Day 897: Olive Oil

When Laetitia’s granny was a young bride learning to cook she tried several recipes in which olive oil was an ingredient.  At that time, American grocery stores usually carried only one kind.  It came in small bottles, a yellowish sludge that was often rancid when it was opened.  For many years she didn’t understand why people raved about olive oil. Then she visited an olive mill in Tuscany while touring southern Europe and was awed by its fresh unfiltered product.  Laetitia wrote the day’s limerick about Granny’s olive oil experience.

Olive oil is sure to please your palate
On your bread or your pasta or salad
When unfiltered it’s best
And must be first cold pressed
To get the top score on your ballot.

Day 896: Troll

In a free moment when Laetitia and her group weren’t going ashore in Zodiac inflatable boats, she perused the ship’s library and happened on a book featuring the art of Ray Troll. The works of the Ketchikan, Alaska-based artist combine science, art and humor. She made him the subject of the day’s limerick.

In this verse, I would like to extoll
Modern art that is clever and droll
Fine work with reliance
On a knowledge of science
The exquisite art of Ray Troll.

Day 895: Nazca Lines

Laetitia took a tour group on a cruise along the coast of Peru that included a flight overthe Nazca lines. Scholars estimate that these geoglyphs, large designs that include both lines and figures, were created sometime between 500 BC and 500 AD. Anthropologists have proposed a variety of hypotheses regarding the purpose of these enormous figures, but none received as much publicity as the claim by Erich von Daniken that these were alien space ship runways.

In the desert near Andean cliffs
Are the Nazca lines whose geoglyphs
Have been there since prehistory
But still are a mystery
That has spawned quite a number of myths.

Day 894: Old Speckled Hen

From time to time, Laetitia enjoys a pint of ale called “Old Speckled Hen.”  While some may think the name has something to do with chickens, it actually is derived from the MG Automobile.  At the MG Factory at Abingdon, Oxfordshire, there was an old prototype car that employees used for running errands. Its parking spot was near the paint shop, and it eventually became so spattered with paint that it became known as the “Owld Speckl’d Un.” Over time this evolved into “Old Speckled Hen.” The Morland Brewery in Abingdon created the English-style pale ale in 1979 in celebration of the MG Factory’s fiftieth anniversary.

If you are one who has a yen
For pint glasses of Old Speckled Hen
In pubs or in bars
It’s about MG cars
Not female birds or lobsters, amen.