The funny thing about pumpkin spice "everything" is that pumpkin isn't even an ingredient!
BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: Fall has always been Red's favorite season. Growing up in New York, it meant chilly mornings, the start of earlier evenings, the brilliance of fall foliage, and mounds of leaves (first you rake, then you jump in). And the first hot chocolates of the season. But nowadays, it seems that pumpkin spice latte is the fall beverage, and "all things pumpkin spice" (not just food products) have become synonymous with fall.
Black, on the other hand, wonders if fall is still a season or has it been turned into a marketing campaign? And how does "pumpkin spice" (a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice – but no pumpkin) become a $500 million annual business? Starbucks and the fascinating history of its pumpkin spice lattes, aka PSL(that almost didn't happen), have led to a wide assortment of pumpkin spice products that sell us the smells and tastes and memories of fall. Pumpkin spice air freshener, anyone?
Labor Day celebrates the American worker. However you may celebrate, we wish you a Happy Labor Day!
Quick! If someone says "Julius Caesar," what comes to mind?
Almost everyone has heard of Julius Caesar, but how many of us really know much about him, or at least that's what Red starts to wonder when she receives the usual flippant, but still accurate, reply from her sister, after feeling very proud that she knew that July was named after the famous Roman.
Which is what got Red to realize, much to her surprise (shock, if truth be told), that even as a straight-A student with a love of history, that when it came to Julius Caesar, a famous historical figure and possibly one of the greatest generals and statesmen of all time, she couldn't tell you dates or battles or anything "historical" associated with him.
Even as a theater major in college, she never read Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," although she knew just enough about the play to know that it was where the fortune teller warned Caesar to "Beware the Ides of March." Instead, her knowledge of Caesar came from her love of movies.
My first, and probably my most enduring, memory is of a brilliant general who not only commanded armies as he conquered lands far from home but was a great statesman who was also involved with one of the world's most beautiful women. And while he was Julius Caesar and the woman was Cleopatra, to me, they'll always be Rex Harrison and Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, a movie almost as controversial as the general himself.
And Black? Besides knowing that Caesar Salad was invented by a different Caesar, she appreciates Julius Caesar's leadership skills and way with words,
There is much we can learn about leadership from Julius Caesar, whether on the battlefield, in politics, or in business (start small, take risks, communicate well), including what ultimately led to his death (always consider worst-case scenarios, never get complacent or arrogant). Many of his quotes speak (pun intended) to his powerful way with words, and the ability to not only deliver a message but to inspire (and story tell), with my favorite being, "I came, I saw, I conquered."
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