Today Is... 📆

[GregRedd]

Good morning!

It’s Sunday, 21 February 2021 (W7/D52/313 rem)

Today is World Whale Day

We’ve got back to back world animal days. Today it’s the turn of the giants of the ocean that are celebrated on World Whale Day, which aims to raise awareness of these magnificent creatures.

The annual holiday was founded in Maui, Hawaii, in 1980, to honour humpback whales, which swim off its coast. It’s the main showcase of the Maui Whale Festival.

Every year (but perhaps not this one so much ), crowds flock to the island to join in the free all-day event, organised by the Pacific Whale Foundation. The fun starts with a parade including floats, costumed characters and children’s events, plus music from Hawaiian and international stars.

However, you don’t have to visit Maui to mark this special day. Whales need support from wildlife lovers everywhere to meet conservation threats such as loss of habitat and pollution, so a perfect way to celebrate the day would be to take part in a fundraising event wherever you live.

Some of the most fascinating creatures live in our big blue oceans. Whether the mammoth blue whale or the enchanting narwhal, whales create mystery wherever they go. For centuries they’ve been hunted for their meat and oil, but today they face pollution and loss of habitat.

World Whale Day raises awareness of the growing need to protect these diverse and majestic mammals.

While whales belong to the cetaceans order, there are two suborders – baleen and toothed. Bristles replace the teeth on baleen whales. Made of keratin, the bristles act as a filter collecting krill and other small invertebrates from the sea.

World Whale Day reminds us of the challenges faced not only by whales, but in oceans across the globe in general.

Learn more about whales on World Whale Day. Dispose of your waste properly and recycle when possible. Watch videos of whales breaching (and share your favourites here!) Use #WorldWhaleDay to share them on social media.

And have yourself a whale of a wonderful Sunday!

[Beo]

I got a whale in my house

[GregRedd]

Good morning!

It’s Monday, 22 February 2021 (W8/D53/312 rem)

Today is Single Tasking Day

We all know about multitasking, but today is all about the opposite - the beauty, the simplicity, the focus of doing just one task at a time. Importantly, it’s also about finding the joy in giving our attention to a single thing and appreciating that thing fully. It’s Single Tasking Day!

Single tasking is about creating a more minimalist lifestyle with more thought behind each action. It’s a deliberate attempt to declutter our actions, habits and daily routines in much the same way as we do our desks and our kitchen cupboards.

Today all we hear is the lauding of multitasking, and how getting as much done in as many areas as we can in one day. This often leads to a pile of half-finished tasks, or ones that are complete but have been finished in a less than optimal form. Single Tasking Day encourages us to take a break from multitasking, and to rather focus on getting one task done at a time, to the best of our ability.

Single Tasking Day arose in response to the preponderance of multitasking habits existing in today’s society. The dangers of multitasking have been well documented, and have repeatedly shown to cause our work to be sub-par and to leave us even more exhausted while having accomplished far less than we could have if we had just focus on one task.

There’s something about focusing in and cutting out all other distractions that has the power to let us perform at our very best.

Single Tasking doesn’t mean just doing one thing and having it done, and going about our day. It means that we take one task, and break it down into its parts, and completing each one thoroughly and with pure attention to detail. It’s even possible, if you’re having a particularly productive Single Tasking Day, to complete more tasks than when you multitask. The trick is to do them one at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed or lost in the details. Don’t let the pressure to multitask impact you doing your very best. Instead, take it all one step at a time, and complete that task to the best of your ability.

Set 20 minutes on the Pomodoro clock, and have a super productive and focused Monday!

[Beo]

Aah… my kinda day.

If Pomodoro doesn’t work for you, try Eat The Frog, or an Eisenhower Matrix.

[murfle]

I think I’m going to do a single task of getting myself a coffee!

[GregRedd]

Good morning!

It’s Tuesday, 23 February 2021 (W8/D54/311 rem)

Today is Banana Bread Day

I’ve avoided food celebrations for a week or two now, but it is time to get eating again! It’s Banana Bread Day.

Bakers know that to make sweet and delicious banana bread, they need to use fully ripe, mashed bananas. The resulting quick bread is moist and almost cake-like. And while some recipes call for yeast, most don’t. Either way, the finished product makes a tasty sliced snack. Toast it and add butter for an even more satisfying treat!

In the 1930s, baking soda and baking powder made banana bread and other quick breads standard features in American cookbooks. Pillsbury’s included banana bread recipes in its 1933 Balanced Recipes cookbook, too. The release of Chiquita Banana’s Recipe Book in 1950 further secured the banana bread’s acceptance.

Surprisingly, bananas first made their appearance in the United States in 1870. For a long time, Americans saw the tropical fruit as merely that – a fruit, not an ingredient. It would take a few decades before they started seeing the banana’s potential.

One early recipe came from The Vienna Model Bakery. It advertised banana bread as something new in the April 21, 1893, edition of St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A new restaurant/bakery chain owned by Gaff, Fleischmann & Company, The Viena Model Bakery was known for its baked goods and was likely one of the first to produce banana bread in the United States. The recipe was made with banana flour, made by drying strips of the fruit, then grinding it to a powder. This process had long been used in the West Indies.

In Hawaii during World War I, a surplus of bananas resulted from very few ships available to export the fruit. To prevent waste, alternative uses for bananas were developed. For example, bakeries started incorporating the fruit into their bread.

Cultural historians suggest that resourceful and creative housewives of the era created the recipe as a way of not wasting over-ripe bananas. In fact, the riper the bananas, the better the taste of the banana bread, so it ended up being a very clever creation! It is traditionally known as a “quick bread”, but is actually more like a cake in both texture and flavor.

Extremely easy to make, banana bread is still a favorite way to quickly bake up a special treat for the family. Modern-day bread also include the addition of chocolate chips, nuts, or even dried fruit. Why not experiment and come up with a bespoke banana bread recipe that everyone will love?

Mash up your over ripe bananas, and get to baking!

[murfle]

Bananas never last long enough in my kitchen for me to have overripe ones. I’ve only got whole wheat flour at the moment too. Maybe I can use some ghost peppers, which kinda look like banana peppers and make a loaf

[Beo]

If only I had some banananas.

[Wyvern]

Dankie ma nee dankie

bananas = gross

[Beo]

@Wyvern

bananas = gross

totally agree… though I do love 'em fried, and made into bread. I lurve Vidas toasted banana bread. But I cannot eat them neat.

[GregRedd]

@Wyvern

bananas = gross

What’s is it about them that makes them “gross”? I know one or two people who just don’t like the taste of bananas, but they aren’t grossed out by them.

[Wyvern]

No banana - even the smell of it makes me naar.

I stay away from it

@GregRedd

What’s is it about them that makes them “gross”?

Its the smell, the texture the mush the everything.

Its the same why I cannot handle avo’s that texture is really not for me.

[murfle]

I can understand that. I personally like 'em raw, but not cooked. Banana bread is fine, or bananas sliced on toast, but anything else, no way.

And anything banana flavoured can go straight to the trash. I think it stems back to the time as a kid I had to take liquid penicillin which was banana flavoured.

[murfle]

@Wyvern

cannot handle avo

Don’t get me started.

[GregRedd]

OMG! Avo is awesome!

Now I’m going to have to find out when Guacamole Appreciation Day is, and will be sure to tag you both in all of the recipes I can find.

[Wyvern]

Dude Its the same with seafood, I can make you amazing seafood dishes but I wont eat it, I do refuse to work with avo and banana

[Beo]

@murfle

And anything banana flavoured can go straight to the trash

Yeah totally, don’t give me a banana shake for example. That’s just plain giff.

[DarthMol]

Ah yes, still one of my favourites!

[murfle]

If you do, I’ll try those recipes, then send pics of the aftermath in my bathroom.

Even though I hate the texture, my old boss gave me 3 avos. I know they’re a superfood, and trying to eat healthy, I ate half an avo and eggs on toast. I didn’t mind it too much. I spent the next day and a half between bed and bathroom. I wreaked havoc on my digestive system.

A year or so later, my parents were visiting, and we went to Roco Mamma’s. I ordered the chicken burger they had on special, but I told them not to put the avo on. The waitress was new and didn’t really listen. I knew the junior manager, so I called him over, told him to make it again, as avo makes me violently ill. They essentially scraped it off, fried it again, put triple sauce on and a new bun. Spent another 1.5 days sick.

At least the three of us got a free meal, so I ordered the rib/wings combo and a shake. Not worth it, but the combo was pretty good.

[GregRedd]

I knew you were a man of culture and taste.

o7