Taking A Break

Fig Newtons and Scotch will be taking a break for the rest of July. See everyone in August.

I leave you with two poems of summer from two of my favorite poets.

A Summer's Night
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The night is dewy as a maiden's mouth,
The skies are bright as are a maiden's eyes,
Soft as a maiden's breath, the wind that flies
Up from the perfumed bosom of the South.

Like sentinels, the pines stand in the park;
And hither hastening like rakes that roam,
With lamps to light their wayward footsteps home,
The fire-flies come stagg'ring down the dark


Summer Night, Riverside
by Sara Teasdale

In the wild, soft summer darkness
How many and many a night we two together
Sat in the park and watched the Hudson
Wearing her lights like golden spangles
Glinting on black satin.
The rail along the curving pathway
Was low in a happy place to let us cross,
And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom
Sheltered us,
While your kisses and the flowers,
Falling, falling,
Tangled my hair. . . .


The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.


And now, far off
In the fragrant darkness
The tree is tremulous again with bloom,
For June comes back.

To-night what girl
Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair
This year's blossoms, clinging in its coils?

Friday Round Up

Trying to find something creative to put on my walls has been a lot of fun and I have found quite a few ideas. Since I have been collecting quotes since I was in high school wonderful graffiti is perfect. I would like to go crazy with this and have something in every room. Our steps are carpeted, but I always thought it would be great to have something on the back of each step (that's called something-not the riser that's the vertical portion-Hmmm). For now I have an idea for something for my kitchen using wonderful graffiti.

During my youth I attended quite a few protest rallies for this and that, but now I am more of a send an email, a letter-virtual protesting. During my wanderings I came across Protest.net and the old placard carrying juices started flowing-GIVE TO THE NEEDY, NOT TO THE GREEDY.

Interesting article in the National Archives and Record Administration's (NARA) magazine Prologue on reclaiming artifacts and papers of John F. Kennedy's years in the White House.

Love these notecards.

And yet another cool Flickr group.

And this is via Yahoo picks-a list of problems solved by the fictional character MacGyver. I love that people do things like this.

Have a great weekend.

"I just got a new white dog. Spitz? No, but he dribbles a lot." Steve Allen

Muffins

I attended a children's tea this weekend and I ended up making the following recipe. I made it into mini-muffins and they were a big hit. Not just with the kids.

SNICKERS AND PEANUT BUTTER MUFFINS

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
6 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg, beaten
3/4 cup milk
3 1/2 full size (2.07 ounces) Snickers bars,
chopped

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit

Stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder,
and salt. Add the melted buter and egg to the
milk, and then stir this gently into the bowl.
Mix in the Snickers pieces and dollop into the
muffin cups/pan.

Cook for 20-25 minutes, when the tops should be
risenm, golden and firm to the touch. Let the
pan rest on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes before
taking out of the pan. If you aren't making
mini-muffins you should get 12 muffins. I got
24 mini-muffins out of this recipe.
The only tips I have are the same tips I have for everything I bake: room temperature ingredients, I used organic flour and peanut butter and I make my own baking powder. I generally check before I take food to different places to see if anyone is vegan, vegetarian, nut allergies, etc. I also have been known to put out my food with a listing of what ingredients I use. As someone who has had extreme allergic reactions to different foods and has seen horrible reactions from people who are allergic to nuts and ended up eating something that they didn't know contained nuts, I would rather be safe than sorry. Also, I am just a bid noid.

I was thinking of trying this recipe with some organic candy bar and substituting the sugar with Splenda and the milk with soy milk. I might have to try that.

Have a great day and if you celebrate the 4th-Have a good one.

"The bagel, an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis." ~Beatrice & Ira Freeman

"The woman just ahead of you at the supermarket checkout has all the delectable groceries you didn't even know they carried." ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966