JourneyLeaf: Life a Page at a Time

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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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 Candy Buy-Back

We had a fun Halloween!  It started with a trip to the pumpkin patch earlier in October...

  

There was a costume parade at school...

 

In the afternoon Aunt Jennifer and Cousin Margaret came over to help carve the pumpkins... 

 

Then it was finally time for Eli Robin Hood (and Papa Banana) to venture forth for Trick-or-Treating...

 

 

Woo hoo!  Loot! 

   

Eli sorted by color and then by shape, stacking and restacking (while munching).  It was great that he was having so much fun!  But...um...what do you do when your kindergartner owns five pounds of sugar?!

   

We've taken Eli Trick-or-Treating every year of his life, but we're lucky that so far he's never asked about the candy the next day.  (The first three years he didn't even ask to eat the candy after he got it!)  We always put the candy away after Halloween night hoping out of sight meant out of mind -- which seems to have worked.  Regardless, I felt like he might start asking for it and I certainly didn't want to start picking out of the bag.

I'd heard about candy buy-backs where health food stores, pediatricians, or dentists purchase Halloween candy for kids.  One in our town offers $1 per pound and then ships the candy to troops deployed overseas.  Eli would get money, the house would be free of too much sugar, and those in the military missing out on holidays back home could enjoy it.  Win/win/win!  

I floated the idea to Eli and he instantly wanted to do it.  (Whew!)  We agreed to go after school, so that morning I went through our pantry and pulled out all the leftover candy and wrapped treats I could find leftover from birthday parties and such.  Anything fresh enough for the troops to enjoy went into the stash!

 

Eli dumped his haul into a big collection bucket at the dentist office...
Despite the fact that we just walked in off the street, they were super nice and friendly.  

   

Part of the swap is that I told Eli I'd match what the dentist gave him.  Along with some money relatives sent him in Halloween cards, he had enough to buy a Lego set.  I took him to the toy store and let him look as long as he wanted.

 

I hope he'll want to do the candy buy-back again next year!

 

An Archivist's Halloween

I came across these photos a few weeks ago and had to laugh.  I'd forgotten all about this Halloween prank. 

When I was a manuscripts archivist, I was put in charge of my institution's artifacts collection.  For a history geek like me, it was terribly fun.  We had some bizarre artifacts.  In the early years of the pre-Civil War organization, it tended to collect anything old or interesting rather than sticking to a scholarly or topic-based collection plan.  Some old gent would find a weird object while traveling the world and soon donate it.  

Trying to sort out the records for over a century and a half of artifacts was dizzying.  There were many times that I found records for the organization acquiring something a century before but then not being able to find the object in question.  One such artifact was a mummy's hand.  There was no record of it being sold or donated elsewhere, yet it hadn't been seen in decades.  Everybody on staff was intrigued and periodically it would come up in conversations, folks wondering what became of it.  Hmmm.

   

It was too good to resist.  One October I tracked down a library book with life size images of the bones in the human hand.  I cut wooden dowels to fit the finger bones and then screwed them together using small hardware loops/eyes.  I screwed the wrist portion of the hand to a small board and glued it into the bottom of a shallow cardboard box.  I ran fishing line up the "bones" and then out the corner of the box.  Next, I covered the bones with brown Fimo clay.  I used cream and brown acrylic paint to make some Lee Press On fake fingernails look creepy and then pressed them into the Fimo.  For a last step, I dyed some cheesecloth with tea to make it look old and also splashed some tea stains on cream-colored tissue paper to nestle around the hand.  It looked pretty good, if I say so myself -- dessicated, wrinkly, and gaunt.  But my favorite part was that I could pull on the transparent strings coming out the bottom of the box to suddenly make the hand move and draw up.

 

  

On Halloween, I sneaked the box into work, waited about an hour, and then excitedly "found" the missing mummy's hand in the artifacts storage area.  I took it around the building to show folks and would wait until they were quietly leaning over for close scrutiny before pulling on strings to make the mummy hand move.  The shrieks were worth all the work.

All good fun comes to an end.  Time moved on and everybody had seen my creation.  What to do with it?  When I left the organization for another job, I quietly stashed the box in a storage area.  To this day, I have no idea if anybody else found it or not.  I can only imagine somebody years later pulling out the unmarked box and finding the creepy thing inside.  I hope it earned a few more shrieks.

  

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. 

 

Apple Spice Pudding Cake

I love it when I blunder on a new recipe and it instantly becomes a favorite.  Last week I found three new "keeper" recipes in a single day!  

  

For a the birthday party of a dear family friend last week, I decided to try making an apple-inspired meal.  This is what I came up with...

• October Cider Beans with Smoked Apple Chardonnay Chicken Sausage
• Whole Wheat Granny Smith Apple Bread
• The bread was served with a choice of two homemade toppings -- Walnut Butter with Apple Cider Reduction or Fresh Granny Smith Apple Butter
• Tossed Salad with Pink Lady Apple and Apple Cider Vinaigrette
• Honeycrisp Apple Spice Cake with Maple Fluff

It was one of those happy meals that manages to come off almost perfectly.  In particular, the Cider Beans, the Apple Bread, and the Apple Spice Cake are things I want to make again (and again and again and....)  The first two recipes I found in a library book called In Praise of Apples:  A Harvest of History, Horticulture, and Recipes by Mark Rosenstein (Asheville, NC:  Lark Books, 1996).  That night after everything was piled into the dishwasher and the counters were wiped off, I went right to my computer and ordered a copy.  (Click on the photo below for an Amazon link.)  Such a lovely and inspiring book that also happens to be crammed with good information!

 

 

As for dessert, I roamed one of my favorite cooking websites, AllRecipes.com, until I found a cake that sounded wonderful.  It was!  
I skipped the raisins and reduced the cooking time by about ten minutes.  The result was a spicy yet not overpowering tube-type cake that has an interior almost moist and soft enough to eat with a spoon.  That quality is thanks to the fresh apple bits making steam inside the batter as it bakes.  At the same time, the exterior of the cake becomes caramelized and streusel-like.  The Maple Fluff (found in my mom's recipe box) was good, but really what this cake needs is to be served hot-from-the-oven with good quality vanilla ice cream.

 

 

   

AllRecipes calls this recipe "Apple Spice Cake."   Hmmm.  Not quite it.  I'm adding the word "pudding" to the title because this cake reminds me of all the best qualities in an excellent English steamed pudding.  Click HERE for the recipe.  It won't win beauty contests, but it will win you friends!

 

Yesterday was a gray, rainy Monday.  It became a cozy day, though, as soon as friends dropped by and I whipped up another Apple Spice Pudding Cake to slide into the oven.  Cut into quarters, Eli and I delivered parts of it to three other families and spread a little early autumn joy.  And the whole house smells lovely now.

             

  

(Christopher Idone's Apples:  A Country Garden Cookbook is one of the most lovely cookbooks I've seen in a long time.  If you don't feel like cooking or baking apples, paging through this is almost just as good!)

 

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Spiced Figs Cranberry Sauce

I can't remember any other recipe that is so aesthetically pleasing to make.  This was my very first try at cranberry sauce and it was not only easy, but also lovely -- gorgeous colors, nice smells, and yummy too.  (Don't let the "spiced" throw you.  It is much like regular cranberry sauce but with a little warm spice and citrus.  The aftertaste is a actually bit softer.)

A twelve ounce bag of fresh cranberries has just under four cups and the recipe calls for three.  Knowing we'd have no use for the leftover berries, we added them along with a little extra sugar and water.

  

First, the fresh cranberries got a shower...   

  

I'd never bought dried figs before.  We found sundried Kalamata Crown figs from the Mediterranean and they were packaged in a curious pillow shape.  We chopped them into pieces about the size of a cranberry, removing the stems.  Sticky!  But yummy.  (The 14 ounce package is enough for a double batch of sauce with some figs left over.)

   

And for color appeal, nothing like adding an orange.  The kitchen smelled great while I zested the orange and then Eli juiced it. 

   

   

Into the pot!  Now the allspice smell swirled around the kitchen too.

   

Our recipe said that the berries will pop once the pot heats up.  I assumed the skins would soften and the word "pop" was just a visual cue.  Instead, I think the insides of the cranberries actually swelled and burst their skins.  We could literally hear some of the cranberries pop.  We were charmed.

   

Eli and I nibbled a fresh cranberry to see what it would taste like.  The color and flavor is pretty much all in the skin.  (In my side of the cranberry we chopped in half, there were tiny seeds in the four inner chambers.)

   

Simmering...

 

Simmering...

 

Soon we had a fragrant pot of sauce as bright as a ruby.  Gorgeous!

 

Ta dah!  Our homemade cranberry sauce!

  

Spiced Figs Cranberry Sauce

¾ cup sugar
½ teaspoon allspice
1 cup water
3 cups fresh (or frozen) cranberries
1 cup dried figs, roughly chopped
1 orange, zested and juiced

In a large saucepan, combine sugar, allspice, and water over medium heat.  Stir and simmer until the sugar is dissolved.  To the pot, add the cranberries and figs.  Increase the heat and bring to a boil.  Cook uncovered for 5 minutes, until the cranberries begin to pop.  Reduce heat and cook for 20 minutes longer, until thickened.  Stir in the orange zest and juice.  Set aside until ready to use.  Yields 4 cups.

Recipe by The Jewels of New York.  This is a creative cooking group.  To read more about them and their project, visit their website at www.thejewelsofny.com.  Their recipe was featured last year in the magazine Kinfolk:  A Guide for Small Gatherings (WeldonOwen Publications), Volume 6 (Autumn 2012).  Pg. 30.

For more information about Kinfolk, click HERE.

  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ONE AND ALL! 

   

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