Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing: Turtle Cookies

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume is the fourth installment in our Banned Books Week celebration.  (Why was it banned?  More on that later.)  This book was first published in 1972, which was shocking to me, because I read it as a kid and it didn't feel dated at all.  (Except the part where Fudge sticks himself all over with stamps from the grocery store.  That made no sense even when I was in fourth grade in the early 90s.)

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is the first in a series about Peter Hatcher, a fourth grade boy who feels like a great big nothing.  He lives in New York City with his parents and two-year-old brother, Farley (who goes by Fudge).  Fudge is the star of the books, and it's always up to poor Peter to clean up the messes.  If Fudge's birthday party guests don't behave, it's up to Peter to entertain them.  If Fudge won't eat, it's Peter who does handstands to make him open his mouth so Mom can pop a bite of food in.  And when Fudge tries to fly off the monkey bars and knocks out his two front teeth, who do you think gets all the blame?  Peter, that's who!

At least Peter has his turtle for company.  Wonderful, reliable Dribble, who sits around in his bowl doing turtle-y things, and never asks for anything.  And Dribble is one thing that Fudge isn't allowed to touch.  But... since when does Fudge follow the rules?

So, why was this book banned?  To tell you, I have to spoil the entire ending of the book.  So, SPOILER ALERT! When Fudge finally gets his hands on Peter's turtle, he eats him, and poor Dribble doesn't survive the ordeal (though Fudge does).  This is considered very cruel to animals.  END SPOILER!

Peter is the protagonist of a whole series of books, including Superfudge, Fudge-a-Mania, and Double Fudge.  The Hatcher family also appears in Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, which is told by Peter's neighbor and resident know-it-all, Sheila.

So, in honor of Peter's turtle, Dribble, I made turtle cookies!  (Why didn't I make fudge?  I have no idea.)

Turtle Cookies
You will need:
Vanilla wafers
Caramels
Pecans
Chocolate chips

1) Place vanilla wafers on a microwave-safe plate.  I only made six cookies, so I did them all at once, but I would hesitate to make more than that in a batch, because the caramel would cool too quickly.
2) Cut the caramels in half lengthwise, so you have two flat rectangles.  Place one half-caramel onto each vanilla wafer, and microwave the plate until the caramels are soft (in my microwave, it took 25 seconds, but I recommend starting with 15 seconds and poke one to see if it's soft yet, and then adding 10 seconds at a time until they're soft).
3) When the caramels are soft, poke four pecans into each one.  Set aside to cool.  They should look like this:

4) In a small bowl, pour a handful of chocolate chips.  Zap in the microwave at 15-second increments, stirring well after each increment.  Be very careful to not let the chocolate scorch! When the chocolate is smooth, dollop some on top of each cookie, smoothing it out with the back of a spoon.  Let cool on the counter or in the fridge before consuming.

Yum!

Using vanilla wafers as a base for these treats was my own idea, though they play off the traditional Turtle candy (caramel, chocolate and pecans).  The idea to make turtles was Shannon's.  Thank you, Shannon!

Question of the day: This is one of my favorite banned books.  Which ones do you like best?

And Tango Makes Three: Penguin Cookies

Penguin love story!

And Tango Makes Three is our third spotlight for Banned Books Week, and one of my favorites.  This picture book has been on the list of ALA's most banned books every year since its publication in 2005.  Who wouldn't love a true-life love story starring penguins?  Well, this one is controversial because it's about two male penguins.

Roy and Silo lived in the Central Park zoo with lots of other penguins.  They were the best of friends, and did everything together.  They walked together, swam together, and sang to each other.  "Wherever Roy went, Silo went too."  They even built a nest together, and did their best to hatch a stone.  Their zookeeper, Mr. Gramzay, had noticed Roy and Silo together, and brought them an egg that another penguin couple couldn't care for.  This egg, which Roy and Silo took great care sitting on, eventually hatched into a beautiful, healthy baby girl penguin, which Mr. Gramzay named Tango ("because it makes two to make a tango").

Roy and Silo gave her everything she needed.  They fed her, cuddled her, and taught her to swim.  "Tango was the very first penguin in the zoo to have two daddies," the book tells us.  She was special, in that regard, but her little family was still very much like all the other penguin families in the zoo.

So, no.  This isn't the most exciting story ever told.  But it is a really adorable little love story, perfectly suitable for a conversation about adoption.  And with all the anger and controversy over this book, I had to make something super special for Banned Book Week.

And Tango Makes Three Penguin Cookies

You will need:
- Your favorite sugar cookie dough (I used the Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix that comes in a pouch.  It is delicious and very, very easy.)  Given the option, use dough for rolling out and cutting shapes out of instead of dough for drop cookies.
- Food coloring

This is a little confusing to write out, so I have taken photos of each step.  Are you ready?  Here we go!

1) Prepare your cookie dough according to package directions.  Using food coloring, dye 1/3 of the dough blue, and half of the remaining dough orange.

2) Make one large and two medium balls out of the blue dough, one medium ball out of the un-dyed dough, and three small balls out of the orange dough.  It should look like this:

3) Smush flat the large blue dough ball, the un-dyed dough ball, and two of the orange dough balls.  Make flat teardrops of the remaining blue dough, and a triangle of the remaining orange.  It should look like this:
(HINT: If your dough is too sticky, you might have to stick it in the fridge for a few minutes.  Likewise, if the dough is sticking to your fingers a lot, you can wet them with a wet paper towel you have off to the side, and this will help a lot.)

4) Stack the un-dyed ball on top of the large blue dough ball, toward the bottom.  This will be the penguin's tummy.  Place one of the blue teardrops on each side of the un-dyed ball to make wings.  The orange triangle should overlap the blue and white to make a beak.  The remaining orange dough is the penguin's feet.  Assembled, it should look like this:

5) Bake according to recipe directions (in my case, 375 for 8 minutes).  Remember, these cookies are rather large and thicker than most, so they may take a little bit longer.  I got only 9 penguins out of my dough, with a few small discs of various colors left over.

6) Let these cool before trying to remove them from cookie sheets, or you risk breaking off (or squishing) the penguins' feet.

I got the design for these from the Better Homes and Gardens Special Publications: Christmas Cookies magazine from Christmas 2012.  Their penguins were black, but black food coloring stains everything, so I went with blue, which seemed like more of a penguin color than brown.  Their's also had eyes, which I didn't put on for the sake of simplicity.  And the BHG ones were peppermint, where mine were just sugar cookies. Maybe next time I make them, I will make them peppermint penguins, as suggested.

So, what do you think?  Will you be making Tango penguin cookies any time soon?

Strega Nona Noodles

Strega Nona, how much do I love you?  And really, how could anybody not?  This character, invented by Tomie de Paola and first published in 1975, is a lovely grandmotherly Italian woman, who uses her magic to help cure headaches and warts and to help lonely girls find love.

Unsurprisingly (as this is Banned Books Week), not everybody loves Strega Nona; this book has been banned many times because Strega Nona is a witch (her name actually means "Grandma Witch").  Worse than that - Strega Nona is a good witch!  This tells children that, not only is magic and witchcraft possible, but it's desirable, and being a witch is an acceptable career path, which is wholly unacceptable, and it shouldn't be up to the parents to teach their children that there is such a thing in life as make-believe.  After all, we can't let children enjoy themselves too much.

Sigh.  Moving on.

Strega Nona is a lovely woman, but she realizes that she's getting old.  She hires Big Anthony to do her housework and chores for her, so that she can concentrate on her magic.  Unfortunately, Big Anthony doesn't pay attention very well, so when he hears her singing to a pot to call forth pasta for dinner, he doesn't think past how amazing the magic is.  When she goes out for the day to visit a friend, he decides that he will supply a pasta meal for the entire town, and starts up the pot... but how can he possibly stop the pasta from flowing when he didn't pay enough attention to learn the whole spell?  (And what will Strega Nona think when she comes home?)

Many people believe that Strega Nona is an old Italian folktale, but according to the author, she's a creation of his very own mind.  (Yes, the cover says, "an old tale retold."  The old tale is that of the porridge pot.)  I think it is a credit to Mr. de Paola that Strega Nona has taken on such a life that people believe that she has always existed.  It takes an incredible character to stand the test of time, and one even more impressive to pervade our collective memories and insist that she has always been there.  Such is her magic.

Of course, this story is all about pasta, and here's the best way to make your own:
Strega Nona Noodles

1) Get your favorite magic pasta pot, and sing this spell:
         Bubble, bubble, pasta pot,
         Boil me some pasta, nice and hot,
         I'm hungry and it's time to sup,
         Boil enough pasta to fill me up.
2) When you have enough pasta to fill your needs, sing this spell:
         Enough, enough, pasta pot
         I have my pasta, nice and hot,
         So simmer down my pot of clay,
         Until I'm hungry another day.
3) Blow three kisses to the pot.  Do not skip this step!  Let Big Anthony serve as your warning!

Of course, if you don't have a favorite magic pasta pot, you can always try it this way:

1) Fill your favorite spaghetti pot about 3/4 full with water, and sprinkle in some salt.  Bring to a boil.
2) Add your favorite pasta and cook according to package directions.  I used egg noodles, and it took me 7 minutes to cook.  I prefer my pasta al dente (chewy but not crunchy - literally, "to the tooth"), but make it however you like it.  Seriously, though, look at the cooking times: I have a good friend who used to tell me she hated how mushy angel hair pasta was, and it turns out she was cooking it for 7 minutes instead of the 2-3 minutes it actually takes.
3) Drain your pasta and garnish as desired.  Tonight, I used a little butter and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese - delicious!

Question of the day: Strega Nona is one of my favorite fictional witches.  I also enjoy Glinda and Professor McGonagall.  Who tops your witch list?

Harriet the Spy Tomato Sandwiches

Happy Banned Books Week!  I am kicking off both BBW and my writing again with SEVEN posts about banned books, for your reading pleasure - one a day until Saturday! 

So, what is Banned Books Week?  Well, it's a celebration of the freedom to read whatever we want to.  There are a lot of people who want to have books banned - taken out of schools and public libraries - because they find them to be inappropriate.  Sometimes you can kinda understand where the concern is based, though I personally think that if a book has been chosen by a (professionally trained and certified) teacher to be appropriate for a class, it probably is.  And sometimes, the ban is so incredibly silly that you can't even stand it.  (My favorite? Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr., was banned in 2010 from schools in Texas, because there was a book about Marxist communism that was published in 2008 by a man named Bill Martin.  A completely different Bill Martin, by the way.  They didn't even take the time to check if the guy they objected to was the same guy who wrote Brown Bear, and it wasn't - in fact, there's no way it could have been, because Bill Martin, Jr. died four years before the political book was published.)  

This week, we'll be talking about seven books that have been banned for various reasons.  Tonight's is Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh.  It was first published in 1964, though the cover shown here is the one from the 90's, which is the one I had when I first read it, even though I like the original cover better.  They did keep the original illustrations, though! 

Now, there aren't a lot of illustrations, but the ones that are really seem to enhance the text. Which is the point, of course.  

This illustration, for example, is our title character in her spy outfit, including jeans and a sweatshirt, sneakers so comfortable that they have holes over the pinky toes, and glasses with no glass in them (they make her look smarter).  She has has a spy tool belt, which she has usefully loaded down with pockets for her notebook and extra pens, a flashlight (in case she ever needs to be out after dark) and a boy scout knife with a collapsible knife and fork (which might come in handy eventually, although it hasn't yet).  Harriet puts on her outfit after school, before she goes out to find out what people are up to.  

Harriet has quite a list of people that she needs to keep track of.  There are her friends, of course, and her classmates, but the random people in the neighborhood are the most interesting.  And you know that the most interesting stuff isn't going to happen out in the open, so maybe she has to sneak into people's houses once in a while, maybe up a dumbwaiter every so often.  It's worth it - she writes down exactly what she sees and thinks, and she is always brutally honest.  For example, the first day of school invites the following note:

MY MOTHER IS ALWAYS SAYING PINKY WHITEHEAD'S WHOLE PROBLEM IS HIS MOTHER. I BETTER ASK HER WHAT THAT MEANS OR I'LL NEVER FIND OUT. DOES HIS MOTHER HATE HIM? IF I HAD HIM I'D HATE HIM.

That's okay, though, because it's a private notebook.  It's not like anyone could ever read it... right?  It's not like any of her routines will ever change.  Until they do.

Harriet is a girl who likes her routines.  She has her parents and her nanny, Ole Golly, and her friends, and her spy routes, and every day she has a tomato sandwich for lunch. 

    "The next morning Mrs. Welsch asked, 'Wouldn't you like to try a ham sandwich, or egg salad, or peanut butter?' Her mother looked quizzically at Harriet while the cook stood next to the table looking enraged.

    'Tomato,' said Harriet, not even looking up from the book she was reading at breakfast.

     'Stop reading at the table."  Harriet put the book down.  "Listen, Harriet, you've taken a tomato sandwich to school every day for five years. Don't you get tired of them?'

     'No.'

     'How about cream cheese and olive?'

     Harriet shook her head. The cook threw up one arm in despair.

     'Pastrami? Roast beef? Cucumber?'

     'Tomato.'

So be it.

Harriet the Spy Tomato Sandwiches

Your favorite bread (I used sourdough)

Fresh tomatoes

Condiments of your choosing

1) Slice the tomatoes into the desired thickness (Mine were about 1/4") and lay onto the bread.  Add condiments as desired.  

I cut my rounds in half, so I could make sure there was sandwich-wide coverage, like this: 

Yummy!

The tomato sandwiches are one of the things I remember about this story from when I read it years and years ago.  That, and the people she spied on, of course.  And that her middle name doesn't exist, so she gave herself a middle initial (it's M).  I love Harriet.  Unfortunately, some people don't, and her book was often criticized for teaching children to spy, be disrespectful, talk back to their parents, and curse.  And while I enjoyed every minute of this re-read, the critics do have a point: there's a part of me who wants a notebook and a toolbelt and a group of people to spy on.

Question of the day: If you could eat one thing for lunch every single day, what would it be?  

High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie Angel Food Cake

Have you ever had one of those memories that seem so amazingly perfect, where your eyes glaze over when you think about it, and no matter how hard you try, you can never replicate the experience?  No strawberry tastes as good as the one you picked it off the vine on a summer day, sun-warmed and delicious.  You can't seem to find the exact picture book that your Grandpa used to read you again and again and again when you stayed at his house on weekends and ate butterscotch candies from the candy dish on the end table. They stopped making Keebler Pizzeria Chips and nothing tastes the same.  Do you ever want to get that feeling back, of having exactly the right thing at the right time?

That's what the main character in The High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie Angel Food Cake (by Nancy Willard, illustrated by Richard Jesse Watson) sets out to do for her mother's birthday. (Note: I'm going to be a pain in the neck and tell you the whole story, but I'm paraphrasing and I have very few pictures, so you still need to go out and read this book, okay? Okay.)  When she had been a little girl, her grandmother made her a cake so delicious that she has dreamed about it for years.  She's never had a cake even half as good as that one. If only she could have that cake just one more time, it would be the best birthday gift she could ever ask for.  It's too bad that her grandmother had passed away without ever telling anybody her recipe.

Well.  That might be a stumbling block, but it wouldn't stop our main character (who, frustratingly enough, is never named).  She stays up late into the night reading her great-grandmother's journals, trying to find the recipe that nobody knew about.  She eventually finds a recipe for plain-old-boring angel food cake, and with it, the note that there is one special secret that makes the cake so amazing - so mind-bogglingly delicious! - that the angels themselves sang its praises.

It isn't until her crazy uncle spills jell-o into the piano (yes, really.  I love the aunt and uncle characters) that she finds the secret to making a regular angel food cake into a High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie Angel Food Cake.  The secret, dear reader, is this: before combining all the ingredients, you take the sugar and pour it out onto a plate, and with little finger on your left hand and write "EVOL EVOL EVOL."

This is what I look like when I'm baking yet again.  "I hope he doesn't catch me sampling the batter..."

Our heroine sneaks down to the kitchen on the eve of her mother's birthday and manages to make the cake without waking up her parents, but as it's baking, the delicious smells attract a different type of visitor.  The cake, miraculously cooled and ready for eating, is exactly what wandering angels have been hoping for - it is, after all, angel food.  And she can't exactly turn down angels when they come calling, can she?  Although... it was for Mom's birthday, and now there is no gift at all. "And she's such a good mother, too!" Oh, dear.  And there aren't enough eggs left to make a new one.  It looks like this birthday isn't going as planned... but maybe the angels have something up their colorful sleeves. 

Though my mother's birthday is in September, I still needed to make the cake.  The angels didn't come a-calling for me, but I did get to eat angel food cake, so I call that a win.  I didn't use the recipe as written in the book (maybe that's why they didn't come?), but my recipe is darn tasty.  Incidentally, I didn't use Alton Brown's recipe either (my recipe came with my tube pan), but I did learn about stiff peaks and folding in sifted flour from his tv show.  You can watch the angel food cake episode here.

High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie Angel Food Cake

12 eggs
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (or another flavor - lemon or orange would be tasty)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar

1. Separate your eggs.  You can use an egg separator, or your fingers, or crack the egg in half and gently pour the yolk back and forth until all the white is apart from the yolk.  I find it best to use the 3-bowl method: pour the egg white into a white bowl.  Put the yolk into a different bowl.  Inspect the white, and make sure no yolk is present (any little bit of yolk will keep your egg whites from foaming, and your cake won't set).  Once you're sure there's no yolk present, pour that white into a measuring cup.  You need 1 1/2 cups of egg white, which for me was 11 extra large eggs, but each egg is different, so you may need the whole dozen.  NOTE: If you get any yolk into the white, don't use that egg white! Wash out the bowl before cracking another egg into it, because it'll make your cake fail.  (You don't need the egg yolks for this recipe at all, so you can throw them away, or save them to make a butterscotch pudding or a German chocolate cake frosting with another time.)
2. Let your egg whites stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. They'll whip up better this way.
3. Sift the confectioners' sugar and flour together three times (I don't know why three times, but it worked for me, so I'm sticking to it.)  Set aside.
4. To the egg whites, add the cream of tartar, extracts, and salt.  Beat on high speed.  Once it's really foamy, gradually add the sugar and beat on high until stiff peaks form.  This takes a really long time - in my stand mixer, it took at least 10 minutes.  You can tell they're stiff peaks if you dip the beater straight down into the mixture and turn it over, and the batter stands straight up in a peak, even if you shake the beater a little bit.
5. This is messy: you want to gently (your batter is made of tiny bubbles, and you want to pop as few as possible!) fold in the flour mixture 1/4 cup at a time (1/9 of what you have sifted).  It takes forever and it's messy because you can't stir or the foam will collapse.  Basically, sprinkle on the flour/sugar and, using a rubber spatula, cut through the middle of the batter to the bottom of the bowl and scrape the edges, folding some of the batter on the bottom of the bowl to the top while going in circles.  (This is hard to explain.  It's easier if you see someone else doing it: again, I recommend YouTube tutorials for cooking methods that you're unfamiliar or uncomfortable with.)
6. Gently spoon the now-complete batter into an ungreased tube pan.  Cut through the batter with a knife to remove extra air pockets, and pop it into a preheated 350 degree oven for 40-45 minutes, or until the cake springs back lightly when you touch it.
7. When you take it out of the oven, you want to immediately turn it upside-down; until the cake sets, it's a rather heavy cake supported by weak bonds, and it can collapse if you skip this part!  You also want to let it cool completely before removing it from the pan for the same reason.  My cake looked like this:

Golden brown and delicious!

The book specifically told me that the cake was frosted, but I prefer mine with  with strawberries and whipped cream.  Or with coffee in the morning as a muffin substitute.  Besides - can you look at this and tell me honestly that you'd cover up all of that beauty?

"If I hadn't brought this to work, I'd still have some to nibble on while blogging!"

Well, Mom got her cake, and my official food taster found that TGI Friday's Pizza Chips come pretty darn close to those Keebler ones, so my question to you is: what is it that you wish you could experience one more time?

**Thanks to Christy McAwesomeSauce Meisler for introducing me to this awesome book - and so many others!**