Category: Hmmm….

food for thought

Stuffing or Dressing?

What do a handful of writers discuss over the Cranberry Curry Dip while waiting for turkey dinner with their spouses and assorted family members? The BIG question: do you call it stuffing or dressing? And what’s the difference between the two, anyway? The youngest member of the group, age eleven, may be a budding wordsmith as she informed us that one of the words was likely a retronym for the other — though she did not know which came first. She did, however, provide us with an example of a word that became a retronym as its meaning evolved: watch –> pocket watch –> wrist watch. We were duly impressed, but no closer to an answer. One friend opined that the word choice might have changed in the Victorian era, the image of stuffing being too base, too vulgar, and dressing sounding more proper, more circumspect. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, however, seems to refute that premise as it suggests that dressing was used earlier than stuffing, if only by a few decades:

    dressing “(A) sauce or other mixture added to food, esp. a salad; a seasoning; stuffing. E16.”
    stuffing “A savoury or sweet mixture used to stuff poultry, rolled meat, vegetables, etc., esp. prior to cooking. M16.”

I perused a few other references — including Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary and the Plumb Design Visual Thesaurus — and quickly realized that I’d best stick to the nouns, for digression into verbs would bring us into the realm of fecundation and fertilization (“the act of making fertile by application of fertilizer or manure”), donning attire, and applying bandages.

Within culinary boundaries, the Visual Thesaurus defined stuffing as “a mixture of seasoned ingredients used to stuff meats and vegetables,” under which fall types including farce and forcemeat, the latter defined as “a mixture of ground raw chicken and mushrooms with pistacheos and truffles and onions and parseley and lots butter and bound with eggs.” Oxford defines forcemeat a bit more generically: “A mixture of finely chopped meat or vegetables etc., seasoned and spiced, and chiefly used for stuffing or garnish.”

Of course the best part of noodling around in reference books is the serendipitous discovery of related entries you had not thought about. In this case, Oxford served up two of interest, one a word I had never heard, and the other interesting in its meaning. The first is salpicon:

    /”salpIkQn/ n.E18. [Fr. f. Sp., f. salpicar sprinkle (with salt).] Cookery. A stuffing for veal, beef, or mutton, also used as a garnish.

The other is pudding, certainly a familiar word, but the substance that comes to my mind is sweet and either butterscotch or chocolate. Here are portions of the Oxford entry (I’m skipping over the coarse slang and colloquial meanings):

    /”pUdI/ n. Also (colloq. & dial.) pudden /”pUd()n/.ME. [(O)Fr. boudin black pudding f. Proto-Gallo-Romance f. L botellus pudding, sausage, small intestine: see BOWEL. Cf. BOUDIN.]
    I 1 The stomach or intestine of a pig, sheep, etc., stuffed with minced meat, suet, oatmeal, seasoning, etc., and boiled. Now chiefly Sc. & dial. or w. specifying wd. ME.
    > black pudding, white pudding, etc.
    b A stuffing mixture of similar ingredients, roasted within the body of an animal. L16–L18.
    2 In pl. The bowels, the entrails, the guts. Now chiefly Sc. & dial. LME.
    …
    II 7 A cooked dish consisting of various sweet or savoury ingredients, esp. as enclosed within a flour-based crust or mixed with flour, eggs, etc., and boiled or steamed; a baked batter mixture. Now also, the sweet course of a meal. M16.
    > bread pudding, Christmas pudding, milk pudding, roly-poly pudding, steak and kidney pudding, Yorkshire pudding etc.

Lots of interesting info, but still no answer to the pressing question: stuffing or dressing? I looked in Roget’s Superthesaurus, which says little about stuffing (“fill, wadding, padding, innards”) and nothing about dressing, forcemeat, salpicon, or pudding. I even looked in The New York Public Library Desk Reference, to no avail, although I did learn from that tome that “a jiffy is an actual unit of time. It is 1/100 of a second.” And all this time I thought jiffy was cornbread mix.

If you know the answer, please email me. Inquiring minds want to know.

IM Becoming a Serious Business Tool

In light of my recent post regarding timely responses to email, I thought I’d share this report from The Center for Media Research.

According to a newly-released IDC study, the worldwide enterprise instant messaging applications market jumped 37% in terms of year-over-year revenue in 2004, and the value, necessity, and use of IM applications for business use is expected to grow from $315 million in 2005 to $736 million in 2009.

Robert P. Mahowald, program director for IDC, said “With more than 28 million business users worldwide… sending nearly 1 billion messages each day in 2005, and many more crossover corporate consumers who use consumer instant messaging networks in the workplace, these products are clearly reaching more mainstream users. Especially in compliance-driven sectors like Wall Street, financial services, and government, instant messaging is a critical differentiator… IDC expects instant messaging – once the plaything of teenagers – to continue to grow into its role as a substantial business collaboration application.”

(c) 2005 MediaPost Communications, 1140 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10001

I wonder if one of the reasons that businesses are embracing Instant Messaging is as a means for circumventing the mountains of emails that are sitting in our emailboxes. As we moved from snailmail to fax to email, for the most part we abandoned the prior method rather than using the each newer faster delivery vehicle only as needed. Now that we are being overwhelmed by a larger and larger volume of email at work, I suspect that Instant Messaging is being adopted as the latest means of prioritizing urgent messages. Given time, when we get buried underneath a mountain of IMs, someone will have to come up with something else.

And remember when we didn’t have answering machines? If your call went unanswered, you had to call back later. Now my voice mailbox is full of messages from people who choose to call at their convenience rather than during my business hours and I have to figure out how to return all the messages in a timely fashion. Convenience is great, but I can place only a limited number of calls in a day. And call waiting? I love the fact that I don’t have to worry about missing an emergency call, but as common as it has become, some people still don’t like being put on hold so that you can talk to someone else.

What is your preferred method of communication? When was the last time you wrote a letter and handed it to a mail carrier?

Money, Fame, and Honor

Last week Forbes ran their annual list of the Ten Top Earning Dead Celebrities — Elvis is still in the lead followed again by Charles Schultz (thank you “Peanuts”). I haven’t read the article yet, but I heard they pointed out that Elvis still had a long way to go if compared to Shakespeare who is still bringing in the bucks (or would be if his work wasn’t PD) some 400 years after his death. Another point made was the huge impact a Hollywood movie release has on royalties, citing a growth in Ray Charles’ record sales following he biopic. We can all read it online, here.

Speaking of magazines, I’ve heard there’s a picture of my husband and Freddie Hubbard along with a story about their upcoming NEA Jazz Masters Award in Jet, so I just might stop at a newstand. You can read about that here.

Busy day today, will try to post more later.

‘The Average American’

By way of Just Muttering, I found that the ‘The Average American’ has been identified by Kevin O’Keefe. If you’d like to know the characteristics of the Average Joe or Jill or determine whether you are among the numbers of John and Jane Q Public, you’ll have to read The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation’s Most Ordinary Citizen by Kevin O’Keefe, a former magazine reporter who now runs marketing and consulting firm, or listen to his interview on NPR’s Talk of the Nation (October 25, 2005).

I found the following American Snapshot on the NPR site and have noted where I stand, or fall, so to speak:

According to the book, a majority of Americans:

• Eats peanut butter at least once a week [yup]
• Prefers smooth peanut butter over chunky [absolutely]
• Can name all Three Stooges [sure can, but don’t ask me to name episodes or movies]
• Lives within a 20-minute drive of a Wal-Mart [I think so, but wouldn’t shop there]
• Eats at McDonald’s at least once a year [not a chance — Burger King, maybe]
• Takes a shower for approximately 10.4 minutes a day [I’m faster than that]
• Never sings in the shower [only if I’m alone…in the house, that is]
• Lives in a house, not an apartment or condominium [yes]
• Has a home valued between $100,000 and $300,000 [values have risen since 2003, this number must be higher by now]
• Has fired a gun [never]
• Is between 5 feet and 6 feet tall [5’6″]
• Weighs 135 to 205 pounds [yes, happily on the lower side of that scale]
• Is between the ages of 18 and 53 [for the next three years]
• Believes gambling is an acceptable entertainment option [may be acceptable, compared to dog or cock fights, but not entertaining to my way of thinking]
• Grew up within 50 miles of current home [no, I live clear across the country from the home of my youth]

The Book Description on Amazon says:

To be the perfectly average American is harder than it might seem: You must live within three miles of a McDonald’s [I do], and two miles of a public park [yes]; you must be better off financially than your parents [don’t think so], but earn no more than $75,000 a year [wish I did]; you must believe in God and the literal truth of the Bible [literal truth?], yet hold some views that traditional churches have deemed sacrilegious [absolutely].

So where do you fit in?

Enjoy the Journey – IV

In the end, nothing we do or say in this lifetime will matter as much as the way we have loved one another.
— Daphne Rose Kingma, therapist, bestselling author, and frequent Oprah guest

I’m not big on promoting self-help authors and talk-show guests; in fact, I’d never heard of Kingma before, but she’s the one to whom this words are attributed and I like the quotation. This line seems particularly fitting not just as one in the series of thoughts related to contemplating one’s life at age fifty, but also in light of the recent deaths of people I know.

Shirley Horn was much loved by fans and friends as well as family. And it was, in fact, Shirley’s love of her own family that was responsible for the long delay in her career — some obituaries might imply that jazz audiences were lacking, but in the 1960s, Shirley was on the verge of “making it big” when she opted to stay home with her husband to raise their daughter.

The wife of a long-time friend of my parents also died recently. I have known this couple for as long as I can remember, but I have not been in touch with them for several years. Time has a way of slipping by…if you let it. Who haven’t you spoken to lately?

Another recent death is closer to home — my uncle died a few days ago and I am on my way to San Diego for the funeral. Despite the sad occasion, I am looking forward to seeing my cousins and meeting their children. I am taking the train and travelling light — no computer — so you won’t hear from me again until Wednesday.

A Reviewer’s Nightmare

It was a sad night. Sad to see an old friend who no longer has what it takes, surrounded by second or third rate musicians. He wears a suit jacket that looks slept in and no one on the bandstand smiles. He wanders on stage alone, and starts to play. I wonder if he begins his program solo, then works up to duo and builds on – then I realize he’s just warming up almost as if unaware he’s on stage. The pianist arrives, as does the sax. The drummer gets seated. He counts off and they begin just as the bassist walks on stage. They’ve begun anyway.

We hear the pop when the bass connects to the amplifier. What happened to “the presentation”? Why no announcement, no disembodied voice of introduction, no reverence, no respect. And now the flash bulbs are popping as Japanese and German tourists take pictures of a relic. The drummer is too busy, his licks inappropriate. The first tune ends and the voice finally says “Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome the Quintet.” He nods and then they hit, sounding more like they should have to start with. Maybe we can all forget the preamble?

They overplay, as if to cover up for him – instead they should provide a simple swinging support in which he could shine. Here he scuffles. The sax is masturbating and even he doesn’t get himself excited. The pianist doesn’t know the right chord changes, or maybe he just can’t find the right voicings. Everybody looks independently bored. He plays a ballad accompanied at first only by the piano and then the trio joins in – you can hear the poignancy and lyricism that marked his playing for all these years. Even if not all the notes are perfectly hit.

I would hate to have to review this show! What would I say? That he should have retired? That’s a death sentence. What would he do then? It’s like not wanting to see someone in the hospital, preferring to remember them in their better days, but now is when they need you.
The audience has no idea what it’s hearing – no clue as to whether it’s good or bad musically. Volume and velocity elicit the only major reactions. There’s no music education, no basis on which to form a discerning opinion. Perhaps, on nights like this, that’s a good thing.

Subliminal Career Goals?

In today’s The New York Times, an Arts section headline caught my eye: “Pentagon’s New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts” Twenty-five thousand dollars in Pentagon research grants is paying for the scriptwriting education of a group of mid-career researchers, engineers, chemists and physicists.

“Fewer and fewer students are pursuing science and engineering. While immigrants are taking up the slack in many areas, defense laboratories and industries generally require American citizenship or permanent residency. So a crisis is looming, unless careers in science and engineering suddenly become hugely popular, said Robert J. Barker, an Air Force program manager who approved the grant. And what better way to get a lot of young people interested in science than by producing movies and television shows that depict scientists in flattering ways?”

My first three thoughts were:

1. If it works for science, maybe it will work for jazz and classical music — or maybe not. Fabulous movie music is usually that which achieves its goals without the audience taking notice. It serves to heighten the story, and story is what movies are all about. Stories thrive on conflict and obstacles. Movies that showcase jazz (“‘Round Midnight” and “Bird”) tend to highlight those whose drug-filled lives provide the requisite tension and contrast to the beauty of the music. Movies that showcase classical music (say Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” or “Amadeus” directed by Milos Forman) appeal to a more mature audience, one that is already in the choir.

2. It could backfire: I like to watch CSI, but I have no interest in becoming a forensic scientist. With three shows on each week, I’ve become so familiar with luminal and the evolution of maggots that the job has no more and no less allure than that of lawyer or doctor.

3. They want to grab the kids, so they’ll probably focus on laser swords and explosives rather than medicines and fuel efficiency. If we want scientists and musicians to be cool, then we’ve got to reshape our values, instill more inclusive social ideals in our youth to negate the me, myself and I mentality, and better appreciate those whose work brings rewards other than monetary gain, rewards that may be aesthetic, intangible, and/or immeasurable.

What do you think? Send me an email (without the spaces): devra @ devra do write . com

Today, July 17, was National Ice Cream Day

It seems that anything and everything has its special day and/or month. I found a press release about National Ice Cream Day on the web site of International Dairy Foods Association. It begins:

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day. He recognized ice cream as a fun and nutritious food that is enjoyed by a full 90% of the nation’s population. In the proclamation, President Reagan called for all people of the United States to observe these events with “appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

And did you know that there’s an International Ice Cream Association? They’re located at 888 16th St., in Washington, D.C., and they have apparently created a list of the most popular flavors, which you can see here.

IceCreamUSA has answers to some frquently asked questions here, at what appears to be a Breyers web site.

For ice cream facts, history, storage and handling recommendations, you might visit The Ice Cream Alliance, the U.K. trade association for the ice cream industry.

For information on how to become a Knowledgeable and Discriminating Ice Cream Gourmet, see Dr Bruce Tharp’s guide to the finer points of ice cream sensory evaluation and enjoyment.

And there’s always Fred and Kris’ Two Dips Ice Cream Tasters site for “ordinary people in search of extraordinary ice cream” with U.S. ice cream news, ice cream reviews, articles, links, and more.

Patriotic Jazzmen

I am continually amazed by the number of legendary jazz musicians who have served our country, in uniform, carrying instruments in lieu of weapons. Music has the power to break barriers, be they barriers of geography, ideology, religion, or other discriminations.

Prior to 1920 (when more than one thousand warrant officer positions were authorized and their jobs expanded to include clerical, administrative, and band leading activities), military musicians were either enlisted men or commissioned officers — and none were black. Expanding the role warrant officers allowed the military to recruit superior musicians who were not otherwise qualified for officer status.

Racial integration has historically been a piece-meal operation, in or out of the military. It was through music that President Roosevelt found one way to elevate the status of black men in the Navy. Before World War II, blacks in the Navy were mess men or stewards, boot blacks or stokers. Through the Great Lakes Experience (1942-1945), the US Navy recruited 5,000 black musicians and trained them as bandsmen at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois. This act added dimension to the great history of the Navy Band Great Lakes, which was founded in 1917 by Lieutenant Commander John Philip Sousa.

My husband, John Levy, a jazz bassist living in Chicago, might have been one of the Great Lakes recruits, but he was not. In December of 1941, he was on the road again with the Cabin Boys, this time headed for Warren, Ohio. He was en route one Sunday, listening to the car radio, when he heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. “Everybody in those days was feeling patriotic, and I was no exception,” he remembers. “There were role models in my family. My Uncle Johnny, Mama’s oldest brother, had fought in the Spanish-American War. Then years later, Uncle Sherman was one of the 300,000 blacks who fought in WWI.” John wanted to join the Army Signal Corps, so when he got back to Chicago, he took lessons and scored high, 98.2 on the test. A few months later he was called for an appointment, but when he got there they refused to accept him, despite his high score. “We don’t take niggers in the Signal Corps,” they told him.

That experience left a scar and killed his desire to enlist, but it did not hamper his feelings of patriotism, nor did it stop him from supporting the war effort or entertaining the troops. Several years ago, while writing his biography, I discovered a letter from the United States Treasury Department thanking him for his “efforts in furthering the sale of War Bonds and Stamps,” probably a thank you for his participation in the War Bond Jam Session in the Mayfair Room of Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel. The letter was dated April 1944, and was addressed to him in care of the Garrick Stagebar where he had a steady gig playing bass with the Stuff Smith Trio. One day the trio went to the Navy base to entertain. “The Great Lakes Navy Band with Willie Smith, Ernie Royal and Clark Terry also played that day,” John reminisces. “That band had great musicians, guys we didn’t get to hear often around town.”

In a 1978 interview posted on the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s web site, trumpeter Clark Terry told Charles Walton, “When we finished our boot camp we received our ratings, which was displayed by having a lyre sown on our sleeve. To see a Black man in a United States Navy with a lyre on his sleeve instead of a C, which meant cook, was quite an oddity.”

Many of those musicians went on to have stellar musical careers after their military service. A few years ago, The Great Lakes Naval Training Center celebrated the 60th anniversary of “The Great Lakes Experience of World War II,” and paid tribute to the Navy’s first black musicians. Clark Terry was there, along with composer/bandleader Gerald Wilson. Both men have earned more honors and awards than either can count. My husband and I saw both of them together at a January 2004 gathering of National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters. Gerald Wilson received a Jazz Master award in 1990 and Clark Terry got his in 1991.

My father’s musical experience vis a vis racial bias has been from the opposite end – he was “the white guy” in the celebrated Chico Hamilton Quintet back in 1955. And with the Sonny Rollins quintet he was “the white guy” featured on the legendary album titled The Bridge. People have asked him about his experiences and he refuses to see it as black and white. He views music as a way of bonding people together and crossing barriers, be they barriers of geography, ideology, religion, or other discriminations. He is also an NEA Jazz Master (2004), and in his acceptance speech he said, “The women and men who have received this award in the past have spread peace and love throughout the world, something that governments might emulate. I am pleased to be one of the peacemakers.”

If music is the language of humanity, then every musician, in or out of uniform, will be a peacemaker, musical instruments will be standard issue, and wars will be resolved diplomatically, in concert.

Music On The Brain

I have long been curious about how and/or why music causes various visceral reactions. I wonder, for example, why is it that modulating keys gives one a lift. In search of some answers, I am reading Music, The Brain, and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination by Robert Jourdain. (This is not a new book; first published in 1997, and the paperback reissued by Quill in 2002.) Jourdain’s explainations evolve from sounds… to tone…to melody…to harmony…to rhythm…to composition…to performance…to listening…to understanding…to ecstasy, and his ten chapters are so named. I haven’t reached ecstasy yet — I’m only as far as rhythm — but here are a few interesting tidbits (the italics are mine):

“Laboratory studies show that untrained adults discern contour almost as well as profesional musicians. So contour is central to our experience of melody.” Harmony, or “melody in flight” is a required dimension to hearing melody, as is rhythm. “Some musicologists have described harmony as music’s third dimension, its depth dimension (with breadth of time and the height of pitch space as the first two dimensions).”

“Harmony needs dissonance just like a good story needs suspense…Only after lengthy expeditions in other harmonic realms, realms that orbit lesser tonal centers, is the listener granted release from his agony. Inferior composers make quick, perfunctory returns to tonal centers, or travel so far from them that the listener hardly recognizes them when finally brought home. The trick is to find just the right balance between reinforcing tonal centers and violating them.”

“With experience, our brains acquire a vocabulary of these common progressions…Halfway through hearing them, we anticipate their endings. They are musical cliches. But a talented composer can take advantage of this fact by encouraging the listener to anticipate a standard ending yet writing something different. When the chord anticipated and the chord actually heard are aptly chosen, the contrast can be blissully excruciating.”