Kennedy’s Waffles

For no reason, here’s a recipe for waffles that John Kennedy ate in the White House, “his breakfast treat for special occasions”:

1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 egg yolks
1 cup and 1 tablespoon sifted cake flour
7/8 cup milk or 1 cup buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten
4 teaspoons baking powder

Cream the sugar and butter. Add the egg yolks and beat. Then add the flour and milk alternately. This mixture may be kept in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it. When you are ready to bake it, fold in the egg whites, and add the baking powder and salt. Bake on a waffle iron. Serves 3.

“President Kennedy liked melted butter and maple syrup on his waffles.”

From White House chef François Rysavy’s 1972 collection A Treasury of White House Cooking.

Misc

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joliet_Illinois_Skyline.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

An Irish riddle: Yonder he is through the stream, a man without a coat, a man without a belt, a man of hard slender legs, it is my woe that I cannot run. Death.

Shipshape

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cmglee_Cambridge_Trinity_College_punt_names.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

These are the punts of Trinity College, Cambridge, moored on the River Cam. What is the significance of their names?

Click for Answer

Misc

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_Johnson_EMWEA.jpg

  • Dante’s 1305 essay “De vulgari eloquentia” contains a 27-letter word, sovramagnificentissimamente, “supermagnificently.”
  • Life Savers candies were invented by Hart Crane’s father.
  •  2746 = 2 + \sqrt{7\sqrt{4}}^{6} (Colin Rose)
  • RETROSUSCEPTION is an anagram of COUNTERRIPOSTES.
  • “Of all the reciprocals of integers, the one that I best like is 1/0 for it is a titan amongst midgets.” — Sam Linial

Lord David Cecil called Samuel Johnson “an outstanding example of the charm that comes from an unexpected combination of qualities. In general, odd people are not sensible and sensible people are not odd. Johnson was both and often both at the same time.”

Traffic

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gustave_camille_gaston_cariot_pont_neuf_laurore_122559).jpg

Remarked by Robert Southey in 1850:

“If you wait half an hour on the Pont Neuf, it was said, you were sure to see an Abbé, a Benedictin, a Genovesin, a Capuchin, a Knight of St. Louis, a French Guardsman, a woman of the town, and a white horse cross during that time. This has been often tried and verified.”

Misc

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sitta_villosa1.jpg

  • NUTHATCH and UNTHATCH are nearly the same word.
  • Vladivostok is farther south than Venice.
  • Thackeray called George IV’s prose style “lax, maudlin slipslop.”
  • dollop reads the same upside down.
  • “I shall stipulate that I will only go into Heaven on condition that I am never in a room with more than ten people.” — Edward Lear