September, 2023

"This Just In..."

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You still have time.

In fact you have 21 days for all the sun, fun, soaking at the seashore, pleading for gimmes at golf, cross-court winners in tennis, midnight skywatching, bad lawn cutting, overdue flower pruning, messy watermelon-eating, and fire fly catching you can handle.

Summer is still here. Don't let her go without saying a very tearful goodbye.

Oh and we've got some crazy stuff in here for you. A Jade sarcophagus, two quizzes, window seats for everyone and marshmallows made from apples.

Only here!

If you must depart, arriving to the other side in a Jade Burial Suit from the Han Dynasty from 200BCE, well, at least you’re going in style, no?

We love Colorado. Since its heyday as “the place to party if you’re a dinosaur” (say 65 million years ago) it has hosted some of the biggest bodies on planet earth. In 1966, the town of Dinosaur (formerly Baxter Springs, bleehh) updated its street names. Google loved it!

Street names in Dinosaur, Colorado:

• Triceratops Terrace
• Antrodemus Alley
• Plateosaurus Place
• Stegosaurus Freeway
• Brachtosaurus Bypass
• Ceratosaurus Circle
• Camptosaurus Crescent
• Diplodocus Drive
• Tyrannosaurus Street
• Allosaurus Lane
• Brachiosaurus Street
• Brontosaurus Boulevard

Up?

Down?

Outrageous or merely what’s expected. The world energy market is, again, in flux and we thought we’d take a moment to reflect on a plan to address the uncertainties we all face.

Consider:

*World oil demand is scaling record highs - boosted by strong summer travel, increased use of oil in power generation and surging Chinese petrochemical activity.

*Plus there’s been significant increases in demand for diesel, heating oil and jet fuel while inventories continue to be lower than normal.

*Global oil inventories declined by 17 million barrels

in June for the 3^rd month in a row



*Brent oil price futures increased 14% to $87 a barrel in August close to 2023 highs.

* No one knows, exactly, which direction the market is headed.

You name it – anything can impact the cost of fuel. If we get a mild winter; If supply outstrips demand; If interest rates increase or if Russia does….something;

So many impact points. So…

Whether oil is up or down this year we think you should consider selecting a Price Cap Program.

In 2021 the average Daniels price cap customer saved nearly $3.00 a gallon.

With the average homeowner using 700 gallons a year – that’s a savings of more than $2,000!

Last year customers saved $2.00+ vs. those who chose fixed pricing.

Again, that’s a savings on average of nearly $1,500!

A price cap program can save you on the roller-coaster ride that is the world energy market. Call us today and let us set up a program that will work for you – all year long!

Call: 860 813 9122

One Reminder – Daniels Energy delivers 5% Blend of Bio-Heat today – increasing that total to 50% within 10 Years.

Perfect foils. The best. They are ubiquitous and not only that but they are everywhere.Who are they? Tell us at least two of the three – and you may be a winner. Good luck.

Tell us here and you may win an Amazon gift card.

To honor the last rain showers of the summer we offer this effort by Utagawa Hiroshige, “Sudden Shower over Shin Ohashi Bridge” circa 1857. Forget the umbrella. Let it rain!

We never cast aspersions here. It’s just not who we are. But…C’mon.

1887. Vincent Van Gogh. Flattery or Inspiration?

Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing?

Like window seats? Just asking.

If so…if it is possible to OD on window seats and you have something of an obsession with them – then proceed with care. Enjoy.

Take The Daniels Energy Challenge



Buy America's Best - Smartest - Boiler

Energy Kinetics System 2000

Get $1,000 Amazon gift Card*

with purchase

Daniels Energy Says: Consider This:

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Take The Energy Kinetics System 2000 CHALLENGE ***

Customer Uses average of 1,000 gallons (Sept-Aug.)

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EK2K cuts usage by 35% = 350 gallons

That's Savings of $1,383.50 in Year 1

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Data and conclusions are drawn from the report "Performance of Integrated Hydronic Heating Systems", Energy Resources Division, Department of Energy Sciences and Technology, BNL.

CALL NOW

 860 813 9122

* You need to purchase a new energy Kinetics Accel CS System 2000 by October 31, 2023 in order to receive the $1000 Amazon gift card. You'll receive gift cards after the installation of a new qualifying system is completed and paid in full. Daniels will provide a $500 Amazon gift card with purchase of an Energy Kinetics Resolute RT System 2000. **0.99% for 120 months through EnergizeCT. Size of down payment necessary for financing rate - 10-20% - is dependent on zip code and size of home. Example: Purchase price $16,475. 10% down payment. Loan amount $14,827.50. Monthly payment $129.83. Limitations apply. #combined heat and hot water. *** Customer example is for illustration only. Your savings may be higher or lower. See Daniels representative for complete details. CT License S1-385517 HOD#19 / Daniels Propane LLC: CT License S1-302857

Simple little place. We thought we saw Hansel here a few days ago, but he’s disappeared. Tell us here where this little hiding place is and you may win a $25 Amazon gift card with our thanks for playing.

Last month more than 200 total entries were received and David went wild with winners including: Paul B, Skip S, Shazia K, Rona M, Dimitria K and Anne P who identified the McFlys from Back to The Future!

Kathy V, Tom L and Gail F correctly identified Tintin's Snowy as being at a….Flea Market! 



Hope you enjoyed playing. Wish we could have given 200 gift cards away but then there’d be no budget for the newsletter! (ouch).

We’ve been informed that certain Steam Humidifiers (not evaporative models) sold by AprileAire, Honeywell, Coleman, Luxaire, Bryant, Carrier, and York, are being recalled.

A specific type of electrode wire with a “D” shaped connector may loosen causing arcing and a possible fire hazard. Daniels sells and services AprileAire and we have a fix. So, if you have a unit please contact us and we will make the necessary arrangements to get the parts and make the repair.

For specifics on the recall, you can contact AprileAire directly at 1.888.742.2401 or visit RPCRecall.com/SteamHumidifier. 

Or give us a call.

In his 1975 memoir The Periodic Table, Primo Levi recounts a brief anecdote about a mysterious slice of onion in a recipe for oil varnish.

Levi, a writer, chemist, Holocaust survivor, and anti-Fascist, was working in a paint factory after the war. He came across a varnish formula, published in 1942, that included two slices of onion added to the boiling linseed oil near the end of the process.

Why onion?

After talking to a mentor, he learned that in the days before thermometers were common, slices of raw onion were used to gauge the temperature of the oil.

The onion remained in the recipe long after its usefulness had ended, and “what had been a crude measuring operation had lost its significance and was transformed into a mysterious and magical practice.”

“The onion in the varnish” has since become a popular metaphor among computer scientists, entrepreneurs, and rationalist types – a shorthand for the importance of eliminating inessential elements that creep into a process.

However, that’s not exactly what Levi describes, and it isn’t the moral of his story. His onion anecdote is told in the context of a longer conversation about the ways an ancient process like varnish manufacturing “retains in its crannies … rudiments of customs and procedures abandoned for a long time now.”

This accretion isn’t a liability or a problem per se, but rather an inevitability as processes and cultures evolve over a long duration.

We have been thinking about vestigial onion slices – the secret recipes, the superstition, and the myths embedded in what we call “innovation.” Sometimes the onion can be removed. Other times a recipe evolves in the presence of an unnecessary onion slice, and omitting the onion destroys the balance.

Or maybe the mythos of the onion makes for a valuable story, a boon for the varnish sellers. Either way, you can’t unbundle history without making a mess.

Kelly Pendergrast on the secret recipes, the superstition, and the myths embedded in what we call “innovation.”…

ON THE EVENING OF JULY 6, 1957, John Lennon was introduced to Paul McCartney by a mutual friend after Lennon’s band played a small show at St Peter’s church in Woolton, a village on the outskirts of Liverpool. The meeting took place in the hall across the street from the church.

Earlier that day, Lennon’s band the Quarry Men had played during the Woolton village fete. The afternoon stage was set up on the school grounds directly behind the church. Lennon and McCartney would regularly take short cuts through the church grounds in the early days before they became The Beatles.

In the cemetery at St. Peter’s, a gravestone bears the name of Eleanor Rigby, which would eventually become the title of a 1966 hit song written by McCartney and included on the Beatles album Revolver.

McCartney attributed the name to a combination of the actress Eleanor Bron, and the name of a store in Bristol, “Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers.” He also later admitted he might have unconsciously borrowed her name from the gravestone. In any event the details about the Eleanor Rigby in the song are purely fictional.

According to the gravestone and census data, the real Eleanor was born in 1895 to parents Mary Rigby and Arthur Whitfield. She worked in a hospital in Liverpool, and in 1930 married a man named Thomas Woods. Eleanor lived in Woolton her whole life, and died at the age of 44 in 1939.

"Man, maybe life isn't about finding the perfect lamp, but finding the lamp inside you."

Hot Smoked Salmon

Ok, so I found this on Food 52. Link here.

https://food52.com/recipes/4584-hot-smoked-salmon-soba-and-asian-greens-salad

Here’s what they said about it. Hope you enjoy it.

I got hooked on hot-smoked salmon while living in England. It was sweet and salty, firm and creamy all at the same time. The “hot” here doesn’t mean spice. It’s the temperature at which the smoking process occurs (between 145-150 degrees F), which fully cooks the fish, giving it a light pink silken internal texture a tawny, smoky skin. I concocted this Asian-inspired noodle salad which has a good contrast of flavor, texture and color. 

I’ve learned to hot smoke my own salmon for this recipe using a stovetop smoking contraption involving my wok, a bunch of tin foil and the lid of my lobster pot.

TEST KITCHEN NOTES

Smoking sounds so intimidating and time consuming, right? We're here to tell you it's not. You don't even need a stove top smoker. We lined a wok with foil and set the fish on a round cake rack set above the wood chips. After sealing the wok with more foil, we simply turned on the burner and let it smoke away. (About 8 minutes or so)

The salmon, which is brined before smoking, emerges from the smoker taut and bronzed, infused with five spice powder, salt, sugar and soy sauce. You can also broil or grill the salmon if you want to skip setting up the smoker -- you just won't get that rich woodsy flavor. Then it's up to you to either leave the salmon whole or break it into bits to mix with soba noodles, tatsoi and a kicky ginger dressing.

Ingredients and grocery list

Hot smoked salmon

• 1/2lb fillet of salmon ( I used wild caught sockeye, because the color is lovely.) 
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/3 cup turbinado sugar
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons Chinese Five Spice

Soba noodle salad

• 8 ounces buckwheat soba noodles
• Juice of one lemon
• 4 tablespoons Soy Sauce
• 3 tablespoons Mirin
• 2 teaspoons finely grated ginger
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

1/3 cup warm water. You want this to be somewhat thin as it’s more of a broth 2 cups small tat soi leaves, whole

Directions



Hot smoked salmon

1.   Cut salmon fillet lengthwise in two even pieces.

2.   Combine salt, sugar, say sauce and Chinese five spice with 1 quart of warm water and stir until sugar and salt are dissolved. Let fish sit in this brine for one hour at room temperature. 

3.   Remove fish from brine, dry it completely and place on a rack. Put rack uncovered in the refrigerator for 12 hours.

4.   Using a stove-top smoker, smoke the salmon for about 8 minutes at a temperature in the range of 145-50 degrees. Allow salmon to cool completely. 

Soba noodle salad

1.   Prepare the soba noodles as directed on package. Rinse with cold water.

2.   Whisk together lemon juice, soy sauce, mirin, ginger, sugar and sesame oil. Add water to desired strength. Toss half of the dressing with noodles.

3.   Divide tat soi leaves into bowls and mix with the dressed noodles.

4.   Either leave the salmon whole and set it atop the noodles or break it into bite-sized pieces on top of the salad.

5.   Drizzle the remaining dressing over the completed salad and serve immediately.

I found this. It will take time. But it is so worth it. Please let me know if you do try this at home (or at the office).

Pastila

DOSTOEVSKY LOVED IT. Catherine the Great enjoyed it. Sofia Tolstaya, Tolstoy’s long-suffering wife and assistant, made it. It was once the quintessential Russian dessert: pastila. 

Sweet, fluffy pastila was a classic afternoon tea snack at aristocratic Russian soirees of the 19th century. To make it, apple puree—essentially, applesauce—egg whites, and sugar are leavened with lots and lots of air that’s forced into the mixture with hard whisking. What happens next is improbable but stunning. The earthy apple gloop transforms into a gleaming white cloud, as light and soft as a goose-down comforter.

Staff making it at the Museum of Forgotten Flavors in Kolomna, Russia

Next, this soft cream is gently spread into pans and baked at a low temperature for hours. What results is, for lack of a better description, a pale, caramel-colored marshmallow or meringue that’s exquisitely apple-flavored.

To Darra Goldstein, though, pastila stands apart from both meringue and marshmallow. “Some people have compared it to a marshmallow, but it’s not as chewy and it is not crisp like a meringue,” she explains. “But it has that quality of softness that you get inside some soft meringues.”

Goldstein, one of the foremost experts on Russian cuisine and the founder of Gastronomica magazine, knows what she’s talking about. And she’s been obsessed with pastila for decades. Her many cookbooks include pastila recipes. According to her, pastila is hundreds of years old, though she hesitates to name an exact era of origin.

What she does know is that it started out as fruit leather, sweetened with honey and dried in an oven. The name, she says, comes from the Slavic postel, or bed, likely due to the mixture’s fluffy appearance in the wooden trays used to dry it.

So much more here: bit.ly/3KW5IjV

Pastila The Recipe

• Makes 8-10 slices

Ingredients

• 6 large apples ( if you're outside Russia, Granny Smith makes a good substitution for Antonovka

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar

• 2 egg whites

• Powdered sugar for dusting

Instructions

1.   Preheat your oven to 350º F. wash the apples, and place them into a shallow, oven-safe dish with a ¼ inch of water at the bottom. Then, roast the apples for an hour, or until they’re golden, saggy, and wrinkly.

2.   Remove the apples from the oven, and allow them to cool completely. Scrape the skins and cores until you have a mound of soft, seed-free puree. With a blender, process the puree until smooth.

3.   Put the puree, egg whites, and granulated sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer (or get out your handheld mixer and the largest mixing bowl you have). Whip the apple-sugar-egg mixture for 10 minutes, making sure to scrape down the sides occasionally. 

4.   Now, preheat the oven this time to 180º F or the lowest setting it will go. Line a cookie sheet, including the sides, with parchment paper.

5.   Back at the mixer, the puree will have nearly quadrupled in size after 10 minutes. Stop the machine once you have a bowl filled with gleaming, thick white foam. Scrape the foam into the pan, reserving about a cup and a half and put it in the fridge. 

6.   Spread the remaining foam in the pan evenly, and leave it in the oven for 4 to 6 hours. The pastila needs to be dry to the touch, and solid enough to pick up as one entire sheet without being extremely floppy. If not, return it to the oven. 

7.   Remove the pastila from the oven and allow it to cool completely before peeling away the parchment paper. 

8.   With a knife dipped in hot water, cut the pastila into three identical pieces (you’ll want three rectangles instead of three long strips). Using the reserved puree as glue, stack the three pieces on top of each other, using the puree to patch any holes or fill any pits.

 

9.   Then, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, return the pastila to the oven for an hour and a half. After making sure the layers have all molded together, remove it from the oven and let it cool. 

When the pastila is cool, rub it all over with powdered sugar, and carefully slice down through the layers in inch-long increments (the resulting pieces will look like ladyfingers). The pastila, now ready to be eaten with tea, will keep in a sealed container. 

Notes and Tips

Sour, even underripe apples are the best. This recipe takes a cue from Belyov-style pastila, which is stacked into layers, dried again, and then sliced. But Goldstein recommends simply taking two layers and sandwiching them together with jam.



OK, so I’m like a lot of folks of a certain age. Hip Hop wasn’t MY music.

Gimme The Stones. Lionel Richie. Linda Ronstadt. Billy Joel. Big Momma Thorton. Mississippi John Hurt. Bruce and Queen. Elton and Bowie. The Eagles. Marvin Gaye. Fleetwood Mac and every song Bob Seger ever did. Then I went to work and pretty much stopped staying on top of music.

In fairness, while I was sleeping, Hip Hop became hip (and has been, for millions, for decades.) So, you and I should at least know about the lovely Sylvia Robinson, who instrumental in creating the breakthrough sound with her Sugar Hill Records.

She produced “Rapper’s Delight” introducing Hip Hop to mainstream America. In the process she’s been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There’s a lot to her amazing story.

https://kottke.org/23/08/sylvia-robinson-the-mother-of-hip-hop

Here’s a link and a 2 minute video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owh00ZappTU&t=160s