A Cause for Our Time: Campaign for Real Gravy

Campaign for Real Gravy
realgravy.co.uk

"Join Brian and Elaine Rey, and Gordon Ramsay in their national campaign for people to dump the granules and get back to making their own real gravy.

"Together Brian and celebrated chef Gordon Ramsay have been marching around Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbria in a quest to persuade members of the public to go back to making real meaty gravy...."

It is with a sense of guarded optimism that the Lemming contemplates this effort to restore meat, vegetables, and taste to British dining. In a world which seems to have lost its way in a maze of frozen dinners and instant pudding, these brave souls stand as champions for good, old-fashioned gravy. British style.

Seriously? The Lemming thinks they've got a good idea. And, although the Campaign for Real Gravy folks would love to have you purchase their products: homemade gravy is something that really can be made at home. Not from a kit.

Or what appears to be some sort of feed bag.

No, wait: on closer examination, that's an apron.

In the words of Gilda Radner, "never mind."

It's the Lemming's opinion that "real" gravy, made in parallel with meat and vegetable dishes, tastes better than what comes out of a box: even after the latter's mixed with water and heated in the microwave.

It's probably even better for you, although the Lemming's not all that inclined to join the natural food faddists. There's been too much save-a-tree-shoot-a-beaver thinking - make that association - about the innate superiority of "natural ingredients." "Natural" is fine: but let's remember that arsenic and hemlock are "natural ingredients." And that's a rant. Or, rather, a wrap on that topic.

On a not-entirely-unrelated topic:

• "post hoc ergo propter hoc"
  • "The logical fallacy of believing that temporal succession implies a causal relation"
    (Princeton's WordNet)

Now, in a spirit of transparency and disclosure, the Lemming states categorically that Campaign for Real Gravy was found as a direct result of watching Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America. Which doesn't have all that much to do with gravy or home cooking - not directly, anyway.

The Campaign for Real Gravy started, according to the website's About page, at an establishment with the improbably British name "The Fenwick Arms, situated in Claughton near Lancaster."

Which reminds the Lemming of the Grand Duchy of Fenwick and Dry Gulch. It's the Lemming's opinion that the names of places in the American west, like Deadwood, South Dakota, or Tombstone, Arizona, 'sound funny' in part because they mean something in contemporary English. We're used to names whose sounds didn't change all that much as languages evolved: like Londinium, although that frontier town's name did change a bit.

Oddly enough, there really is a Dry Gulch. In Antarctica. That's one of the the relatively few places on Earth where winters are rougher than Minnesota's. And there's a Dry Gulch (townofdrygulch.com), a tourist trap in Findley Lake, NY - with one of the more memorable - and annoying - collections of distracting Web effects the Lemming has seen in recent years.

Maybe the "Dry Gulch" website was designed by a relative of one of their competitors. The one in New York State, not the Antarctic one. The Dry Gulch, Antarctica, page was put together by someone who realized that somebody else might want to actually read the thing. Not be impressed by a bouncing image and "call us" text flowing from the cursor.

And that's yet another topic.

Related (?) posts:

• "Chef's Table: Not a Workbench; Not in McDonald's"
  (March 3, 2011)
• "Lychee Nuts, Litchi Nuts: Either Way, They're Edible"
  (February 18, 2011)
• "Parsnips are Not Carrots"
  (January 9, 2011)
• "Crumbs!"
  (October 23, 2010)
• "The History of Sausage - By a British Barbecue Company"
  (September 28, 2010)

What Happened to Argleton?!

"Welcome to Argleton, the town that doesn't exist"
guardian.co.uk (November 3, 2009)

"The world's eyes are focused on a small village called Argleton just off the A59 near Ormskirk, Lancashire. Camera crews have been dispatched. "Argleton" is fast becoming a popular hashtag on Twitter. There is even talk of merchandising opportunities.

"The reason for all the interest is simple: Argleton doesn't actually exist. It is a phantom village that appears on Google Maps. You can search online for Argleton's local weather forecast (10C yesterday), property prices (not much for sale at the moment) or for the number of a local plumber, but in reality the village's coordinates point to little more than a muddy field. However, just a few hundred metres away stands the very real village of Aughton. So, is this a case of a simple spelling mistake by a cartographer? Or is Argleton evidence of something more conspiratorial afoot in the county? After all, the Ormskirk and Skelmersdale Advertiser has already posed the question of whether the Argleton mystery might indicate the presence of a 'Bermuda triangle of West Lancashire'...."

The Lemming rather likes the idea that a vast conspiracy of space aliens, Elvis and the Knights Templar is involved - and that Argleton really does exist - cleverly hidden by holographic projectors and mind-control rays from the invisible mothership.

None of which are mentioned in the article.

See? That proves there's a conspiracy!

Let's see: Edge Hill University in Ormskirk's head of web services, Mike Nolan, says it's most likely that somebody's fingers skidded when they keyed in "Aughton" - and it came out "Argleton."

Not as cool as the space-alien explanation - but a great deal more plausible.

Or is that what they want us to thing?!

The Lemming has got to get some rest.

The Naming of Restaurants: Beyond "EAT"

"Bad names litter the dining landscape"
Christopher Borrelli, Restaurant, CollectionsChicagoTribune.com (August 19, 2010)

"...America is dispiritingly awash in bad restaurant names - every autumn, poking through best-new-restaurants-of-the-year lists, I self-righteously smirk at the chance that any place named, oh, the Moss Room (in San Francisco) could be worth the hassle. I admire the randomness of Scarpetta (which is in Manhattan and means "little shoe" in Italian) but roll my eyes at No. 7 (which is in Brooklyn and means 7 Greene Ave.) - who needs another restaurant named for an address? I marvel at dullard one-word names like Feast, Reef and Textile....

"...One expects Las Vegas to have a restaurant as gaudily named as Society Cafe Encore (on Esquire's best restaurant list, incidentally), but when one stumbles upon a Mexican joint in North Carolina named El Titanic (no joke), one wonders if America is experiencing a drought of smartly named restaurants...."

I think Christopher Borrelli's on to something here: although I also suspect that there are stranger eatery names. I've left out quite a bit of his op-ed piece: including a mention of a place in Minneapolis, a maybe-three-hour-drive south and east of my home.

Still, the ultimate bad name for an eatery may be in - I think it was an old New Yorker cartoon: Sam and Ella's.

A Filbert: by Any Other Name - - -

Filbert.

That could be a hazelnut, sort of; or a Corylus maxima - which is a filbert, but not, apparently, a hazelnut; or a town in South Carolina or West Virginia.

Filbert could be a boy who's nuts about someone named Hazel, too. The name means "brilliant," more or less - although I don't think Filbert's classmates would have given him that impression.

Why aren't Farmers Planting Farina?

"What is Farina?"
WiseGeek

"Farina is a milled cereal grain, usually made from wheat germ and the inner parts of wheat kernels called the endosperm. Sometimes rice or potatoes can be milled and called farina too, but typically it’s considered wheat cereal. It has a very bland taste, which makes it adaptable to numerous toppings when it is prepared as a hot cereal, the typical preparation. Since it is so finely ground, it cooks quickly, and remains one of the more popular hot cereal choices.

"Many may be familiar with farina when sold as Cream of Wheat® or Malt-o-Meal®, which comes in quick cook and even instant varieties...."

So the answer to this post's title is that Farina is the product of a particular milling process, not a plant.

Farina is also the name of a township in North Dakota, and a family name: the 6704^th most common family name in America, as of May, 1995. (U. S. Census Bureau)

Lizard Lick? Embarrass? Zap? Where to They Come up With These Peculirar Names?

"How 10 American Towns Got Their Weird Names"
Neatorama (October 19, 2008)

"The following is an article from Uncle John's Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader, by Kathy Kemp, author of Welcome to Lickskillet: And Other Crazy Places in the Deep South

"Plan to hit the road next summer, but don't know where to go? We don't mean to be rude, but have you considered Hell? Hell, Michigan, that is. (And you thought you had to drive south.) For a different kind of vacation, check out this tour of off-road America, where unusual names are the main attraction:..."

The list starts with Hell, Michigan. One of the towns, Joe, Montana, owes its name to a quite deliberate - and successful - effort to cash in on a celebrity's name. Lizard Lick, North Carolina, owes its name to a government program.

There's Peculiar, Missouri and Zap, North Dakota, and #10 - Embarrass, Minnesota.

Embarrass, Minnesota, is a place where: "The midwinter temperature often drops to -60 °F, and snow has been known to fall in June...." That's a trifle chilly, even for northern Minnesota. On the other hand, it's not all that much different here where I live in central Minnesota. Although living 'down south' - by my standards - the winters are fairly mild. Again, by my standards.

Embarrass gets its name from the French word, embarras - meaning obstacle. Which, for settlers not born to this sort of climate, those conditions were.

I don't know how strictly accurate the assertions in this post are - but it's a fun read.

Never Heard of the Dunseith Turtle? Now You Have!

Turtle Mountain Tourism Association

" Welcome to the Turtle Mountain region, the four seasons playground of North Dakota and Manitoba! The Turtle Mountain Tourism Association is an organization dedicated to promoting the beauty, fun, and excitement of the Turtle Mountains. Northern North Dakota and southern Manitoba's best-kept secret, these hills and the surrounding area truly offer something for everyone.

"Come join us on the journey across Scenic Byway 43--North Dakota's highway of mystery and adventure, of beauty and peace. Stretching through Rolette and Bottineau Counties, this road will guide you and your family through charming towns, friendly people, and some of the most breathtaking views in the North Dakota/Manitoba region...."

You may have heard of the International Peace Garden, on the United States-Canada border. You probably haven't heard of the turtle of Dunseith, North Dakota.

Dunseith, in addition to being the only town of that name in the United States (there are quite a few 'Rockfords' for example), is home to a huge turtle - made out of truck wheels hubs. It's next to Dale's Truck Stop, on the south side of town. "You can't miss it."

My family and I lived in Dunseith during the eighties: it's a town south of the Peace Garden, just south of the Turtle Mountains themselves.

"Mountains" and "Hills" are comparative terms. I grew up in the Red River Valley of the North - some of the flattest land on Earth. There, a rise of land amounting to five feet in a mile might be called a "ridge." Most of North Dakota isn't particularly hilly, so the Turtle Mountains - a whacking great gravel and sand, with a little soil on top, left by the last glaciers - stick out like, well, mountains.

They're really not that tall. On the other hand, there are some really nice-looking views in them.

What's a Nickname of What, and Where'd They Come From?

I found two lists of nicknames this morning:

• "Nicknames"
  Genealogy World (September 7, 1997)
  • It's a simple table of nicknames for names from Aaron to Zepaniah, and including Penelope, Pocahontas, and Waldo.
  • There's no discussion or explanation of any of the pairings, and I'm a little dubious about the table's accuracy.
  • For example, Oswald is listed as a nickname of Waldo. Sure, they're both Germanic names, and have "wald" in them - but "Oswald" is a name in its own right, from way back.
  • Still, I had fun reading the list. Maybe you will, too.
• "Nickname Names for Baby"
  Think Baby Names (© 2004-2008)
  • "103 Nickname names for boys. Listing Nickname baby names 1-10. Archie, Art and Bert are popular Nickname baby names. Aad, Abbott, Ace, Algernon, Amerigo, Aspen and Bern are uncommon Nickname baby names. Click on each Nickname name for details and [variants],...."
  • Whoever put this resource together researched the topic. Click on a nickname, and you'll find more information. For example:
    • "The boy's name Lapo \l(a)-po\ is of Italian origin. Nickname of Giacomo.
    • "Baby names that sound like Lapo are Lippo and Loeb. Other similar baby names are Lalo, Lary, Capp, Cap, Pipo, La-, Laroy, Lacy, Ladd, Lad, Lacko, Lake, Lallo, Lale, Lane, Laud, Leo, Lino, Luano, Ludo and Nap.
    • "Lapo is a very rare male first name and a very rare surname (source: 1990 U.S. Census). Displayed below is the baby name popularity trend for the boy's name Lapo. Compare Lapo with related baby names.
  • This is, I think, a pretty good resource: at least as a starting point for researching a nickname.

Names Celebrities Give Their Kids: What Were They Thinking?

"When the Spawn Hits: Ridiculously-Named Celeb Kids"
New Hot Stuff (undated)

"Stars seem to have it all: good looks, millions of fans, wealth and badly-named beautiful kids. Here are some unlucky children who’ll scorn their Hollywood parents for their names someday:..."

From Bluebell Madonna Halliwel to Pilot Inspektor Reisgraf Lee.

For the kids' sakes, I just hope that those names aren't as weird in Glitterland as they are out here.

Billions and Billions of Names: Generated for You

"The Name Generator"

The site claims: "Our name generator can spit out over 463 billion different first and last name combinations."

"How It Works" gives you a 404 error message, which wasn't too promising.
("Not Found
"The requested URL /howItWorks.php was not found on this server.
"Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.")

The tags are a bit fun, and the generator works. Not, perhaps, humanity's greatest achievement: but I can think of worse ways to spend a couple of minutes.

With a little patience, and quite a lot of luck, this could be a resource for writers seeking character names.

Why "Apathetic Lemming of the North?"

Several people either asked me why I chose "Apathetic Lemming of the North" as this blog's name, or told me that it didn't make sense. They were more polite about it, but that's the gist of what they said.

I made a quick explanation, in "Rise of Apathetic Lemming of the North," the first post in this blog. It wasn't very complete, since I was eager to go out an find interesting blogs to blog about.

Now, it's time to go back and do a more polished job.

Lemmings are rodents that are so stupid, they blindly follow their leaders in mass suicides. At least, that's what 'everybody knows.' The facts are a little more complicated. ("Why We Should Always Question.." is a pretty good place to start, if you're looking for the lemming behind the lens.)

The suicidally stupid lemmings of contemporary folklore led to the rodents' name being applied to classes of people.

"Lemming" meant "narrow-minded, biased fans" in the 1980s. Fans of wrestling's WWF were the first to carry the label, but it spread.

I remember it being used as a label for those who didn't agree with people in the anti-war movement at least as far back as the 1970s. "Lemming" still seems to mean "easily-led dupe who doesn't agree with me" to this day, as its use in at least one comment dated October 21, 2006, demonstrates.

Apathy, of course, was anathema to the anguished campus activists of the sixties and seventies. The cultural pressure to care: deeply, passionately, hysterically, led to the slogan "Apathy is Rampant, But Who Cares?" I still treasure the sight of those words, emblazoned upon a bumper sticker.

That's where I come in.

I'm apathetic. I must be. I think that

• The spotted owl will flourish, as long as there are virgin ponderosa pine forests and K-Mart signs for them to nest in.
• It's not necessary to retrofit everyone's home with wheelchair ramps and/or elevators to upper floors (I'm not making this up: it could have become a plank in one party's platform)
• Protecting union members from plutocratic oppressors who tear bread from the bleeding lips of the starving masses isn't quite the issue that it was a century ago

What is considered important, and what's not, in America seems to be determined in the coastal cultures. Since my priorities don't even come close to the stereotype Starbucks-frequenting, Armani-wearing, New York Times reader, I must be "apathetic."

I can live with that.

Lemmings are stupid, easily led people. I've learned that they're people who are so dull and boring as to actually work for a living. It may even be a mainstream word by now, as this blog name hints: "Smart Lemming (manage your career or it will manage you)."

Given that a "lemming" is someone who is so un-Timothy-Leary-like as to not "turn on, tune in, drop out," and has been known to have a job, I must be a lemming.

I can live with that, too.

So, I'm an "Apathetic Lemming."

I thought "of the North" is pretty obvious. Minnesota was as far north as America got, before Alaska became a state, and my home state is still the most northerly of the contiguous states, thanks to that surveyors' hiccup, up by Lake of the Woods.

When I started this blog, I decided to have some of my qualities reflected in the name. "Apathetic Lemming" appealed to me.

Then I discovered that there were quite a few "Apathetic Lemmings" out there: although I submit that none were as apathetically lemming-like as I am.

"Apatheticest Ultra-Lemming" sounded silly, so I called this blog "Apathetic Lemming of the North," instead.