Today was a snow day for pretty much every school in Southeast Michigan following the biggest snowstorm we’ve had around here in a number of years. Frankly, I thought the snow day thing was very unnecessary, at least in Ypsilanti. Sunday was pretty bad, but by last night, everything seemed pretty much plowed to me. I think what really happened here is that collectively and spontaneously, all of the school districts in the area decided that this was going to be the one and only legitimate chance to get a snow day yet this calendar year and they took it, necessary or not.
Anyway, the unnecessary snow day gave us the chance to go sledding– or rather, for Will, Costas, Rachel, Eli, Celia, and other various kids went sledding while I stood on the side of the hill behind Ypsilanti High School drinking coffee and recording with the trusty FlipVideo camera. Here’s the result:
A good time for one and all; besides the coffee, I (and Will and Costas) enjoyed some excellent hot chocolate afterwards. I even found some marshmallows that weren’t stale.
I have yet to propose something (though I assume I will) and I don’t know exactly how I’m getting there (though I still think I’m going to drive), but I saw an article in the paper today about a place I’d definitely like to see the Howard Finster Vision House Museum. Seems like a perfect tie-in for a visual rhetoric, computer stuff, open source kinda conference.
I had been working on the movie that documented this year’s batch of “Pepper Nuts” off and on since I actually made the batch a couple of weeks ago, but I was inspired to finish it up because of this comment I received on this post I wrote three years ago with that year’s batch of Pepper Nuts:
I had a very similar recipe that I lost and have searched in vain for every year at Christmas time. I spent half an hour searching the internet for this recipe. With all the variety of pfeffernusse, I tried, “pfeffernuse rope anise” as a serch phrase to try to zero in on a recipe like I remembered. I finally found your post with the search phrase, “pfeffernuse dog food.” I’m so glad you included those key words and now I can make the cookies I remember.
Dog food-like indeed.
Well, since I’ve been playing around with my FlipVideo camera all year, I thought it made perfect sense to make the movie version of this year’s baking weekend. So, co-starring my able assistant Will, I give you “Pepper Nuts, the movie.”
In addition, let me offer an updated version of recipe here:
Grandma Krause’s Pepper Nuts
1 cup dark karo syrup
1/2 cup molasses
1 cup butter, softened (or margarine or crisco or, in the old days, lard)
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup hot water
2 tsps baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp anise oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
7 cups (or so) flour
1.In your trusty KitchenAid standing mixer mix together the syrup, molasses, butter, sugar and hot water until well combined. If you lack a standing mixer, you can do this with a large bowl and a hand mixer.
2. Add everything else but the flour and continue mixing until combined.
3. Start adding the flour, about a cup at a time, mixing each time until the flour is well incorporated. If you have a trusty KitchenAid standing mixer, lucky you! You can keep mixing this until all seven cups of flour are combined. I shifted from the regular mixing paddle to the bread hook attachment after the fifth cup of flour.
If you don’t have a standing mixer (unlucky you!), you’ll probably have to give up on the hand mixer after the fourth or fifth cup of flour and knead the rest of the flour in as you might with the making of bread or pizza dough.
Either way, you may have to add a little more or a little less flour to get a dough that is moist but not sticky.
4. Take about a handful of the finished dough and roll it out on a lightly floured surface in long snakes that are about the width of your pinky. Lay these out on a cookie sheet. You can create different layers of the dough snakes by separating them with parchment paper or plastic sheeting.
5. Chill these dough snakes. Grandma Krause’s recipe said to chill “overnight or for at least a couple of hours.” I have done this before by putting them in the freezer or outside (which is as cold as the freezer, of course) for an hour or so, though in the movie, I left them out overnight with no adverse effect. They do need to be chilled and even a bit dried out.
6. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350-375 degrees. (It kind of depends on your oven, but while Grandma Krause said 350, I think 375 is probably more accurate). Take each snake and cut them into tiny bite-sized pieces of dough. Put the little dough pieces onto a cookie sheet, being sure to spread them out so they don’t touch either. The cookies will expand slightly in size.
7. Bake about 9 or 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool them on a clean counter or a clean cookie sheet and store them in a sealed container. Serve them in little bowls as if they were nuts. Makes a pailful.
Through a variety of different circumstances, I stumbled across these two Facebook videos today– I will probably include them both in the 516 class this term. So, in celebration at the end of the required “is” on the updates for Facebook, I present to you:
The Miami University (Ohio? Florida?) 2005 Cheezies a cappela Faceebook Song.
Last week, I read Deb Hawhee’s blog entry on her upcoming sabbatical, about a dean telling her that she had better not show up on campus next semester, and I have to say, I got a bit of a twinge. That probably should have been me, I thought.
I guess this is my this Public Address morning. I just got done posting on my unofficial blog a video of a melting bunny I found via Jeff’s blog; now I’m posting here a link to the Flickr pool “Faces in Places.” This immediately made me think of one of the arguments/observations that Scott McCloud makes in Understanding Comics, a book I’ve been using (successfully, I think) for 328 the last couple of years. So besides being an amusing link, this may be actual teaching material for me.
I actually find this quite beautiful and disturbing at the same time. If you’re curious, it’s called “Chocolate Haas” and is the work of Sander Plug, an artist who seems to specialize in doing wacky things. I came across this via this Public Address.
My question is about YouTube and MySpace. What is it about putting all of one’s personal and private business out into the public domain for friend and foe to gather information so that they can either stalk you, attempt to rape or molest you or even attempt to kill you. Is your 15 minutes of fame worth the cost of a rapist, predator or murderer showing up at your front door?
Ah yes, much YouTube/Myspace molestation for sure….
