Cold Buttermilk Cucumber Soup

This is a great refreshing cold soup for the hot days of summer. The chili pepper or cayenne pepper is purely optional, but these kinds of soups often developed in the American South, where hot sauce or chilies are common additions to many foods. The extra virgin olive oil adds a wonderful finish. The shredded cucumber garnish adds a little texture, but it certainly isn't necessary, if you choose not to use it.

Ingredients (about 6 servings):

3 cups buttermilk
3 cups seedless cucumbers, peeled and chopped (or regular cucumbers, seeded)
3 inch piece peeled cucumber, shredded, for garnish
2 stalks celery 
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 to 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes (or 1/2 to 1 jalapeño or serrano pepper)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon celery salt
extra virgin olive oil for serving 
  
Add all but the shredded cucumber to a blender/food processor. Blend/process until smooth. Refrigerate for a few hours, until well chilled. Garnish each serving with some shredded cucumber and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
  

WORD HISTORY:
Nebulous-This word, meaning "cloudy, hazy;" thus also, "unclear, vague," goes back to Indo European "nebhos," which meant, "mist, vapor, cloud, the heavens." This gave Latin the noun "nebula," meaning, "vapor, fog," which produced the adjective "nebulosus," meaning, "foggy, cloudy, misty." This was borrowed by English in the second half of the 1300s with the meaning, "misty, hazy, smoky." There may have been reinforcement from French "nébuleux," the French form from the Latin word "nebulosus." NOTE: The original Indo European form gave its Old Germanic offspring "nebulo," meaning, "fog, darkness." This gave Old English "nifol," meaning, "dark, gloomy." The same Germanic source gave German "Nebel" (fog, haze, smoke), Low German "Nevel" (mist), Dutch "nevel" (mist), Frisian once had "nevel" (fog, haze, mist) and Old Norse had "njola" (fog, mist, darkness) and Icelandic has (antiquated?) "nifl" (darkness). 

Waldorf Salad

This is a pretty famous salad, but I have a suspicion that many people have never actually tried it, or even know what it is, although they've heard or seen the name. "Waldorf Salad" was developed in the mid 1890s at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Many famous people have stayed or lived at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel during its existence, and two of its prominent residents were former President Herbert Hoover and General of the Army (5 Star General) Douglas MacArthur. They lived there simultaneously for a period of time, but they lived in suites in different parts of the complex.

Some recipes say to use less mayonnaise, and that then the preparer should keep folding the salad until everything has the slightest coating of mayonnaise. If you want to spend your time doing this, all the best to you, but as for me, I like more mayonnaise, just as I like lots of ketchup or mustard on certain sandwiches. This "dainty" use of certain food items is not for me. About 30 years ago I went to a birthday dinner for a friend at a fairly high end restaurant here on the East Side of Cleveland. The waiter brought out a full size dinner plate for each diner with a "spot" in the center of the plate. It looked like a drop of food that had accidentally dripped onto each plate, as it was no bigger than a pea, and that was after I used a magnifying glass. He then announced, "Enjoy your complimentary appetizer." He also said what this "appetizer" was supposed to be, but the whole thing was such silly nonsense, I had to comment right then and there. I didn't care who liked it or not, and I called it just what I said, "silly nonsense." You can't make up this kind of silly s--t! I kept thinking of years before when I was a kid, and we would eat out, and my mother would say, "Don't fill up on the appetizer."   

Ingredients:

2 medium red apples, cored and chopped
1/2 cup celery, thinly sliced
1/2 cup walnuts, lightly toasted over medium heat
1/2 cup red seedless grape halves 
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 "good pinch" cayenne pepper  
lettuce leaves for serving

In a bowl, add the chopped apple and sprinkle with the lemon juice to prevent the apple from turning brown. Add the other ingredients (except lettuce leaves) and mix to coat the ingredients with the mayonnaise and seasonings. Chill the salad in the refrigerator for an hour or two before serving. Place some lettuce leaves on a salad plate, then place the desired amount of salad on top of the leaves for serving.

WORD HISTORY:
Bourgeoisie-This word is not as commonly used in the U.S. as in some other countries, and its meaning varies somewhat, but it generally means "wealthier segment of the middle class," usually relating to the "upper middle class" in the U.S.,  with the term "petty (or the French "petite") bourgeoisie" relating to the "lower middle class." Communism tends to define the term with more emphasis on the "wealthy segment, materialistic segment of a society, capitalists." The word goes back to Indo European "buhrgh/bhrgh" which meant "high place" (this aspect of the word gave Old English "beorg" and German "Berg," both meaning "mountain."). Besides this meaning, Old Germanic took a form of the word, "burgs," for "castle, fortress, protected place or stronghold," since most castles were built on high places for their military benefit. These castles provided protection to many people, and became fortified towns in many cases.^ Old English had "burg/burh," and eventually the fortification aspect began to die out, but the meaning of "town" or "municipality" continued. From "burg(h)" came several forms that meant "citizen, resident," like Old English "burgleoda" ^^ and "burgsittend"^^^ which eventually died out when English borrowed the Latin derived "citizen" from Norman French in the 1300s.^^^^ Personally, I wish we still used a form of "burgsittend," what a word! Meanwhile, Old French had a form of "burg," either borrowed directly from Frankish, a Germanic language, or from Latin, the parent of Old French. Latin had borrowed a form from Germanic (there are various forms of "burg/burgher" in the modern Latin-based languages). The Old French form was "burjois" (a citizen, inhabitant), which then became "bourgeois," which by then meant "citizen of the middle class," and the broader form "bourgeoisie," meant "the middle class," in general. 

Languages are fascinating and here we have a Germanic language, English, borrowing a Latin derived word "citizen," replacing its own word(s), but then you have Latin borrowing a form of Germanic "burgher,"  for "citizen," which then comes back to English from Latin-based French in another form, "bourgeoisie."

^ The notion of fortification or protected place then developing into words for "living areas," without the fortified context, is not unusual. Besides "burg(h)" in English, the ancestor of modern "town" was a word meaning "enclosed place," and many "towns" of old had walls or fences around them. The German relative of English "town" is "Zaun," which means "fence." It's pronounced similarly too, with the "z" being pronounced "ts," and the rest of the word rhymes with the English word, as German "au" is pronounced like the English "ow" of "how."

^^ The "leoda" part meant "people." German still uses its close relative, "Leute," as its word for "people."

^^^ If you haven't already guessed it, this literally meant "town seated;" that is, "occupant, resident."

^^^^ Actually this was by then "Anglo-Norman French," or just "Anglo-Norman," terms used by linguists to distinguish this dialect from the French spoken on the mainland, especially in Paris and environs. The Normans initially brought their French dialect to England, but it then came under the influence of English; thus, the "Anglo-Norman" terminology.