baking

friday feast: baking day at grandma’s by anika and christopher denise (+ chocolate cake and a giveaway!)

~ jama ~ 58 Comments

Put on your aprons, raise your wooden spoons:

It’s baking day!

It’s baking day!

It’s baking day at Grandma’s!

In this charming new picture book by Anika and Christopher Denise, three spirited young bears tromp through the snow to spend a fun, cozy day at Grandma’s.

After a round of hugs and kisses, they get down to the delicious business of baking a cake together:

Pass out aprons, “One-two-three.”

Grandma reads the recipe:

flour, sugar, butter, eggs.

Stand on chairs with tippy legs.

The eager cubs add big spoonfuls of joy and anticipation to the batter as they help measure, mix, and stir in Grandma’s warm and welcoming cabin kitchen. And why not lick the spoon? 🙂

While the cake’s in the oven, they sip hot cocoa and dance to the sounds coming from Grandma’s Victrola:

Old-time music, soft and sweet.

Skippy notes and tapping feet.

Learning songs that Grandma sings —

when the kitchen timer rings!

Then it’s time to cut and frost the cake and add a few sprinkles before gift wrapping each piece and heading home by moonlight.

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friday feast: the birthday bear (+lemon-glazed tea cookies)

~ jama ~ 61 Comments

Guess who had a birthday this week?

Yes, the 6″ tan teddy bear who frequents this blog turned 26 on Wednesday. Back in September 1988, he winked at me from a booth at the Fall Teddy Bear Show in Timonium, Maryland.

He promised to be good so I brought him home. Mr. Cornelius turned out to be an avid reader and a good baker but has quite the knack for mischief. You may have noticed that he loves to have his picture taken (he’s not happy unless he has at least one blog close-up every week). I must say he keeps me very busy answering all his fan mail. 🙂

Just for Poetry Friday, he selected three favorite poems from Bears∙Bears∙Bears: A Treasury of Stories, Songs and Poems About Bears compiled by Mary Pope Osborne (Parachute Press, 1990). He had fun finding just the right vintage photos to go with them.

And just to make sure you don’t go hungry, he’s whipped up a batch of Lemon-Glazed Tea Cookies from Winnie-the-Pooh’s Cookie Book. Wrap your lips around a few while you enjoy the poems. 🙂

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taste testing eat your science homework by ann mccallum and leeza hernandez

~ jama ~ 26 Comments

Put on your aprons, lab coats and best bibs!

Ann McCallum and Leeza Hernandez, who tessellated our taste buds and dispelled our fear of polygons, fractions and tangrams with their delightful Eat Your Math Homework: Recipes for Hungry Minds (Charlesbridge, 2011), have just published a wonderful companion cookbook featuring six edible science projects.

In Eat Your Science Homework: Recipes for Inquiring Minds (Charlesbridge 2014), they serve up a bit of geology, chemistry, astrophysics and forensics, successfully turning “toil into tasty and drudgery into delicious.”

When you think about it, the kitchen is the best laboratory around — a fun place to experiment with various ingredients and methods with delectable and sometimes surprising results. Ann’s recipes give upper elementary kids a chance to learn about The Scientific Method, Atoms and Molecules, Properties of Matter, Inherited Traits, Rocks and Minerals, and Our Solar System with hands-on activities in a familiar setting.

Author and Recipe Maven Ann McCallum shows off Atomic Popcorn Balls (photo by Tom Fedor/The Gazette)

A little puzzled about atoms, elements and molecules? Munch on a batch of Atomic Popcorn Balls. Ever wonder why oil and vinegar don’t like to mix? Dip some veggies into a honey barbecue sauce dressing while contemplating density. And what are black holes, anyway? See how gravity swallows up sausage bits right in your muffin tin. And I can’t think of a more appetizing way to understand sedimentary layers than by making a pan of pizza lasagna.  🙂

Atomic Popcorn Balls photo by Ann McCallum

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celebrating colin firth’s birthday with goodnight mr darcy, a recipe and a special giveaway!

~ jama ~ 67 Comments

Dear Mr. Firth,

You must allow us to tell you how ardently we admire and love you.

To celebrate your 54th birthday, we’re serving up a 3-course repast here at Alphabet Soup: a brand new picture book, a spot of tea, and you.

Whether as Fitzwilliam Darcy or Mark Darcy, you truly take the cake. May we be so bold as to say you are stunning wet, dry, and everything in-between?

And boy, can you rock a cravat and waistcoat.

We remain your loyal fans, wishing you the best birthday ever.

With deep affection and hearts a-flutter,

Every female in the world with a pulse
xoxoxoxo

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♥ FIRST COURSE ♥
Goodnight Mr Darcy by Kate Coombs and Alli Arnold

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an earnest writer and a department store sniffing artist in possession of talent and wit must be in want of a good parody.

For award winning author Kate Coombs and award-winning illustrator Alli Arnold, a send-up of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice à la beloved children’s classic Goodnight Moon was just the thing to set their bonnets a-twirl.

In the great ballroom
There was a country dance
And a well-played tune
And Elizabeth Bennet —

So begins this tidy tale of moonlight and romance, as all are gathered at the Netherfield Ball — Lydia and Kitty looking pretty, Mr Darcy surprised by a pair of fine eyes, Jane with a blush and Mr Bingley turned to mush, and let’s not forget a certain gossiping mother and a father saying ‘hush’.

Those familiar with Pride and Prejudice know that the Ball is a crucial scene — where Darcy has singled out Elizabeth, and caught off-guard, she agrees to dance with him. They are allowed to engage in unchaperoned conversation (gasp!), their unguarded repartee ever-so-temptingly weakening their resolve.

In Goodnight Mr Darcy (Gibbs Smith, 2014), Kate has retained the simple rhyming structure and lulling cadence of Brown’s Goodnight Moon, but with a brilliant tongue-against-blushing cheek makeover that outlines all the delectable aspects of the prim and proper Darcy/Lizzy conscious coupling from ‘cute meet’ at the dance to mutual mooning over each other at home to happily ever after. The Mr Bingley and Jane pairing adds a bit of ‘mushy’ humor boys will appreciate, while the whole concept of a fancy dress ball with tipping of top hats, flitting of fans and oh-so-civilized how-de-do’s will have special appeal to girls.

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some yummy oat scones from elliot’s extraordinary cookbook

~ jama ~ 46 Comments

Though I’m a longtime Christina Björk and Lena Anderson fan (they’re the Swedish author and illustrator team who created Linnea in Monet’s Garden and Linnea’s Almanac, among many others), I didn’t know about Elliot’s Extraordinary Cookbook (1990) until just recently.

Why didn’t you tell me? You know how nuts I am about illustrated cookbooks. 🙂

I snatched up a like-new copy and swooned over every page of this thoroughly charming and delightful book, which is narrated by Linnea’s neighbor Elliot, quite likely the most enthusiastic young cook ever to bake a potato or scramble an egg.

It all begins when Elliot locks himself out of his apartment and meets his neighbor Stella Delight, a kind widow and former ship’s cook who invites him to wait upstairs at her place.

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