From Soup to Nuts...

Ever wonder where that came from?... Found this on "The Straight Dope," a blog whose tagline reads, "Fighting ignorance since 1973 (It's taking longer than we thought)...



Good old Wiki adds that " the expression is "comparable to expressions in other languages, such as the Latin phrase ab ovo usque ad mala ("from the egg to the apples"), describing the typical Roman meal"... That sounds like a picnic...

Which brings us to the expression, "It's no picnic"... Answers.com says that "'It's no picnic for him' is a phrase saying a task is difficult and unenjoyable, or something is not easy for a person"... Tell that to some of my germophobe friends who also hate ants, flies, and nature in general when it comes to dining al fresco...

This rambling commentary is all Daniel's fault... Actually, I am kind of happy and surprised that GMS is getting readers to think in more interdisciplinary ways about soup... He shares a clip of the Three Stooges learning table etiquette, along with the proper way to sip a bowl of soup in "Half Wit's Holiday"...

This got me curious, so I started searching for more soup-related videos of the Stooges and found this gem of a scene with Moe and his difficulties with a bowl of clam chowder...



But this one "takes the cake" with Curly's showdown with a bowl of oyster stew... Almost the same gag, but different...

Although I am predisposed by gender to hate the Three Stooges, I told Daniel that I would include the clip if he could send me 50 words on how it embodies GMS's anthropological examination of soup, food, and comfort in our culture... He sent me 173 words... So as editor-in-chief and head-bottlewasher, I chose these 50...

"I tried alluding to some GMS references by metaphorically adding alphabet pasta to soup as song; solving problems with pie throwing; poking fun at how we take ourselves too seriously when following rules of etiquette. And emphasizing the happy experience everyone should get when eating a delicious bowl of piping hot soup which is just the way GMS enjoys her soup!"

Okay, so there were 61 words... Thought I'd give the guy a break...

Holy Mackerel: Study Reveals Super-Sizing at the Last Supper

This LA Times story got a giggle... It's no surprise that art - especially paintings and movies - cannot help but reflect the current time while trying to depict a past era...



It would be really amusing if artists changed the "Last Supper's" bill of fare to reflect regional favorites, trends in dining, or even what the apostles would have like... Judas Escariot's escargot?... Peter's pumpkin-eating tendencies?... Could be very interesting...

Here's a link to more parodies of Da Vinci's piece de resistance... Bon appetit!...

Not by Soup Alone: Vitamin P

Love and a thank you to Peter who sent this article from the NY Times today...



Rabin's article describes a four-day study of 79 college students — 32 men and 47 women - who wore an electronically activated recorder that recorded 30-second snippets of conversation every 12.5 minutes... The happiest person in the study - which was determined by their own admissions to satisfaction with their lives - proved to have an average of 45.9 of their day's conversations as substantive and meaningful... Not surprisingly, only 21.8 percent of the unhappiest person's conversations were meaningful...

I work in a very large and populated environment where I see some people every few months, it seems that all we can muster is "Hello, how are you?," which as we all know if more a greeting than a question...

When people like Peter ask this - I'm wracking my brain right now trying to think of anyone else I know who is like Peter and am failing - they expect a real response...

I have to admit, it takes me aback and I have to think for a while to come up with that answer... I usually respond with what I'm doing, not how I actually am, which is something I think I need to work on... I think that by being a writer, I sometimes hide behind my prose, thinking erroneously that whatever I've committed to the written page is all there is for me to say...

To my great surprise, he wrote in his email with the link to this article that I was one of the people in his life that made these meaningful conversations possible...
Peter's and my lives are quite different and so much time has passed since we saw each other regularly... But he has always been one of the people in my life who taught me to listen well to others and to observe, something I seem to have little difficulty doing in my work... Now it is up to me to apply it elsewhere...

Although he's far away and it seems as if we speak only twice a year, our conversations always give me a lift... So much that years ago, I dubbed him "Vitamin P"... I think it's time for a higher dosage all around...