Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Measuring up


The hotter the weather, the more time I spend cooking. If you can stand the heat, stay in the kitchen! That is my philosophy and explains how I got up to my neck in this book on Leonard Pennario.

I was thinking as I sliced and diced how it is funny how the metric system never quite caught on. I remember that in the '70s we were taught in school that it was going to be here, there was no fighting it.

But oh, we got the last laugh!

We Americans picked and chose. There were a couple of measurements we liked that were convenient and we tossed the rest out.

There is the two-liter bottle.

And the 5K race.


The milligrams of things like fat and vitamins. Also the 750 ml wine bottle. We were kind of stuck with that because so many wines come from Europe and other places outside our country.

No one ever uses deca-anything. You never hear of decagrams.

However we did adopt the Pajamagram.

And the Gorillagram.

So it is not as if the metric system has been completely useless.

But other than that we stick with our cups and teaspoons and our foot which is the size of some ancient English king's foot. Also a measurement I love, the mile. It is 5,280 feet. That is an arbitrary number I adore.

What is your favorite measurement? That is something to think about.

I have mine.


Want to guess what it is?



Guess....

Guess....

Guess...

Guess...

Give up??

It is the jigger!


Tonight I will have a jigger of something.

It is shaping into that kind of a day!

2 comments:

Yours til Niagara Falls said...

My favorite measurement is a peck. As in "You eat a peck of dirt before you die". When I say that in front of my students, I am rewarded with a blank stare.

Larry said...

I feel that they are all pretty much meaningless in the grand scheme of things.