A bit of history
Some more s'mores.
August 29, 2010 03:49
Were you able to celebrate National S’mores Day on August 10? This festive occasion passed me by! I’ll never let that happen again. I learned about it while preparing to make S’mores Cupcakes, which were a monster hit in the house and definitely a treat I’ll be making again.
The exact history of s’mores is vague, but the history of marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate bars is not. Apparently a s’mores “recipe” first appeared in the 1927 publication Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts. I’m just dying to get my hands on a copy of this vintage handbook. I bet the text and pictures are wonderful.
The classic s’more is snack perfection: gooey toasty marshmallows, melting-but-not-quite-melted Hershey’s milk chocolate (for me the chocolate still has to have some solid toothiness to it), and crispy graham crackers, all in the same messy, crumbly bite. It almost can’t be improved upon. Almost. Yet several years ago a Country Living article showed s’mores oozing over with marshmallow, melting chocolate ... and gorgeous purpley blackberry jam! I was intrigued. I am a (certain kinds of) fruit-and-chocolate kind of gal, so my mind and tastebuds were wide open for trying this.
For the first time in my life I had all the ingredients for ANYthing in the house at the same time. Miraculous!
As I pulled together ingredients, I spied the peanut butter and decided to do a side-by-side comparison of peanut butter and blackberry jam s’mores.
No need to get too fancy. Safeway brand blackberry preserves did just fine for me.
As a peanut-butter-and-chocolate lover (although give me Peanut Butter M&Ms over Reese’s cups any day), I thought I’d go absolutely mad for the peanut butter version.
It was good, really good, but I took just one bite and saved the rest for my son, who proceeded to make several more of the same spread with a thick layer of peanut butter.
The blackberry s’mores, on the other hand, made me positively swoon! Even this store-brand blackberry jam has a depth of flavor that complemented the chocolate elegantly.
A rapidly dwindling blackberry s'more with the requisite cold glass of milk.
Blackberry-and-chocolate is my new favorite fruit/chocolate combination, easily surpassing strawberries and chocolate. I’m imagining these made with dark chocolate next time. (I just happen to have a supply of Trader Joe's Belgian dark chocolate, and still have plenty of marshmallows and grahams.)
This one disappeared quickly!
Let me know if you try these flavored s'mores or come up with your own concoction. Or do you think the classic s'more is too pure to be tampered with?
Stay tuned for another s'mores pairing, this time dark chocolate and ...
To be continued!
The classic s’more is snack perfection: gooey toasty marshmallows, melting-but-not-quite-melted Hershey’s milk chocolate (for me the chocolate still has to have some solid toothiness to it), and crispy graham crackers, all in the same messy, crumbly bite. It almost can’t be improved upon. Almost. Yet several years ago a Country Living article showed s’mores oozing over with marshmallow, melting chocolate ... and gorgeous purpley blackberry jam! I was intrigued. I am a (certain kinds of) fruit-and-chocolate kind of gal, so my mind and tastebuds were wide open for trying this.
For the first time in my life I had all the ingredients for ANYthing in the house at the same time. Miraculous!As I pulled together ingredients, I spied the peanut butter and decided to do a side-by-side comparison of peanut butter and blackberry jam s’mores.
No need to get too fancy. Safeway brand blackberry preserves did just fine for me.As a peanut-butter-and-chocolate lover (although give me Peanut Butter M&Ms over Reese’s cups any day), I thought I’d go absolutely mad for the peanut butter version.
It was good, really good, but I took just one bite and saved the rest for my son, who proceeded to make several more of the same spread with a thick layer of peanut butter.
The blackberry s’mores, on the other hand, made me positively swoon! Even this store-brand blackberry jam has a depth of flavor that complemented the chocolate elegantly.
A rapidly dwindling blackberry s'more with the requisite cold glass of milk.Blackberry-and-chocolate is my new favorite fruit/chocolate combination, easily surpassing strawberries and chocolate. I’m imagining these made with dark chocolate next time. (I just happen to have a supply of Trader Joe's Belgian dark chocolate, and still have plenty of marshmallows and grahams.)
This one disappeared quickly!Let me know if you try these flavored s'mores or come up with your own concoction. Or do you think the classic s'more is too pure to be tampered with?
Stay tuned for another s'mores pairing, this time dark chocolate and ...
To be continued!
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Happy Veterans Day, Dad!
November 10, 2009 11:09
My father is a veteran of World War II. I’m glad he made it through the war, met my mom, got married, and had ten kids (of which I’m the tenth, so ... ) And I’m glad he’s still alive and kicking!
While I was growing up, I was vaguely aware that dad had been in that war, but never knew how he'd been in it because he didn’t really talk about it. Then, when my son did a grade school report about his grandfather, I started learning heretofore unknown facts about my dad -- for instance, he was in the Junior ROTC during high school, and he appears in uniform in his senior year picture (someday I'll have a scan of that); in addition to playing the guitar with a military ensemble over in France (or Germany?), he played the mellophone; although I don’t think he participated in direct combat, he did the scary work of clearing anti-tank mines; and when the war ended he performed occupation service in Germany (or possibly France). Dad has interesting stories of his time in Europe during the War, and he remembers some of those times with a good deal of warmth. If he experienced anything grim, a la Saving Private Ryan, he is not dwelling on it publicly. I greatly enjoy hearing him reminisce, and hope to document some of his memories in the near future.
Although Veterans Day was originally meant to honor those who served in World War I, it now honors soldiers from all wars, including Dear Old Dad. President Woodrow Wilson first proclaimed an Armistice Day for November 11, 1919 -- one year after the armistice was signed between the allied nations and Germany, effectively ending “the war to end all wars.” (The war formally ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919.) In 1938, November 11 became a legal holiday -- "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'." Then in 1953, a shoe store owner in Emporia (isn’t that a great name for a town!), Kansas named Al King started a campaign to turn Armistice Day into "All" Veterans Day. A year later President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law, “Armistice” was replaced with “Veterans,” and it’s been Veterans Day ever since, with some controversy over whether and where to put an apostrophe. (Formally, there is no apostrophe.)
Starting in 1971, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Day was scheduled on the fourth Monday in October, in keeping with President Lyndon Johnson's “Uniform Holiday Bill." The bill promoted 3-day holiday weekends for government workers, and enabled them to travel and "and see more of this beautiful land of ours." The change caused confusion and was short-lived -- Veterans Day was changed back to November 11 in 1978 and has been celebrated on this date -- as it is in many countries, where it is known variously as Remembrance Day, Poppy Day, Armistice Day, and Veterans Day -- ever since.
I'm sure dad has a flag flying in front of his house 300 miles from my own, as it always hung in front of our childhood home on similarly patriotic holidays. I've prompted him to look for his Army of Occupation medal and dig out that high school ROTC photo. Perhaps he's doing some reminiscing about his service overseas during World War II on this day. However he is spending it, I'm grateful he lived through it and can pass the remembrances on to his many children. Dad, I salute you on this Veterans Day for your good service to the country!
While I was growing up, I was vaguely aware that dad had been in that war, but never knew how he'd been in it because he didn’t really talk about it. Then, when my son did a grade school report about his grandfather, I started learning heretofore unknown facts about my dad -- for instance, he was in the Junior ROTC during high school, and he appears in uniform in his senior year picture (someday I'll have a scan of that); in addition to playing the guitar with a military ensemble over in France (or Germany?), he played the mellophone; although I don’t think he participated in direct combat, he did the scary work of clearing anti-tank mines; and when the war ended he performed occupation service in Germany (or possibly France). Dad has interesting stories of his time in Europe during the War, and he remembers some of those times with a good deal of warmth. If he experienced anything grim, a la Saving Private Ryan, he is not dwelling on it publicly. I greatly enjoy hearing him reminisce, and hope to document some of his memories in the near future.
Although Veterans Day was originally meant to honor those who served in World War I, it now honors soldiers from all wars, including Dear Old Dad. President Woodrow Wilson first proclaimed an Armistice Day for November 11, 1919 -- one year after the armistice was signed between the allied nations and Germany, effectively ending “the war to end all wars.” (The war formally ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919.) In 1938, November 11 became a legal holiday -- "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'." Then in 1953, a shoe store owner in Emporia (isn’t that a great name for a town!), Kansas named Al King started a campaign to turn Armistice Day into "All" Veterans Day. A year later President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law, “Armistice” was replaced with “Veterans,” and it’s been Veterans Day ever since, with some controversy over whether and where to put an apostrophe. (Formally, there is no apostrophe.)
Starting in 1971, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Day was scheduled on the fourth Monday in October, in keeping with President Lyndon Johnson's “Uniform Holiday Bill." The bill promoted 3-day holiday weekends for government workers, and enabled them to travel and "and see more of this beautiful land of ours." The change caused confusion and was short-lived -- Veterans Day was changed back to November 11 in 1978 and has been celebrated on this date -- as it is in many countries, where it is known variously as Remembrance Day, Poppy Day, Armistice Day, and Veterans Day -- ever since.
I'm sure dad has a flag flying in front of his house 300 miles from my own, as it always hung in front of our childhood home on similarly patriotic holidays. I've prompted him to look for his Army of Occupation medal and dig out that high school ROTC photo. Perhaps he's doing some reminiscing about his service overseas during World War II on this day. However he is spending it, I'm grateful he lived through it and can pass the remembrances on to his many children. Dad, I salute you on this Veterans Day for your good service to the country!
Happy Halloween!
November 01, 2009 08:41
This post is definitely rushed. Something more thoughtful to come in the very near future!
Autumn has absolutely bewitched me these past few weeks -- between the trees abloom in their gorgeous reds, rusts, oranges and golds, and the refreshing chill in the air, I've been wishing I could quit my job and somehow get paid just to walk the streets for hours appreciating each beautiful fall day.
A beautiful maple tree just down the street.
These colorful days also bring the promise of my favorite holiday: Halloween! Well, perhaps Halloween is tied evenly with Christmas and Valentine’s day, all of which are joyful, colorful and fun, were favorites of the Victorians, and involve chocolate. I love Halloween for the costumed trick-or-treaters who roam the neighborhood and pile up at our door with their goody bags waiting for treats, for orange candlelit pumpkins and strings of skull lights glowing in the dark, for bats and ravens, witches, tombstones and grim reapers.
We carved six punkins this year! The sixth is perched out of sight on the mantel with a spooky crow. From left to right, the carvers were: Kinnin, Meg, Emilia, Sean, Kenny.
Nevermore! Bit blurry, but you get the idea. Kinnin did this one.
Not only is Halloween spooky by design, with its imagery of ghosts and spirits, but this time of year possesses a natural eerieness that my pre-Christian ancestors tuned into long before the holiday evolved into the festive event that we know. The Celtic celebration called Samhain (SOW-in) “is a special time of year and a powerful time for divination," according to Lisa Finander, an editor at Llewellyn.com, “when the veil between the world of the living and the dead is the thinnest, and a time when the communication between these worlds is the strongest.” At Samhain, which literally means “end of summer,” the ancient Celts acknowledged and honored the dead while they marked the end of the seasonal cycle with bonfires and ushered in their new year. Like many Celtic/pagan celebrations, Samhain was co-opted by Christians and turned into the eve of All Hallows or All Saints Day, and All Hallows Evening became Hallowe’en.
The Victorians expanded on the theme of divination and and promoted Halloween rituals -- such as looking in a mirror or eating apples -- as a means for determining one’s romantic fate. Halloween also became yet another opportunity for exchanging their famously whimsical postcards!
"He is your fate ... who's face you've seen ... in the mirror's face ... on Halloween."
"The fates tell by the cards your future destiny ... but if you share an apple
with a heart that's fancy free ... on Halloween at midnight a marriage it will be."
Although All Hallows Eve has already passed, you can still light candles in memory of friends, family members and loyal pets who’ve crossed to the other side of the veil, or to divine your future lover in the lookingglass. The moon is full right now, so go outside and enjoy the calm blue glow it is casting over the clouds and leaf-bare trees on this cool, crisp (in our corner of the midwest, anyway) All Saints night. Maybe you’ll sense something else in the air, too! I hope you had a Happy Samhain/Halloween, and are enjoying the fall colors wherever you are.
Please feel free to leave a comment -- how did you celebrate Halloween this year, or did you celebrate at all? How do you feel during this naturally mysterious time of the season? Share your favorite ways of passing time during these chilly, darkening days of autumn. Or feel free to correct any misinformation you've read above. Anything ... I'd love to hear from you!
Autumn has absolutely bewitched me these past few weeks -- between the trees abloom in their gorgeous reds, rusts, oranges and golds, and the refreshing chill in the air, I've been wishing I could quit my job and somehow get paid just to walk the streets for hours appreciating each beautiful fall day.
A beautiful maple tree just down the street.
These colorful days also bring the promise of my favorite holiday: Halloween! Well, perhaps Halloween is tied evenly with Christmas and Valentine’s day, all of which are joyful, colorful and fun, were favorites of the Victorians, and involve chocolate. I love Halloween for the costumed trick-or-treaters who roam the neighborhood and pile up at our door with their goody bags waiting for treats, for orange candlelit pumpkins and strings of skull lights glowing in the dark, for bats and ravens, witches, tombstones and grim reapers.
We carved six punkins this year! The sixth is perched out of sight on the mantel with a spooky crow. From left to right, the carvers were: Kinnin, Meg, Emilia, Sean, Kenny.
Nevermore! Bit blurry, but you get the idea. Kinnin did this one.
Not only is Halloween spooky by design, with its imagery of ghosts and spirits, but this time of year possesses a natural eerieness that my pre-Christian ancestors tuned into long before the holiday evolved into the festive event that we know. The Celtic celebration called Samhain (SOW-in) “is a special time of year and a powerful time for divination," according to Lisa Finander, an editor at Llewellyn.com, “when the veil between the world of the living and the dead is the thinnest, and a time when the communication between these worlds is the strongest.” At Samhain, which literally means “end of summer,” the ancient Celts acknowledged and honored the dead while they marked the end of the seasonal cycle with bonfires and ushered in their new year. Like many Celtic/pagan celebrations, Samhain was co-opted by Christians and turned into the eve of All Hallows or All Saints Day, and All Hallows Evening became Hallowe’en.
The Victorians expanded on the theme of divination and and promoted Halloween rituals -- such as looking in a mirror or eating apples -- as a means for determining one’s romantic fate. Halloween also became yet another opportunity for exchanging their famously whimsical postcards!
"He is your fate ... who's face you've seen ... in the mirror's face ... on Halloween."
"The fates tell by the cards your future destiny ... but if you share an apple
with a heart that's fancy free ... on Halloween at midnight a marriage it will be."
Please feel free to leave a comment -- how did you celebrate Halloween this year, or did you celebrate at all? How do you feel during this naturally mysterious time of the season? Share your favorite ways of passing time during these chilly, darkening days of autumn. Or feel free to correct any misinformation you've read above. Anything ... I'd love to hear from you!
Critters and sirens.
June 02, 2009 02:55
I’m home today with a VERY stiff, sore neck and shoulder. I’m not sure what caused it besides “sleeping funny.” Only it isn’t funny, it really aches. I think I made it worse this morning while trying to gently stretch the muscles. Now I can barely look left or right without wincing, so I’m heading off to a local massage therapist to see if she can work out this unpleasant kink.
Being home makes me the lucky center of attention from all our critters. Mr. Sass, who normally insists on sleeping squarely on a lap, makes do when there is a laptop on said lap by snuggling as closely as he can.
I tried getting a picture of Piper sleeping a mere 12 inches from Mr. Sass on the couch, but alas she hopped off the couch and followed me into the family room when I tried sneaking in there to get the camera. Here she is instead posing next to my partially finished Corsage in Bloom. I just completed the aqua ruffled flower and am ready to proceed to a minty blue rosette.
Molly visits occasionally, sitting on the coffee table in the warm spot left by my laptop.
And Lilly lounges nearby on Kenny's easy chair.
I could get used to this working-at-home thing!
Because I was home, I got to take Piper for a walk right around mid-morning. In fact, the clocks must have struck 10:00 precisely on this first Tuesday of the month because suddenly the eerie wooOOOOing of civil defense sirens arose all around us. It was a bit chilling to hear them live, so many sirens all layered in varying ominous tones, fading in and fading out. After years of hearing them somewhat muffled from within the walls of my school or the buildings where I work, I felt for the first time the sense of urgency those loud sirens evoke. For a few moments I tried to imagine being in World War II London during The Blitz where they sounded nightly for months to warn of German bomb attacks. What an awful time that was -- such terror and destruction, resulting in the deaths of 43,000 civilians all over England.
I can’t imagine trying to cope on a day-to-day basis if our city was being bombed at night, and by day we still had to work, shop, get the kids to school, etc.
I hope we never find ourselves hearing those sirens in earnest, or sleeping in shelters or subway stations to stay safe until danger passes. May the worst reason they ring, at least here in Evanston, is to alert us that it’s time to relocate our cars to make way for snow plows.
Remember snow?
Being home makes me the lucky center of attention from all our critters. Mr. Sass, who normally insists on sleeping squarely on a lap, makes do when there is a laptop on said lap by snuggling as closely as he can.
I tried getting a picture of Piper sleeping a mere 12 inches from Mr. Sass on the couch, but alas she hopped off the couch and followed me into the family room when I tried sneaking in there to get the camera. Here she is instead posing next to my partially finished Corsage in Bloom. I just completed the aqua ruffled flower and am ready to proceed to a minty blue rosette.
Molly visits occasionally, sitting on the coffee table in the warm spot left by my laptop.
And Lilly lounges nearby on Kenny's easy chair.
I could get used to this working-at-home thing!
Because I was home, I got to take Piper for a walk right around mid-morning. In fact, the clocks must have struck 10:00 precisely on this first Tuesday of the month because suddenly the eerie wooOOOOing of civil defense sirens arose all around us. It was a bit chilling to hear them live, so many sirens all layered in varying ominous tones, fading in and fading out. After years of hearing them somewhat muffled from within the walls of my school or the buildings where I work, I felt for the first time the sense of urgency those loud sirens evoke. For a few moments I tried to imagine being in World War II London during The Blitz where they sounded nightly for months to warn of German bomb attacks. What an awful time that was -- such terror and destruction, resulting in the deaths of 43,000 civilians all over England.
I can’t imagine trying to cope on a day-to-day basis if our city was being bombed at night, and by day we still had to work, shop, get the kids to school, etc.
I hope we never find ourselves hearing those sirens in earnest, or sleeping in shelters or subway stations to stay safe until danger passes. May the worst reason they ring, at least here in Evanston, is to alert us that it’s time to relocate our cars to make way for snow plows.
Remember snow?
Happy Mother's Day!
May 10, 2009 11:28
More than a decade earlier, a rural northern Virginia minister’s wife named Ann Jarvis also united mothers in the name of community and peace. Around 1858 she started “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” -- groups of women who worked locally to help prevent the spread of disease by improving sanitary conditions, and who assisted families of mothers suffering from tuberculosis. At the onset of the Civil War, her clubs helped raise money for much-needed medicines, conducted food inspections to guard against contamination, and tended both Union and Confederate soldiers sick with typhoid fever. She created “Mother’s Friendship Day” to ease post-war tensions, and create a sense of peace and unity between Union and Confederate woman. Her wish for “a memorial mother’s day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life” came to fruition in 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day a national holiday. Ann's daughter, Anna (pictured below right, next to her mother) rallied for years until she was virtually destitute to help grant her mother's wish. Ironically, Anna Jarvis never married or had children, but clearly she was devoted to her mother!
I am humbled by the work of these women, which goes far beyond what I have presented in these few paragraphs. Each felt deeply the importance and necessity of peace in the world, having experienced directly its violent opposite in their homeland. Each understood the unique position women are in as traditional nurturers to help bring about peace. Each endured the hardship of war, disease, unsanitary living conditions and social disapproval to work (peacefully) for peace, to help others live better lives -- to help them simply live. Mother’s Day is built on a firm foundation of faith, integrity, sweat and compassion, not greeting cards and chocolates.
I miss phoning my mom on this day to say, "I love you, mom!" I miss the joy of receiving sweet handmade treasures from my own son (who, incidentally, gave me a hug this morning AND is in the kitchen making me breakfast!). I appreciate the tulips and reassurances that I’m a good mother that I get from my husband. But since Mother’s Day has “real” -- not commercial -- beginnings as an effort toward peace, I need to figure out how to honor the women who began the day. While I’m working on that, I’m going sip my favorite kiwi pear green tea, enjoy the crunchy stuffed french toast being prepared for me by my two favorite guys, plant some Joseph's Coat climbing roses (oh I hope mine grow as beautifully!) in the front garden, go for a bike ride, and nurture peace and love in my own home.
Happy May Day!
April 30, 2009 10:08
As an adult I’ve explored my celtic roots and learned that the month of May is about Beltane, which is celebrated in early to mid May. According to Wikipedia, “... Beltane marked the beginning of the pastoral summer season when the herds of livestock were driven out to the summer pastures and mountain grazing lands." The hills glowed with bonfires and May bushes of rowan or whitethorn were decorated with ribbons and flowers. It’s a “cross-quarter day,” midway between the vernal equinox and the solstice on June 21, our traditional first day of summer. For the ancient Celts, summer began in May and the solstice signaled “midsummer” -- the halfway point to harvest time! Interestingly, their year ends on October 31, but let’s talk about that closer to Halloween (one of my favorite days, in my favorite season).
I recently learned that May Day is also known as International Workers Day -- essentially Labor Day for the world beyond the United States and Canada. And its origins are right here in Chicago. To oversimplify a complicated (and very interesting) story, in May of 1886 a rally at Haymarket Square (just west of the loop) in support of a strike in support of the 8-hour work day turned violent -- a bomb was thrown, shots were fired, and a number of civilians, strikers and police officers were killed. Eight men were charged with a police officer’s murder; six of them were sentenced to die. They became martyrs for the international movement toward an 8-hour workday, and May 1 became their worldwide day of commemoration. In other words, people died so we could work 9-to-5! To disassociate from those turbulent events, our Labor Day was established on the first Monday in September, while almost everywhere else in the world it is celebrated -- with similar turbulence -- today.
Of course, none of this should be mistaken for “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” the common distress call rooted in the French phrase “m’aider” meaning “help me!” A lot of us are in distress these days -- over lost jobs, the daunting task of finding new employment in a desiccated job market, shrinking retirement accounts, the sluggish housing market, swine flu. I’m sure many people are having moments when they feel like things are hopelessly spinning out of control and they want to shout “Mayday!” while they grope for the eject button and the parachute ripcord. We all deserve a break from the gloom, and I'm taking mine today. In keeping with my daydream of a lovely, peaceful place in the country, I shall recall my childhood celebration of May 1 as a day of flowers, sunshine (hopefully) and surprises. No matter what you do this May 1 ... Happy May Day to you!
