I was going to talk about flavor because I’ve been reading about the chemistry of food. But I can’t actually work up a post about the chemistry of food that I can imagine anyone wanting to read.

So instead of a post, some factoids:

Tomatoes are technically a fruit. More specifically, they’re a big berry. Other fruits used as vegetables? Eggplant, squash, cucumbers (which are melons) beans, peas, avocados and my favorite, hot and mild chili peppers.

Tomatoes are legally a vegetable. In 1893, the United States Supreme Court ruled the tomato was a “vegetable” and therefore subject to import taxes. Catsup is, for school lunch purposes, also a vegetable. But rhubarb, which is a vegetable, was legally declared a fruit by a U.S. Customs Court in 1947.

Mushrooms and seaweeds are concentrated natural sources of monosodium glutamate. Glutamates are the reason that mushrooms taste ‘meaty’. Tomatoes (back to tomatoes) also have glutamic acid in them. That’s why meat, tomato sauce and mushrooms go so well together. I wonder, do people who have trouble with MSG in Chinese food also have trouble with mushrooms?

The things that you buy in the grocery store at Thanksgiving time for candied yams are not, in fact, yams. They’re sweet potatoes. Yams occasionally show up in the U.S. but since they can grow to as large as 100 lbs., which would mean a lot of leftovers, aren’t a big seller.

Lobsters are distantly related to cockroaches, and are about as smart. So boiling them alive isn’t as awful as it would be.

Turkeys (and all birds) can easily be described as modern day dinosaurs. Which, along with a 100 lb yam, makes Thanksgiving into an entirely more interesting holiday.

Before the 17^th century, carrots were purple, white or yellow. Dutch gardeners cultivated orange carrots in honor of the royal house, the house of Orange.

13 Clubs. 1968. I was in junior high in Hawaii, spending as much time underwater as I could and reading A Wizard of Earthsea and Stranger In A Strange Land when I wasn’t.

13 Diamonds. 1981 Houston, working in the Oil Patch. Have been a “professional” writer for over a year but it was still just the one story. I have my first computer, a Heath-Zenith H-89.

13 Hearts. 1994. Appropriately for Hearts–married with one child in Greenwich Village. Have published two one book. (Misremembered.)

13 Spades. 2007. Albuquerque. More books. A movie under production. A teenage daughter. Able to work at home!

52 is not a prime number. As one can clearly see, it’s divisible by 4 and 13. But 53…

Next year I’ll be in my prime.

Writers: Sir Thomas More, Charles Dickens, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Sinclair Lewis, and Gay Talese

Others: Buster Crabbe, James Spader, Eddie Izzard, Emo Phillips, and Chris Rock

Notable Events:

On this day in 1898 Émile Zola is brought to trial for libel for publishing J’Accuse.

In 1964, the Beatles arrive on their first visit to the United States.

1979: Pluto moves inside Neptune’s orbit for the first time since either was known to science.