51吃瓜

Gator snappers are surprisingly large turtles, with wild adult males capable of achieving weights of more than 200 pounds …. The carapace, or top shell, can be up to about 30 inches in length, and by the time one were to measure the head, neck, carapace and tail, the total length can approach a whopping 60 inches. However, most adults are quite a bit smaller with the average carapace length of only 24 inches.

Most fish, from minnows to sharks, have pliant bodies, which they undulate to move through the water. But boxfish sport a set of hard, bony plates, called a carapace. The carapace acts like a suit of armor鈥攑rotecting them against predators, but restricting their flexibility 鈥�. It also gives them their strange shapes: other boxfish species look like purses, Frisbees or ottomans.

Technically, tea comes from the evergreen plant Camellia sinensis. Oxidation transforms the flavor and color of the leaves to produce black tea, whereas green tea leaves remain relatively unprocessed. A drink produced by steeping herbs or flowers in boiling water should, strictly speaking, be called an infusion or tisane. But most of us still call these teas.

Chinese green tea first arrived in North Africa in 1854 when British ships en route to Baltic ports were forced to dock in Tangier, Morocco because of the Crimean War. “There were amazing salespeople on this ship, and they convinced the Moroccans to add 鈥� green tea to their mint tisanes .鈥� Then it became a huge tradition,” says [author of The World in Your Teacup, Lisa Boalt] Richardson.

The musical activity didn鈥檛 congeal and spread to other cities until the folk revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. These hootenannies or hoots exemplified the values and practices of the folk movement. Later, hootenannies often coincided and helped energize political and countercultural events of the 60s …. Hoots could go on for hours and much like hoedowns often included other culturally expressively [sic] rituals, such as dancing, eating, and other community integrative activities.

My to-do list has 300 items, but when my editor asked if I鈥檇 like to drink whiskey and write about it for The Wall Street Journal, I figured I could definitely add that to the list. After I learned the whiskey was named Yippee Ki-Yay, I asked if she could get it to me by Saturday because I knew I was heading to our monthly hoot. (That鈥檚 short for hootenanny, I guess I should explain.) At the hoot we play and sing old country tunes鈥攖wo-, three-chord songs almost exclusively.