I have a friend/colleague (frolleague) whose grandfather survived the 1937 school explosion in Texas that killed a bunch of kids and led to the addition of ethyl mercaptan to natural gas. (And now you can add to the list: readers who comment on your Substack with tangential information not directly relevant to the spirit of your post.)
I love that tangential information! And it would dovetail with that discovery in 1938... And my tangent for yours, my friend Mary S is a "flavorist"--she has an excellent sense of taste and works to perfect flavors in candy, ice cream, and vodka (Mary, if you're reading, you can correct me), and one of the ongoing challenges for preserved foods, especially frozen, is the problem of mercaptan--the "rubber bandy" artificial taste that comes with preservatives. I always thought "mercaptan" came from "mer" and "captain", sea-captain, because sulfuring and curing foods for a ship was necessary, but it comes from "mercury" and "capturing" because ethyl and other thiolates bond strongly with mercury. Wow, I'm so boring!
That is FASCINATING (I am not kidding)! I love that I now have a name for "rubber bandy taste," which makes the entire world fall into place around me.
Ours was custom-built and we love the look too much to change how it fits the room, but now it's taking a while to break in the cushions for us. The dogs miss being able to climb on the back of the cushions, but so it goes....
I have a friend/colleague (frolleague) whose grandfather survived the 1937 school explosion in Texas that killed a bunch of kids and led to the addition of ethyl mercaptan to natural gas. (And now you can add to the list: readers who comment on your Substack with tangential information not directly relevant to the spirit of your post.)
I love that tangential information! And it would dovetail with that discovery in 1938... And my tangent for yours, my friend Mary S is a "flavorist"--she has an excellent sense of taste and works to perfect flavors in candy, ice cream, and vodka (Mary, if you're reading, you can correct me), and one of the ongoing challenges for preserved foods, especially frozen, is the problem of mercaptan--the "rubber bandy" artificial taste that comes with preservatives. I always thought "mercaptan" came from "mer" and "captain", sea-captain, because sulfuring and curing foods for a ship was necessary, but it comes from "mercury" and "capturing" because ethyl and other thiolates bond strongly with mercury. Wow, I'm so boring!
That is FASCINATING (I am not kidding)! I love that I now have a name for "rubber bandy taste," which makes the entire world fall into place around me.
And the ridiculous price of having your sofa's seat and back cushions re-done after twenty years.
I am teetering between the re-doing and the buying. I love my beat-up old heap of a sofa, but I think I'm the only one who does....
Ours was custom-built and we love the look too much to change how it fits the room, but now it's taking a while to break in the cushions for us. The dogs miss being able to climb on the back of the cushions, but so it goes....
Ethyl Captain My Captain
I’d add writing report card narratives for 75 high school kids. Worst part of my job (right up there with faculty meetings) but absolutely necessary.