Creepy Farmers’ Market Simulacrum

Sarah snapped these pics of this extremely creepy Farmers Market simulacrum on display in the entrance to the Kroger’s near us.
“Hey, people seem to really like these ‘farmers’ markets.’  Let’s arrange our sterile fruits and veggies imported from South America, Australia, etc and present it all as the produce raised by a disturbing robot/Cylon ‘farmer’!  [...]

the Hinkleburger

I lost my debit card, Am Ex card, faculty i.d. and driver’s license last weekend.  My wallet had a ripped pocket and I think everything fell out somewhere in the farmer’s market.  I have enough faith in the friendly small-town experience that I kept waiting for someone to get in touch… but no dice.  To [...]

Visit to Louisville

We took an economical, two day one night spring break trip to Louisville.  Stayed in the historic Galt Hotel on the riverfront which in the 19th century hosted such guests as “Jefferson Davis, Stephen Douglas, Edwin Booth, Charles Dickens, P.T. Barnum, Tom Thumb, and presidents Lincoln, Grant, Taylor, Hayes and Buchanan.”  And now us.  We [...]

Gummi Worms Not Better Than Summer

As the girls were getting their coats and boots on to go to school yesterday morning Celie suddenly offered this conversational gambit: “Daddy, I remember one time when we were only four and Jennifer [their teacher] brought gummi worms in.”  Iris added: “But she said we could only have two, not three, or it would [...]

More on San Miguel de Allende

San Miguel de Allende is a beautiful and somewhat strange town.  It’s filled with narrow, cobblestone streets and has something of the feel of an Italian hill town.  My aunt lives in a beautiful house way up on a hill — to climb her actual street you really have to gird your muscles and get [...]

Girls’ birthday/ Airheads candy cake

Celie and Iris’s 5th birthday party today.  We felt like we were keeping it really small: just five kids invited, no parents or siblings for the most part (drop-off); no friends from school other than one neighbor friend.  (We sold the girls on the rationale that they had a separate party at school — we’d [...]

Weekend cooking: Oobleck Brownies

Oobleck brownies recipe:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
sprinkle cinnamon
dash salt
tablespoon of Ovaltine
green food coloring to taste.

Pour into baking pan and cook at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.  Allow to cool and cut as brownies.  Pretend to eat.  (It’s less revolting than anticipated.)  Eventually scrape off into trash.  You just took care of a good hour [...]

Remorseless Eatin’ Machine

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education,
Obese diners at all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants were more likely than other customers to sit closer to the buffet, face the food bar, use forks rather than chopsticks, use larger plates, and serve themselves immediately rather than first browsing the food, according to a study reported in the August issue [...]

Hoosiers, Craveables, & Riblets

Two recent news stories. First, Report ranks Indiana 11th fattest among states:
Indiana is still getting fatter, just not as much as some other states.
In an annual report released Tuesday by the Trust for America’s Health, obesity in Indiana continued to climb as a percentage of adults but once again dropped in its ranking among [...]

Maine: More Foraging

After writing the last post, we did get some fishing action: the easy kind, mackerel off a pier. We went to the very pretty (aptly named) Pretty Marsh harbor dock. As one of the other people fishing pointed out to us, the mackerel were feeding, swarming in schools. You’d see what looked [...]