Tuesday Tidbits: CRANBERRY DELIGHT

Each year I can’t wait for this time of year for many reasons. One of them is the stores have fresh cranberries to make one of my favorite treats. What are they, you ask?

Chocolate Covered Cranberries

Oh, my goodness! I can’t stop myself from shoving one after another into my mouth. I love the snap of the cranberry when I bite into it. Snap! Snap! Snap! The mix of the sweet with the tart is a wonderful combination.

As I was washing the cranberries this year, the image of the men standing in waist-high water with floating cranberries came to mind. Then I had to ask. “Why do they float cranberries?” Here is what I found.

Cranberries are ready to be harvested after the first frost, September through early November. The special beds they are grown in are flooded with water six to eight inches above the vines. A machine called a harvester is driven through the beds, careful not to damage the plants. It plucks the berries from the vines, which float to the top. Then they are corralled to a corner where they are pumped or conveyed from the beds. This is called wet-picking.

But these aren’t the fresh cranberries sold in stores this time of year. This process can bruise the fruit, so they are immediately processed or frozen.

The cranberries available in bags in stores are harvested by dry-picking, less bruising means they can be sold as fresh. This process is slower and more expensive. Only about five-to-ten percent of the US crop is dry-picked.

So the ones I use for my treat are dry-picked. They are super easy to make with only two ingredients. The hardest part is waiting for the cranberries to thoroughly dry after washing them.

Step 1: Wash cranberries

Step 2: Allow them to dry completely. If they aren’t completely dry, the chocolate turns weird and lumpy. Then it needs to be pitched and start with new chocolate. This year, I washed them and laid them out on a towel to dry completely. Then I put them in a bowl in the refrigerator overnight, because I didn’t have time to make them by then. The next morning, I laid them out on the towel again to reach room temperature and for any condensation to dry.

Step 3: Melt chocolate according to package directions. Pretty much any kind of candy coating chocolate will work.

Step 4: Coat a handful of cranberries at a time in the pot of melted chocolate and put them on wax paper to cool.

I usually use tongs to pick them out of the pot and put them on the wax paper. This year, my time was limited, so I scooped them out with a spoon and tried my best to separate them on the wax paper. Much faster. It worked well enough. They weren’t as pretty, but still oh so delicious.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

The cranberries can be coated with milk chocolate, white chocolate, or even dark chocolate. My favorite is white chocolate.

Mmm Mmm Snappy Good!

***COMING FEBRUARY 2022!***

MRS. WITHERSPOON GOES TO WAR (Heroines of WWII series)

A WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) flies a secret mission to rescue three soldiers held captive in Cuba.

Margaret “Peggy” Witherspoon is a thirty-four-year-old widow, mother of two daughters, an excellent pilot, and very patriotic. She joins the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). As she performs various tasks like ferry aircraft, transporting cargo, and being an airplane mechanic, she meets and develops feelings for her supervisor Army Air Corp Major Howie Berg. When Peggy learns of U.S. soldiers being held captive in Cuba, she, Major Berg, and two fellow WASPs devise an unsanctioned mission to rescue them. With Cuba being an ally in the war, they must be careful not to ignite an international incident.

  Pre-Order HERE!

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle Book 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3) is a Selah Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; The Widow’s Plight, The Daughter's Predicament, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , Prodigal Daughters Amish series, "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of thirty-seven years and one cat. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:

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Tuesday Tidbits: WORDS, WORDS, WORDS: The Birth of the Dictionary

...and the Passion of Lexicographers.

In elementary school, when I couldn’t spell a word (which happened a lot having an undiagnosed learning disability) I would ask the teacher for help. The answer I would always get was, “Look it up in the dictionary.” This would frustrate me to no end. If I could spell it, then I could look it up. But since I couldn’t spell it, I couldn’t look it up to figure out how to spell it so I could look it up. I would return to my desk defeated.
 

Why am I telling you this? Because there was a time when teachers weren’t able to give you the impossible task of looking up something you didn’t know how to spell.

The earliest known dictionaries date back to 2300 BC. These were uniform tablets consisting of word lists from one language to another.

Through the centuries and across numerous countries, other dictionaries were created. Many not more than these word lists and glossaries, and all contained only a small portion of words from the culture.
 

One of the first to include definitions and etymologies came out of Ireland in the 9th century, consisting of 1,400 Irish words.
 

There had been "hard word" dictionaries for a few hundred years. A "hard word" dictionary was a compilation of words people might not know, leaving out all common words. But just who determined which words most people wouldn’t know?
 

Though various cultures have had their own version of dictionaries, I want to focus on English ones or we'll be here all day. The first English dictionaries were glossaries of French, Spanish, and Latin words with explanations of their meanings. In 1220, John of Garland, an Englishman, invented the word “dictionary.” Richard Mulcaster, in 1582, created the Elementarie, an early non-alphabetical list of 8,000 English words. (How would you ever find the word you want if it wasn’t alphabetical? Dictionaries are cumbersome enough without throwing the words in at random. In truth, they were mostly by topic.)
 

In 1604, Robert Cawdrey, an English schoolteacher, created A Table Alphabeticall, the first Alphabetical dictionary. (Thank you, Cawdrey.) Though considered the standard by which other dictionaries imitated, it was unreliable and not definitive.

Throughout the 1600s, various dictionaries were published by people who felt what their predecessors created wasn’t good enough. Everyone tried to improve on what was out there, but no one really did. Because there was no single, definitive source, sometimes in old documents and writings, words would be spelled different ways.
 

The first “modern” dictionary, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) by Samuel Johnson, was more reliable than earlier forerunners of dictionaries. For over 150 years, Johnson’s dictionary was the standard in England.
 

 

Meanwhile across the Atlantic Ocean, American Noah Webster published his first dictionary in 1806, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language.
 

 

But Webster didn’t stop there. He began compiling a new version, expanded and fully comprehensive, in 1807 called An American Dictionary of the English Language. This took him twenty-seven years to complete. In order to evaluate the etymology of words, he learned twenty-six languages, including French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, German, Italian, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic, and Old English (Anglo-Saxon). (That is dedication.)
 

Webster's dictionary contained 70,000 words, 12,000 of which had never appeared in any dictionary before. It was Webster who changed many words from the British spelling to something simpler. For instance, he removed the “u” from such words as colour and honour making them color and honor, changing the “re” and the end of some words like theatre and centre making them theater and center, and waggon to wagon. He also added American words like skunk and squash that weren’t in British dictionaries. In 1840, a two-volume second edition was published. In 1843, his dictionary was acquired by G & C Merriam Co and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary was born.
 

 

For some time, British academics wanted a definitive collection of ALL the words in use with spelling and definitions, but they didn’t have anyone willing to tackle the humongous task. A committee (formed in 1857) was seeking a person to undertake and oversee the endeavor of creating a comprehensive, single-source for words. Different people were in charge of the project, but none made significant progress until James Murray came along in the 1870s.
 

 

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) didn’t happen overnight. It took nearly fifty years to complete, and encompassed twelve large volumes, which were released as they were finished. The first volume of The Oxford English Dictionary was published in 1884. The OED was completed in 1928.

Today, most people consider the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and The Oxford English Dictionary to be the definitive sources on English words.
 

I can’t imagine the undertaking it was to create a credible dictionary. I’m glad I didn’t have to complete such a task.

 

THE QUILTING CIRCLE

Historical Romance Series

By Mary Davis

THE WIDOW’S PLIGHT (Book1) – Will a secret clouding a single mother’s past cost Lily the man she loves?

THE DAUGHTER’S PREDICAMENT (Book2) *2020 Selah Awards Finalist & WRMA Finalist* – As Isabelle’s romance prospects are turning in her favor, a family scandal derails her dreams.

THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (Book3) *2021 Selah Awards Winner & WRMA Finalist*– Nicole heads down the mountain to fetch herself a husband. Can she learn to be enough of a lady to snag the handsome rancher?

THE DÉBUTANTE’S SECRET (Book4) –Complications arise when a fancy French lady, Geneviève, steps off the train and into Deputy Montana’s arms.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q6L5QT1?searchxofy=true&binding=kindle_edition&qid=1634872128&sr=1-1

***COMING FEBRUARY 2022!***

MRS. WITHERSPOON GOES TO WAR (Heroines of WWII series)

A WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) flies a secret mission to rescue three soldiers held captive in Cuba.

Margaret “Peggy” Witherspoon is a thirty-four-year-old widow, mother of two daughters, an excellent pilot, and very patriotic. She joins the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). As she performs various tasks like ferry aircraft, transporting cargo, and being an airplane mechanic, she meets and develops feelings for her supervisor Army Air Corp Major Howie Berg. When Peggy learns of U.S. soldiers being held captive in Cuba, she, Major Berg, and two fellow WASPs devise an unsanctioned mission to rescue them. With Cuba being an ally in the war, they must be careful not to ignite an international incident.

  Pre-Order HERE!

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle Book 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3) is a Selah Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; The Widow’s Plight, The Daughter's Predicament, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , Prodigal Daughters Amish series, "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of thirty-seven years and one cat. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:

Newsletter  Blog   FB  FB Readers Group   Amazon   GoodReads   BookBub