the great (almost disastrous) cornelius caper

May 20, 2013May 19, 2013 ~ jama ~ 25 Comments

Last week, these lollipops mysteriously appeared in the mail.

Cornelius had been dying to taste a caper-flavored lollipop ever since he read Dan Krall’s The Great Lollipop Caper.

Despite the warning, he was sure he’d never be appalling.

Well.

He removed the wrapper. The lollipop was strangely smooth and unsticky. No smell.

Lick.

Lick lick.

Nope, not him. He was a good bear, a likeable bear — no lollipop in the whole wide world could ever change that.

Oh?

Without asking permission, he raided the cookie jar.

When he got thirsty, he took to the bottle.

Hiccup!

Then, I’m sorry to report, he began writing nasty words.

*covers eyes*

Lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick.

He decided he would do every naughty thing the children did in the book!

And that wasn’t all.

My stars, you WILL NOT believe what he did next.

Desecrated the title of an otherwise tasty book. GASP!

Beyond appalling!

Antidote lollipop to the rescue!

Lick.

Lick lick.

Phew!

Guess Dan’s story is true.

Read The Great Lollipop Caper with great caution.

DO NOT eat any caper-flavored lolli~~poops~~pops unless you have Antidote lollipops on hand.

Cornelius has learned his lesson. He’s back to being his well-behaved self.

Well, almost.

* * *

♥ For a chance to win a SIGNED COPY of The Great Lollipop Caper + lollipops, enter the giveaway at this post (if you dare).

Deadline for entries: Midnight (EDT) Friday, May 24, 2013.

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friday feast: hawai’i’s food trucks on the go! by beth greenway and jamie meckel tablason

May 17, 2013May 19, 2013 ~ jama ~ 65 Comments

When I was little, every so often my father would take us for a drive around the island. This was an all-day affair, where we’d see what we could see and eat what we could eat all over O’ahu.

plate lunch (2) fish 500 — Mahi Plate Lunch via Go Backpacking

I loved spotting the lunch wagons parked along the Honolulu waterfront, hoping to feast on an onolicious plate lunch with beef stew, teriyaki, or breaded mahimahi. No matter what you ordered, you always got two scoops of rice and macaroni salad. But usually we’d drive right on by because it wasn’t lunch time yet. This only intensified my fascination with lunch wagons: I thought it would be so cool to cook on a little stove in a truck and wait on people through the window on the side. 🙂

I don’t know exactly when people in Hawai’i started calling lunch wagons, “food trucks.” But they’re still a big part of the local scene, enticing the always hungry on side streets and main streets with longstanding island favorites as well as gourmet treats.

In jaunty rhyming verse, Beth Greenway’s Hawai’i’s Food Trucks on the Go! takes kids on a fun and tasty ride around the island from sunrise to sunset.

The trucks all rev their engines up
and head out on their way:
it’s time to feed the working cars
this bright Hawaiian day.

food trucks one — All illustrations © 2012 Jamie Meckel Tablason

The Harbor’s where the cranes all work
unloading boats and ships,
a bowl of saimin’s great for lunch
just right for slurps and sips.

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soup of the day and a giveaway: the great lollipop caper by dan krall!

May 7, 2013September 14, 2017 ~ jama ~ 56 Comments

If you’re in the mood for a tempestuous tale of jealousy, greed and world domination, you’ve come to the right place.

The frenetically talented and unusually hungry author, illustrator, animator and art director Dan Krall (yes, he’s tall) has just today released a brand new shiny briny picture book called The Great Lollipop Caper (Simon & Schuster, 2013)! Yay, Lollipops!

Some would say respectable grown men shouldn’t write about sweet lollipops, but here’s the lick: at first glance, this may seem like a simple, albeit saccharine story. But all you diehard sourpusses will be happy to hear this tome has a testy tart edge — it taps into the inner torment (for crying out loud) of one little green wrinkly caper. Oy, a caper’s cautionary caper — bite me!

Before I tempt you any further, a couple of party accoutrements.

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happy may: catching up

May 6, 2013May 7, 2013 ~ jama ~ 42 Comments

Aloha, Friends!

Yes, the cat in the hat is back.

It’s nice to be home again after spending the last several weeks in Hawai’i with my family. Both of my parents are doing as well as can be expected for now, but when you’re 88 and 98, each day brings new challenges and concerns.

While it was very unsettling to have to suddenly drop everything and fly out there, I’m glad I was able to go and be of some help. No doubt there will be more frequent trips in the near future, so if you know anyone who can arrange to move Hawai’i just a tad closer to Virginia, I’d really appreciate it. 🙂

Must thank you all so much for your support, good wishes, encouragement and advice. Your comments, emails, and surprise care packages really cheered me up and kept me going — proof yet again of the restorative power of chocolate, and that you are simply the best (and most good looking) blog readers on the planet.

Poetry for What Ails You

Though I wasn’t able to blog at all during April, I must mention how much I enjoyed reading your wonderful National Poetry Month posts. In past years, when I was tied up with my own Poetry Potluck, I didn’t have as much time to keep up with what everyone else was doing.

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mrs. tiggy-winkle comes to tea

March 27, 2013June 25, 2024 ~ jama ~ 48 Comments

Just in case you were wondering, the reason we usually look so spiffy around here is because we have the best washerwoman.

Her name is Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and she hails from the Lake District. Do you know her too? A tidier, more conscientious “clear-starcher” you’d be hard pressed to find. The other day, when untimely Spring (?) snowflakes were drifting down from the sky, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle chanced by to deliver a freshly laundered stack of tea towels and table linens.

We couldn’t very well turn her out in a snowstorm, so we invited her in for tea. Coincidentally, Cornelius and I had just baked a fresh batch of Littletown-Farm Carrot Cookies. Every Easter we get into a “Peter Rabbit mood” and crave carrots. We found the cookie recipe in Peter Rabbit’s Natural Foods Cookbook, and since we’d made Fierce Bad Rabbit’s Carrot-Raisin Salad from that book many times before, we thought the cookies would also be a good bet.