Twinkle On

 "Nooooooo!"

The wailing sound came from the other room, and #2 Son came running into the kitchen almost howling and in tears.

"Mom, mom, mom!  Did you hear!  No more Twinkies!!!"

Yes, son, i've heard.  The Hostess company is almost bankrupt, and the workers are on strike for more pay.  So they may have to shut down.  It's the classic standoff, where "the worker is worthy of his hire" and yet the company has to be able to make a profit.  In this case, most people don't want to pay much for a prefab cupcake or whatever, so they have to keep prices low while the price of their ingredients goes up, and workers' pay goes up.  So how do they balance it, and all those people will be out of work...

"Yeah, there's that, too, but No! More! Twinkies!  That's the most important thing!"

Son, i think you can live without Twinkies.

"No, I can't!  I don't eat them much around here, but I have to have them when we are on vacation in Florida every year!  It's a tradition!  I always buy a couple of boxes of Twinkies!"

Well, i have good news.  There's a recipe for them, so you can learn to make your own.

"Really!"

Yes, really.  And by the way, they were named after Twinkle-Toe Shoes.  James Dewar saw that the aluminum pans used by Continental Baking Company (parent of Hostess brands) to make shortcakes for strawberry season were idle for most of the year, and came up with the idea to put filling in the shortcakes for the rest of the year.  He came up with the name after seeing a billboard while on a business trip.

Originally they were filled with banana creme, but a shortage of bananas during WWII made them change it.

So if you can't live without them, you can find an online recipe here.

The filling recipe included there is by Todd Wilbur, who wrote Top Secret Recipes.  He's one of those people who experiment until they can make clones of name brands.  His actual cake recipe is less complicated, calling for 4 stiffly beaten egg whites, a 16-oz box of golden pound cake mix, and 2/3 cup water.  Beating the eggs until stiff and then adding the other two ingredients and mixing well, you bake at 325° for 30 minutes.

Well, i guess if Hostess goes belly up, we will have a new Florida ritual.  Making Twinkies.

Twinkle on, dude. 


Today is:

Birth of the Blues Day -- birth anniversary of W.C. Handy, "Father of the Blues"

Button Day -- internet generated; a day to collect, or reminisce about collecting, buttons

Children in Need Day -- UK and Ireland (telethon begins)

Christchurch Show Day -- Canterbury, NZ

Colorado River Crossing Balloon Festival -- Yuma, AZ, US (through Sunday)

Dagur Islenskrar tungu -- Iceland (Icelandic Language Day)

Day of Declaration of Sovereignty / Day of National Rebirth -- Estonia

Famous San Diego Chicken Day -- a day to celebrate anyone who has ever slugged a purple dinosaur

Flag Day/Statia and America Day -- St. Eustatius

Grand Illumination Celebration and Gingerbread House Competition & Display -- Lahaska, PA, US (the holiday fun begins at the Peddler's Village)

Greater Pittsburgh Arts and Crafts Show -- Monroeville, PA, US (through Sunday)

Have a Party with Your Bear Day -- no comment, it's too obvious

Hecate Night -- Ancient Greek Calendar (date approximate; celebrated still by some Wiccans)

Holiday Folk Fair International -- Milwaukee, WI, US (featuring costumes, dancing, entertainment, exhibits, and more from 65 cultures; through Sunday)

Inasa Puppet Festival -- Hamamatsu, Japan (a rarity in Japan, 3 days of performances by professional puppeteers from around Japan)

International Day for Tolerance - UN

National Farm-City Week -- US (through the 22nd)

National Fast Food Day -- why?

Silver Bells in the City -- Lansing, MI, US (the capital city sparkles as the business district lights up for the holidays)

St. Gertrude the Great's Day (Patron of nuns; Naples, Italy; West Indies)

St. Margaret of Scotland's Day (Patron of learning, parents of large families, queens, widows; Scotland; against the death of children)

St. Matthew the Evangelist's Day (Eastern Churches)

Substitute Educators Day -- US


Anniversaries Today:

Oklahoma becomes the 46th US State, 1907


Birthdays Today:

Oksana Baiul, 1977
Lisa Bonet, 1967
Dwight Gooden, 1964
Shigeru Miyamoto, 1952
Daws Butler, 1916
Burgess Meredith, 1908
W.C. Handy, 1873
Tiberius, Roman Emperor, BC42


Today in History:

The second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published, 534
Francisco Pizarro captures the Inca emperor Atahualpa after the victory at Cajamarca, 1532
The first colonial prison is organized, in Nantucket, Massachusetts, 1676
Kentucky becomes the first state to nullify an act of Congress, 1798
The New York Evening Post publishes its first edition, 1801
An earthquake in Missouri causes the Mississippi River to flow backwards, 1811
Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail, 1821
Napoleon Guerin of NYC patents a cork life preserver, 1841
Fyodor Dostoevsky is sentenced to death for anti-government activities; sentence is commuted to hard labor, 1849
Amsterdam post office at Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal opens, 1856
William Bonwill patents dental mallet to impact gold into cavities, 1875
6,000 Armenians massacred by Turks in Kurdistan, 1894
Arturo Tuscanini begins conducting NY's Metropolitan Opera, 1908
US Federal Reserve System formally opens, 1914
LSD is first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, 1938
UNESCO is founded, 1945
NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission, 1973
The Hoxne Hoard is discovered by metal detectorist Eric Lawes in Hoxne, Suffolk, 1992
After nearly 18 years of incarceration, the People's Republic of China releases Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, from jail for medical reasons, 1997