Happy National Strawberries & Cream Day! 🍓 DYK strawberries are a healthy snack & full of vitamins? Adding some #Soyatoo vegan whip won't add much in calories!
— Jeannette Tomanka (@JeannetteTomnka) May 21, 2019
See my post for how to do a nice Strawberry Parfait: https://t.co/m5llV4PRaz #StrawberriesAndCreamDay #Strawberries pic.twitter.com/4vzSN12ryz
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Mom, housewife & life hacker! Corporate drudge escapee writing recipes, tips & discount alerts. Still bring home the bacon & cook it up in 101 healthy way. You’re also going to find out that I’m a total Disney geek. I don’t know if it started with the Read-Along records (“When Tinker Bell waves her wand – bbblllliiiinnnggg – turn the page!”) or the Disneyland book my grandfather gave me around age 3, but however the innoculation happened, it was very effective. I’m happy that my kids share my passion, and I’m even happier that Portland has one of the fancy-shmancy new Imagination Park Disney Stores!
Archive for Did You Know?
Did your mother make Chicken Divan, growing up? Ours did, and it is one of those flavors that takes me back to my childhood! It’s made me think how great it might be to do up a cookbook of those classic American dishes!
Reading up on it now, Chicken Divan was invented at the Hotel Chatham in New York City at the turn of the 20th Century, by the hotel’s chef, Anthony Lagasi. Lagasi was apparently also the past president of the Escoffier Society and the Chefs de Cuisine Association — but, while he was apparently Italian, he was not related to Emeril Lagasse, despite their similarity of surnames! (I love that the inventor of Chicken Divan was Italian!)
Read More→August means hot days, the return of football season, and the Back to School Blues. We’ve always loved shopping for school supplies (slightly sick, I know), and new backpacks were part of the deal. However, my kids are getting to the age where they’re carrying heavier stuff, and the fun character backpacks are just not holding up anymore. When I was in college I carried a Jansport backpack, which was a bit expensive, but when the zipper broke and the college bookstore replaced it – no questions asked – I realized it was worth it. I bequeathed it to an underclassman when I graduated.
Cashing in on the warranty isn’t quite that easy any more, but several companies do offer lifetime warranties on their backpacks (be sure to read the fine print). And some very fun designs! Check out Jansport’s here, The North Face’s here, LL Bean’s here, and Lands’ End’s here. Here are my tips for choosing bags:
1. As with any piece of luggage, choose a lightweight piece when it’s empty. The stuff the kids carry is heavy enough, so you want to start as light as possible.
2. Choose one with padded straps, and encourage your kids to use BOTH straps. I’m terrible about carrying a heavy bag on one shoulder, which causes sore muscles and a lopsided gait. Backpacks are designed to distribute the weight, so take advantage of that!
3. Whichever one you choose, I do recommend monogramming – just to deter “sticky fingers.”
Do you have a favorite brand of backpack? What other back-to-school equipment tips do you have?
The right way and the wrong way to haul your backpack – USE BOTH STRAPS!
We love any excuse to celebrate sweet stuff, as you’ve probably figured out by now. This obscure “food holiday” is particularly fun, since it involves one of our favorite candies and a favorite activity – jumping!
WARNING: Playing at JJ Jump will result in extreme static build-up – your kids will look like science experiments for several hours afterwards!
April 22 is National Jelly Bean Day, according to the Food Calendar, but July 31 is Jump for Jelly Beans Day, which means you must do more than just appreciate these little candy gems – you have to show your love by leaping and jumping. You can, of course, do this in your own house or yard, with or without the help of jump ropes or trampolines, or you can visit a local house of jumpage, like Sky High Sports or JJ Jump in Clackamas.
Jelly Beans have been popular since their creation, but Jelly Belly tapped a whole new generation when they created “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans” for the Harry Potter world, and included such, um, odd flavors as ear wax, grass, vomit, and earthworm. We bring this up because Jump for Jelly Beans Day happens to fall on Harry Potter’s birthday, so your celebration should (cautiously) include some Bertie Bott’s.
Remember the signs of heatstroke
There are rumors El Nino might eventually be on the way to help the West Coast with this drought, but for now, it’s awfully hot and dry out there. Given that it might be over 100 degrees here in Portland this weekend, seems like an excellent time to talk about heatstroke.
If you just feel hot or sunburned, fluids and air conditioning are definitely the place to start. But if you have the following symptoms, or even some of them, don’t hesitate to call your doctor or 911!
Heatstroke symptoms can be remembered by thinking about what can happen: H.A.P.N.
- H: high body temperature, heart rate, or respiration
- A: altered mental state or sweating pattern
- P: pain in head or on surface of flushed skin
- N: Nausea or the need to vomit
If you are trying to help someone who you think might be experiencing heatstroke, get them out of the sun and make attempts to cool them down with a cool shower or bath or even ice packs under the arms. Keep them as calm and hydrated as possible while you wait for help to arrive.
And stay safe this summer!
There are lots of useless kitchen gizmos out there these days. The ones advertised on television are often the worst offenders, setting up false problems you need to “solve” by purchasing their Greatest Slicer Ever or the Single Hot Plate That Will Replace Your Whole Kitchen. Of course, there is one perk to the commercials. I always feel much more capable and competent after I watch some of those folks attempt to operate a tomato!
These things can’t make a bad cook into a good one, or a poorly laid out kitchen functional. But there are some small devices you can add to your daily duties that can really elevate your cooking. Little things that can take a regular dish and punch it up.
So I guess it’s time to confess. I’m in love with my pepper grinder.
All my friends know I love the OXO brand of products because they’re easy to use when your hands are damp from washing or accidentally slicked up with olive oil, and their pepper mill is no exception. It’s easy to fill, easy to adjust, and comes with a little base to keep stray pepper off the counter.
But the brand almost doesn’t matter. Use any type you like. The key is the pepper! Fresh really is best for nearly every application. Since pepper corns are dried berries, they start to lose essential oils as soon as they’re cracked, so using it fresh gives a better hot, bright flavor than the pre-ground stuff that’s been sitting in a tin for who knows how long. Add it later in the cooking process so the scent and taste stay assertive and your taste buds will thank you.
Poloroid by Elsa Dorfman, 1988
Some pretty intense things happened in 1963. The Kennedy Administration severed our ties with Cuba. Alcatraz Penitentiary closed up shop. Bob Dylan released Blowin’ in the Wind.
Most importantly to me, The French Chef premiered on WGBH, introducing America to Julia Child.
It is impossible to overstate how much influence Julia Child had on American eating habits. She wasn’t the first cook to have a TV show, since that honor belongs to Philip Harben, a restauranteur from England. She wasn’t even the first celebrity chef in the US, since that was unquestioningly James Beard. But she was so fun and genuine, so distinctive, so large and good natured and real that she seemed to invite viewers into her kitchen — but even moreso encourage them to enter their own. American cuisine was never the same.
There was something supportive about Julia’s approach. Even now, when I watch clips on YouTube, I feel like she’s on my side, like she really wants to share the pleasures of good cooking and good food. And she wasn’t interested in making fine cuisine intimidating! There’s a famous episode of her first show in which, after cooking a massive potato pancake, she fumbled flipping it onto the platter, catching half the dish while the other half fell on the stovetop. But the show was filmed live, and Julia was a live wire — so she just scooped it up, patched it back together, and looked right in the camera as she asked, “If you’re alone in the kitchen, who is going to see?”
Early in her marriage, Julia was trying to please her older, more worldly husband with a duck dish. It exploded and set the oven on fire. If she could recover from that and go on to become one of the first culinary superstars, well, you and I can surely bounce back from a bad day.
Her kitchen, with its extra-tall counters to accommodate her six-foot-two height, is now at the Smithsonian. It this video, staff and lucky volunteers pack it up to be moved to a new exhibit. It’s amazing and gratifying to see the care they take with her well-worn pans and cookbooks. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, even if we don’t use quite as much butter as she liked.
Well, it’s that time of year. Time to get the lunch boxes out, pack the new school supplies, shop for new clothes. Time to go back to school.
Crayons and back-to-school supplies – an annual mecca to the stores!
Sigh.
Most of my mommy friends are excited and glad that time is here. I’m not. I love having my kids at home with me. Well, we haven’t exactly been home all summer! We’ve gone on scavenger hunts, hikes, adventures of all kinds. Read More→
Well, here we are in the Dog Days of Summer. I’ve heard that expression my whole life, but never really thought about its origin – until my kids heard it and asked what it meant. I almost gave them the explanation my grandfather gave me: “It’s so hot everyone’s walking around panting like a dog!”
While it does make sense, that’s not the real origin of the saying. According to Wikipedia, it goes back centuries, to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the days when Sirius, the Dog Star (so called because it was the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major) rose with the sun. Read More→
About Me
Housewife and DIY mommy blogger! Corporate drudge escapee writing recipes, tips & discount alerts. Still bring home the bacon & cook it up in 101 healthy ways. 🙂
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