2008

After a week of repose in which we here at B van Honkytonk Et C reviewed the gains and losses of the last year and surveyed the promise of the new, we are back in business. This week we will be importing the question of the origins of European and American slang, the documentary traces of the long tryst of barbecue and the English language, the place of A-frames in the Garden of Eden, and a few other things.

But as a wave goodbye to the now happily retired 2007, I would like to gratefully recall two imports of that year, both culinary, which will stand as representative of thousands of things of things I'll be keeping from 2007, mostly non-culinary. First, the Groundcherry and its nearly identical twin, the Cape Gooseberry. They are both closely related to the tomatillo, and are hidden in the same kind of paper lantern that their better known cousin is: but the Groundcherry and Cape Gooseberry both have a bright, sweet, almost berrylike taste. Second: the trick of drizzling balsamic vinegar (the real stuff, friends: don't go cheap on the meaningfuls) on vanilla ice cream. Don't crinkle your noses, just try it.

And to ring in the New Year, two new discoveries worth your attention:

Harriet and Leone, a very promising new enterprise. Don't be afraid of the skull. Subscribe and tell your friends.

And

Forklift, Ohio. Old-timey techne in the kitchen and elsewhere: as Herakleitos says, there are Powers (and poets) even among the pots and kettles.