Heavy Bars for Tonight's Cook-Off

                I think the young men and young women have a combined activity each month.  Once a year (I guess in January) they have a cook off.  Jenna had wanted to make the "cupcakes" that we had at her last birthday party - sure she is combining three ingredients to make something else, but I don't really think it should count if Reese's, Pillsbury and Duncan Heinz are really doing most of the work.  The rules are that it needs to be a recipe and not from boxes.  We didn't happen to have brownie mix, cookie dough and peanut butter cups hanging around anyway and so Roland had talked her into making an apple pie.

            Pie for an armature cook-off?  Really?  I could sense that Jenna was not that thrilled with the idea of making any kind of pie. Nor did she wish to start it last night but rather after she returns from school today.  However, Roland was able to assist last night and will be working when she returns from school.   I don't want to make pie!  I looked for a recipe that would work with ingredients that we already have.

            From years' past, I can remember when Peggy Bird was in her domestic mother earth stage.  The woman was always baking.  I loved going across the street because her kitchen was always filled with pleasant smells of baking.  Molasses cookies seemed to be the number one staple.  But I do remember my first encounter with Peanut butter squares (or peanut butter fingers as the boys called them) coming from her house and had searched for that recipe so that Jenna could make them.

            She found all the ingredients and placed them on the table and then measured each one out and really did do most of the stirring and combining and baking herself.  We didn't have the right size pan and so our bars came out thicker - and heavier.  I don't recall ever having such heavy bars before.  We could have made the frosting, but chose to sprinkle on chocolate chips as soon as the pan was removed from oven.

            I turned the oven off and returned the pan to the warm oven to allow chips to melt as the oven cooled down.  After a few minutes we spread them over the bars. I cut them into rectangles this morning, but thought better of it and cut each rectangle in half - not only because it would give Jenna more bars to take, but because they are heavy and a long bar might be too much sugar shock for some.  

            So here is the final product minus what we sampled and the oversized edge that she ended up taking to school.

            The recipe we used is found here, though there are others.  I might have used a different recipe the last time I had made them (recently as October) or had used two different pans as mine were not as heavy.  I think these ones that Jenna made are definitely the most heavy I have ever eaten.  I am assuming there will be leftovers.

Blog Makeover and Unfinished Ideas

          Recently I had gone through my flash drives in search of a scrapbook that I had scanned.  During my search, I came across the following unfinished thoughts and added covers.  This is what my blog used to look like

 It's been nearly five years since I started my blog.  I wonder if it is time for a new makeover.  I created this cover near the end of 2012:.

and here are some thoughts that never got posted as they felt incomplete at the time

2012 March 19

Apple Pie & Coffee

            Roland often tells the experience of a man he had worked with several years ago.  The man had come from another country and knew very little English.  But he could place an order for “apple pie and coffee” – just “apple pie and coffee”.  His mouth became weary after eating so much apple pie.  He wanted to order something else.

            One day he sat down at the counter and decided he would order something else.  He listened to someone order “a ham sandwich” and decided that he would order the same.  He practiced saying, “a ham sandwich” so that the waitress would clearly understand what was being ordered.

            When the waitress finally did come to take his order he clearly spoke,  “a ham sandwich”.  The waitress then asked if he would like white or rye bread. He just stared blankly at her before he changed his order to “apple pie and coffee”

            As with the man in this example, each of us needs to learn things for ourselves – and not always rely upon the knowledge or experience of another.  We can attempt to imitate and mimic – but there will come a time in our lives when it will be our own experience and knowledge that will make a difference.

counting back change

paper money

Shortly after my brother Corey was born, my mom took on a part-time job at an ice cream parlor just to make ends meet.  It really wasn’t her intent to become a supervisor – but the alternative was that someone else would continue to supervise and the choice of candidates that were left seemed less than average.

            There weren’t the computerized registers that most stores have today – where the clerk punches in a number and the register tells how much change to return.  Employees were required to count back change and my mom was appalled with the number of employees who were unable to figure it out.

            I remember her setting down my brother Patrick and me and teaching us how to count back change.  We were seven and nine – and I wasn’t even that great at math, but I got it.  Counting change was NOT that difficult.  Her point exactly.  Surely if her seven-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter could do it, the hired employees should also be able to figure it out.

            I continued counting back change even after the computerized registers – “9.40 is your change.  40 makes 11 (as I hand them their change) 12, 13, 14, 15 (as I count out the ones) and five makes twenty” which was disturbing to customers who had no concept of counting out change either.  They’d recount it in front of me as though I was trying to cheat them.  Duh!

2012 August 5

Gays and Jews

There are several versions of “The Jazz Singer” – I happen to like the one with Neal Diamond – who in the beginning of the show performs his music in an all Black Club with his three African-American friends who need a fourth group member.  

Knowing the strict rules of the club, he tells the other three that he cannot assist them as he is definitely NOT of the same race.  But with some help of make-up and a wig, Neal Diamond is transformed into a passable looking black man.  But the make-up is on his face only and not on his hands.  He gets caught and the four end up in jail.

            Laurene Oliver plays the father to Neal Diamond’s character, Jess.  He is the one who posts bail for Jess and his friends.  The disappointment on his face is rather obvious and he says one of my favorite lines from that movie, “Isn’t it hard enough just being Jewish?”

         My ideas were to include:   Putting on a façade for others rather than being happy with who we really are.  Closed Gays – compare to the Jewish markings in WWII

  

          I still have many Unfinished thoughts.