Chinook

Sometime in the night an unexpected chinook blew through the Willamette Valley, freeing the landscape from the storm's icy grip, except for those things that lay hidden in the deepest shadows. [2, p. 26]

Chinook has several meanings, but in this case it refers specifically to a warm wind that blows down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. The funny thing is that Willamette Valley is to the west of the Rocky Mountains. I don't know about you, I'll let it slide.

Buffeting

Buffeting gusts of wind, which had initially slowed him, now shortened the time it took traverse the mini glacier that was thickening beneath his feet. [2, p. 19]

Although spelled the same as the food type of buffet, it is neither pronounced the same, nor does it have the same meaning. When you pronounce the "t" at the end, you are saying that someone or something is struggling or pushing against something else. In this case, Mack Phillips (the protagonist in the story) was pushing against the wind.

Mantles

The trees in the neighbor's field had all donned translucent mantles, and each now stood unique but unified in its presentation. [2, p. 18]

Mantle has many applications, depending on which discipline you're referring to--geology, clothing, or other sciences--but as a pure English word it simply refers to any type of cloak or covering.

Unbridled, bluster

When you face the force of an ice storm, you don't exactly walk boldly forward in a show of unbridled confidence. Bluster will get you battered. [2, p. 18]

When something is unbridled, it is not hindered or restrained in any way.

To bluster is to be loud and forceful. One can imagine someone with unbridled confidence being full of bluster.

Ostentation

It's a family tradition: the men all have the same first name but are commonly known by their middle names, presumably to avoid the ostentation of I, II, III or Junior and Senior. [2, p. 9]

An ostentation is a pretentious presentation or showing off of something.

The Shack

Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity
Paperback
256 pages
Publisher: Windblown Media; 1st edition (July 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0964729237
ISBN-13: 978-0964729230

Domino mask, gaudily, terry cloth

We ran across several hotel guests who had "jumped the gun." Most were naked save for domino masks but several wore full masks--of animals or birds, or abstract fantasy. One couple dressed most gaudily in nothing but paint. I was glad I had my terry cloth caftan. [1, p. 12]

A domino mask is the type of small mask the Robin, Batman's sidekick, would wear. It typically only covers the area around the eyes and is held in place by a strap that wraps around behind the head.

Gaudy means to be flashy or showy.

A terry cloth, or more appropriately, terrycloth (one word) is the type of fabric that most towels are made of, which consist of threads woven together in loops. This type of material, as you can imagine, is quite absorbent.

Mezzanine

"Hmm. Interesting." He did not say another word until we reached his office suite, ten stories down on the mezzanine. [1, p. 12]

A mezzanine forms part of a larger structure known as an entresol. This is essentially an in-doors balcony. Wikipedia has some images of mezzanines: Article on the mezzanine.

Caftan

"If I were you and I was still jumpy, I would look for a big beach towel in that bathroom, and make a caftan out of it..." [1, p. 11]

A caftan is a one-piece Middle Eastern garment with really long sleeves that drapes all the way down to your feet. Just think of a poncho, only Middle Eastern, and probably a lot prettier--more highly decorated.

Proffered

The doctor put out a finger close to the little pink nose. "Howdy, Pixel." Pixel was helpful. (Sometimes he is not--a cat of firm opinions.) He sniffed the proffered finger, then licked it. [1, p. 8]

To proffer means to put something before someone to be judged for acceptance. There is a word for just about anything, isn't there?

Fasching, Carnival

This silly chatter had told me one thing: I was not in New Liverpool. New Liverpool does not celebrate Fiesta--and this local festival sounded like Fasching in Munich combined with Carnival in Rio, with a Brixton riot thrown in. [1, p.7]

Fasching is a Mari Gras celebration in Munich, Germany, while Carnival, or more properly, Carnaval, is a four-day celebration that happens in the summer time in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It isn't analogous to Mari Gras, but it does have its origins in Pagan rituals (heck, what modern-day ritual and/or celebration isn't derived from Pagan roots?)

Brixton is a residential area of London that I guess is known for its crime, kind of like Compton, California. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I'm getting.

Erstwhile

They stripped the top sheet off my erstwhile bedmate. The house physician looked over the cadaver without touching it, then looked more closely at that horrid red puddle--leaned down, sniffed it, then made my skin crawl by dipping a finger into the slop and tasting it. "Try it, Adolf. See what you think." [1, p. 6]

Erstwhile is a fancy way of saying "former" or "of times past". Yay, I am actually learning stuff while reading. Who would have thought that reading would lead to learning, right?

By the way, it turns out that the red puddle was actually catsup (or ketchup, if you prefer)--Heinz, not Skinner's. Gruesome pun, perhaps?

Sesquicentennial

I need not have worried about being naked; no one seemed to notice . . . which irked me. Gentlemen should at least leer. And a wolf whistle or other applause would not be out of place. Anything less makes a woman feel unsure of herself.    (Perhaps I am too sensitive. But since my sesquicentennial I have been disposed to check the mirror each morning, wondering.) [1, p. 5]

Sesqui is a prefix meaning "one and a half", and centennial of course refers to a period of 100 years. So putting the two together, you can one and a half of 100 years, which equals a period of 150 years. Ah Maureen, mother of Lazarus, long have thee lived? Still quite young even at 150 years. To Sail Beyond the Sunset is part of a series of books by Heinlein detailing his alternate universe in which there is a group of people known at the Howard families that intermarry in order to produce children who live for a very long time. My two favorites in this series are Time Enough for Love and Methusela's Children, both starring Lazarus Long, Maureen Johnson's most famous son.

Scarlet O'hara

They showed up too quickly; I was still eyeing those fireproof drapes, wondering if I could do as well with them as Scarlet O'Hara had with the drapes at Tara, or if I could arrange a simple toga, like Eunice in The Last Days of Pompeii (Or was she in Quo Vadis?), when they arrived... [1, p. 5]

Scarlet O'Hara was the main character from Gone With the Wind, and she owns a plantation called Tara. She makes a dress out of drapes in order to look like she is not destitute in order to impress some guy. The Last Days of Pompeii is a book written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and it, of course, depicts the last days of Pompeii before the eruption.

To answer Heinlein's question, Eunice was in Quo Vadis, or more properly, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero. Quo Vadis is a Latin phrase that means "Where are you going?" In the Bible, Peter asks this question to Jesus, to which he replies to Peter that he is going to Rome to be crucified again. The book, which is a historical novel about Nero, was written by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Eunice is a fictional character in the book who is a slave and who falls in love with her master. Heinlein was far too worldly, as I've never read any of these classics, and lack the willpower to even attempt them. Some day, perhaps?

Der Ring des Nibelungen

This time they gave me background music while I waited . . . and waited--through the first two operas of the Ring Cycle and well into the third-- [1, p. 4]

Here, the Ring Cycle refers to Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, also known as "The Ring Cycle", "Wagner's Ring", or "The Ring". Great, now I got stuck on Wikipedia reading all about it and how J. R. R. Tolkien essentially drew from the same source material as Wagner--the Völsunga saga and the Poetic Edda--and even built upon some of Wagner's ideas. Learning sure is fun! I wanted to download a complete version of the Ring Cycle off of iTunes, but it appears that there is too many different versions, and I don't know which is best, plus it's very long, and thus kind of expensive.

Hotelier Science

"Madam, I am a machine but a very flexible one. My memories include all curricula of Procrustes Institute of Hotelier Science, including all case studies updated to midnight..." [1, p. 4]

A hotelier is an owner or CEO of a hotel, so one can imply that hotelier sciences would be the study of running and maintaining a hotel.

Porter

The voice answered thoughtfully, "Madam, I am a machine programmed for our food and beverage services. May I switch you to another program? Housekeeping? Head porter? Engineering?" [1, p. 3]

A porter is someone who is tasked with carrying burdens and/or performing custodial and/or maintenance work and/or other menial tasks. In other words, you can probably go straight from high school into a position as porter. Head porter would be the person in charge of all the other porters, I'm sure. Bellhop!

Harvest Brunch

A bodyless voice said, "Madam, may we offer you breakfast? We are proud of our Harvest Brunch: a lavish bowl of assorted fresh fruits; a tray of cheeses; a basket of freshly baked hot breads, crisp breads, and soft breads with jams and jellies and syrups and Belgian butter. Basted baby barlops en brochette; drawn eggs Octavian; smoked savannah slinker; farkels in sweetsour; Bavarian strudel; your choice of still and sparkling wines, skullbuster Strine beer, Mocha, Kona, Turkish, and Proxima coffees, blended or straight; all served with-- [1, p. 3]

This one is going to be a doozy. Google did not turn up anything definitive, but one can assume that a Harvest Brunch would be full of grains, as historically, the harvest season was a time when many crops would be harvested, and among those crops would be plenty of grains. Maybe not the most rigorous analysis, but the logic seems sound. Google also didn't turn up anything specific on categorizing breads by their temperature, crispiness, or softness. Perhaps a bread connoisseur would be able to shed more light on that subject. I did find a short article on the history of bread here. That site also contains a glossary of many of the world's known breads, so if you're really interested, I'd suggest at least skimming through it. I also found another short treatise on the history of bread and several types of bread at this site; you will notice that towards the bottom of that page, they mention a type of specialty bread known as Men's Bread. It's an organic blast of doughey healthiness. If you're interested in buying, you can look here.

So, the main difference between a jam and a jelly? The short answer is that jelly has been run through a filter to remove the pulp from the fruit it is made from, while jam has not. There is a third type of confection that fits along these lines known as fruit butter, which I had honestly never heard of until I read up on it. This brief response on Yahoo! Answers provides a pretty decent overview of the three types of confections. So, syrup? Syrup is basically sugar in water. The water is boiled away and the sugar is cooked to produce the amber or golden color that is typically associated with syrup. Maple syrup is, of course, made from maple tree sap. The sap from maple trees contains small amounts of sucrose and large amounts of water. Once most of the water is boiled away, the result is maple syrup.

The best that I could find in terms of Belgian butter is a type of gourmet butter known also as Chimay butter. So, where is Belgium, anyway? It is located directly north-east of France, with Chimay being a city near the border between France and Belgium. I did find some article on the web about butter from Belgium being banned in the U.S. and various other countries due to a high dioxin content, although I have no idea if this is referring to Chimay butter, or some other butter. Either way, it sounds good.

Basting is a style of cooking meat; it is cooked either in its own juices, or a prepared marinade, and the juice is occasionally reapplied over the with. According to the Heinlein concordance, baby barlops are an unidentified food item--it is quite possible that Heinlein simply made the name up.

I was not able to determine what drawn eggs are, but in my quest, I did discover--although not much to my surprise--that there is quite an array of different ways to prepare eggs. Wikipedia, being our ubiquitous buddy, has a list egg dishes that is quite enlightening to peruse through. Perhaps Heinlein was simply adept at inventing his own savory-sounding food items.

Smoked savannah slinker is listed in the Heinlein Concordance as being yet another unidentified food item, while farkels in sweetsour just plain doesn't turn up anything useful in Google.

Finally, something that actually exists. My search for Bavarian strudel turned up an item called Bavarian apple strudel, which, as you can imagine, is a pop tart-ey type pastry dish with apple in it.

The difference between still and sparkling wines is, of course, that sparkling wines have been carbonated.

Apparently Strine is a syncope of a joke for the way Australians pronounce "Australian", in a broad Australian accent. So "Strine" beer is just Australian beer.

Mocha coffee comes from mocha beans, Kona coffee comes from Kona coffee beans, which are grown exclusively in the mountains of Hawai'i, and is a highly coveted and highly expensive coffee, at least according to Wikipedia. Turkish coffee is made by boiling finely powdered roast coffee beans. I think Heinlein made up Proxima coffee; it likely refers somehow to the star Proxima Centari.

Frisson

Still clutching Pixel I went around and bent over the other side of the bed. (Gulp.) No one I knew. No one I would choose to bed with, even were he in perfect health. Which he was not; that side of the bed was soggy with blood. (Two gulps and a frisson.) [1, p. 2]

Damn Heinlein and his vast vocabulary! A frisson is a sudden shudder of excitement. You can probably think of it as a tingling going down your back as you get chills, either through fear or amazement, or some other emotion or mix thereof.

Prudent

I am not jumpy about skin but it did seem prudent to dress before reporting a corpse. [1, p. 2]

Prudent means to make a wise decision. Also not a word I learned from this book, but I did learn it from another Heinlein book. Unfortunately, Maureen did wake up next to the man while fully disrobed. I like how Heinlein omitted the comma between the two independent clauses in this sentence to give it a fast-paced yet whimsical feel. Heinlein knew his grammar, which is why he is so easily forgiven when he breaks one of its rules. The man knew what he was doing.

Thalamic

I forced a thalamic pause of at least a microsecond, maybe longer, and decided not to flee headlong outdoors, or out into the hallway, as the case might be . . . but to slow down and attempt to assess the situation, before screaming for help. [1, p. 2]

Poor Maureen has just woken up next to a dead man. The thalamus is a portion of the brain that is involved in sensory perception--touch, taste, smell, hearing, and seeing--so a "thalamic pause" would be a moment where one takes in their surroundings and pays attention to all their senses. I think anyone would want to take a thalamic pause of they woke up next to a dead person.

Starboard

My last clear memory was of being a passenger in a Burroughs irrelevant bus, bound for New Liverpool, when there was a loud bang, my head hit the seat in front of me, then a lady handed me a baby and we started filing out the starboard emergency exit, me with a cat in one arm and a baby in the other, and I saw a man with his right arm off-- [1, p. 1]

I didn't originally learn starboard from this book, but I did originally learn it from another Heinlein book, so I shall list it here. Starboard means "right side", particularly the right side of a vessel. An interesting article on its etymology, and its natural antonym, port side, can be found here.

To Sail Beyond the Sunset

The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson (Being the Memoirs of a Somewhat Irregular Lady)
Mass Market Paperback
448 pages
Published by Ace (June 1, 1988)
ISBN-10: 0441748600
ISBN-13: 978-0441815470