Going "old school"

So, in an attempt to indulge my post-thanksgiving sweet tooth, I just finished mixing up a batch of molasses cookies. While the dough chills, I thought I'd blog it up, share the recipe and then make the first of 10 dozen or so sweet tooth indulging, sugar filled cookies.

Dilemma 1: The first thing that came to mind is that this is an old-school recipe, and when I think old school cooking, I mix the metaphor of the frontier northern tundra of Canada with the good old southern cooking. I don't think there were many African Americans in Quebec, and yet the image of apron-clad Aunt Jemima comes to mind.

Resolutions 1: A decidedly white guy like me can't really be putting Aunt Jemima on his blog without risking the appearance of racial bigotry. So old Betty Crocker gets the tap.

Dilemma 1: Betty Crocker sucked. She was always prim and proper, and had that pearly white 1950s "perfection" look to her. Not the kind of woman who makes molasses cookies.

Resolutions 2: This is her chance for salvation.

The Recipe:

3/4 cup dark molasses

1 egg

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

3 T boiling water

1 1/2 t baking soda

1 t vanilla

3 Cups flour

Refrigerate the dough (for 1 hour)

Roll these witchies to 3/8" thick, cut into circles, cook at 450 F to 500 F for 7 - 8 minutes.

Watch out.. they burn like lighting, taste as good as sin, and will leave you wishing you had lived in my grandmaman's (pronounced in French Canadian) household .

  ¶ 2:12 PM 0 comments

  Going "old school"   ¶ 2:12 PM 0 comments

 

Please submit an abstract if you wish to present a poster or be considered for one of the panels at this year's symposium on projectile systems. The focus of this year's conference will be new technology, with a heavy emphasis on getting members up to date on continuing education requirements. The conference was heavily attended last year, so we cannot guarantee that there will be space for everyone who submits but we will make every effort to accommodate each author.

Format
Please limit your submission to no more than three tablets (front and back), including attachments, references, and figures. Please have your submission delivered no later than 061, 2008 (March 1st Gregorian).

Topics
The following topics have been chosen for this year's panels:

• Biowarfare: ethical implications of animal projectiles
• Energy efficiency in boiling oil systems
• High-strength nanofibers for trebuchets and catapults
• Guidance systems: experience, luck, and providence
• Trebuchet finance under wartime procurement programs

Attendance
Registration, regular 400.00
Registration, members 150.00
Registration, indentured apprentices 100.00
All fees in shekels. Please complete registration one fortnight in advance.


  ¶ 8:13 PM 0 comments

  My Pumpkin   ¶ 11:37 PM 1 comments

  The First Halloween Every day I am one step closer to knowing what it is like to be a real-live parent. Today I found out what it’s like to have a real-live kid on Halloween. I have one!! I have one!! Seeing that my kid can’t actually talk yet but merely spits up and drools, maybe I didn’t get the full effect. But I got to dress him up and take him to the park with all the other little kids in costume (pre-trick-or-treating hour) and all of the other parents. Now that we’ve gotten the first dreaded round of vaccines, I’m on the lookout for group kid-interaction and ways to meet parents of other infants. I was also looking for another excuse to show off my adorable baby in his adorable costume. So…I went to the park for the first time today as a person with a child. What are those people called?…oh yeah. Parents! It wasn’t a big deal for Jack. He’ll never know he went to Fleming Park on Halloween afternoon of 2007. However, it was a big deal for me! My perspective has forever changed.

I’d wondered in the past what it could be like, taking my child to the playground. It seemed worlds away only a few months ago. POOF! In an instant, there I was with this beautiful baby of my very own out there amongst all of these little beings running up and down and around the playground. We didn’t even have to take a test or go through some sort of ceremony to get onto the official play turf.

While I was waiting for some friends to show up, I jumped into the scene. My baby and some other babies stared at each other. Some kids actually talked to my kid. One little girl of five or six in quite a mature tone said, “That baby is adorable.” I’m telling you the truth here. I’m not making this stuff up.

We exchanged greeting with other pairs of toddlers and parents, sharing names and ages and admiring the costumes of each other’s child.

All of the parents seemed to know the drill. They casually stood around gabbing amongst each other. I noticed that all of the parents were not the same. There was a big range of ages. There were both moms and dads, and you could tell that some parents had gotten off of work early for the big occasion. Somebody was in scrubs. There were nannies. I even heard a language I couldn’t identify from a woman yapping into her cell phone as she simultaneously chased after a small green fairy. The parents seemed to have their pre-established clicks. The kids just ran and ran and played and played. Everyone under four feet tall exuded a great sense of purpose.

I walked up to other parents with infants hanging on their fronts in slings, limbs dangling on two sides, slings just like mine, and made small talk. I met some friendly people with twins. I felt that I was in the club, and having this pumpkin in my arms gave me the ticket to talk to anyone. The playground had hundred year-old oak trees making a canopy overhead. The sun was shining. It was a pleasant fall afternoon. I had a kid. So did everyone else. We chatted. We sauntered on.

I noticed a woman in a huge blonde wig with sequined sunglasses stuck in the top like debris in a nest. I complemented her on her costume, trying to be friendly. I thought her costume could have been “Big-haired Woman from Dallas”. Without smiling she replied, “It’s just a wig.”

On my way home, I saw real live trick-or-treators in costume already hitting the pavement. I saw strollers paused and cameras snapping pictures for the scrapbook. The difference between these moments and the other thirty-three Halloweens of my life is that now, now on this day, October 31, 2007, I have my very own trick-or-treater.

I am no longer the kid. I have my own “Jack-o-lantern” and I change his diapers. He was not yet ready to visit the neighbors and yell the big question from doorsteps on our block. Instead, friends came to visit him and see his bulky, hot, award-winning (I made that part up) pumpkin costume.

Now I have an idea of what it’s like out there. It turns out that everyone on the playground is a beautiful kid. No one talks about it. What’s the point. If you’re out there, you’re in the game. You’ve become a competitor and joined the race. I appreciate that we don’t have to compete with the crowd just yet. Out there, he’s just one of millions of little kids, and at a glance he doesn’t have anything to set him apart. But at our house we have a precious baby who is three months old. He is still a future trick-or-treater and the star of the show. Everyone who comes to our house agrees that he is a beautiful baby and tells us so all the time. I treasure this Halloween with my little pumpkin at home.  ¶ 11:28 PM 1 comments

  sunshine. And rain.   ¶ 9:59 AM 0 comments