Hillarious! My friend, Kristen, sent this to me. Happy Halloween (and Happy Birthday to Michael)!!!

Karat, Carat, and Carrot are all pronounced the same, but each has a very different meaning. Karat and carat are specific jewelry terms, and carrot, of course, is an orange root vegetable.

I often see the words carat and karat missused, so I did some research on the two terms. Looking into the etymology, or history of the two words, helps to shed some light on these similar-sounding terms.

Both carat and karat trace their ancestry to the word ‘carob’, which is a common substitute for chocolate. Carob trees grow prolifically in the Mediterranean region and they produce small, edible seed pods that contain carob beans. These beans are uncannily consistent in size, meaning that carob beans usually weigh the same amount, no matter where or when they are harvested.

As a result of this characteristic of consistent weight, carob beans became a unit of weight in early times. The Greeks were the first documented users of carob beans for weight. By 1500, Latin alchemists, who were still using carob beans as a basic unit to measure weight, measured things by the carratus. Carat and karat are the modern derivitives of carratus.

Although their origin and pronounciation are the same, carat and karat have very different meanings. Carat is a unit of weight for gemstones; and karat is a unit for measuring the purity of gold.

It is important to remember that a carat is a unit of weight and not a unit of size. One carat of a dense stone will be smaller in appearance than one carat of a light-weight stone. For example, one carat of a blue sapphire will be smaller than one carat of a diamond, since sapphire is more dense than diamond.

On the otherhand, a karat has nothing to do with weight, but instead refers to the quantity of pure gold contained in an object, out of a 24-unit whole. Hence, 24 k gold, is 100% gold, and is 24/24ths gold.

Because gold is a soft metal, other metals are often added to it, or alloyed with it, to make it harder. The most common metals used in gold alloys are silver, copper, zinc, and nickel. Gold that is 14 k is 14/24ths gold and 10 k is 10/24ths gold (and 14/24ths other metals).

So when purchasing gold jewelry, remember that the higher the number of karats, the higher the quantity of pure gold. And the larger the number of carats, the more a gemstone will weigh.

So we finally managed to put in our vegetable garden this year - and what a garden it has been! We planted zuchinni, yellow squash, eggplant, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes in the 16 x 20 space. To keep the critters out, including the many deer that graze in our backyard, we had to build a 6 foot high fence around the space.

My parents came for their annual visit just before we put in the garden. While they were with us, we enjoyed many of my mom’s wonderful home-cooked dishes. One of our favorite recipes was my mom’s ratatouille. My parents make it every summer since it is the perfect recipe to utilize an abundant harvest of veggies.

I cooked a batch of it last week and it was delicious! All of the veggie ingredients came from our garden, with the exception of the onion and the zuchinni (since the ground hogs managed to wipe ours out entirely, early in the season).

Here’s the recipe:

RATATOUILLE

1 medium eggplant, cubed
2 small or 1 large zuchinni, chopped
1 green pepper, diced
3/4 onion, chopped

Saute the ingredients on med. high in 4-5 tablespoons of olive oil. Add garlic powder, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning to taste. While the veggies saute, cut up the equivalent of two 14.5 ounce cans of diced tomatoes. Add two packets of spenda or two tablespoons of sugar to the tomatoes. If they are especially juicy, you can add cornstarch or flower to thicken them up. Then toss the diced tomatoes into the pan and stir to heat everything together.

Bon appetit!