Brian in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reports hearing an older person talk about getting the receipt for a dish, using the word receipt in the same way that others might use the word recipe. The use of receipt as a synonym for recipe, as in “a set of...
A listener in San Antonio, Texas, has fond memories of chocolate gravy over biscuits, the word gravy in this sense having nothing to do with a meat-based sauce. Grant shares his mother’s own recipe, which she calls cocoa gravy. This is part of...
Gifts for book lovers: Martha recommends one for lovers of libraries and another for students of Spanish. Grant suggests some enchanting novels for young readers. When it comes to books, though, you can’t always judge them by their original...
Since the 1930’s, a traditional Cobb salad has included hard-boiled eggs, avocado, bacon, chicken, blue cheese and tomatoes. The recipe is often credited to a restaurateur named Bob Cobb. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Preheat, as in preheat the oven, doesn’t mean “heat before heating.” It’s a single word with a concrete idea, akin to “prepay.” It’s perfectly acceptable to use. This is part of a complete episode...
What the fox says may be a mystery, but we do know that dogs bark differently around the world. In China, for example, they say not bow-wow but wang wang. Also, the story behind the British tradition of scrumping. It’s not a middle school...

