JourneyLeaf: Life a Page at a Time

Czech Gummy Party

At the end of our trip to Olomouc in the Czech Republic last month, a new friend gave me a cookbook.  I was thrilled!  Inside were recipes for many of the foods we'd been enjoying on the trip.

 

Eli and I decided to host a "Czech Gummy Party" to share some of the treats we brought home.  And we decided to bake Bábovka, a marble cake that we enjoyed many times on the trip.

 

 

When we visited people's homes for a meal, not only did we make new friends and eat many yummy things, but people also often gave Eli candy.  Eli decided to save it all and take it home to share with friends.  He divided everything so everyone would have a chance to try the treats.  The hosts who shared their home with us gave us cookies, and we shared those too.

 

The big white gummies with the funny faces are called "Milk Ghosts."

 

 

Everybody loved the treats!  The gummies were brought home were softer and more flavorful than United States versions. The big hit was the "Milk Ghosts."   

 

In addition to the treats, we put out games that we brought back with us.  The favorite was the "Hopping Hat" game when you use a flipper to launch small cone-shaped hats to try to land in a rack to collect points.  But a wooden block puzzle that someone gave Eli was also a big hit as was the Dobble game (matching pictures) and a wooden egg-stacking game.  (There are five eggs but the most anyone could successfully stack was three.)

 

 

 

 

At a toy shop in Olomouc, we found bags of small glow in the dark plastic links that can be snapped together.  Both the kids and the grownups loved making long chains.

 

A good time was had by all and everyone learned more about the Czech Republic.  Eli gave everyone a shiny crown coin to take home.

To our Czech friends...  We miss you!  Thank you so much for the treats and games!

 

Make It Snow! (Proactive Kid Folklore)

The first week of 2017 is looking promising weather-wise.  One to three inches of snow is forecast for our Georgia town!  Eight year-old Eli hasn't seen sled-able snow since 2014, so he's not taking any chances!  We had heard about folk beliefs that kids put into practice to bring on the fluffy white stuff.  We decided to try them all!  (Sorry for the dark photos.  I recently upgraded my hard drive and now my photo editing software won't work.)

1. Place a spoon under your bed and a penny under your pillow.
   
   
   
   
   
2. In each toilet in your home, place one ice cube for every inch
   of snow wanted.
   
   
   
3. Shake a snow globe.
   
   
   
4. Eat ice cream.  (We didn't have any!  Surely Cool Whip will do.)
   
   
   
5. Yell "Snow Day!" into the freezer.
   
   
   
6. Place a white crayon on every window sill.  
   (One white colored pencil will have to suffice!)
   
   
   
7. Run around the dining room twelve times.
   
   
   
8. Drink root beer with a straw.
   
   
   
9. Wear a colored sock on your left foot but not on your right.
   
   
   
10. Do a snow dance.
    
    
    
11. Say prayers.
    
    
    
12. Wear your pajamas inside out and backwards.  
    (We used fuzzy footie PJs because they are the funniest!  
    But he will sleep in an easier set.)
    
     
    LET IT SNOW!
    
    

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We make a gingerbread house every year.  I mentioned this to some mama friends and they were interested too, so our house turned into a happy construction zone.  Each family made their own gingerbread house and then we gathered to decorate...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

Want to do a gingerbread house with a kiddo? Click HERE for a blog post about how to get started.

 

Jello Worms

 

As Halloween approaches, there are some great ideas flying around on social media.  I was in awe of one in particular -- molding edible Jello worms inside bendy straws.  You use raspberry gelatin mixed with green-tinted cream for opaque wiggly worms.  Eli and I decided we had to try it.

Eli straightened out three packs of soda straws and stood them up in a Mason jar.  (See our Lego haunted house?)

 

Eli mixed the gelatin. 

 

Pink plus green equals icky brown. 

 

I slowly poured the mixture in.  As the liquid evened out across the straws it made weird slurpy sounds like pudding in a pipe organ.  We had a good laugh over that part. 

 

Eli was excited about squeezing the worms out of the straws after they had chilled eight hours.  Unfortunately, it was too hard for his small hands.  

There were about 120 worms.  With each one I had to hold the straw under hot water to loosen it, wipe the straw dry, then squeeze out the worm.  After unmolding about a quarter of them, I hit on using pliers to help me hold on to the back of the straw.  Much easier!  (Eli took this picture.  He did a good job, didn't he?)  

 

We made our worms on a warm day and it took so long to unmold them that the hot water was making them soft.  I nested my worm container on top of some ice water, and that helped the worms stay solid while I finished.

 

Ta da!  Here are our wiggly raspberry worms.  They smelled much nicer than they looked.  And after we added a sprinkling of crushed Oreo "dirt," they tasted yummy too.  We served some to Granddad and Grandma for our special early Halloween supper, and then Eli took the rest to school.  His teachers are such good sports and let all the kids have some.

  

Click HERE for the blog with the worm recipe and directions.  Thanks Debbie of One Little Project blog for sharing!

Click HERE for a funny story about Eli taking fake yucky food to school...edible owl barf ball pellets!

 

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Harry Potter Labor Day

 

I'm a big fan of themes.  Working in a public library taught me that a theme can give just enough boundaries that creativity has a riverbed to flow along.  You can believe this has seeped into my parenting.  As long as you don't take a theme too far (and are prepared to abandon it if it stops working), you have a great tool.

We decided to stay home and chill out on Labor Day.  It was hot.  We all wanted some down time.  I knew, though, that by mid-day my kiddo would be bored.  I presented Eli with the challenge to come up with a theme and suddenly we had Harry Potter Labor Day.

 

Long ago I picked up a Lego Hogwarts Express at a thrift store, and it was time to put it together.

 

We watched the first two Harry Potter movies.  For a movie-time snack, we made Pumpkin Bread from The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook.  

 

 

And the day before (so they would be ready on Labor Day) we made Jello Jiggler Beans in honor of the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans from the Harry Potter stories.  (Jello put out bean molds around Easter several years ago.  You can still find them on eBay.  Mine are a little warped, so we used upside down pots to hold them flat.)

 

 

Lime, peach, pineapple, and orange beans!

 

 

And speaking of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans....  If you haven't read Harry Potter, the fictitious candy truly is every flavor and thus there are lovely flavors but also disgusting ones.  When Harry Potter became popular, Jelly Belly candy company put out their own version of Bertie Bott's.  You may get bubble gum flavor -- or you might get the lookalike vomit flavor! That jelly bean might be marshmallow or it could taste like a baby wipe!  I got Eli a box of Bertie Bott's for Labor Day and our family made a game of it around the kitchen table.  By turns we each took a bean from the box without looking and then had to put it fully in our mouth and crunch down on it.  (After that you could spit it out.)  Such a relief when you got a pleasant one!  But we all had some disgusting ones -- black pepper, booger, and sausage, to name a few.  It took culinary courage to get through your turn.

 

 

It was a fantastic holiday. 

 

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Owl Pellets and Kiddo Pranks

  

A few weeks ago Eli and I agreed that the book he loved so much from the school library had to be returned so other kids could read it. Ginjer Clarke's book Gross Out: Animals That Do Disgusting Things had been hanging around our house for ages. But I did tell Eli that we could make the funny recipe that appears in the back of the book. Owls, you see, eat mice and other small critters whole. Whatever the owl cannot digest -- fur, claws, teeth, skulls, bones, etc. -- are later regurgitated in a ball or pellet. The "Owl Barf Balls" recipe transformed such ingredients as peanut butter*, sugar, cocoa, and oats into something that looked like owl pellets complete with pretzel "bones."  

I asked Eli's teachers if we could make the Owl Barf Balls for the class and was given the green light. It never occurred to me that they would turn it into a funny prank, but....  One of the teachers read the passage from the book about owl pellets and then announced that they had some. Would anyone like to try one and experience firsthand what an owl tastes? Eli raised his hand and was called to the front where he theatrically hesitated before taking a big bite.

"What did the kids say?" I asked.
"Nothing!  They just stared at me and some of them gasped."

 

When Eli got home from school, we had a good laugh about it.  I thought the laughs were over until the teacher handed me a packet a few days later. The teachers used the owl pellets to teach the class about thank you letters. Here are a few favorites (with surnames removed for privacy)...

 

 

 

 

As if that weren't enough, some kids made wonderful drawings of Eli and me in the kitchen, the Owl Barf Balls at school, and owls in the act of expelling pellets...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love Eli's school and teachers so much!

 

 

*Peanut butter is a controversial ingredient because so many kids today have peanut allergies.  Eli's teachers gave us the go-ahead to use it as there aren't any allergic kids in Eli's class. (After the Owl Barf Ball activity, they made sure the kids washed their hands before going to shared spaces such as the playground.) The recipe in the book would probably work well with Sun Butter made from sunflower seeds or you may be able to omit this ingredient. If you add broken pretzel sticks to THIS RECIPE, it would also look like owl pellets. 

   

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Lantern Walk 2014

When Eli attended a Waldorf preschool in California, we participated in an autumn lantern walk for kids that was quite magical -- sunset, kiddos, and candles glowing in homemade lanterns.  Thus when I heard there was a similar event here in North Georgia, I tracked down information about it.  
We found the group wonderfully welcoming.

This morning after breakfast, Eli and I made a candle lantern out of a jar, tissue paper squares, thinned glue, and some wire.

 

This evening as the sun began to set...   

 

We found the group and hung out with them in the cool evening.  
Kids ran across the grass in packs and waited for the darkness to settle.

 

Apple cider made it a little easier to wait.

 

Lanterns were ready.

 

There were extra lanterns for folks who forgot theirs.  The organizers thought of everything -- spare candles, lighters for the grownups, and even flickering electric tealight candles for the lanterns to be carried by wee tots.

 

There were various designs of lanterns, everybody bringing what they'd like.  Next year we want to try this sort of lantern made from paper wrapped around a balloon and stiffened with glue.  Once the glue is try and the balloon popped, the resulting lantern is held aloft by strings and a stick.

 

But Eli was pretty happy with his lantern too.

    

The group paused to read a poem in unison from little cards printed out on thick paper and brushed with autumn watercolors.  (Such a lovely little touch!)

 

 Ready?

  

 

Off through the Historic District...   

 

  

We made a detour through our favorite independent book shop...

 

Then through a dark, leafy alley...

 

 

Into the neighborhood...

 

 

 

And back at last for a rest on the grass. 

   

 

 

To see our lantern walk in California beneath the eucalyptus forest, click HERE.
 

Halloween Music for October

A few years back I was rambling through the clearance section at Williams & Sonoma and found a Halloween-themed mostly-jazz compilation CD called The Witching Hour.  The kitchen store puts out such CDs for theme dinner parties and this one was left over.  It turned out to be one of those rare treasure finds.

I don't know much about jazz, but this collection of songs got me more interested.  It ranges from slow and sultry to bouncy and quirky:

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea – Ella Fitzgerald
Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered – Sarah Vaughan
Devil May Care – Teri Thorton
Ding, Dong!  The Witch is Dead – Shorty Rogers
I Put a Spell on You – Nina Simone
Jack, You’re Dead! – Louis Jordan
Jeepers, Creepers – Bing Crosby
Old Devil Moon – Rosemary Clooney
That Old Black Magic – Shirley Horn
Witchcraft – Paula West

  

I listen to The Witching Hour a lot each October.  The music is good, but it also helps signal my brain that the season has arrived.  I lived in Savannah, Georgia for a while -- a lovely city, but very little autumn color.  Even in North Georgia, sometimes the heat doesn't break until late into the month.  My autumn playlist puts me in a fall mood regardless of weather.  

Over time I've added more songs.  Although the additions aren't jazz, I've tried to embrace the eclectic variety of The Witching Hour.  I love using the "shuffle" feature on my iPod and letting the music sort itself out into odd patterns -- torch songs followed by goofy monster dances followed by nostalgic pieces.  Like a bulging Treat or Treat bag, it is an enjoyably odd assortment.  

Movie and Television Themes:
Addams Family – Vic Mizzy
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Charles Gounod, Funeral March of a Marionette)
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes – John De Bello
Bewitched – Steve Lawrence
The Blob – The Five Blobs
Caspar the Friendly Ghost – Daniel Johnston (remade by Little Richard, 1995)
Dark Shadows – Robert Cobert
Ghost Train (Fried Green Tomatoes) – Thomas Newman
Ghostbusters – Ray Parker Jr.
Great Pumpkin Waltz (Charlie Brown) -- Vince Guaraldi Trio
Mahna Mahna (Muppet Show) -- Piero Umiliani 
Munsters – Jack Marshall
This is Halloween (Nightmare Before Christmas) – Danny Elfman
Twilight Zone – Golden Earring
Weird Science – Oingo Boingo

Humor:
Love Potion #9 – The Clovers
Martian Hop – The Ran-Dells
Monster Mash – Bobby "Boris " Pickett
Purple People Eater – Sheb Wooley
Witch Doctor – Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.

Miscellaneous:
Black Magic Woman – Santana
Dead Man’s Party – Oingo Boingo
Devil in My Car – B52’s
Frankenstein – Edgar Winter Group
Halloween – Siouxsie and the Banshees
Happy Phantom – Tori Amos
Samain Night – Loreena McKennitt
Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell
Thriller – Michael Jackson
Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon
Witchy Woman – The Eagles
You Can Do Magic – America

Create your own playlist and enjoy!

(Above:  Eli at ten months)

Interested in playlists to amuse kiddos?  Click HERE!

Do you particularly love or dislike Halloween?  Click HERE for a post about Ray Bradbury's wonderful book The Halloween Tree.  This short, lovely book explores the holiday and how/why it developed in various forms around the world. 

 

A Tale of Three Ketchups

 

For Camp Rainbow's Veggie Week, my friend Isabel suggested making ketchup/catsup with the kids.  Perfect!  A trip to the farmer's market for veggies...

 

  

After discussion and perusing some recipes, we decided more than one batch would be fun.  Ketchup isn't made from just tomatoes and there are a lot of styles out there, so we could do a taste test.

Chopping veggies...

 

 

 

Nikki's batch, made ahead of time by her hubby, John, was mostly tomato and onion.  Isabel's recipe was from a Dutch cookbook and had the same ingredients, but also apples and raisins.

   

I used the 1975 edition of The Joy of Cooking, scaling the recipe down so it used 3 pounds of tomatoes rather than 13.  (Click HERE for a handy online tool for converting a recipe to more or less servings.)  In addition to tomatoes, the recipe calls for onion, mild red pepper, brown sugar, allspice, cloves, mace, celery seed, peppercorns, cinnamon, mustard, garlic, bay leaf, and cider vinegar.  Whew!  

  

Cooking it all down...

 

After everything in the pot was cooked soft, I used an immersion blender, strained it, and then blended it again.  It could have used a little more cooking down, but the result was a yummy, medium-thick sauce.  Isabel and I had recipes that yielded ketchup within about an hour.  Nikki's recipe cooked down for ten hours over low heat!  (We're now contemplating crock pot ketchup.)

  

What do you put homemade ketchup on for a taste test?  Homemade french fries, of course.

 

 

 

From left to right...
My sauce was watery but had rich, spicy flavor like chutney. 
Nikki and John's sauce had classic ketchup flavor and was the kiddo fave.
Isabel's sauce had a fruity depth to it.
All of them were wonderful alone or swirled together.

It was a little stunning that three pounds of tomatoes became less than two cups of ketchup.  The Heinz and Hunt companies must go through box cars of tomatoes to churn out all those squeeze bottles of the stuff.  But I plan to make ketchup again.  It is so much fun to play around with various ingredients and come up with a signature flavor.

Camp Rainbow:  
A summer play/exploration group for kids and their families

Explanation of Camp Rainbow 
Week One:  Careers and Jobs -- Restaurant and Bank
Week One:  Careers and Jobs -- Pizza Parlor
Week Two:  Native Americans
Week Three:  Wet and Wild (water creatures and wetland habitats)
Week Three:  Wet and Wild -- Home Aquarium
Week Four:  Natural History (mud pies and fake rain count, right?)
Week Five:  Art All Around Us -- Georgia Museum of Art
Week Five:  Art All Around Us -- Patterns
Week Six:  Produce -- Fruit -- Berry Picking 
Week Seven:  Produce -- Veggies -- Making Homemade Ketchup
        

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Explanation of Camp Rainbow
Week One:  Careers and Jobs -- Restaurant and Bank
Week One:  Careers and Jobs -- Pizza Parlor
Week Two:  Native Americans
Week Three:  Wet and Wild (water creatures and wetland habitats)
Week Three:  Wet and Wild -- Home Aquarium
Week Four:  Natural History (mud pies and fake rain count, right?)
Week Five:  Art All Around Us -- Georgia Museum of Art
Week Five:  Art All Around Us -- Patterns
Week Six:  Produce -- Fruit 

  

This post ends with a fond wave to our California friends Tiffany and Robynn who shared their neighborhood blackberry patches and many sunny, happy afternoons with us.  (For blackberry patch memory lane, click HERE.  For strawberries, click HERE.)

 

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