LEGO bricks turned 50 today. What a cause for celebration!

This Gizmodo post features a neat timeline, although I must disagree with their dismissal of Bionicles. C-boy especially is a giant fan of Bionicles. His 5th and 6th birthdays featured a Bionicle theme - he even dressed up as a Bionicle character for Halloween. Twice!

Although I should acknowledge that his interest did eventually wane on the 3rd or 4th revision of the main characters. (”Collect all 6!” Jonski Papa used to intone, maniacally. “And again! 6 more!”) On the other hand, he bought 2 of the new models with his own money just last week. T-boy has a burgeoning interest in Bionicles, although his interest is more about playing out scenarios with the characters (it’s all about the building for C-boy - and he combines the pieces in amazingly creative ways, although recently he remade all the original sets [from memory, of course!]).

This particular piece of LEGO trivia struck me:

There are about 62 LEGO bricks for every one of the world’s 6 billion inhabitants.

because I think our house contains the LEGO allotment for at least 1000 earthlings! 2000? 10,000? And that’s if you don’t count all the little gears and locking collars and pins and such for the Bionicle models!

Inspired by Ruth sometime early in 2007, I started keeping track of the books I read. Sadly, I wasn’t able to keep up with her pace, but I still decided to share my list. I hope to read more this year! (I’m on #3 already :^)

Not counting assorted kid books, including multiple Junie B Jones (audio books while traveling, or read-alouds to Z and T) or Magic Tree House (ditto) or Tin-Tin or etc, here are the books I read/finished in 2007 - at least, the ones I remembered to write down! It does include 2 youth fiction books (4 if you include Harry Potter, which probably have more pages than all the ‘grown-up’ books I read!), because I read those to myself :^)

1. Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan (started in 2006 at the urgent care office when I broke my shoulder; read in chunks because it kept getting recalled by the library; finished just after my final shoulder follow-up appointment with the ortho doc)
2. Man Eating Bugs, by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio (started last year; finished mostly during the 15 minute sessions of “ice and stim” at biweekly physical therapy)
3. Mountains beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder (the “community reads” book for my city in 2007, although I didn’t participate in any of the CR events)
4. Troubling a Star, by Madeleine L’Engle (my all-time favorite author - so sad to read of her passing this fall, but she had a long and full life)
5. Hans Brinker, by Mary Mapes Dodge (Even as an audio book, I almost gave up in the 2nd chapter, trudging through Dutch history or whatever it was!)
6. Feeding a yen : savoring local specialities, from Kansas City to Cuzco, by Calvin Trillin (not as entertaining as I’d been led to believe it would be)
7. The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers (odd and unsettling - sorry, Ruth!)
8. The Last Chinese Chef, by Nicole Mones (very tantalizing descriptions of ‘real’ Chinese food; nice character development)
9. major chunks of the very silly and bizarre Areas of my Expertise by John Hodgman
10. Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson (made me cry!!) (still haven’t seen the movie, though)
11. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J. K. Rowling (re-read as preparation for…)
12. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling (loved it!)
13. A Crossword to Die For, by Nero Blanc
14. 101 Ways to Bug Your Teacher, by Lee Wardlaw (funny and poignant)
15. 101 Ways to Bug Your Parents, by Lee Wardlaw (ditto)
16. Dark Tort, by Diane Mott Davidson (murder mystery series, the main character is a caterer so the books always include recipes)
17. Sweet Revenge, by Diane Mott Davidson

That works out to just barely more than 1 per month. Slow! I might be missing a couple between 13 (late August) and 14 (November), but I was also fairly busy in the fall so maybe I didn’t read anything else. I didn’t listen to as many books on CD as in 2006, because I now have a lot of podcasts that I listen to during my ‘commute’ (walk or bus ride).

Two things drew me to Man Eating Bugs. A while back, I heard an interview on one of my food radio shows with Menzel and D’Aluisio, a husband-and-wife team, and thoroughly enjoyed their back-and-forth banter. Menzel is the photographer and enthusiastic bug eater, while D’Aluisio is the researcher and a reluctant bug eater. Faith D’Aluisio made the point that there are 2 kinds of insect-eating cultures: the ones who like crunchy stuff (e.g. grasshoppers, ants) and the ones who like ‘creamy’ stuff (witchety grubs, termites, etc). I had to find out more! Plus, I read their Hungry Planet in 2006 and it was fascinating. Here’s a quote from the book’s afterword:

Eating insects never got easy, but I learned that it is possible. And I now realize the experience changed my life. Dropping by the local supermarket is not the same for me anymore. Though I’ve always been stunned by the sheer amount and variety of food available in the United States, the shelves of the supermarket carry only a narrow slice of what the world has to offer, one dictated by the preferences of North Americans like me. Except the small percentage of insect parts inadvertently included in our foods (and allowed there by U. S. law), there are not insects — except, sometimes, lobsters, which are relatives of spiders. I don’t really want a plethora of insects to choose from in my supermarket. But now I know there could be.” —Faith D’Aluisio. [Man Eating Bugs, Afterword. p 187]

With Harry Potter 7, I had a very different approach from many of my friends. They started reading the book as soon as they got it, and hid away from the world to avoid hearing spoilers. Although I pre-ordered from Borders and took C & Z to the midnight release party, I put off reading the book because I didn’t want the story to end. And when I started reading (a month or more later, without encountering any spoilers!), I read it somewhat slowly, because I wanted to savor every moment! I’m not saying my approach is any better, it’s just interesting to me to see the differences.

Here’s to more books in 2008!

Over at DebV’s blog, I learned that some bloggers are posting their first blog-words of each month from 2007. Here are mine (links go to the full entry, the first entry of the month):

I didn’t post at all in January 2007, but my last words of December 2006 were:
Our niephlings aren’t going to recognize our gifts next year!

Febuary 2007 [only post that month, and it was about a school project]:
Z-boy is in a 1/2 class with the same teacher that C-boy had.

March 2007 [again, only post that month]:
When responding to those password security questions, in particular, “what is the name of your pet?,” don’t use the name of a pet fish.

April 2007:
Got this message in my inbox today:
[picture of subject line reading "fraudulent spam"]

May 2007:
March and April are hard months for those in northern climes who try to eat local and seasonal.

June 2007 [writing about fireflies]:
I grew up in New Mexico, in the desert on a high plateau in the southeastern corner.

July 2007:
We’re home from our trip to Costa Rica.

Aug 2007 [only 2 entries this month]:
Personally, I have difficulties with the whole “tasting” process, where connoisseurs identify notes and elements in a flavor, but even so, this comic made me laugh and go hmmmm…

Sept 2007:
Here’s a recent headline from BBC News site, with the startling summary that “the more hours you work, the less sleep you get.”

Oct 2007 [October is also the month I documented ladybug life cycle, including larvae color changes]:
Here’s what we had for dinner tonight, based on a recipe in 365 Great Soups & Stews.

Nov 2007:
I had no idea we were due to crash into an asteroid next week!

Dec 2007:
What do you think: is this a responsible use of chocolate, or irresponsible?

This exercise was probably supposed to provide an opportunity for reflection, and improve one’s writing or some such, so here are my thoughts upon reviewing my own blog:

• My blogging rate has increased during the year (my first post in April is only the third post for the year).
• I’m not impressed with my writing style based on first words - except maybe November. That one is kind of funny and grabs one’s attention. Maybe my New Year’s resolution should be: come up with better starting sentences!
• September, November, and December all start with a snippet from BBC News web site (and August was a comic strip). Maybe I should change my blog to “silly thoughts upon reading BBC News”!

Hard candy isn’t hard. Of course as a material it’s hard, but it’s not hard to make.

But let me back up. In December, C-boy was doing a project on amber mining for school, while his class was studying Latvia. This was just after I made the apple cider syrup for the first time, so when we were talking about what to use as amber, I came up with the idea of hard candy. I thought about starting with apple cider again (for the color), but then thought it might be easier to start with a traditional hard candy recipe before doing too much experimentation.

I found this recipe at allrecipes.com. Since we wanted the candy to be amber colored, I decided to use dark syrup instead of light. I also used some raw sugar along with the white. I skipped the food coloring and confectioners sugar steps. I made a half-batch, since I was still thinking of it as an experiment, plus he wouldn’t need much for the project. (allrecipes has a neat feature where it will scale the measurements for you)

The end result was indeed amber colored, with a nice molasses-y taste. I used a little lemon extract for flavoring, but it was very subtle and I think it would have been better without (since I liked the dark sugar element).

C-boy ended up using amber beads in his project, so I sent some candy in labeled as “edible amber, certified bug-free!” for a special treat, on the day of the multi-cultural fair. C-boy didn’t like it much (because it tasted too much like molasses), but he said lots of other kids did.

Like I said, this is not hard to make. Boil the stuff, then keep an eye on your candy thermometer until it reaches hard crack stage.

Edible Amber Hard Candy
based on an allrecipes entry by Judith Synesael

1-3/4 cups sugar (mix of raw and white)
3/4 cup dark corn syrup
1/2 cup water
1 tsp lemon (or other) extract

1. In a medium saucepan, stir together the sugar, corn syrup, and water. Cook, stirring, over medium heat until sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil. Without stirring, heat to 300 to 310 degrees F (159 to 154 C), or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms hard, brittle threads.

2. Remove from heat and stir in extract (if using). Pour onto a greased cookie sheet. Let cool, and break into pieces. (Some recipes suggest making lines in it, to make it easier to break when cool. I’m not sure it helped, but I did a little bit of that as you can see in the photo.) Store in an airtight container. Enjoy!

This link will take you to a detail picture of the amber mine, and you can cruise through the set to see more.

While cruising the after Christmas aisles at Target, I encountered “peppermint bark” style cookies. Even at 50% off, they were rather pricey, and decidedly over-packaged (individually wrapped for those few remaining ultra-hygiene-concerned people who still eat sweets!). So I bought some half-price candy canes and decided to make my own cookies.

I found a recipe titled “Candy Cane Cookies” in Christmas Cookies ((c) 1986, Oxmoor House) and fiddled with it a bit. The original directions call for adding red food coloring to half the dough, then shaping teaspoonfuls of dough into rolls, twisting them together, then shaping into canes. 48 times! Too much work for me! I just wanted the taste, not the look of candy canes. Another recipe in the same book (Mint Chocolate Snaps) had melted chocolate and crushed peppermints in the dough. I was less keen on that recipe overall, but inspired by the melted chocolate. So I decided to flatten balls of dough, then dip the baked cookies into melted chocolate and the crushed candy. Yum! Everyone in the family liked them, except perhaps Jonski Papa, who confessed to not liking the combo of chocolate and peppermint bits, and requested I leave some without the candy. T-boy asked me to make 8 more batches. I might make 2 more (especially since I have peppermint bits left), but certainly not 8!

Cookies ala Peppermint Bark

1/3 cup finely crushed peppermint candy (about 6 canes)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
4 to 6 oz chocolate chips

Combine candy and 1/3 cup sugar in a small mixing bowl, mixing well. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Cream shortening and butter in a large mixing bowl; gradually add the powdered sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg; beat well. Stir in flavorings. Add flour and salt; mix well.

Using the scoop thingie your mother-in-law gave you for cookie making, scoop balls of dough onto cookie sheets. (I tried both greased and ungreased, and both worked fine, so go with your preference.) Flatten a bit (the cookies do not spread much).

Bake cookies at 375F for 9 minutes or just until edges begin to brown. While cookies are baking, melt chocolate chips (I used the microwave method). Remove cookies from cookie sheets while warm; immediately dip into melted chocolate and then into candy mixture. Cool completely on wire racks.

Yield: about 4 dozen

Note 1: One of my September Mom friends used a food processor to crush candy canes for minty hot chocolate mix, so I did that. It’s noisy, but it makes quick work of the crushing. And for what it’s worth, I only used about half the mixture. Your coverage may vary!

Note 2: If you don’t have one of those scoop thingies, just use your own tried-and-true method for getting balls of cookie dough. Make sure to flatten them, though!

Note 3: This dough recipe reminded me a lot of butterballs, one of my Christmas favorites. Maybe I’ll post that recipe next…