In 2012, I posted a brag on my sister-in-law, Helen's, new cookbook - European Tarts – Divinely Doable Desserts with Little or No Baking at Cop Car's Beat: Bragging on family (typepad.com).Since that time, in addition to her work as pastry chef at an upscale restaurant in St Louis MO (more than enough work for one of our generation), Helen has been working on a cookbook of cookies. That book turned into two cookbooks: one for American cookies, the other for European. The American-style book is schedule for publication the 1st of October; but, having an "in" with the author, Hunky Husband and I received an advance copy 10 days ago.
Helen is nothing if not gracious, loving, and kind (and bubbly!), demonstrating those qualities once again by crediting me with having started her off in developing one of her cookie recipes by sharing a recipe that I used. Truth to tell, I have absolutely no remembrance (or record) of the recipe or, indeed, of any similar recipe that I may have used when our children were small; but, Helen's memory is much better than mine. I'll take her word for it and thank her for the publicity.
BTW: Helen and I have always had an agreement that I, completely lacking the domestic gene, won't try to act like a chef if she won't try to design airplanes. One further note on Helen's facility with European cooking: she carries on the tradition of a long line of wonderful cooks, her mother having, as a teen-ager, come to the USA from the former Yugoslavia.
P.S. I should not fail to, explicitly, include the link to Helen's blog: Pastries Like a Pro.
Last Christmas, a family friend announced her second pregnancy via her daughter's tee shirt. The second child is about due, but I just received the photo. The friend shall remain anonymous.
In July of 1960, shortly after moving to Derby (for the first time!), I purchased a 33 1/3-rpm recording made by Yma Sumac - photo of the jacket, below.
At the time, Yma had a cult following among us under-30s in the USA. Below is the blurb from the back of the record jacket.
The "video", below, is a remastered version of the album - audio, only.
Below is a posting that I originally posted 11/7/2008 5:00am.
Losses to the world of music and books
There have been three deaths in the last several days that sadden those who love books and music: Yma Sumac, Tony Hillerman, and Michael Crichton have left us.
Yma Sumac, 'Peruvian songbird' with multi-octave range, dies at 86
Bursting onto the American music scene after signing with Capitol Records in 1950, the raven-haired Sumac was known as the "Nightingale of the Andes," the "Peruvian Songbird" and a "singing marvel" with a 4 1/2-octave (she said five-octave) voice.
The singer with a persona matching her exotic voice became an international sensation in the 1950s.
By Dennis McLellan November 3, 2008
Yma Sumac, the Peruvian-born singer whose spectacular multi-octave vocal range and exotic persona made her an international sensation in the 1950s, has died. She was 86.
PHOENIX (AP) — Tony Hillerman, author of the acclaimed Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels and creator of two of the unlikeliest of literary heroes — Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee — died Sunday of pulmonary failure. He was 83.
LOS ANGELES - Michael Crichton, author of more than a dozen best-selling science fiction adventures including "Jurassic Park" and "The Andromeda Strain," died of cancer in Los Angeles, aged 66, his family said Wednesday.
"Michael Crichton died unexpectedly in Los Angeles Tuesday, November 4, 2008 after a courageous and private battle against cancer," said a statement posted on the author's website.
...
"The Andromeda Strain," which catapulted him to Hollywood fame after it was published in 1969, told the story of US scientists battling an alien virus that lands in New Mexico from outer space and drives humans to bizarre and grisly deaths.
Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By posts an array of interesting items each Saturday, most of which have been submitted by one of her readers/followers. One of today's interesting items is Workplace Sexual Harassment: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). It addresses a serious subject using a light touch. I would point out two things: 1) I believe some of the content would equally apply to bullying and/or harassment based on things other than sex. 2) The best part of the video starts at about 17 1/2 minutes, including a great conversation with Anita Hill. I particularly like the part of the conversation wherein bystander training is discussed.
For the record, I didn't find merit in the inclusion of the comparison of reporting sexual harassment to reporting a house fire nor am I happy about the heavy reliance of this piece on political examples. However, I am happy to report that, of the thousands of men with whom I have worked, only a tiny minority really could have used exposure to this video. Most of the guys with whom I have worked would not even have considered treating a woman (or a man?) so poorly.
“Despite the widespread use of high-heeled footwear in both developing and modernized societies, we lack an understanding of this behavioral phenomenon at both proximate and distal levels of explanation.”
Prompting the development a new (experimentally-tested) hypothesis by David M. G. Lewis, Eric M. Russell, Laith Al-Shawaf, Vivian Ta, Zeynep Senveli, William Ickes and David M. Buss, presented in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, Nov. 2017.
“[…] we hypothesized that high heels influence women’s attractiveness via effects on their lumbar curvature. Independent studies that employed distinct methods, eliminated multiple confounds, and ruled out alternative explanations showed that when women wear high heels, their lumbar curvature increased and they were perceived as more attractive. Closer analysis revealed an even more precise pattern aligning with human evolved psychology: high-heeled footwear increased women’s attractiveness only when wearing heels altered their lumbar curvature to be closer to an evolutionarily optimal angle.”
Why I don't believe it: The hypothesis is centered on only one of the two sexes. As far as I could tell, the researchers didn't even consider why men wear/have worn high heels. According to a BBC posting, Why did men stop wearing high heels?:
....
"The high heel was worn for centuries throughout the near east as a form of riding footwear," says Elizabeth Semmelhack of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.
Good horsemanship was essential to the fighting styles of Persia - the historical name for modern-day Iran.
"When the soldier stood up in his stirrups, the heel helped him to secure his stance so that he could shoot his bow and arrow more effectively," says Semmelhack.
At the end of the 16th Century, Persia's Shah Abbas I had the largest cavalry in the world. He was keen to forge links with rulers in Western Europe to help him defeat his great enemy, the Ottoman Empire.
So in 1599, Abbas sent the first Persian diplomatic mission to Europe - it called on the courts of Russia, Germany and Spain.
A wave of interest in all things Persian passed through Western Europe. Persian style shoes were enthusiastically adopted by aristocrats, who sought to give their appearance a virile, masculine edge that, it suddenly seemed, only heeled shoes could supply.
Image caption Louis XIV wearing his trademark heels in a 1701 portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud
As the wearing of heels filtered into the lower ranks of society, the aristocracy responded by dramatically increasing the height of their shoes - and the high heel was born.
In the muddy, rutted streets of 17th Century Europe, these new shoes had no utility value whatsoever - but that was the point.
"One of the best ways that status can be conveyed is through impracticality," says Semmelhack, adding that the upper classes have always used impractical, uncomfortable and luxurious clothing to announce their privileged status.
"They aren't in the fields working and they don't have to walk far."
When it comes to history's most notable shoe collectors, the Imelda Marcos of his day was arguably Louis XIV of France. For a great king, he was rather diminutively proportioned at only 5ft 4in (1.63m).
He supplemented his stature by a further 4in (10cm) with heels, often elaborately decorated with depictions of battle scenes.
....
Although Europeans were first attracted to heels because the Persian connection gave them a macho air, a craze in women's fashion for adopting elements of men's dress meant their use soon spread to women and children.
"In the 1630s you had women cutting their hair, adding epaulettes to their outfits," says Semmelhack.
"They would smoke pipes, they would wear hats that were very masculine. And this is why women adopted the heel - it was in an effort to masculinise their outfits."
From that time, Europe's upper classes followed a unisex shoe fashion until the end of the 17th Century, when things began to change again.
It is my hypothesis that, like some of the men of old, women took to wearing high heels to give them more stature (figuratively and literally) within the population. I know it gives me a crick in my neck to constantly be looking up to people who are much taller than am I. For whatever reason (some reasons make sense, others are nonsense), people equate height with greatness. Physical height is desirable. Never mind that it would be much easier to feed a human population that includes no one taller than five feet: We must have height!
I leave you with this titillating thought (you may go to the above BBC article to learn how they got from the above paragraphs to the following one):
Semmelhack, author of Heights of Fashion: A History of the Elevated Shoe, believes that [...an] association with pornography led to high heels being seen as an erotic adornment for women.
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