DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

    The Kaapse Klopse  is a minstrel festival that takes place annually on January 2nd, in Cape Town, South Africa.  Up to 13,000 minstrels, many in blackface, take to the streets garbed in bright colors, either carrying colorful umbrellas or playing an array of musical instruments.  The minstrels are grouped in  klopse  ("clubs" in Cape Dutch, but more accurately translated as troupes in English).  Participants are typically from Afrikaans-speaking working class  "colored"  families who have preserved the custom since the mid 19th century.    Although it is called the  Coon Carnival  by Capetonians, local authorities have renamed the festival the  Cape Town Minstrel Carnival  as foreign tourist find the term  "coon"  derogatory. History    One story goes that the carnival was inspired by a group of African-American minstrels who docked in Cape Town in the late 1800's and entertained the sailors with their spontaneous musical perform

5. Eastern State Penitentiary's Badass Haunted House    First, let's talk about the Halloween staple, the haunted house. Unless you're 12, you probably can't remember the last time you were actually scared at one of these. Sure, you might have been  startled  at one, when the guy with the hockey mask and toy chainsaw jumped out at you. But not  scared . You're far too old and jaded to ever go running home to mommy because of some big building with cheesy horror decorations taped to the walls.    Now allow Pennsylvania to prove you wrong with Terror Behind the Walls. It's a Halloween attraction (talk about stretching a term) set in Eastern State Penitentiary, a  bona fide haunted  prison complex . Once you enter, you can never leave (except through the gift shop).    Built in 1829, the ESP had a reputation as a pretty nightmarish place when it was operational -- a visiting Charles Dickens described it as "worse than any tor

   Here's another terrific recipe from saveur magazine  .  One of the best desserts to originate from France. Chocolate Mousse The ultimate of all of the French desserts to take hold of the American culinary imagination might be chocolate mousse. The simple yet sophisticated, airy yet intense concoction has been a hit with home cooks in America at least since the  New York Times published its first recipe for the dessert in 1955. Suddenly, it seemed that every hostess was beating egg whites to perfection, folding them into melted chocolate, and chilling the mixture in crystal bowls for dinner parties. But the dish isn't reserved for the home—it was, and remains, a mainstay at restaurants, the foolproof finale to an elegant meal. SERVES 4 INGREDIENTS 1 ⅔ cups heavy cream 2 tsp. vanilla extract ½ tsp. kosher salt 4 egg whites ½ cup sugar 6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled Chocolate shavings, to garnish INSTRUCTIONS In a large bo

   Christmas day – the day on which the birth of Christ is celebrated (and has been for millennia). All around the world people will be sitting down to special meals, giving gifts, singing, drinking and attending religious services. In honor of this great holiday (my favorite, in fact), we have a list of Christmas facts.  10. The Date    In the early Church, Christmas was not celebrated as a major feast. The first evidence of the Church attempting to put a date on the day of Christ’s birth comes from 200 AD, when theologians in Alexandria decided it was the 20th of May. By the 380s, the Church in Rome was attempting to unite the various regions in using December 25th as the universal feast day, and eventually that is the day that stuck. As so often was the case in the early Church, the influence of the pagan feasts of Rome is seen, because December 25 was the festival for the birth of the sun. St Cyprian makes mention of this: “O, how wonderfully acted Pro