<> Tomorrow's food holidays(s):
* 'National Sponge Cake Day'. . Made with sugar and eggs (whipped to
incorporate air) and flour then baked.
- From Wikipedia (Sponge cake):
'Sponge cake is a cake based on flour (usually wheat flour), sugar, and
eggs, and is sometimes leavened with baking powder. It has a firm, yet well
aerated structure, similar to a sea sponge.
In the United Kingdom a sponge cake may be produced by the batter method or
the foam method, while in the US cakes made using the batter method are
known as a butter or pound cakes. Two common British batter method sponge
cakes are the layered Victoria sponge cake and Madeira cake.
Sponge cake made using the foam method is known as in the UK is sometimes
referred to as a whisked sponge. These forms of cake are common in Europe,
especially in Italian patisseries. The cake was first invented by the
Italian pastry chef Giovan Battista Carbona called Giobatta, at the court
of Spain with his lord, the Genoese marquis Domenico Pallavicini, around
the middle of the 16th century.
The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first of the non-yeasted cakes,
and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in the
book by the English poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, Containing
the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman
(1615). Though it does not appear in Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery
made Plain and Easy (1747) in the late 18th century, it is found in Lydia
Maria Child's The American Frugal Housewife (1832) indicating that sponge
cakes had been established in Grenada in the Caribbean, by the early 19th
century.
Variations on the theme of a cake lifted, partially or wholly, by trapped
air in the batter exist in most places where European patisserie has
spread, including the Anglo-Jewish plava, Italian Génoise, the Portuguese
pão-de-ló, and the possibly ancestral Italian pan di Spagna (Spanish
bread).
Derivatives of the basic sponge cake idea include the American chiffon cake
and the Latin American Tres leches cake.
Using the weight of 3 eggs, weigh the fat, sugar, and flour. A typical
sponge cake is made first mixing the fat with the sugar and then by beating
the eggs with sugar-fat mix, until this is light and creamy, then carefully
sieving and folding in the flour (depending on the recipe, the flour may be
mixed with a small amount of baking powder though some recipes use only the
air incorporated into the egg mixture, relying on the denaturing of the egg
proteins and the thermal expansion of the air to provide leavening.
Sometimes, the yolks are beaten with the sugar first while the whites are
beaten separately to a meringue-like foam, to be gently folded in later.
The mixture is then poured into the chosen cake tin and baked. Both methods
take great care to incorporate air in the beating, whisking, and sieving
stages. This makes a very light product, but it is easy to lose the air by
removing the cake before it has finished in the oven.
Before the mixture has cooled after cooking, it is still flexible. This
allows the creation of rolled cakes such as the (Swiss roll). This basic
recipe is also used for many treats and puddings, such as madeleines,
ladyfingers, and trifles, as well as some versions of strawberry shortcake.
In addition, the sponge cake technique is used in angel food cake (where
only egg whites are used) and some recipes for Belgian waffle (where the
egg whites are separated from the yolk and folded into the batter at the
end of preparation)'.
[The Hankster says] Well, its not a cleaning sponge, nor square. I got it 'Sponge Cake Round Pants'. In earnest ... well it better not be in Ernest. I left him with it for only a minute ... I digress. As I was saying.my favorite version is Angle Food Cake.
<> Other holidays / celebrations
* 'National Ride With The Wind Day'.
Date in 1977 that the Gossamer Condor 2, won the first Kremer Prize
(created in 1959) for human-powered air flight. See more in the history
section for 1977.
* 'Valentino Day'.
The date in 1926 that silent film star Rudolph Valentino (Rudolfo Alfonzo
Raffaelo Piero Filibert Guglielmi De Valentina D’Antonguolla) died.
[The Hankster says] No wonder he shorting his name. That would never have fit on a record label, and if it did, you would get dizzy trying to read it.
* 'Hug Your Sweetheart Day'.
[The Hankster says] You shouldn't need a special day, but this day is your 'get out of
embarrassment free card'.
<> Awareness / Observances:
o Other:
* 'European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism'.
Observed by the European Union.
- From Wikipedia (European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and
Nazism):
'The European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, known
as the Black Ribbon Day in some countries, which is observed on 23 August,
is the international remembrance day for victims of totalitarian
ideologies, specifically totalitarian communist regimes, Stalinism, Nazism
and fascism.
It was designated by the European Parliament in 2008/2009 as a Europe-wide
Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian
regimes, to be commemorated with dignity and impartiality, and has been
observed annually by the bodies of the European Union since 2009. The
European Parliament's 2009 resolution on European conscience and
totalitarianism, co-sponsored by the European People's Party, the Alliance
of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, The Greens–European Free Alliance,
and the Union for Europe of the Nations, called for its implementation in
all of Europe. The establishment of 23 August as an international
remembrance day for victims of totalitarianism was also supported by the
2009 Vilnius Declaration of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.
23 August was chosen to coincide with the date of the signing of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Nazi
Germany which contained a protocol dividing Romania, Poland, Lithuania,
Latvia, Estonia, and Finland into designated German and Soviet spheres of
influence. The treaty was described by the European Parliament's president
Jerzy Buzek in 2010 as the collusion of the two worst forms of
totalitarianism in the history of humanity. The remembrance day originated
in protests held in western cities against Soviet crimes and occupation in
the 1980s, initiated by Canadian refugees from countries occupied by the
Soviet Union, and that culminated in The Baltic Way, a major demonstration
during the Revolutions of 1989 that contributed to the liberation of the
Baltic states.
The purpose of the Day of Remembrance is to preserve the memory of the
victims of mass deportations and exterminations, while promoting democratic
values with the aim of reinforcing peace and stability in Europe.
23 August is also officially recognised by Canada and the United States,
where it is known as Black Ribbon Day'.
* 'International Day for Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition'.
By UNESCO since 1998.
- From Wikipedia (International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade
and its Abolition):
'International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its
Abolition, August 23 of each year, the day designated by UNESCO to
memorialize the transatlantic slave trade.
That date was chosen by the adoption of resolution 29 C/40 by the
Organization's General Conference at its 29th session. Circular CL/3494 of
July 29, 1998, from the Director-General invited Ministers of Culture to
promote the day. The date is significant because, during the night of
August 22 to August 23, 1791, on the island of Saint Domingue (now known as
Haiti), an uprising began which set forth events which were a major factor
in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
UNESCO Member States organize events every year on that date, inviting
participation from young people, educators, artists and intellectuals. As
part of the goals of the intercultural UNESCO project, The Slave Route, it
is an opportunity for collective recognition and focus on the historic
causes, the methods and the consequences of slavery. Additionally, it sets
the stage for analysis and dialogue of the interactions which gave rise to
the transatlantic trade in human beings between Africa, Europe, the
Americas and the Caribbean'.
<> Historical events on August 23
* 'In 1784, Western North Carolina (now eastern Tennessee) declares itself
an independent state under the name of Franklin it is not accepted into the
United States, and only lasts for four years. .
- From Wikipedia: 'The State of Franklin (also the Free Republic of
Franklin or the State of Frankland) was an unrecognized, autonomous
territory located in what is today eastern Tennessee, United States.
Franklin was created in 1784 from part of the territory west of the
Appalachian Mountains that had been offered by North Carolina as a cession
to Congress to help pay off debts related to the American War for
Independence. It was founded with the intent of becoming the fourteenth
state of the new United States.
Franklin's first capital was Jonesborough. After the summer of 1785, the
government of Franklin (which was by then based in Greeneville), ruled as a
parallel government running alongside (but not harmoniously with) a
re-established North Carolina bureaucracy. Franklin was never admitted into
the union. The extra-legal state existed for only about four and a half
years, ostensibly as a republic, after which North Carolina re-assumed full
control of the area.
The creation of Franklin is novel, in that it resulted from both a cession
(an offering from North Carolina to Congress) and a secession (seceding
from North Carolina, when its offer to Congress was not acted upon, and the
original cession was rescinded)'.
* 'In 1902, Fannie Merrit Farmer opened her cooking school, Miss Farmer’s
School of Cookery, in Boston, MA Her book The Boston Cooking-School Cook
Book was published in 1896. .
- From Wikipedia: 'Fannie published her best-known work, The Boston
Cooking-School Cook Book, in 1896. Her cookbook introduced the concept of
using standardized measuring spoons and cups, as well as level measurement.
A follow-up to an earlier version called Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book,
published by Mary J. Lincoln in 1884, and some criticized her for using
some of the recipes, the book under Farmer's direction eventually contained
1,850 recipes, from milk toast to Zigaras à la Russe. Farmer also included
essays on housekeeping, cleaning, canning and drying fruits and vegetables,
and nutritional information
The book's publisher (Little, Brown and Company) did not predict good sales
and limited the first edition to 3,000 copies, published at the author's
expense. The book was so popular in America, so thorough, and so
comprehensive that cooks would refer to later editions simply as the Fannie
Farmer Cookbook, and it is still available in print over 100 years later.
Farmer provided scientific explanations of the chemical processes that
occur in food during cooking, and also helped to standardize the system of
measurements used in cooking in the USA. Before the Cookbook's publication,
other American recipes frequently called for amounts such as a piece of
butter the size of an egg or a teacup of milk. Farmer's systematic
discussion of measurement — A cupful is measured level ... A tablespoonful
is measured level. A teaspoonful is measured level. — led to her being
named the mother of level measurements.
Farmer left the Boston Cooking School in 1902 and created Miss Farmer's
School of Cookery. She began by teaching gentlewomen and housewives the
rudiments of plain and fancy cooking, but her interests eventually led her
to develop a complete work of diet and nutrition for the ill, titled Food
and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent which contained thirty pages on
diabetes. Farmer was invited to lecture at Harvard Medical School and began
teaching convalescent diet and nutrition to doctors and nurses. She felt so
strongly about the significance of proper food for the sick that she
believed she would be remembered chiefly by her work in that field, as
opposed to her work in household and fancy cookery. Farmer understood
perhaps better than anyone else at the time the value of appearance, taste,
and presentation of sickroom food to ill and wasted people with poor
appetites she ranked these qualities over cost and nutritional value in
importance'.
* 'In 1904, Harry D. Weed received a patent for 'Grip-Tread for Pneumatic
Tires' (automobile tire chain / snow chains). .
- From Wikipedia: 'Snow chains were invented in 1904 by Harry D. Weed in
Canastota, New York. Weed received U.S. Patent Number 768495 for his
Grip-Tread for Pneumatic Tires on August 23, 1904. Weed's great-grandson,
James Weed, said that Harry got the idea of creating chains for tires when
he saw drivers wrap rope, or even vines, around their tires to increase
traction on muddy or snowy roads, which were the norm at the turn of the
20th century. He sought to make a traction device that was more durable and
would work with snow as well as mud.
In July 1935, the Canadian Auguste Trudeau obtained a patent for his tread
and anti-skidding chain'.
* 'In 1938, The movie, You Can’t Take It With You, from the play by George
S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, directed by Frank Capra and starring James
Stewart and Jean Arthur premieres. It won best Picture (1939). .
- From Wikipedia: 'You Can't Take It with You is a 1938 American romantic
comedy film directed by Frank Capra and starring Jean Arthur, Lionel
Barrymore, James Stewart, and Edward Arnold. Adapted from the Pulitzer
Prize-winning play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, the
film is about a man from a family of rich snobs who becomes engaged to a
woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family.
The film received two Academy Awards from seven nominations: Best Picture
and Best Director for Frank Capra. This was Capra's third Oscar for Best
Director in just five years, following It Happened One Night (1934) and Mr.
Deeds Goes to Town (1936). It was also the highest-grossing picture of the
year'.
* 'In 1954, The C-130 Hercules transport aircraft has it's first flight. .
- From Wikipedia: 'The Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules is a
four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft. The C-130J is a
comprehensive update of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, with new engines,
flight deck, and other systems. The Hercules family has the longest
continuous production run of any military aircraft in history. During more
than 60 years of service, the family has participated in military,
civilian, and humanitarian aid operations. The Hercules has outlived
several planned successor designs, most notably the Advanced Medium STOL
Transport contestants. Fifteen nations have placed orders for a total of
300 C-130Js, of which 250 aircraft have been delivered as of February 2012.
* 'In 1966, The first picture of the Earth from the orbit around the moon
is taken by Lunar Orbiter 1. .
- From Wikipedia: 'The Lunar Orbiter 1 robotic (unmanned) spacecraft, part
of the Lunar Orbiter Program, was the first American spacecraft to orbit
the Moon. It was designed primarily to photograph smooth areas of the lunar
surface for selection and verification of safe landing sites for the
Surveyor and Apollo missions. It was also equipped to collect selenodetic,
radiation intensity, and micrometeoroid impact data.
Lunar Orbiter 1 was injected into an elliptical near-equatorial lunar orbit
92.1 hours after launch. The initial orbit was 189.1 by 1,866.8 kilometres
(117.5 mi × 1,160.0 mi) and had a period of 3 hours 37 minutes and an
inclination of 12.2 degrees. On August 21, perilune was dropped to 58
kilometres (36 mi) and on August 25 to 40.5 kilometres (25.2 mi). The
spacecraft acquired photographic data from August 18 to 29, 1966, and
readout occurred through September 14, 1966.
A total of 42 high-resolution and 187 medium-resolution frames were taken
and transmitted to Earth covering over 5 million square kilometers of the
Moon's surface, accomplishing about 75% of the intended mission, although a
number of the early high-resolution photos showed severe smearing. It also
took the first two pictures of the Earth ever from the distance of the
Moon. Accurate data were acquired from all other experiments throughout the
mission'.
* 'In 1977, The Kremer prize for human powered flight goes to the Gossamer
Condor .
- From Wikipedia: 'The Kremer prizes are a series of monetary awards,
established in 1959 by the industrialist Henry Kremer, that are given to
pioneers of human-powered flight. The competitions and prize awards are
administered by the Royal Aeronautical Society's Human Powered Aircraft
Group.
The first Kremer prize of £50,000 was won on 23 August 1977 by Dr. Paul
MacCready when his Gossamer Condor, piloted by Bryan Allen, was the first
human-powered aircraft to fly a figure eight around two markers one half
mile apart, starting and ending the course at least 10 feet (3.0 m) above
the ground.
The second Kremer prize of £100,000 was won on 12 June 1979, again by Paul
MacCready, when Bryan Allen flew MacCready's Gossamer Albatross from
England to France.
A Kremer prize of £20,000 for speed was won in 1984 by a design team of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology for flying their MIT Monarch B craft
on a triangular 1.5 km (0.93 mi) course in under three minutes (for an
average speed of 32 km/h (20 mph)). Further segments of a total prize pot
of £100,000 were to be awarded for every improvement in speed of at least
5% the next segment was won in the MacCready Bionic Bat with a flight of
163.28 seconds on 18 July 1984, piloted by Parker MacCready. The third
segment was won by Holger Rochelt flying Musculair 1 designed by Günther
Rochelt. The fourth segment was won on 2 December 1984, with a flight of
143.08 seconds in the MacCready Bionic Bat piloted by Bryan Allen. The
fifth and final segment was won by Holger Rochelt flying Musculair 2, after
which the prize competition was withdrawn by the Royal Aeronautical Society
on grounds of safety.
There are currently three Kremer Prizes that have not yet been awarded, for
a total of £150,000: 26 mile Marathon course in under an hour
(£50,000), Sporting aircraft challenge stressing maneuverability
(£100,000), Local challenge that is limited to youth groups (under 18
years) in the UK'.
* 'In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee opens the WWW, World Wide Web to new users. .
- From Wikipedia: 'Berners-Lee's vision of a global hyperlinked information
system became a possibility by the second half of the 1980s. By 1985, the
global Internet began to proliferate in Europe and in the Domain Name
System (upon which the Uniform Resource Locator is built) came into being.
In 1988 the first direct IP connection between Europe and North America was
made and Berners-Lee began to openly discuss the possibility of a web-like
system at CERN.
In March 1989 Tim Berners-Lee issued a proposal to the management at CERN
for a system called Mesh that referenced ENQUIRE, a database and software
project he had built in 1980, which used the term web and described a more
elaborate information management system based on links embedded in readable
text: Imagine, then, the references in this document all being associated
with the network address of the thing to which they referred, so that while
reading this document you could skip to them with a click of the mouse.
Such a system, he explained, could be referred to using one of the existing
meanings of the word hypertext, a term that he says was coined in the
1950s. There is no reason, the proposal continues, why such hypertext links
could not encompass multimedia documents including graphics, speech and
video, so that Berners-Lee goes on to use the term hypermedia.
With help from his colleague and fellow hypertext enthusiast Robert
Cailliau he published a more formal proposal on 12 November 1990 to build a
Hypertext project called WorldWideWeb (one word) as a web of hypertext
documents to be viewed by browsers using a client–server architecture. At
this point HTML and HTTP had already been in development for about two
months and the first Web server was about a month from completing its first
successful test.
This proposal estimated that a read-only web would be developed within
three months and that it would take six months to achieve the creation of
new links and new material by readers, authorship becomes universal as
well as the automatic notification of a reader when new material of
interest to him/her has become available. While the read-only goal was met,
accessible authorship of web content took longer to mature, with the wiki
concept, WebDAV, blogs, Web 2.0 and RSS/Atom.
On 6 August 1991, Berners-Lee published a short summary of the World Wide
Web project on the newsgroup alt.hypertext. This date also marked the debut
of the Web as a publicly available service on the Internet, although new
users only accessed it after 23 August. For this reason this is considered
the internaut's day. Several newsmedia have reported that the first photo
on the Web was published by Berners-Lee in 1992, an image of the CERN house
band Les Horribles Cernettes taken by Silvano de Gennaro Gennaro has
disclaimed this story, writing that media were totally distorting our words
for the sake of cheap sensationalism'
No. 1 song
Top movie
Monthly holiday / awareness days in August
Food
National Catfish Month
National Goat Cheese Month
Rye Month
Health
Children's Eye Health and Safety Month
Children's Vision and Learning Month
National Breastfeeding Month
National Immunization Awareness Month
National Minority Donor Awareness Month
National Spinal Muscular Atrophy Awareness Month
Neurosurgery Outreach Month
Psoriasis Awareness Month
Animal / Pets
Other
American Adventures Month
American Artists Appreciation Month
American Indian Heritage Month
American History Essay Contest
Black Business Month
Boomers Making A Difference Month
Bystander Awareness Month
Child Support Awareness Month
Get Ready for Kindergarten Month
Happiness Happens Month
Motor Sports Awareness Month
National Read A Romance Month
National Traffic Awareness Month
National Truancy Prevention Month
National Water Quality Month
Shop Online For Groceries Month
What Will Be Your Legacy Month
XXXI Summer Olympics: 5-21
August is:
August origin (from Wikipedia): Originally named Sextili (Latin), because it was the sixth month in the original ten-month Roman calendar: under Romulus in 753 BC, when March was the first month of the year.
"About 700 BC it became the eighth month when January and February were added to the year before March by King Numa Pompilius, who also gave it 29 days. Julius Caesar added two days when he created the Julian calendar in 45 BC giving it its modern length of 31 days. In 8 BC it was renamed in honor of Augustus
According to a Senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, he chose this month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs, including the conquest of Egypt.
"
August at Wikipedia: More
If you couldn't afford 90 cents for a movie ticket, 50 years ago,
or your 45 RPM record player was broke, you might watch one of these shows on TV.
From this Wikipedia article: More
Best selling books of 1966 More
Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More