Author Archives: Cris

Clove

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Clove

Cloves add another interesting flavour.

  • Cloves are the unopened and dried flower buds of the clove tree, Syzygium aromaticum, that belongs to the myrtle family, Myrtaceae.
  • Cloves are native to some of the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, and one of the biggest producers of the spice now is Africa’s Pamba Island.
  • Cloves appear to be small nails, and the name comes from Latin ‘clavus’, meaning nail, and they are sometimes used with an orange to make pomanders.
  • Cloves are popularly used as a spice in dishes of meat, curry, marinade and fruit, as well as baked goods, commonly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
  • Cloves contain the chemical eugenol, which produces approximately 85% of the strong flavour.

Clove, Brown, Whole, Ten Random Facts, Bowl, Australia, Spice, Flower bud

  • Cloves have been used in some cigarettes and can be used to repel ants.
  • Cloves and their oil are sometimes used in medicine as a painkiller for toothaches.
  • In the 1600s and 1700s, the Dutch East India Company had a monopoly on the growing and trading of cloves in Indonesia, and in 1770, Pierre Poivre, a French horticulturalist, secretly obtained some seedlings from the spice trees from Indonesia, which he eventually introduced to the islands of Mauritius and Réunion.
  • Cloves are very high in manganese, and they also contain vitamin K and vitamin C, as well as small quantities of other minerals and vitamins.
  • Cloves can be bought ground or whole, and the ground spice loses its flavour quickest.
Bibliography:
Clove, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clove
Cloves, 2014, The World’s Healthiest Foods, http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=69

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Society Garlic

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Society Garlic

Society garlic is not actually garlic.

  • Society garlic is a perennial plant that flowers and grows from a bulbous rhizome, and it is from the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, and the subfamily Allioideae, that was formerly called the Alliceae family (family of onions or alliums).
  • The leaves, flowers and stems of society garlic can be safely used in cuisine, often for garlic-like flavouring, popularly in salads or soups.
  • ‘Society garlic’ is also known as ‘wild garlic’ and is native to southern parts of Africa, and gets its common name for it being the preferred and more ‘polite’ herb for social events among the Dutch settlers there, rather than real garlic.
  • The scientific name of society garlic is ‘Tulbaghia violacea’, named after the mid 1700s governor of the Cape of Good Hope, Ryk Tulbagh, and ‘violacea’ refers to the appearance of the violet-like flowers.
  • Society garlic can grow to be a height of 60 centimetres (24 inches) and has long, thin leaves.

Society Garlic, Flowers, Pink, Onion, Ten Random Facts, Violet, Purple, flower, grass, Australia

  • Society garlic plants typically bloom in late spring, summer and autumn seasons, and have groups of flowers that appear on the top of a long stem.
  • Society garlic flowers are small and star shaped, with six petals and generally appear in shades of purple, most commonly violet.
  • Society garlic is commonly grown for decorative purposes in gardens or pots and has a distinct garlic smell.
  • Society garlic has won the Award of Garden Merit by the Royal Horticultural Society.
  • Society garlic is drought tolerant and generally prefers a sunny position in the garden.
Bibliography:
Tulbaghia violacea – Harv., 2012, Plants for a Future, http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Tulbaghia+violacea
Tulbaghia violacea, 2013, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulbaghia_violacea
Tulbaghia violacea, 2004, Shireen Harris, http://www.plantzafrica.com/planttuv/tulbaghviol.htm

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Sydney Opera House

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Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House – an iconic landmark.

  • The Sydney Opera House is an iconic building that is mainly dedicated to the performing arts.
  • The Sydney Opera House is located in one of Australia’s state capitals, Sydney, in Sydney Harbour, New South Wales.
  • The Sydney Opera House was designed by Jørn Utzon, an architect from Denmark, that was the winning design decided upon in an international design competition in 1957.
  • Every year, the Sydney Opera House holds approximately 1500 performances and sees 8.2 million visitors.
  • On 28 June, 2007, the Sydney Opera House was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and at the time, was the youngest building to be added to the list.

Sydney Opera House, White, Sail, Shell, Performing Arts, Music, Centre, Habour, Ten Random Facts, Australia

Sydney Opera House
Image courtesy of Australia Photos (Flickr)
  • The Sydney Opera House has a design type of modern expressionist, with the notable feature of over a million individual white to cream ceramic tiles across the ten ‘shells’ or ‘sails’.
  • The Sydney Opera House is 65 metres (213 feet) in height and 4.4 acres (1.8 hectares) in area, and is located on land that was previously used as a tram depot and even earlier, as Fort Macquarie.
  • Construction on the Sydney Opera House began in 1959 and cost $102 million to build, which was over 14 times the proposed budget.
  • The idea of having a ‘Sydney Opera House’ was proposed by Eugene Goossens in the 1940s, who was a composer and conductor, and at the time, the director of NSW State Conservatorium of Music.
  • The Sydney Opera House was officially opened on the 20 October, 1973, by Queen Elizabeth II, but the designer, Utzon, was not credited.
Bibliography:
A Danish architect, an Australian icon: the history of the Sydney Opera House, 2013, ABC News, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-21/anthony-burke-on-sydney-opera-house-history/5034028
Sydney Opera House, History and Heritage, 2014, Sydney Opera House, http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/the_building_history_heritage.aspx
Sydney Opera House, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Opera_House

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Gas Cylinder

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Gas Cylinder

No balloon helium without gas cylinders.

  • ‘Gas cylinders’ are also known as ‘gas tanks’ and ‘gas bottles’.
  • Gas cylinders are hollow storage that is made to withstand highly pressurised gas.
  • Gas cylinders are typically made of non-welded and non-corrosive steel or carbon fibre, and often contain composite materials.
  • Depending on the country, gas cylinders must be tested and checked often to ensure the cylinder has not become weak or corroded, as this can be very dangerous.
  • Gas cylinders that contain helium gas have to withhold the highest interior pressure.

Gas cylinder, helium, compressed, balloon, nozzle, brown, Ten Random Facts

  • When storing, gas cylinders should be stored upright and chained down to prevent the cylinder from falling over.
  • Gas cylinders are sometimes colour coded in some countries to indicate the type of gas it may contain, although one should not rely on the colour coding as it is best to always check the label.
  • Animal bladders were used as types of early gas cylinders in the 1700s.
  • Seamless steel pipes were invented in the late 1800s in Germany by two Mannesmann brothers, Max and Reinhard, which were quickly used as gas cylinders, and are similar to today’s versions.
  • The gas contained in a gas cylinder usually exits via a valve at the top of the container.
Bibliography:
An Industry under Pressure, 2005, GAWDA, http://www.weldingandgasestoday.org/index.php/2005/06/an-industry-under-pressure/
Gas cylinder, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_cylinder

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Waterbuck

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Waterbuck

Waterbucks do not buck water.

  • Waterbucks are native to Africa’s sub-Saharan area, and their are two main categories of the animal – ‘ellipsen’, that has a white ring on it’s rear end, and ‘defassa’, which has a white patch instead of the ring.
  • Waterbucks grow to be approximately 1 to 1.3 metres (3.3 to 4.3 feet) in height to the top of their shoulder and weigh 160 to 300 kilograms (350 to 660 pounds).
  • Waterbucks are scientifically known as ‘Kobus ellipsiprymnus’, and are from the family bovid, the family of mammals with unbranched horns, and are one of six species of African antelope.
  • Contrary to popular African belief, the meat of a waterbuck is edible, although it may not be tasty.
  • Only male waterbucks have horns, and they are long and slightly curved, and they grow longer with age.

Cape Waterbuck, Svannah, Alert, Tanzania, Africa, Antelope, Animal, Ten Random Facts, National Geographic

Waterbuck
Image courtesy of National Geographic
  • Waterbucks live in habitats of scrubs and grassy plains, that have much grass and close access to water to fulfill dietary needs.
  • Waterbucks usually live in small herds, in all male groups, all female groups, or mixed groups, although the number of animals in a herd can be quite numerous.
  • Waterbucks may enter bodies of water to hide from predators such as hyenas, lions and leopards, and even though they don’t enter the water much, they are good swimmers.
  • Waterbucks generally live up to an age of 18 years, and the females usually give birth to a single calf each year, which is hidden away for a number of weeks.
  • Waterbucks have an off-putting odour that comes from their sweat glands, that deters prey and affects the flavour of their meat.
 Bibliography:
Huffman B, Waterbuck, 2004, Ultimate Ungulate, http://www.ultimateungulate.com/Artiodactyla/Kobus_ellipsiprymnus.html
Waterbuck, 2013, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterbuck

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Shirley Temple

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Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple: a very young star of the depression era.

  • Shirley Temple, born on 23 April, 1928, in Santa Monica, in the USA’s California, was a juvenile actress from three years old.
  • Shirley Temple married first in 1945 to John Agar, had a daughter, and divorced a few years later, and remarried in 1950 to Charles Black whom she was married to for 54 years until he died, the marriage of which produced a daughter and a son.
  • Shirley Temple was the ‘world’s number one box-office star’ for four years in a row; the first juvenile actress to win an Oscar (Juvenile Oscar), an award she received in 1935 for ‘outstanding contributions to screen entertainment’; and she also won other notable awards.
  • Shirley Temple is known for her star role in the film ‘The Little Princess’, in 1939, which was her first Technicolour movie, and she featured in at least 40 films in her 19 years as an actress.
  • Shirley Temple retired from acting in 1950 after starring in a number of consecutive low profit films, and after losing an acting spot in ‘Peter Pan’.

Young, juvenile actress, Black and White, Shirley Temple Black, Kid, Ten Random Facts, Flickr

Young Temple
Image courtesy of Gushi Soda/Flickr
  • Shirley Temple ventured into the political industry in 1967, and was the first Chief of Protocol of the United States to be female in gender, from 1976 to 1977.
  • Shirley Temple was one of the first famous women to announce their breast cancer to the public, being diagnosed in 1972 and announced in 1973.
  • Shirley Temple died from natural causes on 10 February, 2014, in California, at 85 years of age.
  • As an adult, Shirley Temple became a diplomat, which included work as a United States ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia.
  • As an actress, Shirley Temple generally worked for 20th Century Fox, as well as Universal, Paramount and Warner Bros studios.
Bibliography:
Shirley Temple, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Temple
Brumfield B, Famed former child actress Shirley Temple dies, 2014, CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/11/showbiz/hollywood-shirley-temple-death/
Shirley Temple: the superstar who had her childhood destroyed by Hollywood, 2008, Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-560626/Shirley-Temple-superstar-childhood-destroyed-Hollywood.html

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