I’m pretty sure this is an example of situational irony - and even if it isn’t, it’s certainly perversely appropriate!

(Click through to read the entire story at the BBC web site.)

Add cornstarch to Easter egg dye, and you get a pretty good sidewalk paint.

Add cornstarch to kids and you get ghosts!

My back was turned - all right, I was inside, getting more supplies! - when they decided that since cornstarch felt so good on their hands (this I encouraged before going in), they should rub it all over their arms, and maybe a little on their faces wouldn’t hurt either (these two were not my ideas!). T-boy kept saying “corn starter” instead of cornstarch, and his friend is the one who decided they were ghosts. What you can’t see here is that the “cornstarter” bag had a hole in the corner, so much of it ended up on the porch.

(They’re wearing matching shirts because we went on a field trip in the morning.)

Yesterday (Earth Day), my friend Kathy told me to go outside, so I did. After all, she’s a teacher, and we have to respect teachers. :^) I took the office camera, ostensibly to take pictures for a project, but mostly to see if the daffodil line was blooming. Along the way, I decided to capture a “spectrum” of colors. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a blue picture (the scilla are abundant this time of year, so I could have!). I also meant to capture a forsythia bush (more yellow!) if the battery held out, but I forgot. But even so, it was a nice break from the stuffy office…

(see more photos on Flickr - start at this magnolia and work back through the photostream until you get to the mosaics shown above)

A few months ago, I learned about Project Spectrum from Kathy. It’s a no- pressure, creative outlet, celebration of color. I was especially intrigued by a comment to incorporate the element into the work beyond the color, e.g. the fire of a kiln to produce ceramics. After following the Flickr group for a week or so, I took a deep breath and decided to dive in. The first two months (Frebruary and March) were “Fire” - red, yellow, and pink. As it turns out, I don’t do much with these colors in general. However, I was taking a ceramics class, and even though the red glazes in the studio don’t appeal to me much I could get to “fire” that way. I did manage to contribute a few items, including some “ice into fire” photos accomplished through color manipulation. (My full set on Flickr is here - currently my 5 “fire” items, but I’ll be adding to it over the year).

Next up: earth - greens, browns, metallics. I’m much more of a green person, and clay naturally fits into an earth theme, so I’m likely to be much more productive for this segment!

BBC Headline:

So if the maternity units are closed to mothers, who are they open to? Can’t see that there would be much demand from any other audience!

Exploiting St Patrick’s Day for nefarious nutritional purposes:

◊ ◊ ◊

(click on images to see complete comics)

Just watch out for green skittles - buying or selling them could get you kicked out of school in New Haven, Connecticut! (and subsequently reinstated, but that probably won’t make quite as many newspapers…)

A reader’s meme from Mindy via Deb. I decided to play along because the closest ‘big’ book was Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules [obtained at a recent Scholastic book fair], which seemed potentially fun!

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)

Honestly, Diary of a Wimpy Kid was the closest I could find without standing up! Everything else in arm’s reach is a short picture book.

Find Page 123.

Find the first 5 sentences:

On the way back, Mom was really talking up Magick and Monsters, saying how it could help me with my “math skills” and stuff like that. All I can say is, I hope she isn’t planning on becoming a regular at these games. Because the first chance I get, “Mom” is getting handed over to a pack of Orcs.

Thursday

After school today, Mom took me to the bookstore and bought just about every Magick and Monsters book on the shelf. She must’ve dropped about $200, and she didn’t even make me cash in a single Mom Buck.

[drawing]

I realized maybe I judged Mom a little too quick, and maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing having her in our group after all.

Oops, that was 6 sentences. Sorry. Anyway, it’s intriguing! After I get back from the Y, I’m going to have to read more, to find out how this turns out!

Feel free to play along if you’d like…

I heart breakfast - at least on Valentine’s day!

Orange Chocolate Chip Scones

1 1/4 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter, warmed to room temperature
1 egg
2 Tab orange juice concentrate, thawed
2 tsp grated orange peel
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Thaw orange juice and warm butter. Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In separate bowl, combine egg, OJ concentrate, and orange rind; mix well. Add wet ingredients and chocolate chips to dry ingredients. Shape dough into a ball and place on a lightly floured surface. Pat dough into a circle about 1/4 inch thick. Cut circle into 8 wedges (or 10 if you’re a family of 5) (or however many hearts you can manage if making for a special treat) and place on a foil- or parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

I think these originally came from a website called “Baking Bits”, but I no longer have the source written down. Z-boy called them “breakfast cookies” when he was little, so the entire family adopted the name. They’re yummy, and simple to make! Although they’re best fresh out of the oven and slightly warm, I made them Wednesday night so they’d be available for a special Valentine’s Day breakfast. (I don’t believe in early rising, not even for making special breakfast treats!)

If you like wheat thins ™, you’ll probably like these crackers. Z-boy and Jonski Papa enjoyed them, as did a next door neighbor boy. They were sweeter than I had hoped for - I guess I was aiming for the wheat weaver taste rather than wheat thins. But anyway, I’ll probably make them again some time, with a little tinkering.
Original recipe on the Wyoming Cowgirl web site.

WHOLE WHEAT CRACKERS
350-degree oven
makes about 60

3 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups rolled oats
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup honey or sugar
About 1-1/2 cups milk

Stir together flour, oats, and salt; set aside.
Beat the shortening, butter and honey/sugar until golden and fluffy.
Stir in flour concoction, alternating with the milk. [I did not quite use the full amount of milk] Your dough still will be soft and fairly sticky, but go on ahead and turn it onto a floured countertop and knead lightly.

Divide in fourths and refrigerate (or not) for a spell (chilled dough just works easier). [I did not]

Roll out each piece to 1/8-inch thick and cut into 1-3-inch round crackers. Poke all over with a fork, slap onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and bake in a 350-degree oven for about 20-25 minutes (or until golden brown).

Notes: I searched the cupboards high and low looking for honey, and turned out a tiny little glass jar that came in some high-end gift basket, plus two honey packets from a fast food joint (real honey, not the fake stuff they serve at KFC). So I had to use sugar for about half the sweetener.

I made a half batch, since I wasn’t sure if we would like them. I used a small biscuit cutter to cut out the crackers (about 2 1/2″ diameter), and ended up with about 4 dozen crackers. They were kind of tough (due to the sugar? too much handling of the dough?) so I might knead them less vigorously next time, and cook a shorter amount of time (wyoming cowgirl said “just a smidgen less” so I stopped at 20 minutes, but perhaps she cooks even less than what she recommends in her recipe). Square crackers would be even quicker to prepare, and would require less dough-handling, so that might be something else to try.

[Aside to the other TJ in town who sometimes reads my blog: I often find myself spontaneous reciting your cracker poem that was published in Babybug. Like just now, as I typed square crackers. Will I recite it to my grandchildren some day? I wouldn't be surprised!]

2008 is the International Year of the Potato and January 2008 was declared NATIONAL RUTABAGA MONTH by the Advanced Rutabaga Studies Institute (ARSI). I’m pretty sure the latter doesn’t have the same level of backing as the Potato folks (one has the backing of the UN, the other hosts their site on tripod - that’s the first clue), but they do have a streaming rutabaga webcam! How fun is that! (Fun in the whimsical sense, not in the side-splitting raucous entertainment sense…)

All of this is timely because the recently reinvigorated Paper Chef featured these four ingredients: potatos, rutabagas, tomatoes, and bacon. My first thought on reading that was “potato-rutabaga gratin! But what to do with the tomatoes?” My second thought was “do I still have a rutabaga in the fridge, from my CSA?” Clearing out the produce drawer revealed no rutabagas, but plenty of turnips (way past their prime storage life, but they are local and organic and still appear to be in fine shape…).

Anyway, for a variety of reasons, I didn’t pull things together to participate, but if I had, this is what I would have done:

half pound potatos, cut into chunks (peeled if so desired, but I probably wouldn’t)
nice sized rutabaga, peeled and cut into chunks equivalent in size to the taters
sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
4-6 slices good quality bacon

Cook some bacon to generate bacon grease. Crumble the bacon and set aside. Preheat oven to 400 F. Toss the potatoes and rutabaga with some bacon grease (or olive oil, if you don’t want to be true to Paper Chef and are concerned about the source of your fat calories) and green chile salt (if you have it, I do) or powdered red chiles and salt. Roast in the oven. At about 30 minutes, stir the root chunks and toss in your diced up tomatoes. Cook another 15 to 30 minutes, until the roots are fork tender. Toss the bacon crumbles on for the last few minutes in the oven. Serve warm.

So I guess this truly is a “paper” chef entry, since it exists only in theory (electronic chef? imaginary chef?).

If you want to see what real participants made, go read the round-up at Lucullian Delights.