what would happen if someone were to actually object at a wedding today? It would be up to the officiant as to how to deal with it. The most likely way it would play out would be that the proceedings pause, the objecting person gets pulled aside, and the officiant talks over their reasoning with them (without an audience). Then, unless it’s a legal matter, the ceremony would most likely go on as planned.

So, if you’re worried about any potential outbursts at your own future wedding, it might be a good idea to discuss the strategy with your officiant beforehand. And, also maybe rethink your guest list, as well.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

{Katie’s Kitchen} Holiday Cranberry Pepper Jelly Brie

Brought to you by Catoctin Mountain Orchard.

Only 3 ingredients and this cheese appetizer will be a huge hit at your holiday event!

The best part…it only takes 5 minutes to prepare, too!

You can use any kind of red pepper jelly that you’d like- take out a small bowl and add 1/4 cup of red pepper jelly, and 1/4 cup of cranberry sauce (I used canned jellied cranberry sauce) and mix the two together until combined.

Then, spread on top of your brie cheese. I also added walnuts on top of mine, then bake. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Place your brie on a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes or until it is gooey inside, but not actually melted.

Serve on a pretty festive platter with your favorite crackers!

 

 

 

Ingredients:

-Brie cheese

-1/4 cup Red pepper jelly

-1/4 cup cranberry sauce

-Option: add walnuts

 

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