Gracious Grandmothers Club

I found this picture after googling "weird funny jello." It depicts a "Deviled Ham Jell-O with Carrots". Recently several cookbooks have been published that include really funny, weird, or dated recipes like this one, and I accidentally just inherited such a cookbook from Noel's grandma. "Favorite Recipes by the Gracious Grandmothers Club of Middletown, Ohio" didn't mean to be funny though, which is what makes it even more spectacular. I think Food Network ought to have some sort of stand-up cooking comedian competition, where you either (a) tell jokes while cooking, (b) make humorously disgusting recipes or (c) tell jokes while making humorously disgusting recipes. The recipes from this book fall into all of these categories--here are a few of my favorites:

Corned Beef Salad

To 1 pkg. lemon Jello add 1 1/2 cups hot water. Let jell slightly.

Fold into Jello:

1 cup celery
1 mango or pimento chopped fine

3 large boiled eggs, diced

1 small onion, chopped

3/4 cup miracle whip salad dressing

1 12 oz can flaked corned beef

Mold Jello.

I can't quite decide what is most disturbing about this recipe. Obviously any sort of savory jello is creepy in the first place, but the inclusion of canned corned beef, and the bizarre combination of eggs and mangoes in the same recipe also seem like disasters waiting to happen. I am absolutely not brave enough to attempt this recipe!

I could maybe see myself trying the recipe for Grandmother Wetzel's White Sugar Cookies, which seems relatively innocuous. The funny part of this recipe is the instructions: "Roll out on floured board to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut with 3 1/2 inch cooke cutter. Bake at 350 degrees 12-14 min. Moisten with pastry brush, sprinkle with sugar; decorate with three raisins only." That's the part that gets me. "Three raisins only". Was Grandmother Wetzel a Raisin-Nazi? If you have more raisins will it taste bad? What happens if you only put two raisins? Or leave the raisins off altogether???

And, last but not least, the artery-clogging recipe for

Italian Meat Balls:

10 small cans tomato paste

2 cans water to each can paste

Bring to a boil, lower heat and cook slowly for two hours.

Mix together:

3 pounds hamburger

1 clove garlic

2 1/2 cups bread crumbs

6 eggs

1 1/2 cups Italian cheese, grated

1 tsp basil and parsley

Roll into small balls; if not smooth, add more eggs. Fry meat balls and four pounds Italian link sausage cut in small pieces. Add tomato paste with half of grease from skillet. Serve on prepared spaghetti.

Recipes like that make me glad that people now know words like "saturated fat" and "cholesterol".

Yes, we have no bananas....

The last time I went to Costco I was puzzled by my inability to find bananas, but decided I'd get them elsewhere, and fought my way through the crowds to the check-out line. The guy in line in front of me was buying Costco-sized--aka gargantuan--portions of approximately fifteen different kinds of fruit (was he going for world record for largest fruit salad? does he have a fruit-only restaurant? or fifteen children that each love a different fruit?) and I was staring in some awe at his collection when I realized that he was querying the cashier about the lack of bananas. I chimed in that I was unable to find them either, and the cashier paged someone to look and see if there were any in the back. A lady radioed to the back, listened to the response, then came over and said quite seriously, "Yes, we have no bananas." Then she chortled for a while, and explained that she's always wanted to say that. The fruit guy and I both smiled politely, and then wended our way out of the warehouse, bananaless.

But luckily I had some really ripe bananas stashed in my freezer, so I had plently of banana goodness to make banana cookies. I think these tasty little treats might surprise you. They're not an attention grabbing cookie: they are a teensy bit lumpy, and a rather boring shade of brown. Also, the combination of a banana cookie with a citrus frosting might sound odd at first, but trust me, these are completely delectable. The banana mixture is spiced and dense, yet still light and moist, the perfect bite-sized banana bread. Then a creamy, blindingly sweet lemon (or lime) frosting is dolloped atop them, making them slightly resemble tiny snow-capped mountains. I cannot resist them with the frosting, it makes them the perfect combination of sweet, spicy, tangy, smooth and chewy. However, they're also quite good (and probably a little better for your dental hygiene) without the frosting; a little bit crispy on the edges, and moist and banana bread-like in the middle.

Enough raving: here's the recipe, enjoy!

Banana Cookies with Lemon Frosting

For cookies:

1/4 cup shortening

1/4 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

For frosting:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 tsbp lemon (or lime) juice

1/4 tsp orange extract (optional--but adds nice depth)

2-3 tbsp milk

In a medium bowl sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cloves, and cinnamon; set bowl aside. In a large bowl cream together shortening and butter until well-blended, then cream in brown sugar until whole mixture is light and fluffy. Blend in the two eggs, adding them one at a time, then add bananas, and mix until well-combined.

Slowly add flour/spice mixture to wet ingredients, mixing well after each addition. Scrape batter out of bowl onto a sheet of plastic wrap, wrap it tightly, and place in fridge for at least one hour, up to 24 hours.

When ready to bake the cookies, preheat oven to 375 degrees F, drop the chilled batter by rounded teaspoonfuls onto parchment lined baking sheets. (Leave a little space between the cookies, they don't spread too much, but they do need a little growing room). Bake the cookies for 8-9 minutes at 375, or until set on top and slightly brown underneath. Carefully transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool.

While the cookies are cooling, get a medium bowl and add the powdered sugar, lemon or lime juice, and orange extract. Begin adding the milk 1/2 tablespoonful at a time, until the mixture has reached a smooth, spreadable consistency (if it's too thin it makes a big mess--if it's too thick it'll make the top of the cookies crumble when you try to spread it, just eyeball it, and stop with the milk when it looks nice and spreadable).

Spread the frosting on the cookies and enjoy! This recipe makes 40 cookies, and enough frosting for about 35 cookies (I like to leave a few unfrosted. If you want to frost all of them, or fewer of them, make more or less frosting accordingly.) They'll keep for about a week in an airtight container. Mmm.....bananas.

My Favorite Language Books

Here are a few of the better books I've read on language. They're sort of ranked, but it's difficult to do accurately since they discuss widely different aspects of language.


(1) The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention by Guy Deutscher

"A fascinating look at how languages have evolved and become more complex throughout human history. I liked this book because it includes a wider array of languages than most of the books I've read--examples include obscure African, Semitic, and Asian languages."

(2) Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages by Mark Abley

"A look at some of the rapidly vanishing languages in the world, from Aboriginal tongues, to Manx, to Yiddish. Abley aptly conveys a sense of loss at the disappearance of many minor languages, and a sense of hope that perhaps some of them, such as Welsh, can be revived."

(3) Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States by Bill Bryson

"Bill Bryson at his best: both informative and hilarious. An excellent look at English words that were (you guessed it) Made in America. Bryson discusses the effects of immigration, revolution, democracy, and innovation on creating American English as a very distinct entity."

(4) The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow

"An overview of the history of the French language that neatly ties historical context into the development of the language. It gets a bit redundant toward the end with its insistence that English is not taking over as the only global language, but the first two thirds of the book are great."

(5) Talk Talk Talk: Decoding the Mysteries of Speech

"Less about words, and more about the brain: a layman's guide to how the brain processes language. Clear, concise, and with interesting case examples from "wild" children to churchgoers who speak in tongues."

(6) The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way

"I realize that I already have another Bill Bryson book on this list, but I feel that he can't be beat for informal yet erudite looks at the etymology and history of the English language."

(7) Word Watching: Field Notes of an Amateur Philologist by Julian Burnside

"A fun look at some of the more unusual words in the English language. I especially liked the chapter on Australian slang, since that is the 'branch' of English with which I am least familiar."

(8) Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea

"I haven't finished this book yet, but so far it's awesome. Ammon Shea undertook the amazing feat of reading the entire OED in one year, and then wrote this book about some of the more unusual or memorable entries. As he put it in his introduction, "I read the OED so you don't have to.""

Summer "blockbusters"

Whilst movies may not precisely fit into my general books v. baking dialogue, I have in the last few weeks gone to see 3 movies, which is pretty amazing, considering in the last five months before that I'd only been to see one. First was Iron Man, which was fun, but nothing spectacular. My boss is bewitched by all things comic book-y, and obsessively loved Iron Man, even going so far as to say it had "no flaws". I quickly found a flaw: near the beginning there's a scene lauding Robert Downey Jr's character, and magazine covers praising him are spiralling across the screen. One says "He takes the REIGNS". So I went back to work, and pointed this out to my boss, in front of several people, so after a small argument about how maybe it was a pun and they meant to use the wrong reins/reigns, he conceded that ok, maybe the movie did have one small flaw. Then, to my chagrin, the very next week in the employee bulletin that I put out, I had not one, but two typos. :( It was immediately pointed out to me....by someone who had heard my mockery of Iron Man's editors....so with all due humility, I will admit that we all make typographical errors from time to time. Although I'd like to point out that I don't have a budget that exceeds $100 million dollars....

Then came Indiana Jones, which was also fun, but even less spectacular than Iron Man. I was never a huge fan of the old Indiana Jones though, we didn't watch a lot of movies growing up, and I apparently missed out on the Indy obsession that my husband suffered from. So maybe that's why I didn't feel the magic, I mean I liked the old ones, but I thought those were just ok, and then the new one didn't seem up to par with those, so my vote was less than ok. But to Noel and his sister, who adored the old ones, this one was still quite good. I guess it's all relative (ha-that was a pun!) Anyway, there were some nifty car chase scenes, and the prerequisite snake jokes [SPOILER ALERT: Why didn't Indy just use his whip to get out of the quicksand???? why was the snake necessary???] and Indy-is-so-old jokes, and the ever-fabulous Cate Blanchett made a hilariously awesome dominatrix-type KGB queen, which pretty much sums up the good points for me. All of that couldn't make up for the end of the movie, however, which I thought was DUMB.

In a change of pace from the action offerings, Nicole and I went to see Sex and the City for her birthday. Again, it was fun, actually laugh out loud funny in some spots, and the characters were as superbly costumed as they were in the show, but it just didn't have the same panache. I disagree with the critics who thought it was too long, I felt like really only Samantha's plot line dragged a bit, and I would actually liked to have seen more of Charlotte's story, I feel like she got shorted. So while I liked it, and it was totally fun to have a girls night for the first time in a looong time, I still wasn't totally satisfied.

I can't decide if the problem is me or the movies. Maybe the fact that I didn't go to the movies for several months means that I have lost some of my movie joy? Or maybe I'm expecting too much from summer movies, they're supposed to be disposable? Or perhaps movies really are that much dumber than they used to be? Sigh....je ne sais pas...I think I might stick to books.

Insanity, oh the insanity!!

This weekend I got to hang out with Nicole and we pretended that we were in college again and went out to eat and went to a movie and had a fun girly time. Then I got to go to the Keith Urban/ Kenny Chesney concert in Glendale, which was awesome since it was free because [my new best friend] Jessica won tickets. And plus, Keith Urban is both as pretty and as talented as ever. The drunk guy serenading me during Kenny Chesney killed that part a little bit, but c'mon, you can't beat a free concert!

But then VBS started Sunday, and now I'm short on sleep and short on time. So I haven't done any reading or any baking or really much of anything besides work, VBS, and sleep. I am listening to Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson, and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, which are both fun on two drastically different levels. Anyway, at some point, when I get to sleep again I'll review them! Till then I'll be getting grass-stains and eating goldfish crackers with the munchkins.