Welcome to the SEC, Brian.
Recipes coming tomorrow. God bless, and The Ohio State University should see that it’s possible to pass against Georgia.
It’s Football Food!
From the Kid Blog
The Kid Blog at Miss Missy’s School has short posts about some aspects of reading and writing. We start with something from Miss Missy’s School: A Pack of Farm Dogs Starts a School, and then turn to children’s book writers from the past to continue the topic.
By the way–Miss Missy’s School is on tremendous sale at Amazon, where one reviewer writes,
Miss Missy’s School is a wonderful story with something for people of any age, making this a great book to read all together. Readers become learners with Bernstein’s unique inclusion of asides for learning history, philosophy, and vocabulary, among other things. Young readers are taught the significance of various phrases and cultural artifacts, and older readers are reminded of all the neat things we have done throughout history. Overall a very fun book.
A 5-star review!
Please help support this starving writer by hitting the share buttons below. Thanks! Now off to have some Football Food! (Link goes to search results here at Big Food for football + food+ recipes. Vast majority are appetizers.)
Writers Take Note
I love notebooks and journals! I have one or more for each of the books I’m working on, others for books I’m reading. Naturally, I have a notebook that’s my commonplace book. If you haven’t yet read about John Bartlett in the “Epilogue: Old Things and Ways Explained” to Miss Missy’s School Book I: A Pack of Farm Dogs Starts a School, a commonplace book is simply a notebook where you write down sayings, quotations, Bible passages, titles of books you want to read–random things you want to put down on paper so if you can’t remember them later, you can still easily find them.
I was looking through the four Miss Missy’s School journals the other day. I came across something in the first one (the Rocky-look-alike) that made me chuckle. There is a page where I wrote a list of the characters’ names–Missy and her pack and their people–in one column, and then the same list in another column on the same page. Pairs of names are connected to each other by arrows, and on top of each line is written something. For example, Rocky’s name in the left column has an arrow that points to Bebe’s in the right, and John’s in the right points to Rocky’s in the left.
If you’ve read “Chapter XXI: The Big Day,” you know exactly what all of these names and arrows mean! If you haven’t yet, I’ll give you a hint. There is a gift exchange in that chapter. Before I could write the chapter, I had to figure out who each character naturally gives something special to, and what that special something would be.
The “Dog is Love” journal is for Book II: Miss Missy’s School Days. The first pages have questions, such as, “When is each subject taught? What time? What days?” and “What do the youngest students do all morning?” (The youngest students don’t go to regular classes, and they are dismissed at lunch time.) Unlike the gift exchange question that was specific, these questions are background questions. I had to answer them before I could start writing. It also has pages filled with research notes on armadillos, and the differences between crows and ravens.
I made a new entry in that journal just the other day. I was reading the book by Mark Twain, and out of the blue my brain solved a nagging problem I was having about the ending of Book II. And I thought, I’d better write that down so I don’t forget! So I did.
Mark Twain’s journals are almost as famous as the books he wrote. People have written books about his notebooks!
As a young man, Twain thought he could just remember everything, but he couldn’t. So he started taking notes, but they weren’t detailed and didn’t help him remember what his thoughts had been. Finally, he began to make notes with more detail–but not every detail! That’s where his imagination came in.
Another author whose notebooks are very famous is Beatrix Potter. I think we may have to wait for another day to talk about her notebooks because it’s a long story. She wrote in code so that no one else could read them. It wasn’t until after she died that someone decoded them and discovered what she wrote!
Journals for writers are like sketchbooks for artists. You can doodle simple ideas, jot down your impressions of something you saw or something someone said. You can ask questions. For example, if you saw a deer standing right by your patio, and your dog, Spot, barked and barked but the deer just calmly walked a few paces away, you might ask yourself, I wonder what that deer thinks of Spot? The next time you want to write a story, but can’t think of an idea, all you need to do is look back at your journal to the ideas you’ve already had. And then you can use your journal to begin thinking about how you want the story to go.
Clementine Paddleford’s Sasha Flambé
Ty’s birthday dinner was menued in seven languages, not counting English. Six dishes for prelude, appetizers all, to go with the strawberry wine bowl. Polish Borscht for the soup course. Five entrées followed with a great green salad. Last, this flaming dessert named in honor of Alexander Kipnis (Sasha). It’s a party recipe planned to serve thirty people
Clementine Paddleford, How America Eats (1960)
Still in Simsbury, Connecticut, Clementine is adding to her collection of pink recipes! If you haven’t read the story (not as bad as it sounds) click here.
Please note the number of servings on this dessert served at a birthday party!
Companion recipe: SASHA FLAMBÉ
SASHA FLAMBÉ WITH TORTE AND MOUSSE
Yield; 30 portions
TORTE
10 eggs, separated, yolks beaten until very thick and lemon-colored, 2½ C sifted confectioners’ sugar gradually beaten in, whites beaten stiff
½ C sifted flour
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp rum
¼ lb walnuts, finely ground
½ lb pecans, finely ground
Apricot brandy
Preheat oven to 300˚. Add flour, baking powder, vanilla, and rum to yolk mixture mix well, fold in stiffly beaten egg whites, ground walnuts, and ground pecans, spread mixture evenly in 2 greased and floured 15½x10½x1-inch pans, and bake 30 to 35 minutes. Turn layers out of pans and cool completely. Cut each layer in half crosswise and brush well with apricot brandy.
MOUSSE
¾ C lemon juice
2 tsp grated lemon rind
2 C sugar
Dash salt
½ C water
6 eggs, separated, yolks beaten until thick and lemon-colored
1 quart heavy cream, whipped
¾ C cognac, heated
Combine lemon juice, rins, 1¼ C of the sugar, salt, and ¼ C of the water in a saucepan, simmer over flame until sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil and simmer 20 minutes. Add remaining ¼ C water and lemon mixture gradually to beaten egg yolks, and cook over hot water (or low flame) until thickened, stirring constantly. Cool. Mix together whipped cream and cooled lemon sauce thoroughly, turn into a 15½x10½x1-inch pan, and freeze. When very firm, unmold and cut cross-wise into 3 sections. Alternate layers of torte and mousse, “4 of torte and 3 of mousse,” and refreeze for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 500˚. Make meringue by beating egg whites stiff but not dry, gradually beating in remaining ¾ C sugar, cover sides and top of torte-mousse layer with meringue, and bake for 3 to 5 minutes, until browned lightly. Pour heated cognac over Sasha and ignite.
Clementine Paddleford’s Beef a la Mode
Clementine Paddleford travels now to Connecticut collecting recipes and stories for her cookbook, How America Eats (1960).
It was my good fortune to spend a day in Medford at “Saltacres,” the home of the late Rosetta Clarkson, known then as the state’s outstanding herbalist.
How America Eats, p. 45
Read the little story about the herbs of the state.
“Serve over rosemary biscuits. (Add 1 teaspoon finely chopped or powdered rosemary to a regular biscuit dough.)”
BEEF A LA MODE III
Yield: 6 portions
1 lb stewing beef, cubed
½ C flour
1½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
3 Tbsp bacon fat
4 carrots, scraped, sliced
1 large onion, sliced
6 potatoes, quartered
3½ C stewed tomatoes, drained, juice reserved
1 Tbsp No. 1 herb mixture*, “if you dislike seeing herb flecks in the liquid it may be tied in a square of cheesecloth”
Water or stock, if necessary
Preheat oven to 325˚. Combine flour, salt and pepper, roll meat cubes in mixture, then brown in bacon fat. Arrange meat in a lightly greased deep baking dish, and add carrots, onion, potatoes, and drained pulp of tomatoes. Stir remaining seasoned flour into fat in pan, and when mixture bubbles gradually add reserved tomato juice, stirring constantly, and cook until sauce is thickened slightly. Add herb mixture, pour liquid over meat and vegetables, adding enough water or stock to come 1 inch from top of casserole, cover, and bake for 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours, “the longer the cooking the better the dish.”
“*No. 1 herb mixture: 1 tablespoon each summer savory, sweet marjoram, chervil, basil.”
Spite House Fish Chowder from Clementine Paddleford
“It was in Marblehead [Massachusetts] that I went calling on the Samuel Chamberlains, yes, that Samuel who is the famous photographer and writer, his wife Narcissa, co-author, collector of recipes. It was the Chamberlains who gave me this Spite House Fish Chowder, a dish of high standing in Marblehead.”—Clementine Paddleford, How America Eats (1960)
“Serve … with chowder crackers.”
Read more of Clementine and Mrs. Chamberline’s discussion about the three kinds of cooking in America (in 1960). Also, a photograph of Spite House.
SPITE HOUSE FISH CHOWDER
Yield: 6 to 8 portions
¾ lb salt pork, diced fine
6 large onions, sliced
6 small potatoes, pared, diced
Water
2 lb haddock fillets, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 Tbsp flour
1 quart milk
Worcestershire sauce
Salt, pepper, to taste
Fry salt pork in a skillet until pieces are golden brown; drain thoroughly on absorbent paper. Brown onions in reserved fat in skillet. In a soup kettle boil potatoes in just enough water to cover, about 10 minutes. Add fish to kettle. Remove browned onions from fat and spread over fish. Discard all but 1 Tbsp fat remaining in skillet, blend in flour, slowly stir in milk, season to taste with Worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper, pour seasoned milk into kettle, cover, and simmer “over lowest possible heat” for 3 hours “without stirring.” Twenty minutes before serving, heat reserved browned salt pork in a slow oven until crisp. Stir chowder, taste for additional seasoning, and serve in soup bowls with a sprinkling of the crisp pork.
Mc
Busy day so this will be the only one. The Week in Pictures is much better, in my opinion, today than it has been for a few weeks. Enjoy!
More recipes from Clementine coming up later this morning!
Dear WordPress,
I’d just like to pass along a couple of thoughts this afternoon.
First, this coming Sunday I will turn one year younger than standard retirement age. Should be a good day, though I long ago retired from my day job to become a lady of leisure with nothing better to do than blog. I have ordered grilled filets, stuffed potatoes, and cherry pie à la mode for dinner. I tell you this so you will understand my frustration, and why I keep saying, impolitely, to you, “Shut up!” I am not seven. I do not need to be patted on the back and notified that I’m on a X-day roll posting at The Old Books Blog, Miss Missy’s School, or here. Please stop. It’s annoying. I look forward to that little notification button lighting up because it means someone has at least gone to the trouble to click on the “like” button. And then I see it’s you. Such a let down.
Speaking of Miss Missy’s School, my delightful, fun, and quietly educational book for kids and their grownups (on embarrassingly inexpensive sale at Amazon), I have noticed that my posts from that site, which I am trying to reinvigorate in the hopes of selling some ridiculously inexpensive hard copies with gorgeous watercolor illustrations by Daughter C, are not showing up in the WP Reader. Most of the traffic I get at my little blogs comes from the Reader. And I’m not getting any traffic at Miss Missy’s School, despite my sharing a lot of marvelous content for kids about reading and learning how to write at the Kid Blog there. Please kindly fix this problem. (Yes, I have turned JetPack off and on.)
This latter point about Reader is quite important in my life’s plans. I am not getting any younger! In fact, I seem to be getting older by the day. Miss Missy’s School needs a different cover. Everyone agrees. Relatedly, your WP bill just came due and was paid on time. I thought Mr. Big Food was going to have a heart attack when he saw the credit card statement. I cannot shell out any more money on the book from funds that have not been generated by book sales. You’re not living up to your end of the bargain. I pay you to help me spread the word and you’re not doing that. So please fix the problem!
Sincerely,
Marica
P.S. Here’s a mock up of what we have in mind for the new cover, except it would need to include Rocky, too.
Too Lovable Tiger
Tiger the Cat is a member of Missy’s pack from Miss Missy’s School: A Pack of Farm Dogs Starts a School. On sale now at Amazon!
This is a little post at the Kid Blog at Miss Missy’s School where you can preview the book for middle-grade and young adult kids and their gornwups.
Too Lovable Tiger!
Tiger is such a lovable cat! We’re so lucky he found us all those years ago. The Farm just wouldn’t be the same without Tiger.
What do you think about the way Tiger talks? Prrretty purrrdy, isn’t it? When he purrs–and the real Tiger purrs a lot–that is sort of how he sounds. I wonder if you’ve noticed something else about how Tiger talks. Let’s look at “Chapter IV: The Nominal Problem” as an example. Here are a few words and phrases he says (I’ll leave out the extra r’s):
- Perfectly pugnacious
- Perfectly pleasant
- Perhaps you’d like to be called Priscilla
- Aubrey! A pretty proper moniker!
These are all examples of alliteration. Alliteration is repeating the same beginning consonant sound in neighboring words. “Perfectly pugnacious.” The word alliteration comes from two Latin words, ad (to) and littera (letter), so it literally means “to the letter.” In other words, the letters are near together.
Here are a few examples the famous poet, Tennyson, wrote in some poems for children.
Slow sail’d the weary mariners and saw
…
And sweet is the color of cove and cave
The Sea-Fairies
Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat,
Nor any cloud would cross the vault,
But day increased from heat to heat,
On stony drought and steaming salt
Mariana in the South
Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerly; the grasshopper carrolleth clearly
…
Over the pools in the burn water-gnats murmur and mourn
Leonine Elegiacs
In Tiger’s alliterations, your eye can easily see the same letters are near together. In Tennyson’s alliteration, the words are sometime farther apart and your eye alone doesn’t pick up on the sound of the alliteration.
Try reading “On stony drought and steaming salt” aloud. (If you’re not familiar with the spelling, a ‘drought’ [drowt] is a time when there hasn’t been any rain.) Read some of the others aloud, too. (If anyone asks what you’re doing, just tell them your reading Victorian poetry!)
When you read the lines aloud, do you hear an almost musical quality in them? One of the reasons you may is because these are all lines from poems, and Tennyson was a very exacting poet.
In addition to poetry, you’ll find alliteration in tongue-twisters, “Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” in nursery rhymes, in all sort of picture books for new readers–especially picture book dictionaries. These are all used to teach young children how to pronounce and recognize letters and words.
Alliteration is also used to create effects like helping the reader visualize a scene.
So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged, and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, “Up we go! Up we go!” till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, first paragraph
That’s a lot of alliteration! But it gives you a pretty good picture of how hard Mole had to work to pop his snout into the sunlight and the warm grass of a great meadow.
Why don’t you try writing two or twelve sentences to show that you, too can write this type of…
Books of Brilliance
One of the blogs I follow is Book of Brilliance. The proprietor is launching a sub-site–
We have launched our own community on Books of Brilliance. The goal of this is to let users and visitors write about their favorite books or whatever book related post that they want to discuss.
This is, I think, the link to join.
And don’t forget to have a look see at The Old Books Blog.
Do you know what happens?
What happens when Missy and her Dear Friend, Rocky find a poor scrawny little fox hound crouching over her pup? The hound asks,
“Please, please. C-c-can me and my son crawl under your porch? Little Tommy is so wet and I’m afraid he’ll c-c-catch his death if I cain’t get him outta the wind,” she shivered and chattered.
If you don’t know what happens, it’s time for you to read Miss Missy’s School: A Pack of Farm Dogs Starts a School. It’s a “sweet and entertaining story about a pack of farm dogs organizing and starting a school with some help from the people family with whom they live.”
On sale at Amazon.
Preview at missmissysschool.com
Follow on Instagram @missmissysschool
Please share far & wide. Thank you!
Miss Missy’s School: A Pack of Farm Dogs Starts a School
On sale at Amazon.
Preview at missmissysschool.com
Follow on Instagram @missmissysschool
Please share far & wide. Thanks!
Clementine Paddleford’s Red Flannel Hash
We’re traveling around New England with Clementine Paddleford as she collects recipes and their stories for her cookbook, How America Eats (1960). She’s in Massachusetts now, telling us about the one-plate meal and what to do with the leftovers (pg. 24).
The one-plate meal of early New England was the boiled dinner, a twice-a-week joy from the early autumn until the sap rose in the maples.
[snip]
This boiled dinner was given to me by the late Herman Smith… [who was] for a brief period one winter was snowbound. … Also the Red Flannel Hash which is to be enjoyed the day after to use up the leftovers.
Read more of the history of the boiled dinner, what flannel has to do with it, and Herman Smith’s story.
Companion recipe: NEW ENGLAND BOILED DINNER
RED FLANNEL HASH V
Yield: 6 portions
6 slices salt pork
1 C cooked corned beef, chopped
¼ C milk
3 C boiled potatoes, chopped
1 C cooked beets, chopped
1 C leftover vegetables, chopped
1 onion, minced
Fry salt pork until crisp in a large skillet, remove pieces and drain, and reserve as garnish for meat dish. Reserve fat in skillet. Combine meat, milk, potatoes, beets, vegetables, and onions, spread mixture smoothly over bottom of skillet in which salt pork was fried and brown slowly. When a crust forms on bottom, turn mixture “as an omelet.” Serve on a hot plate garnished with crispy pieces of fried salt pork.
Clementine Paddleford’s New England Boiled Dinner
We’re traveling around New England with Clementine Paddleford as she collects recipes and their stories for her cookbook, How America Eats (1960). She’s in Massachusetts now, telling us about the one-plate meal (pg. 24).
The one-plate meal of early New England was the boiled dinner, a twice-a-week joy from the early autumn until the sap rose in the maples.
[snip]
This boiled dinner was given to me by the late Herman Smith… [who was] for a brief period one winter was snowbound.
Read more of this history of the New England boiled dinner, and Herman’s story.
Companion recipe: RED FLANNEL HASH
NEW ENGLAND BOILED DINNER
“The yield: 6 being helpings, then pass again.”
4 lb corned beef, washed in cold water, “and if very salty, soak 30 minutes”
½ lb salt pork
3 quarts boiling water
½ C sugar
3 bay leaves
1 clove garlic
9 potatoes, peeled
3 yellow turnips, peeled, sliced thick
8 carrots, “scrubbed until their faces shine”
8 white onions, peeled neatly
6 parsnips, scrubbed, scraped
Water
1 small head cabbage, cored, cut into 6 wedges
9 small beets, cooked separately
Place corned beef and salt pork in a pot with boiling water, add sugar bay leaves, and garlic, and simmer 4 hours. “A half-hour before completion of cooking” add peeled potatoes, turnip slices, and carrots. Next add onions and parsnips. Dip out 2 C cooking liquid, add enough boiling water to cover cabbage wedges in a separate pot, and cook until just tender. “Arrange the dinner on your biggest platter, corned beef and salt pork in the center, the pink and white slices alternating. Carrots, beets and parsnips are sliced while hot to ring around the meat. Next the potatoes left whole and the pale green cabbage wedges.”
Accompaniments: English mustard, also horseradish for the corned beef; sweetened vinegar for the cabbage and beets. By all means a dish of green tomato pickle. Pass golden corn bread squares, split and buttered. No salad, but a big bowl of cottage cheese instead, sprinkled with caraway.
More recipes from
The City Cat and the Country Cat
From the Kid Blog at Miss Missy’s School, an entire post! No clicking necessary. Plus a free short, short story. It’s very cute. Please share.
The City Cat and the Country Cat
Dear Readers, or should I say, Dear Writers!
Have you noticed that each Kid Blog post starts with an example of something from Miss Missy’s School: A Pack of Farm Dogs Starts a School? After that, the discussion segues (pronounced seg-ways; meaning, moves to) that same something from a classic children’s book.
All of the examples we’ve looked at when we talked about detailed descriptions, similes, and maps were from published children’s stories–books that were already finished. I thought it might be fun this week to look at something unfinished. And so, I present to you
“The City Cat and the Country Cat.”
Click the link and read the short, short story. There’s a picture of Snaps, the Country Cat, too!
The story is going to be a part of the fourth book, Miss Missy’s School’s Out for the Summer. In this book, Bobby (who is Marica and John’s grandson) and his cat, Rex travel to Farther Along Farm for a visit. It will be Rex’s first time on the farm, so he’ll see and hear and do all sorts of new things. A lot of those things may be pretty scary to him, but not to the Country Cat, Snaps.
Does this sound familiar? It’s not too different from Aesop’s Fable, The City Mouse and the Country Mouse. It’s not going to be exactly the same in the Miss Missy’s School book, though. But this little story and the relationship between Rex and Snaps was inspired by Aesop’s Fable.
Have you ever wanted to write a story but couldn’t come up with an idea? Did you feel as if you needed inspiration? Have you wondered what inspires writers? Naturally, each writer gets his or her inspiration from different people, places, or things. Beatrix Potter’s inspiration came from the creatures, woods, and pastures she and her brother came to know when they visited the country in the summertime. The first telling of Peter Rabbit was in a letter Beatrix wrote to a little boy who was sick. You may remember that E.B. White’s inspiration for Charlotte’s Web came from the critters in a barn. In a similar way, Hugh Lofting’s inspiration for the Dr. Doolittle Stories came from animals he observed.
Lofting was a soldier in the British Army during the Great War, which is what World War I (1914-1918) was called before there was a World War II. His children were safely at home in Britain, and they wanted him to write to them. But he didn’t want to write about the war, and everything else was boring. So he began to pay attention to the animals he encountered. He says it didn’t “seem quite fair” that the cats and horses and such in the cities and countrysides were experiencing the bombings and gun battles, and taking their chances just like the people. But they didn’t have doctors to take care of them if they were wounded. He thought there should be “a horse surgery” [hospital] for the animals, but that “would necessitate a knowledge of horse language.” He says,
That was the beginning of an idea!
An eccentric country physician with a bent for natural history and a great love of pets, who finally decides to give up his human practice for the more difficult, more sincere, and, for him, more attractive therapy of the animal kingdom.
This idea, a doctor who learns all the animal languages and psychologies, is the story he wrote about in letters to his children! After the war, he “put the letters in book form for other boys and girls.”
What do Potter’s, White’s, and Lofting’s sources of inspiration have in common? That’s right! They were all inspired by things happening right around them. And because they were careful observers of what was happening–they paid attention to details–they were able to let their imaginations create stories about those things that were part of their lives. In the case of Charlotte’s Web and Dr. Doolittle, White and Lofting were even able to give the animals happier endings than they had in real life.
Miss Missy’s School is inspired by things that happen on the farm. What are some things happening where you live that might inspire a story? When your dog is asleep, does he have muffled barks and flop his paws? Is he dreaming? What do you imagine he’s dreaming about?
Inspiration is everywhere if you’re on the lookout for it!
Lofting’s quotes are from The Junior Book of Authors, Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft, The H.W. Wilson Company, New York, 1934.
Miss Missy’s School: A Pack of Farm Dogs Starts a School on sale at Amazon!
Only $5!
Recipe: Virginia Chicken Pudding
More random recipes being viewed. It’s just amazing. Thanks!
Recipe: Virginia Chicken Pudding (known here on the Farm as TJ’s Chicken)
Originally published on February 15, 2016, and viewed by someone today, November 30, 2022
Mr. Big Food has no idea where he got this recipe. He thinks it’s one he’s had since the beginning of time. In any case, when he put it in the Big Food Manual and Survivalist Flourishing Guide, he added the remarks, “Said to have been a favorite of Thomas Jefferson . . .” So of course, we call it “TJ’s Chicken!”
And in keeping with the American spirit, when Mr. Big Food asked me to “beat eggs until frothy,” I reached for the crappy old rotary beater which is a crappy old version of this:
which beat the eggs like nothing you’ve ever seen.
Absolutely delicious, by the way. Served with Baked Apples and Carrot Casserole.
VIRGINIA CHICKEN PUDDIN’
4, maybe 6 servings
1 ¾ C flour
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
2 ½ lbs chicken pieces
4 Tbsp butter
1 C peanut oil
3 eggs
1 C milk
2 Tbsp chopped parsley, for garnish
Sift ½ C flour and combine with ½ tsp salt and pepper into freezer bag. Add chicken pieces and shake to coat. In a large skillet, melt the butter in the oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken and fry until golden brown on all sides, about 5 minutes per side. Drain chicken on paper towels. Pre-heat oven to 450o. Transfer chicken pieces to buttered shallow baking dish, 11x8x1 ½ inches. In a bowl, sift remaining 1 ¼ C flour and combine with remaining ½ tsp salt. In another bowl, beat eggs until frothy and stir in milk. Beat the egg-milk mixture into flour and stir until batter is smooth. Pour batter evenly over chicken pieces and place immediately in oven. Bake 15 minutes, then lower oven temperature to 350o and bake 20-25 minutes longer, or until pudding puffs and browns. Sprinkle with parsley and serve hot.
Writing from Here to There
From Here to There
Why are there maps in storybooks?
From the Kid Blog at Miss Missy’s School.
You’ll never guess whose maps we talk about!
Tolkien drew maps of Middle-Earth, and detailed maps of the numerous locales within Middle-Earth, before he started writing the books. He’s not alone in beginning a story this way. Why might writers begin working on their stories by drawing maps?
After we begin to answer the question, kids are encouraged to “begin thinking about a pretend world. Imagine what your pretend world looks like from a bird’s eye view. Your world can have places where dragons or mice or polar bears live, or it can just be a pretend bedroom or house. Now draw a picture–a map–of your imaginary world.
“I bet by the time you are done drawing your map, you will already be starting to think of a story that takes place in your imaginary world. Write your story! As you are writing, you can change things on the map if they don’t fit your story, and you can change your story if it doesn’t fit the map.”
I am–as you may have guessed–sharing all of these Kid Blog posts to nudge you to buy the book, Miss Missy’s School: A Pack of Farm Dogs Starts a School (on BIG SALE at Amazon). As with the posts, the book encourages kids and their grownups to learn a few things. As one reviewer put it:
Miss Missy’s School is a wonderful story with something for people of any age, making this a great book to read all together. Readers become learners with Bernstein’s unique inclusion of asides for learning history, philosophy, and vocabulary, among other things. Young readers are taught the significance of various phrases and cultural artifacts, and older readers are reminded of all the neat things we have done throughout history. Overall a very fun book.
Did I mention it’s on BIG SALE at Amazon? You can preview the book and see how I coax readers to become learners.
Please link, report, share. Thank you!
About last night
The wind wasn’t nearly as bad as was forecast–at least not here. On the Farm it topped out at 18mph sustained, and no gusts over 30. Still. Knock on wood we haven’t had much bad weather lately so it was good practice. For a time the beep beeps warnings were being interrupted by beep beep warnings. Three and on-half inches of rain. Could have been a lot worse.
How America Eats | Clementine Paddleford
For the next couple of weeks, Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life in rural Mississippi will be featuring recipes from Clementine Paddleford’s classic American cookbook, How America Eats (1960). Paddleford revolutionized the way in which food and recipes were presented in the national media, which at the time would have been first and foremost the weekly magazines and daily newspapers. She was the first food journalist in the modern sense. She begins the Foreword to the book:
This book has been twelve years in the making. It was in January 1948 I started criss-crossing the United States as roving Food Editor for This Week Magazine–my assignment, tell “How America Eats.” I have traveled by train, plane, automobile, by mule back, on foot–in all over 800,000 miles.
–Clementine Paddleford, How America Eats, pg. v.
Indeed, she did travel by plane–her own. Unable to efficiently access some regions of the country, she got her pilot’s license, bought a plane, and flew herself to those out of the way places. Across America, she collected the recipes from a variety of kitchens: “farm kitchens, apartment kitchenettes, governors’ mansions, hamburger diners, tea rooms, and from the finest restaurants with great chefs in charge.”
Paddlefords’s is so much more than a cookbook. She tells the stories of the regions’ specialties, her hosts’ farms, kitchens, and lives. How America Eats thus gives us a look back in time through the lens of food and its enjoyment.
Each recipe will have an abbreviation of Clementine’s delightful introductions Clementine wrote about her host and the local area. These will be linked to the full introductions at The Old Books Blog. How America Eats is the first in a larger project there where we’ll look at the history of cookbooks and food writing. Cookbooks don’t get their due in discussions of old books, and we aim to change that.
Special note to fellow bloggers. The Old Books Blog is new. Your sharing and linking these recipes, with their invitations to The Old Books Blog, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Clementine Paddleford’s Home Baked Beans
Clementine Paddleford’s classic cookbook, How America Eats (1960), begins with recipes from New England. Here, she introduces us to Mrs. Mildred M. Rutherford, “mistress” of Hyacinth House in South Woodstock, Vermont (pg. 13):
If thou of fortune be bereft And in they store there be but left Two loaves--sell one, and with the dole Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
This quotation is the reason for the naming of Hyacinth House, the home and “inn of sorts” of Mrs. Mildred M. Rutherford of South Woodstock, Vermont.
It’s and old house, and old houses are gentle thing; this one particularly so, built to beauty in 1812. It stands high on a knoll far back from the road, a stream between. The far side faces east into pine-covered mountains, soft green against the sky.
Much more about Mrs. Rutherford, Hyacinth House, and the recipes at The Old Books Blog–including a couple of photos of Hyacinth House.
Food bloggers! Mentions, links, and share to your social media would be greatly appreciated. Hoping to introduce The Old Books Blog to a wider audience of people interested in old books. Just getting started with the cookbooks–lots more to look at.
Companion recipe, HOT-MILK SPONGE CAKE WITH COCOA SAUCE
HOME BAKED BEANS
Yield: 8 portions
4 C dried peas or navy beans, washed, picked over, soaked overnight in water to cover, parboiled in the soaking water adding 1 tsp baking soda, simmered “until the skins ruffle when blown upon,” water drained off
½ C sugar
½ C maple syrup
1 Tbsp salt
1½ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp dry mustard
1 small onion
1 lb salt pork, scored
Hot water
Preheat oven to 200˚. Turn drained beans into a bean pot, add sugar, maple syrup, salt, ginger, and dry mustard, bury onion deep in the beans, add salt pork, “pressing in until only the rind shows,” fill pot with hot water, cover, and bake 8 hours, keeping covered until beans are 1 hour from being done and adding additional hot water as necessary. Remove cover and allow beans to brown during the last hour of cooking.
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Clementine Paddleford’s Hot-Milk Sponge Cake with Cocoa Sauce
Clementine Paddleford’s classic cookbook, How America Eats (1960), begins with recipes from New England. Here, she introduces us to Mrs. Mildred M. Rutherford, “mistress” of Hyacinth House in South Woodstock, Vermont (pg. 13):
If thou of fortune be bereft And in they store there be but left Two loaves--sell one, and with the dole Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
This quotation is the reason for the naming of Hyacinth House, the home and “inn of sorts” of Mrs. Mildred M. Rutherford of South Woodstock, Vermont.
It’s and old house, and old houses are gentle thing; this one particularly so, built to beauty in 1812. It stands high on a knoll far back from the road, a stream between. The far side faces east into pine-covered mountains, soft green against the sky.
Much more about Mrs. Rutherford, Hyacinth House, and the recipes at The Old Books Blog–including a couple of photos of Hyacinth House.
Food bloggers! Mentions, links, and share to your social media would be greatly appreciated. Hoping to introduce The Old Books Blog to a wider audience of people interested in old books. Just getting started with the cookbooks–lots more to look at.
Companion recipe, HOME BAKED BEANS
“Serve plain or with a lemon or cocoa sauce.”
HOT-MILK SPONGECAKE WITH COCOA SAUCE
Yield: 8 portions
2 eggs
1 C sugar
1 C cake flour, sifted
1½ tsp baking powder
½ C hot milk
1 Tbsp vegetable shortening, melted, cooled slightly
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp lemon extract
Preheat oven to 350˚. Beat eggs, then add sugar, beating in thoroughly. Sift together flour and baking powder, and stir into egg mixture. Add milk, melted shortening, vanilla extract, and lemon extract, mix quickly, turn into a greased 8-inch square baking pan, and bake about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and invert pan for 1 hour or until cake is cold.
COCOA SAUCE
Yield: 1½ cups
1 C heavy cream
3 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp cocoa
Combine ingredients and refrigerate “for a full 3 hours.” Whip until stiff just before serving “to give the desired consistency.”
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