Good morning, all: it’s Thursday, February 9, 2017, and it’s Bagels and Lox Day, one of the best food days of the year. For what can be better than a chewy New York bagel (spurn the torus-shaped Wonder Bread that passes for bagels these days), a nice piece lox, and a big schmear of cream cheese. This is one of the great (and few) contributions of Jews to world cuisine.
On this day in 1895, William G. Morgan created a game called “Mintonette,” which was actually volleyball. In 1942, Daylight Savings Time was reinstated in America as a way to conserve energy during the war. I think it’s time to get rid of it again, though. On February 9, 1964, the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show (American t.v.), and I watched it live! Finally, on this day in 1971, the great Satchel Paige became the first Negro League player to be voted into America’s Baseball Hall of Fame. How many great black players never got to test their mettle in the “big leagues” because of segregation? He’s one who would have excelled.
Notables born on this day include Amy Lowell (1874), Carmen Miranda and Dean Rusk (both 1909; I love this congruent but odd joint birthdays), Jacques Monod (1910), Ernest Tubb (1914), Garner Ted Armstrong (1930), Carole King (1942), and Alice Walker (1944). Those who died on this day include Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1881), Bill Haley (1981), and J. William Fulbright (1995). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Cyrus is pondering, but of course, as a d*g, pondering without an object is all he’s able to do.
Cyrus: I often wonder.Hili: Me too.
Cyrus: Często się zastanawiam.
Hili: Ja też.
Carmen Miranda is the Google Doodle today…
“Daylight Savings Time… I think it’s time to get rid of it again, though.”
I’d like to shift it from summer to winter, when it gets dark way too early.
Move south Duncan! Or north… depending on your hemisphere… 🙂
After all, geese & swallows do!
Leave the clock weirdness alone David! When it gets dark early in winter around 4pm in the UK, it’s an ideal pub-straight-from-work situation. And Summer when it’s muggy & there’s a beer garden. And… [long list here]
I must respectfully disagree with PCC: DST is the only thing that allows many of us to pursue outdoor activities after work during the summer. For me, it’s 6pm sailboat racing on Thursday nights, and we can’t just flip on the outdoor lights to make it possible.
The larger issue to me is that since our clock time is an artificial construct anyway, why are folks so set on more light earlier than later? I don’t get it. Rant over.
Oh, well if it’s good for you, what matters. Just think if what you have said might be a little self-serving. We would also hate it if the country club set did not get in their 18 holes.
Thanks, Randall, for your reply.
ouch.lol
I commute on a bike everyday and DST is not worth the risks. Based on my schedule it increases the amount I have to ride in darkness vs. lightness. Of course my children get on the bus in more light hours than not, so I guess it’s something papa needs to suck up.
Marcus Du Sautoy cut a bagel into locking rings – I can’t find the video. It was on the show with him and Dara O’Briain. It’s fun to try.
Here’s a bit by DuSautoy about bagels:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00cyb1z
Didn’t listen yet – BBC might not let anyone outside the U.K…
I couldn’t find the video, which would be worth it I think.
But I found this:
http://www.georgehart.com/bagel/bagel.html
Search terms : “bagel cut two interlocking rings”
This site is great:
”
It is much more fun to put cream cheese on these bagels than on an ordinary bagel. In additional to
the intellectual stimulation, you get more cream cheese, because there is slightly more surface area.”
Topology problem: Modify the cut so the cutting surface is a one-twist Mobius strip.
(You can still get cream cheese into the cut, but it doesn’t separate into two part
(…)
For future research: How to make Mobius lox…”
One last bagel-related comment:
Trefoil cut bagel:
http://www.georgehart.com/bagel/knot.html
Not a bagel, but I’m reminded of Vi Hart’s hexaflexamexagon.
Oh yeah, bagels and lox! Or just skip the bagel, give me the lox, straight up.
One of my all-time favorite foods.
Yum!
I’m with you on that. Keep the capers though!
My method: slice bagel into three slices; make the center one a little thicker, since it does not have a “crust” to support it. [A bagel sliced in half just seems too thick to me.] Cream cheese, lox, capers and GREEN onions. But as Krugman might say: shape of bagel; views vary.
I am of the opinion that Cyrus is a good boy.
Minor typo, PCC: it’s Garner Ted Armstrong. Back in the ’50s I used to read his father free magazine, The Plain Truth.
Minor typo, Jim, it should be “his father’s”.
Whoops, a typo. I’ll fix, thanks.
From the looks of the small building Cyrus and Hili are near, maybe they are on a well?
There’s something better (if I can be partisan) than a NY bagel and the toppings mentioned: a *Montreal* bagel and the toppings. 😉
(I guess this is about the first time I’ve almost deliberately initiated jihad, but there you go. :))
Other great contributions to Jewish cuisine are babka, blintz, and gefilte fish.