Pamela Burton, 2315 S Eads Street, Arlington, VA (2025)

01/16/2025

How Was Popcorn Discovered?

Figuring out when people started making popcorn is harder. There are several types of maize, most of which will pop if heated, but one variety, actually called “popcorn,” makes the best popcorn. Scientists have discovered phytoliths from Peru, as well as burned kernels, of this type of “poppable” maize from as early as 6,700 years ago.
You can imagine that popping maize kernels was first discovered by accident. Some maize probably fell into a cooking fire, and whoever was nearby figured out that this was a handy new way of preparing the food. Popped maize would last a long time and was easy to make.
Ancient popcorn was probably not much like the snack you might munch at the movie theater today. There was probably no salt and definitely no butter, since there were no cows to milk in the Americas yet. It probably wasn’t served hot and was likely pretty chewy compared with the version you’re used to today.
It’s impossible to know exactly why or how popcorn was invented, but I would guess it was a clever way to preserve the edible starch in corn by getting rid of the little bit of water inside each kernel that would make it more susceptible to spoiling. It’s the heated water in the kernel escaping as steam that makes popcorn pop. The popped corn could then last a long time. What you may consider a tasty snack today probably started as a useful way of preserving and storing food.

01/09/2025

Yoga: not as old as you think

No one denies that Hinduism’s most sacred and ancient texts, including the Bhagavad Gita, describe different kinds of yogic practices. But what does this ancient and sacred tradition of yoga have to do with what people all around the world do in yoga classes in gyms and fitness centres today? Some 16 million Americans do some form of yoga.

The reality is that postural yoga, as we know it in the 21st century, is neither eternal nor synonymous with the Vedas or Yoga Sutras. On the contrary, modern yoga was born in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Contrary to the widespread impression, the vast majority of asanas taught by modern yoga gurus are not described anywhere in ancient sacred Hindu texts. Anyone who goes looking for references to popular yoga techniques like pranayam, neti, kapalbhati or suryanamaskar in classical Vedic literature will be sorely disappointed.

The four Vedas have no mention of yoga. The Upanishads and The Bhagavad Gita do, but primarily as a spiritual technique to purify the atman. The Bible of yoga, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, devotes barely three short sutras (out of 195) to physical postures, and that too only to suggest comfortable ways of sitting still for prolonged meditation. Asanas were only the means to the real goal — to still the mind to achieve the state of pure consciousness — in Patanjali’s yoga.

There are, of course, asana-centred hatha yoga texts in the Indic tradition. But they definitely do not date back 5,000 years: none of them makes an appearance till the 10th to 12th centuries. Hatha yoga was a creation of the kanphata (split-eared) Nath Siddha, who were no Sanskrit-speaking sages meditating in the Himalayas. They undertook great physical austerities not because they sought to achieve pure consciousness, unencumbered by the body and other gross matter, but because they wanted magical powers (siddhis) to become immortal and to control the rest of the natural world.

12/23/2024

Sweet peppers surge into ripeness in late summer and flourish into fall.

The things that we call peppers are actually chilies, not peppers at all. The misnomer started with a persistent case of mistaken identity and wishful thinking by Spanish and Portuguese explorers who confused New World capsicums — chili plants — with the plants that produce peppercorns, one of the profitable spices they had hoped to discover during their travels. Chilies are berries because they are the seed pods of the plants, botanically speaking.

Botanists and culinary historians tell us that peppers are native to Central and South America. When trade ships began to crisscross the globe during the 16th century, they carried peppers that got planted on new shores. Cultivated varieties now grow in all but the coldest of climates.

Some peppers are hot, but the rest are not. Hot peppers contain varying levels of capsaicin, a colorless, odorless but unmistakable fiery compound. Mild and sweet peppers carry a recessive gene that keeps them from forming capsaicin. The only way to know a pepper is to taste it, but in general most sweet peppers are green while unripe and change into colors (usually red, orange, yellow or purple). Sweet peppers tend to grow much larger than hot peppers.

No vegetable benefits from roasting more than ripe sweet peppers. Roasting intensifies their natural sweetness and removes their thin, tough skins.

The heat caramelizes the sugars in the peppers, so they must be ripe enough to have developed sugars. So don't try this with an unripe green pepper, because all you will get is an acrid, burned green pepper. (This caveat does not apply to green chilies because the point of roasting them is to char the skins, not sweeten the flesh.)

Leave the peppers whole and do not oil them. If using a gas burner or grill (either gas or charcoal), place them directly on the grate as close to the heat source as possible. Roast the peppers until they are blistered and blackened all over, turning as needed with tongs. Don't stop until they look ruined. Transfer the charred peppers into a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the peppers rest until they are cool enough to handle. The captured steam will finish cooking them. Gently pull out the stem and core of each pepper; most of the seeds will come out still attached to the core. Gently rub or peel off the blackened skin. It's fine if a few charred bits stay stuck to the flesh.

Use the peppers at once, or cover and refrigerate up to three days. You also can freeze the peppers in an airtight container for up to three months. Frozen peppers retain their flavor, but they soften, so they are best used in cooked dishes.

12/16/2024

Credit card device used to obtain consumer credit at the time of purchasing an article or service. Credit cards may be issued by a business, such as a department store or an oil company, to make it easier for consumers to buy their products. Alternatively credit cards may be issued by third parties, such as a bank or a financial services company, and used by consumers to purchase goods and services from other companies. There are two types of cards—credit cards and charge cards. Credit cards such as Visa and MasterCard allow the consumer to pay a monthly minimum on their purchases with an interest charge on the unpaid balance. Charge cards, such as American Express, require the consumer to pay for all purchases at the end of the billing period. Consumers may also use bank cards to obtain short-term personal loans (including "cash advances" through automated teller machines). Credit card issuers receive revenue from fees paid by stores that accept their cards and by consumers that use the cards, and from interest charged consumers on unpaid balances.

Diners Club became the first credit card company in 1950, when it issued a card allowing members to charge meals at 27 New York City restaurants. In 1958, Bank of America issued the BankAmericard (now Visa), the first bank credit card. In 1965, only 5 million cards were in circulation; by 1996, U.S. consumers had nearly 1.4 billion cards, which they used to charge $991 billion in goods annually.

The growth of credit cards has had an enormous impact on the economy—changing buying habits by making it much easier for consumers to finance purchases and by lowering savings rates (because consumers do not need to save money for larger purchases). Oil companies, car makers, and retailers have also used the cards to market their goods and services, using credit as a way of encouraging consumers to buy. Concern has been voiced over widespread distribution of bank credit cards to consumers who may not be able to pay their bills; costly losses and theft of cards; inaccurate (and damaging) credit records; high interest rates on unpaid balances; and excessive encouragement of consumer debt that has cut savings in the United States.

Technology advances have facilitated the use of credit cards. Merchants are now connected to banks by modem , so purchases are approved rapidly; on-line shopping on the Internet is possible with credit card payment. Credit card companies are also experimenting with smart cards that would act like a small computer, storing account and other information necessary for its use. An alternative to credit cards is the debit card , which is used to deduct the price of goods and service directly from customers' bank balances.

12/06/2024

The most iconic dance costume of recent times may be a pair of white feathery breeches on permanent display at London's V&A museum. They're a tribute to choreographer Matthew Bourne's gender-flipping dance version of the ballet Swan Lake. The production, which first premiered in London in November 1995, ruffled feathers in many ways because the swans, until then female roles, were played by male dancers. It went on to become the longest running full-length dance classic in the West End and on Broadway, winning both Olivier and Tony awards.
As the show celebrates its 30th anniversary with a 2024/25 tour, Matthew Bourne tells the BBC the story of the landmark production.

11/21/2024

The eastern oyster has lived in the Hudson River estuary for at least 6,000 years. With 350 sq miles (900 sq km) of oyster reef, some biologists estimate that the New York harbour used to contain half of the world's oyster population.

Historically, oysters were deeply woven into the life of East Coast cities, as Charles Dickens described enthusiastically in his travelogue American Notes. On the difference between dinners in London and Boston, for instance, he notes that Americans would serve "at every supper, at least two mighty bowls of hot stewed oysters, in any one of which a half-grown Duke of Clarence might be smothered easily".

11/09/2024

Becca Burne, caving guide for Wild Wookey instructs us to turn off our head torches. We sit in complete darkness. "People swear to me they can see their hand in front of their face – but they can't," laughs Burne. Down here, under the Earth, there is utter darkness. It is still and quiet, and gifts a sense of calm only possible if you remove all the incessant stimuli of life above ground.

"[Caving] is a slow, controlled activity," says Short, "not an adrenaline sport. You work slowly, clipping on one cow's tail, past the belay, securing it, then moving the second."

10/30/2024

A night at the opera is not typically equated with restraint, instead conjuring images of chandelier-filled theatres and arias performed in exquisite costumes against transportative stage sets. Yet, recent years have seen opera companies across the globe make a determined effort to operate more sustainably, implementing numerous strategies in a bid to reduce their carbon emissions and overall impact on the planet.

This is, in part, the result of climate activists, who have increasingly targeted the arts and entertainment industries over the past few years with the aim of drawing greater attention to their cause. At the end of 2022, for instance, responding to mounting protests, the Royal Opera House cut ties with its long-time sponsor, the oil giant BP. Yet, it is also a response to the shifting expectations of audience members: according to a UK study conducted in 2022, 77% of audience members now expect theatres to address the climate emergency in their work – and opera houses are no exception.

10/23/2024

On 17 October 1969, Easy Rider burst on to cinema screens through a psychedelic haze. Infused with rock music, free love and drug-taking, this low-budget, freewheeling road movie vividly captured the counterculture spirit of the late 1960s, as well as the US's bubbling social tensions.

The film tells the story of two free-spirited bikers, moustachioed hippy Billy, played by its director, Dennis Hopper, and leather-clad Wyatt, played by its producer, Peter Fonda. Easy Rider starts with Billy and Wyatt smuggling co***ne out of Mexico to sell to a Los Angeles drug dealer, played by famed music producer Phil Spector (whose performance seems even more sinister in the light of his 2009 murder conviction). The pair, now flush with cash, then resolve to ride across the US to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras.

10/14/2024

Work has begun on replacing and strengthening two coastal defence groynes at a popular Dorset beach.
The project at Hengistbury Head in Bournemouth is expected to take between six and eight weeks, depending on weather and tides.

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council said the new structures would be the same length as the existing groynes but made from "a hybrid of timber and rock".
It said a section of the beach would be closed to the public for safety reasons.
The council advised beachgoers to follow a diversion route.

09/20/2024

A painting of an Edwardian Hull trawler that saved the crew of its sinking archenemy is to go under the hammer on Friday.

Ellesmere sailed out of the Humber between the turn of the 20th Century and the early 1930s and had been involved in numerous brushes with Irish fishery protection vessel Muirchu before coming to her rescue.

Also included in the collection is a painting of the trawler Pharos, whose disappearance remains a mystery, and the trawler Seti, which became an early victim of World War One.

09/04/2024

"During summer, the Aegean islands – and especially the Cycladic islands – experience lower maximum temperature than the mainland," explained Dr Kostas Lagouvardos, research director at the National Observatory of Athens. "The strong northern seasonal winds, called Etesians or meltemia, help to maintain air temperature in the islands at cooler conditions than in mainland Greece. For example, during the long-lasting heatwave of July 2024, when temperature exceeded 40C in many Greek areas, temperature in the islands remained well below 35C."
Kea's rugged, mountainous interior funnels these winds through its narrow valleys, creating something of a natural ventilation system. The island is also home to the Cyclades' largest oak forest that creates a shady oasis within these cooler islands.

Pamela Burton

01/16/2025

01/09/2025

12/23/2024

12/16/2024

12/06/2024

11/21/2024

11/09/2024

10/30/2024

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