NICKNAME TRIVIA: Back in 4th or 5th grade, the kids in my class had a nickname for Volkswagen Beetles: “nope-a-diddles”. I never found out where that name came from or just what it meant. Was that a widespread thing, or was it limited to my part of Jersey? I couldn’t seem to find any reference to that name on the big search engines.

I myself never had a Beetle, don’t remember even riding in one. That was one part of the 60’s and 70’s that just passed me right on by. But I do remember kids in the back of a schoolbus yelling out “NOPE-A-DIDDLE” whenever a Beetle passed by. And back then, that was just about every minute!

HOT RECIPE ADVICE: I was looking for something new and interesting to cook the other day, so I opened a recipe book and found something called “mulligatawny soup”. It’s basically a spicy lentil soup heated up with cayenne pepper flakes; not bad. Interestingly enough, one of the main spices in it is turmeric. I had some old powdered turmeric lying around; I hardly ever use it because of its bland, earthy taste. But I read the other day that turmeric may help to prevent colon cancer, as it helps to reduce inflammation down in the body’s sewer system. Perhaps that helps to explain the odd combination of pepper flakes and turmeric in the recipe; pepper is obviously an irritant, and perhaps the turmeric helps to counter it. That won’t be the first time that a food recipe has deep but unspoken wisdom behind it. The folk who invented mulligatawny soup probably didn’t have access to medical research regarding turmeric; my guess it that over time, the cooks and the consumers of the soup just felt better with it in there, and so turmeric became a traditional ingredient.

(HOWEVER: I did check out some other recipes on the net, and a lot of them didn’t have turmeric … still, it is a traditional Indian condiment, often used in curries).

The next time I’m cooking something hot and spicy like three-alarm chili (vegetarian, of course), I think I’ll add a tablespoon or two of turmeric. The chili probably won’t taste any better or worse, but it might get thru my system a little easier. And at my age, easy is good.