BOSTON, 1963—On an episode of “The French Chef,” Julia Child spoke to the fact that flipping food items in a pan requires courage in one’s convictions. She set the stage perfectly for what would happen next.

That day, she was demonstrating a lesson in how to make potato pancakes. Just as she was deftly performing the outward-and-back motion necessary to flip a pancake, clumps of the potato mixture missed the pan and plopped onto the counter.

Unfazed, Julia acknowledged, “Oh, that didn’t go very well” and calmly scooped the wayward bits back into the pan. Then she pointed out to her viewing audience that they cook alone in their kitchens and nobody would be the wiser if something like this occurred.

And so it was that some of her potato pancake famously flipped out, but the real lesson demonstrated that day may be that Julia Child herself did not.

What’s the aha moment you see?

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TEMUCO, CHILE, 1913—A young Pablo Neruda was playing in his backyard when a small boy’s hand suddenly poked through a hole in the wooden fence and deposited a well-worn toy sheep. Neruda was instantly moved, and reciprocated the gesture with his treasured pine cone. He never saw the boy, or even the boy’s hand again, but cherished the toy lamb until it was lost in a fire.

When the famous Chilean poet and activist later recounted the incident in numerous interviews, he credited the mysterious exchange with inspiring his world view of unity and connectedness, and also stated that it was responsible for “giving my poetry light.”

Inspired by his gifts to the world, fans of Neruda have turned the fence at his adult home in Isla Negra, Chile, into a message board and memorial. Every July 12, on his birth date, people tack personal messages to Neruda on the fence and scrawl words of love and prayer onto the boards, simply as a way of saying “thanks.”

What’s the aha moment you see?

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LONDON, 1840—The royal wedding of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert featured an elaborate, multi-tiered wedding cake, measuring almost nine feet in circumference. The pure white sugar frosting, that became known as “royal icing,” was not only a symbol of purity, but of status as well, since refined sugar at that time was a luxury item.

The entire event set the style of the modern wedding. And wedding cake design has gone on from there to become an art form in itself.

However, wedding cakes weren’t always about decadent displays and a delicious treat for those celebrating the nuptials. In ancient Rome, the wedding cake played a very different role. The groom was required to smash a barley cake over the bride’s head as a symbol of good fortune. After the ceremony, guests gathered crumbs for good luck.

Of course, if you have ever tried a barley cake with no icing, you know that smashing it to bits might actually be preferable to eating it!

What’s the aha moment you see?

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