Birdy Candy

Many of you know this song, right? I grew up with clear-voiced Pete Seeger’s version, and until about 10 minutes ago, I never paid attention to the lyrics.

Little Bird, Little Bird fly through my window

Little Bird, Little Bird fly through my window

Little Bird, Little Bird fly through my window

Buy molasses candy

And until 10 minutes ago, I never thought to wonder what molasses candy is. And what does molasses candy have to do with the song? And why buy it when it looks easy to make?

Look in your old cookbooks or snuffle around online - this is a well-known recipe, and many versions exist, both vegan and not-so-vegan.

No, I haven’t tried this recipe yet: some little ones are arriving in a few days, so we’ll make it together then. For my first try, I’m going to try Mimi’s version, because I like her molasses candy photo the best and because she prefaces the whole event with a muchly huggable story about, well, an old friend. Go read. I think you’ll like it, too.

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P.S. Pete Seeger’s Birds, Beasts, Bugs and Fishes CD? I love it, random lyrics and all. Like Sesame Street, it’s one of those when-I-was-a-kid things kids will lovingly pass on to their own kids. If you grew up with this and haven’t heard it in a while, now is a good time to refresh your memory.

Eight Is Great

One of our kids turned 8 years old the other day, and he’s ecstatic.

As I get older (sigh), more and more years start to blur together. Often I have to try to recall a specific event in order to calculate how old I was at the time.

But I do remember being 8 years old.

My 3rd-grade teacher was Mrs. Brodsky, one of my cousins lived with us for a while, and the region had an enourmous snowstorm in early January. Whee, school closed!

Okay, so that’s pretty much all I remember, but boy oh boy I would love to be 8 years old again. For about 15 minutes, that’s all.

You? How old would you like to be?

Soaking Up The Beans

According to my copy of The Chocolate and Coffee Bible, somewhere in Japan, people have taken to lying in roasted coffee beans.

Huh?

I quote, “It is thought that the coffee contains elements beneficial to healthy skin.” (p. 285)

Huh?

Indeed, I’m looking at a photo in this book of three people lying in an enormous tub of coffee beans, while a fourth person rakes the beans over their bodies.

So where does one go to experience this? I can’t find anything about it online. Just drinking the coffee doesn’t produce the same effects?

Mind you, the same book says that London women in 1675 wanted to close down the popular coffee houses. The women said the effects of coffee made the men sexually inactive, and the time and money these men spent at these coffee houses - i.e., the men were always away from from home - threatened the very survival of the entire human race.

Huh?

Tomorrow we go back to being a kid-friendly blog oh boy oh boy.

Wake Me Up Before You Go Go Green

Ever heard of a sustainable dance club? Eco-clubbing?

(I just snuffled through a bunch of random sites and now don’t know how I found this.)

Here’s the plan: call all your friends and go to a club. Dance with tons of other people, and your rug-cutting feet will generate power for the lights. Rainwater will flush the toilets, the contents of which I think will feed the plants up on the roof (aw gee no dancing up there, I guess).

Okay, before you can do that, you have to go to Rotterdam, a very modern-thinking oh so cool city which is in the Netherlands and just down the railroad tracks from where I used to live.

The point of Sustainable Dance Club (SDC) is, if you’re going to help save the planet in whatever way you can, you might as well have some fun while you’re at it. No, SDC is not generating power for houses, but it’s the potential of this whole endeavor that I find so fascinating.

That’s the nutshell version of SDC. Loads more information here, and I look hugely forward to other projects they’re planning.

Eco-clubbing not for you? No worries. What can you do instead?

Said One Eggplant Penguin To The Others…

Happily, many brilliant people ignore their parents and never ever stop playing with their food.

Enormous smileage happening here. A few more here.

After snuffling around, I see those images came from the popular book Food Play by Joost Elffers and Saxton Freymann. No doubt you know the book, too.

(Oooh squeal! Elffers and Freymann have a bunch - ahem - of books! Collect them all!)

Come on, if you don’t have the artistic talent to create your own, at least entertain us with captions/dialogs for each photo.
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Carving food into nifty shapes is a huge topic. I’ll be back with more in future posts. Kindly share what you have or know, please.

Vegetarian Ramen For Dessert?

I think I’m the only one of my friends who went all the way through college without eating a bowl of ramen.

I just didn’t know whether ramen was vegetarian, and I still don’t know.

I think I have ramen envy.

This probably explains why I have been peering for months now at The Official Ramen Homepage, in particular the vegetarian and dessert sections. Caramel ramen on a stick? Oh my.

There are numerous blogs and sites out there devoted to ramen, and TORH, like the others, has loads of references to non-vegetarian food items, some of which aren’t kid friendly, just so you know. Nutritional point to ponder: one block of noodles equals 3 servings. Hm…..

Snuffle around, and see if there’s something you like.

For Mother’s Day - Best Wisdom

Hi, Mom!

Some of us are moms or mom figures to someone.

Some of us want to be moms or mom figures to someone.

All of us have had moms or someone who was a mom figure in our lives.

For Mother’s Day, here are two pencil-chewing questions:

1. What is some really good advice your mom gave you which you think others could learn from?
2. What is your advice for the next generations?

Think about it, write it down, and, if you want to, share.

Optional: If you do write it down, date it, save it, and see if you have the same answer next year. Repeat as often as you’d like.

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Idea thanks to a no-longer-available article from Good Housekeeping. Yes, I’ll be asking nearly identical questions for Father’s Day, so if you like to work ahead, get out another pencil.

The Reunion

I have spent the last few weeks nervously anticipating this reunion.

I’m not sure, but I think it’s been at least 10 years since we last played together.

What should I wear? Should I wear something casual, because we were always casual friends? Or should I dress up, because, well, you know, you want to look good when you meet an old friend?

What do I say? Hey, you haven’t changed much over the years! I know I should say I feel awful about not keeping in touch.

We’d met my last year of high school. I’d been with several others over the years and knew what I was looking for. This was the one. The one I wanted for the rest of my life.

But after only 3 years, I surprised even myself: I wanted to end the relationship. I wanted to try new things. Maybe there was more to life? I traveled, I taught, I tried new sports. I moved on.

You don’t ever really move on from good friends, though. You’re still connected, no matter what happens. The good friends are the ones who will always be there, no matter how many years have passed, and they will still welcome you with open arms. They may feel a bit hurt because you neglected them for a while, but oh how glad they are that you are back again.

So, after all these years, I finally unzip the case, pull out my good friend, and say: Hey, little violin. I’m back. Did you miss me?

Refrigerator Muffins

Friday night is usually pizza night at my place, but tonight I’ve been extremely distracted by a 5.5-pound (2.5Kg) bag of oats, which Troy easily convinced me to buy, and which, for my sense of perspective, is more than I weighed at birth.

What am I supposed to do with all these oats?!

Trot with me over to Jill’s blog, where I’ve been scooping up lots of nifty ideas to take home, and let’s read her post on refrigerator muffins. Neat, huh?

As I understand it, you make a batch of muffin batter. You try to keep that batter in your refrigerator for up to 5 days (up to 6 weeks for some recipes!). As a reward for not making and eating the muffins all on the first day, you can eat some muffins almost any time you please without needing to start from scratch every single time.

Wow.

Now tell me, did you, too, start humming merrily when you read her tip about microwaving this batter for happy individual muffins? Sure, it takes about 45 minutes, she says, but that’s just enough time to take a shower, put on your pajamas, snuffle around the house for a good book or magazine to read, and fix a pot of your favorite hot drink. I haven’t tried this yet, but boy oh boy am I going to!

So, okay, that takes care of about 2 cups of the oats. What about the rest? Oatmeal raisin cookies. Oatmeal nut cookies. Coffee cake toppings. Cobbler toppings. Plain oatmeal. Veggie burgers.

You guys will have to come over and help me eat all this.

Summertime Bowling

I usually find it easiest to simply splat my friends with water balloons.

If you and your friends prefer something more dignified, perhaps water balloon bowling is perfect for you. Unlike some politicians, you’ll never have to worry about gutter balls.

You need: several friends, lots of round balloons filled with water and tied closed, a grassy area

1) Your friends are the pins. Try to get them to form a triangle.

2) Stand a few feet away from the pins. You have 2 tries to roll the balloon and get as many pairs of feet wet as you can.

3) After 2 tries, change with someone from the triangle.

Scoring:

Each pair of wet feet - 1 point

Everyone’s feet wet - strike

Nobody’s feet wet - 0 points

Thanks, Nancy Blakey!