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[IceWizard]

Sunday 15 May 2016

Straw Hat Day



Being made of straw, the boater was and is generally regarded as a warm-weather hat. In the days when all men wore hats when out of doors, "Straw Hat Day", the day when men switched from wearing their winter hats to their summer hats, was seen as a sign of the beginning of summer.

The exact date of Straw Hat Day might vary slightly from place to place. For example, in Philadelphia, it was May 15; at the University of Pennsylvania, it was the second Saturday in May.

The boater is a fairly formal hat, equivalent in formality to the Homburg, and so is correctly worn either in its original setting with a blazer, or in the same situations as a Homburg, such as a smart lounge suit, or with black tie.

John Jacob Astor IV was known for wearing such hats. Actors Harold Lloyd and Maurice Chevalier were also famous for their trademark boater hats.

And

National Chocolate Chip Day



On May 15th, we recognize a morsel of a thing. It’s National Chocolate Chip Day!

Have you ever wondered if an ingredient would work in a recipe? It is hard to imagine where we would be without the invention of chocolate chips.

In 1937, Ruth Graves Wakefield of Whitman Massachusetts must have been curious what a little bit of chocolate would add to her cookies.

While working at the Toll House Inn, she added cut-up chunks of semi-sweet Nestle chocolate bar to a cookie recipe.

The cookies were a huge success and in 1939 Wakefield signed an agreement with Nestle to add her recipe to the chocolate bar’s packaging.

In exchange for the recipe, Wakefield received a lifetime supply of chocolate. The Nestle brand Toll House cookies were named for the Inn. Nestle initially included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars.

Starting in 1941, Nestle and other competitors started selling the chocolate in chip or morsel form. Semi-sweet was the original flavor of chocolate chips.

Today the chocolates come in bittersweet, semi-sweet, mint, white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white and dark swirled. The imagination is the only thing limiting what recipes chocolate can be used.

Today chocolate chips are used in a variety of baking methods from sweet to savory.

Had Ruth Graves Wakefield never wondered what a few chopped up chunks of chocolate would be like in her baking, we wouldn’t even have chocolate chip cookies.