This recipe was created by Jennifer McLain and was printed as a “Recipe Redux” (makeover feature) in Vegetarian Times, January 1994. I’ve found it in a couple of places online without any credit given.
Jennifer explained her need to create something wonderful (and somewhat healthier or at least lower in fat than other chocolate pie recipes) for a family special occasion: “it would have to have the taste and appearance of one that was spectacularly unhealthful.”
Well, it does! We’ve made it twice, once for Christmas when a vegan relative was coming, and once this year for dinner with friends. It’s very chocolaty (think mousse?) and very rich, and it really does serve 12 (because you won’t want a big piece. Well, maybe you will.).
This is the recipe as published, with my notes in brackets. (It took me longer to track down the right tofu and preserves than it did to make the pie.)
Chocolate Pie After Redux
(It can be made up to three days in advance.)
Ingredients
Crust:
*7 oz. chocolate wafer cookies or graham crackers
and
*2 tbsp. canola oil or melted margarine.
(My note: I just make a graham cracker crust following the directions in the Betty Crocker Cookbook. You can use any crumb crust recipe you like.)
Filling:
* 8 oz. unsweetened chocolate (a box of the supermarket kind is fine)
* 2 10-oz. packages silken tofu
(The first time I made this, I bought a 19-oz. box of aseptically-packaged silken tofu, because Jennifer insisted that the tofu be the silken type. The second time, I had to use what the supermarket offered, which was soft (but not silken) tofu in 300 g (about 10 ½ oz.) water-pack tubs. I used two tubs, and it worked fine.)
*10-oz. jar blackberry preserves
(Jennifer says that preserves made from any red berry (strawberry, raspberry or cherry) will work. You don't taste the particular fruit, it just adds sweetness and texture. The first time, I used a jar of black cherry preserves. The second time, I was again limited to what the discount supermarket had, and I had trouble finding anything in the jam aisle marked “preserves.” I settled for a cupful of E.D. Smith Triple Fruit Wildberry spread, which is thinner than normal jam and seemed to work well.)
*1 tsp. vanilla extract
*1 cup liquid honey
(You may think you need to cut back on the honey after putting in a cupful of preserves or jam. However, we tried cutting back, tasted it after blending, and agreed that it did need pretty much close to the whole cupful. Remember, you’re adding a lot of unsweetened chocolate.)
Directions
Crust (if you’re following the recipe here): Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In blender or food processor, combine cookies and oil or margarine and pulse to make fine crumbs. Press into bottom of springform pan or pie plate. Bake 10 minutes and cool.
Filling: Melt chocolate in double boiler or over very low heat. Put remaining ingredients in bowl of food processor or blender and add melted chocolate. Process until very smooth, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides.
Pour filling into crust, smooth top, and refrigerate until firm, at least 4 hours or overnight. Serves 12. Per serving: 409 calories, 17 g fat, 57 mg carb.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Birthdays, frugal and otherwise
The Deputy Headmistress has posted about her family's frugal birthday traditions. We do some things that are frugal, some that aren't, and some things that are just traditions. Some years the Squirrelings have had kid-parties, and some years they've opted for a family outing. Some years the birthday has extended over a weekend or a couple of days as we've celebrated with other relatives.
This week is Ponytails' birthday, and I should really be baking a cake right now instead of blogging. She's invited a couple of friends and her sisters to go mini-golfing with her tomorrow afternoon, and then they'll come back here for hamburgers and cake. Her birthday is sort of a Groovy theme this year; the girls are going to wear anything Groovy they can find, and we're making this Groovy Jeans cake. I don't do cakes that take a lot of skill with an icing tube; I like cut-up cakes or the kind that we can decorate with candies or plastic people or animals (NOT the kind from the cake decorating aisle--we usually use what we have in the toy box).
The best parties we've had are for Mr. Fixit--and they're almost always just for our own family, which is kind of a shame since they're usually very creative (if I do say so myself). The theme is always a surprise (unless he guesses), and it's usually based on whatever he's watching or doing that year. We've had a Dr. Who party (the Tardis was our hall closet), a time-travel-through-your-life party, a records party, a Junior-Monopoly-come-to-life party (when you landed on the Puppet Show, you got a real Puppet show and so on), and I can't remember what else. The most unusual was a Marvin the Star-Nosed Mole party which would only mean anything if you've seen the 13-episode run of the '80's TV series Four on the Floor with The Frantics. (Want to sign a petition to get it put on DVD?) We thought Marvin was wonderful so we made Mr. Fixit a board game starring Marvin and our own Dewey Squirrel (it was based on a Barbie Prom game I used to have), and a brown-dirt cake with a marshmallow Marvin coming out of a molehill. And brown streamers, of course.
Parties should be fun and have a bit of surprise to them, even if the presents are from the dollar store and we forgot to get balloons. That's pretty much the way we do it.
This week is Ponytails' birthday, and I should really be baking a cake right now instead of blogging. She's invited a couple of friends and her sisters to go mini-golfing with her tomorrow afternoon, and then they'll come back here for hamburgers and cake. Her birthday is sort of a Groovy theme this year; the girls are going to wear anything Groovy they can find, and we're making this Groovy Jeans cake. I don't do cakes that take a lot of skill with an icing tube; I like cut-up cakes or the kind that we can decorate with candies or plastic people or animals (NOT the kind from the cake decorating aisle--we usually use what we have in the toy box).
The best parties we've had are for Mr. Fixit--and they're almost always just for our own family, which is kind of a shame since they're usually very creative (if I do say so myself). The theme is always a surprise (unless he guesses), and it's usually based on whatever he's watching or doing that year. We've had a Dr. Who party (the Tardis was our hall closet), a time-travel-through-your-life party, a records party, a Junior-Monopoly-come-to-life party (when you landed on the Puppet Show, you got a real Puppet show and so on), and I can't remember what else. The most unusual was a Marvin the Star-Nosed Mole party which would only mean anything if you've seen the 13-episode run of the '80's TV series Four on the Floor with The Frantics. (Want to sign a petition to get it put on DVD?) We thought Marvin was wonderful so we made Mr. Fixit a board game starring Marvin and our own Dewey Squirrel (it was based on a Barbie Prom game I used to have), and a brown-dirt cake with a marshmallow Marvin coming out of a molehill. And brown streamers, of course.
Parties should be fun and have a bit of surprise to them, even if the presents are from the dollar store and we forgot to get balloons. That's pretty much the way we do it.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Better late than never
I have been so busy this week that I forgot about the homeschooling carnival (it usually goes up on Tuesdays). Dana at Principled Discovery hosted this week's carnival.
Friday, September 08, 2006
When the old rules change
This post started out as a conversation--actually many conversations, many of them with Mr. Fixit. Then it graduated to scribbles and arrows on the back of a computer printout; and now I'm trying to make something coherent out of it. So you'll understand if it sounds like I'm coming from a lot of directions at once.
What we're talking about here is the thing that we call frugality, simplicity, or just making ends meet. The world has changed--not just in the last 50 years, but in the last 10 or 15. And the rules about how you make do on less (by choice or by default) have changed. I'm not sure if the principles themselves have changed, but the ways we apply them have. [Update: I keep using the word "rules." I don't like it, but it's hard to come up with another word a bit less severe. I mean it more in the sense of "rules of the game, how you play" than "rules to follow or face banishment." OK?]
The rule for thrifty transportation used to be, buy a decent used car and keep it fixed yourself. (If you couldn't get away with the bus, a bicycle, or a horse.) Up until a couple of years ago, the Squirrels had never owned a new car; we never needed to. Mr. Fixit had the tools and the know-how to buy and service older cars that still had some mileage left in them. Other than gas costs, we spent very, very little money on those cars. They were cheap to buy and insure, and if they were well taken care of, they hardly ever had to go to a garage. When they eventually died, we replaced them with similar cars.
Then came the new run of cars that aren't worth buying used. They're poorly made to start with and they have fewer user-serviceable parts. Most of the "old grandpa" cars are gone. Add to that the new realities of emissions testing, smaller parking spaces, and changes in insurance, and suddenly doing things our old way is no longer an option.
So Mr. Fixit's new rule is "find something new and moderately priced, and take care of it as well as you can (that includes things like taking it easy on the gas pedal)."
The problem of "the new things just aren't as good" applies to all kinds of things:
1. The last potential new Treehouse we looked at was about 12 years old; the windows and the roof already needed to be replaced (apparently those are the first things to go in new slammed-together houses).
2. Mr. Fixit's stereo equipment was bought in the 1980's; two of the components needed repairs this year (which Mr. Fixit managed to do with the help of the Squirrelings), and that was the FIRST TIME EVER that they hadn't worked. Try getting that mileage out of something off the shelf now.
3. FarAwaySis bought us a food processor for a wedding present. It's had several new parts over the years; there's a small fixit shop near us that used to do that sort of thing, no problem. And it's still running. But now the fixit shop is just about out of business. Nobody's bringing their food processors and whatsits in to be fixed (you'd put a new motor into something that's cheaper to buy new?), and they can't get the parts anyway.
4. Grandma Squirrel bought a new sewing machine, top of the line in 1960. She sewed on that thing--and she sewed a lot--for forty years. Mr. Fixit bought me a new sewing machine for Christmas, and he had to really look to find something solid (he chose a commercial model). And I still don't expect forty years out of it, even though I do like it very much.
5. You can get smaller and smaller on this track of things, from houses to cars to sewing machines to band-aids that don't stick and pencils that won't sharpen. The Squirrelings play with my old Barbies because the heads of their own new ones have broken off. The point is the same: mass production and moving a lot of manufacturing to third-world countries have cost us all in quality. Stuff is cheap and plentiful, but it doesn't last--small things, big things, very big things like houses. It can't be fixed, or if it can, the repairs cost more than the replacements. And you can't send houses to the junkyard.
And that means, thrifty friends, that the rules have changed. It's harder to find good stuff that's WORTH hanging onto, fixing, re-using, recycling. New laws mean that you can't even resell some stuff that someone else could use--like car seats, cribs, older cars.
Here are some of the rules [of the game, or guidelines, or principles, however you want to say it--see update above] we're currently operating under. Most of the ideas are not new--we just have to work harder at thinking of new ways to apply them.
1. Avoid excess. Everything from the plate of cookies at the office to most of the junk sold at yard sales (and I love yard sales), the gifts given for every occasions, and garages stuffed with everything. The concept of buying less and using less still works. Take fewer pictures, buy shoes that match more of your clothes, make simpler birthday cakes (without character pans).
2. Stay behind the trend. Buy the older version if you can still make it work. Sometimes this is possible now that we have the Internet--because you can buy gizmos and parts on E-bay to keep an old whatsit going. Mr. Fixit has bought older cell phones and their battery packs online--and he keeps them going.
3. Stay WAY behind the trend. Mr. Fixit's latest thing (well, you weren't going to blog about this yourself, were you?) is trying out a vintage razor, a mug of shaving soap and a brush. (You can buy those on E-bay too.) He says the soap feels better on his face, and besides, it's one less pressurized can of shaving cream in the dump.
4. Focus on time, people, and space--three things that deserve more attention than stuff. Do non-techie things together.
5. Have a favourite hobby or two--not twenty with different stuff for all of them. Put time into learning something that will pay off or benefit you and your family instead of just being short-term fun. Like making salsa, or learning to fix things (what things there are left that are fixable), or starting a rock collection.
6. Take Krakovianka's approach to decorating--go for the natural look, pottery and that sort of thing vs. plastic and particle board. Wood is still wood, and clay is still clay.
7. Use what you have (the Deputy Headmistress's approach). George Washington Carver used different colours of mud to make paint for buildings (I read that in Krakovianka's favourite book about him). Use whatever you have better and more creatively.
8. Don't focus so much on the cosmetics of things, stewing over just the perfect colour or style. I once read about a woman who had just been through a find-your-style seminar and shopping makeover, and then she went on vacation and lost her luggage (all her new clothes) at the airport. She said something like, "I didn't let it get me down at all! I just thought, I'm a beautiful person in less-than-perfect clothes, and I'm going to have a great vacation anyway."
We haven't re-papered or painted the Treehouse living room since we've lived there. Which means the paper's been up since the 1970's. It's even been patched in one place (although you have to look close to notice). We just preferred to use our money on some comfy furniture before we got around to making the walls look better. It doesn't make any difference to what we do in the room or whether we're happy there.
9. Sometimes say, "that's good enough," and leave it at that. Accept the natural way of things, like the Sultan in Jane Yolen's The Sultan's Perfect Tree (who learned that it's okay if the leaves fall off in the autumn).
What we're talking about here is the thing that we call frugality, simplicity, or just making ends meet. The world has changed--not just in the last 50 years, but in the last 10 or 15. And the rules about how you make do on less (by choice or by default) have changed. I'm not sure if the principles themselves have changed, but the ways we apply them have. [Update: I keep using the word "rules." I don't like it, but it's hard to come up with another word a bit less severe. I mean it more in the sense of "rules of the game, how you play" than "rules to follow or face banishment." OK?]
The rule for thrifty transportation used to be, buy a decent used car and keep it fixed yourself. (If you couldn't get away with the bus, a bicycle, or a horse.) Up until a couple of years ago, the Squirrels had never owned a new car; we never needed to. Mr. Fixit had the tools and the know-how to buy and service older cars that still had some mileage left in them. Other than gas costs, we spent very, very little money on those cars. They were cheap to buy and insure, and if they were well taken care of, they hardly ever had to go to a garage. When they eventually died, we replaced them with similar cars.
Then came the new run of cars that aren't worth buying used. They're poorly made to start with and they have fewer user-serviceable parts. Most of the "old grandpa" cars are gone. Add to that the new realities of emissions testing, smaller parking spaces, and changes in insurance, and suddenly doing things our old way is no longer an option.
So Mr. Fixit's new rule is "find something new and moderately priced, and take care of it as well as you can (that includes things like taking it easy on the gas pedal)."
The problem of "the new things just aren't as good" applies to all kinds of things:
1. The last potential new Treehouse we looked at was about 12 years old; the windows and the roof already needed to be replaced (apparently those are the first things to go in new slammed-together houses).
2. Mr. Fixit's stereo equipment was bought in the 1980's; two of the components needed repairs this year (which Mr. Fixit managed to do with the help of the Squirrelings), and that was the FIRST TIME EVER that they hadn't worked. Try getting that mileage out of something off the shelf now.
3. FarAwaySis bought us a food processor for a wedding present. It's had several new parts over the years; there's a small fixit shop near us that used to do that sort of thing, no problem. And it's still running. But now the fixit shop is just about out of business. Nobody's bringing their food processors and whatsits in to be fixed (you'd put a new motor into something that's cheaper to buy new?), and they can't get the parts anyway.
4. Grandma Squirrel bought a new sewing machine, top of the line in 1960. She sewed on that thing--and she sewed a lot--for forty years. Mr. Fixit bought me a new sewing machine for Christmas, and he had to really look to find something solid (he chose a commercial model). And I still don't expect forty years out of it, even though I do like it very much.
5. You can get smaller and smaller on this track of things, from houses to cars to sewing machines to band-aids that don't stick and pencils that won't sharpen. The Squirrelings play with my old Barbies because the heads of their own new ones have broken off. The point is the same: mass production and moving a lot of manufacturing to third-world countries have cost us all in quality. Stuff is cheap and plentiful, but it doesn't last--small things, big things, very big things like houses. It can't be fixed, or if it can, the repairs cost more than the replacements. And you can't send houses to the junkyard.
And that means, thrifty friends, that the rules have changed. It's harder to find good stuff that's WORTH hanging onto, fixing, re-using, recycling. New laws mean that you can't even resell some stuff that someone else could use--like car seats, cribs, older cars.
Here are some of the rules [of the game, or guidelines, or principles, however you want to say it--see update above] we're currently operating under. Most of the ideas are not new--we just have to work harder at thinking of new ways to apply them.
1. Avoid excess. Everything from the plate of cookies at the office to most of the junk sold at yard sales (and I love yard sales), the gifts given for every occasions, and garages stuffed with everything. The concept of buying less and using less still works. Take fewer pictures, buy shoes that match more of your clothes, make simpler birthday cakes (without character pans).
2. Stay behind the trend. Buy the older version if you can still make it work. Sometimes this is possible now that we have the Internet--because you can buy gizmos and parts on E-bay to keep an old whatsit going. Mr. Fixit has bought older cell phones and their battery packs online--and he keeps them going.
3. Stay WAY behind the trend. Mr. Fixit's latest thing (well, you weren't going to blog about this yourself, were you?) is trying out a vintage razor, a mug of shaving soap and a brush. (You can buy those on E-bay too.) He says the soap feels better on his face, and besides, it's one less pressurized can of shaving cream in the dump.
4. Focus on time, people, and space--three things that deserve more attention than stuff. Do non-techie things together.
5. Have a favourite hobby or two--not twenty with different stuff for all of them. Put time into learning something that will pay off or benefit you and your family instead of just being short-term fun. Like making salsa, or learning to fix things (what things there are left that are fixable), or starting a rock collection.
6. Take Krakovianka's approach to decorating--go for the natural look, pottery and that sort of thing vs. plastic and particle board. Wood is still wood, and clay is still clay.
7. Use what you have (the Deputy Headmistress's approach). George Washington Carver used different colours of mud to make paint for buildings (I read that in Krakovianka's favourite book about him). Use whatever you have better and more creatively.
8. Don't focus so much on the cosmetics of things, stewing over just the perfect colour or style. I once read about a woman who had just been through a find-your-style seminar and shopping makeover, and then she went on vacation and lost her luggage (all her new clothes) at the airport. She said something like, "I didn't let it get me down at all! I just thought, I'm a beautiful person in less-than-perfect clothes, and I'm going to have a great vacation anyway."
We haven't re-papered or painted the Treehouse living room since we've lived there. Which means the paper's been up since the 1970's. It's even been patched in one place (although you have to look close to notice). We just preferred to use our money on some comfy furniture before we got around to making the walls look better. It doesn't make any difference to what we do in the room or whether we're happy there.
9. Sometimes say, "that's good enough," and leave it at that. Accept the natural way of things, like the Sultan in Jane Yolen's The Sultan's Perfect Tree (who learned that it's okay if the leaves fall off in the autumn).
End of the week (phew)
It's been a very good first week of school here. We've actually gotten through most of things that I had planned to do! And everybody's still smiling. Yesterday we started "As You Like It" from Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, and "Florence Nightingale" in Armed with Courage. And started the book about music and composers that goes with our Leonard Bernstein record set. (That was fun. The chapter we read (just part of it) is based on this script , "What does Music Mean?")
Today will be a bit shortened because we're going to the library after lunch. The lineup looks like this:
Read from Proverbs
Ponytails, work on math page; Crayons, do the usual math routine with Mama Squirrel (next week's math will be a bit more varied)
A Child's Geography, the second part of chapter 1
(Mr. Fixit kindly got our e-text printed out and comb-bound this week)
Memory work: the Canadian provinces
Folk songs: the same ones as before
Read about garden snails from Anna Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study
Today will be a bit shortened because we're going to the library after lunch. The lineup looks like this:
Read from Proverbs
Ponytails, work on math page; Crayons, do the usual math routine with Mama Squirrel (next week's math will be a bit more varied)
A Child's Geography, the second part of chapter 1
(Mr. Fixit kindly got our e-text printed out and comb-bound this week)
Memory work: the Canadian provinces
Folk songs: the same ones as before
Read about garden snails from Anna Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study
Thursday, September 07, 2006
I think Crayons would like Chesterton
"Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
--from G.K. Chesterton, "On Lying in Bed," in Tremendous Trifles
--from G.K. Chesterton, "On Lying in Bed," in Tremendous Trifles
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Another process post: Wednesday's work
I'm going to do here pretty much what I did yesterday, just because Wednesday's schedule is quite a bit different from Tuesday's. Wednesday is our "different day" of the week--no Bible, no regular math, and it's the only day where I've scheduled computer time in for both Crayons and Ponytails.
After our regular opening (usually a hymn and prayer, often an extra like reading a Psalm together), Crayons will get 20 minutes of computer time while Ponytails does a grammar lesson (one of the Peter Pan lessons I posted about previously). Then Ponytails can use the Carmen Sandiego math CD-Rom while Crayons has her math time and probably time to read a story with me.
Next is the week's second history lesson. Since Ponytails finished her chapter about the beginnings of Ancient Egypt yesterday (some of them will take her two sessions), we're going to take a few minutes to look at extra books--Usborne's Ancient World has a good double spread about life along the Nile. She'll make an entry in her notebook--just a little writing and then enough time for a picture.
Then French. I don't have a commercial curriculum this year for French. I do have a couple of storybooks that were originally written in English and translated into French--they each have about a hundred one- or two-page stories in them. This is going to be an experiment in following some of CM's French-teaching ideas--reading a very short story (or part of one), working with snipped-apart printouts of the words and phrases (making new sentences), with the goal of learning to narrate a little too. I've done this before with a couple of easy-reader books in French, but this is the first time that I've tried to base a term's work on it. The first story is called "La devinette" (The riddle), and it's about two children arguing about what colour they think their father's new car is--blue or green? (It turns out to be turquoise, a word that's as easy to understand in French as in English!)
Folk songs: A la volette (to continue in French), and A Paper of Pins.
Snack break...
Then copywork. One perfect line for Ponytails, a couple of letters for Crayons. [Update: we did this with dry-erase markers on small-sized white boards.]
And last thing in the morning: Breugel (or Bruegel or Brueghel or Breughel), Peasant Wedding. That's Picture Study.
After lunch: An Emily Dickinson poem (we read a little about her life yesterday too), Peter Pan, and a nature walk before the Apprentice gets home from school. [Update: that was fun, and we had good weather for it. We just went around the block and checked out our favourite gardens and trees. We noticed that the catalpa tree that used to be covered with flowers now has big bean pods all over it. The leaves on the one oak tree that we know of are still mostly green--no acorns on the ground yet. Some of the summer flowers are gone, but most of them are still brightly coloured.]
After our regular opening (usually a hymn and prayer, often an extra like reading a Psalm together), Crayons will get 20 minutes of computer time while Ponytails does a grammar lesson (one of the Peter Pan lessons I posted about previously). Then Ponytails can use the Carmen Sandiego math CD-Rom while Crayons has her math time and probably time to read a story with me.
Next is the week's second history lesson. Since Ponytails finished her chapter about the beginnings of Ancient Egypt yesterday (some of them will take her two sessions), we're going to take a few minutes to look at extra books--Usborne's Ancient World has a good double spread about life along the Nile. She'll make an entry in her notebook--just a little writing and then enough time for a picture.
Then French. I don't have a commercial curriculum this year for French. I do have a couple of storybooks that were originally written in English and translated into French--they each have about a hundred one- or two-page stories in them. This is going to be an experiment in following some of CM's French-teaching ideas--reading a very short story (or part of one), working with snipped-apart printouts of the words and phrases (making new sentences), with the goal of learning to narrate a little too. I've done this before with a couple of easy-reader books in French, but this is the first time that I've tried to base a term's work on it. The first story is called "La devinette" (The riddle), and it's about two children arguing about what colour they think their father's new car is--blue or green? (It turns out to be turquoise, a word that's as easy to understand in French as in English!)
Folk songs: A la volette (to continue in French), and A Paper of Pins.
Snack break...
Then copywork. One perfect line for Ponytails, a couple of letters for Crayons. [Update: we did this with dry-erase markers on small-sized white boards.]
And last thing in the morning: Breugel (or Bruegel or Brueghel or Breughel), Peasant Wedding. That's Picture Study.
After lunch: An Emily Dickinson poem (we read a little about her life yesterday too), Peter Pan, and a nature walk before the Apprentice gets home from school. [Update: that was fun, and we had good weather for it. We just went around the block and checked out our favourite gardens and trees. We noticed that the catalpa tree that used to be covered with flowers now has big bean pods all over it. The leaves on the one oak tree that we know of are still mostly green--no acorns on the ground yet. Some of the summer flowers are gone, but most of them are still brightly coloured.]
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
New school day
What do you do to get ready for the next school day? Just open the book? Make up lesson plans? Somewhere in between? This is a process post...
We're still so new at this school year that I'm making up "lists of what we have to do today," even though Ponytails' and Crayons' work is in my binder, supposedly there to be drawn on. So I go through my list and think "how will I do this? What books do I need? Where are the Scrabble letters?" This is what I'm doing right now.
[Updates after we've done this. I forgot to say that we started by reading Psalm 24 (we have a nice copy of it from an old Sunday School paper), by singing "Day by Day" (see our last Sunday hymn post), and by praying.]
Bible: 1 Samuel chapter 9, the story of Saul and the lost donkeys. Remember last year when we read about the Judges? Now Samuel is old and Israel wants a king. Picture the scene: Can you imagine the day when Saul's donkeys got lost and he was wandering around searching for them? Read the chapter. Take turns narrating. See what other points come up: maybe that God is behind all that happens, even lost donkeys and which way Saul went.
[Update: I should have known we couldn't read a story about runaway donkeys without some references back to Bert and Ethel and the pig search.]
Spelling: Ponytails find words that start with anti- , and put them into the Personal Dictionary she started last year. Crayons make words that have "an" in them, using Scrabble letters, and copy some of them on paper.
[Update: there are very few good grade 4 spelling words that start with the prefix "anti-." However, we did find one classic: antidisestablishmentarianism. Ponytails added it to her dictionary.]
History (Ponytails): read A Child's History of the World, chapter 5 ("Real History"), for 10 to 15 minutes while I do math with Crayons.
Crayons' math: put one popsicle stick in our "100 days" container. (That makes two!) Do a little work on the hundred chart with me (What is 2 more than 52? What is 2 less than 32?). Trace numerals in a dollar-store math workbook (she still has trouble with reversals).
[Addition: while Ponytails was reading her book on the back porch, Crayons and I also had time to read "The Jumblies" and "The Dong with the Luminous Nose." She likes Edward Lear a lot.]
History: Ponytails narrate back to me.
Memory work: Ponytails work on one Emily Dickinson poem. [She chose "My river runs to thee."]
Writing: we usually have handwriting scheduled here for Ponytails, but we're going to skip it today.
Math for Ponytails: work on the first couple of worksheets in Making Math Meaningful (about place value through the hundred thousands). If Crayons wants some of this math too, show her how to use Base 10 blocks to show tens and ones (like her popsicle sticks). So: remember to get out the blocks (for Ponytails too, if she wants them, although they only go to 1,000, and maybe the abacus we made a few years ago).
[Ponytails let Crayons use her spelling puzzle set during math time.]
Music Theory: this is less intense than it sounds. I bought the introduction-to-music pack to go with our Music Maker harp, and we're going to work through it a bit at a time. The first lesson teaches words like treble clef and bass clef. So: I have to get that out.
Crafts: Morning crafts are the non-messy kind. Since Ponytails is really interested in doing some crocheting (she did a bit last year), we'll review making chains and single crochet. I have some ideas for simple (small) things she could work on this year, like a Barbie hat and poncho. Ponytails has much bigger ideas, like a girl-sized shawl or a pet net. So: I have to go round up some crochet hooks and decent-sized yarn.
Lunch break! Lunch break!
After lunch readalouds: Emily Dickinson poems; "Ra and His children"; Crystal Mountain.
And then some time with the Apprentice, who will be home before lunch today because the high school kids only go for an assembly and to meet in their homerooms and find their lockers and that stuff.
And then we're done.
We're still so new at this school year that I'm making up "lists of what we have to do today," even though Ponytails' and Crayons' work is in my binder, supposedly there to be drawn on. So I go through my list and think "how will I do this? What books do I need? Where are the Scrabble letters?" This is what I'm doing right now.
[Updates after we've done this. I forgot to say that we started by reading Psalm 24 (we have a nice copy of it from an old Sunday School paper), by singing "Day by Day" (see our last Sunday hymn post), and by praying.]
Bible: 1 Samuel chapter 9, the story of Saul and the lost donkeys. Remember last year when we read about the Judges? Now Samuel is old and Israel wants a king. Picture the scene: Can you imagine the day when Saul's donkeys got lost and he was wandering around searching for them? Read the chapter. Take turns narrating. See what other points come up: maybe that God is behind all that happens, even lost donkeys and which way Saul went.
[Update: I should have known we couldn't read a story about runaway donkeys without some references back to Bert and Ethel and the pig search.]
Spelling: Ponytails find words that start with anti- , and put them into the Personal Dictionary she started last year. Crayons make words that have "an" in them, using Scrabble letters, and copy some of them on paper.
[Update: there are very few good grade 4 spelling words that start with the prefix "anti-." However, we did find one classic: antidisestablishmentarianism. Ponytails added it to her dictionary.]
History (Ponytails): read A Child's History of the World, chapter 5 ("Real History"), for 10 to 15 minutes while I do math with Crayons.
Crayons' math: put one popsicle stick in our "100 days" container. (That makes two!) Do a little work on the hundred chart with me (What is 2 more than 52? What is 2 less than 32?). Trace numerals in a dollar-store math workbook (she still has trouble with reversals).
[Addition: while Ponytails was reading her book on the back porch, Crayons and I also had time to read "The Jumblies" and "The Dong with the Luminous Nose." She likes Edward Lear a lot.]
History: Ponytails narrate back to me.
Memory work: Ponytails work on one Emily Dickinson poem. [She chose "My river runs to thee."]
Writing: we usually have handwriting scheduled here for Ponytails, but we're going to skip it today.
Math for Ponytails: work on the first couple of worksheets in Making Math Meaningful (about place value through the hundred thousands). If Crayons wants some of this math too, show her how to use Base 10 blocks to show tens and ones (like her popsicle sticks). So: remember to get out the blocks (for Ponytails too, if she wants them, although they only go to 1,000, and maybe the abacus we made a few years ago).
[Ponytails let Crayons use her spelling puzzle set during math time.]
Music Theory: this is less intense than it sounds. I bought the introduction-to-music pack to go with our Music Maker harp, and we're going to work through it a bit at a time. The first lesson teaches words like treble clef and bass clef. So: I have to get that out.
Crafts: Morning crafts are the non-messy kind. Since Ponytails is really interested in doing some crocheting (she did a bit last year), we'll review making chains and single crochet. I have some ideas for simple (small) things she could work on this year, like a Barbie hat and poncho. Ponytails has much bigger ideas, like a girl-sized shawl or a pet net. So: I have to go round up some crochet hooks and decent-sized yarn.
Lunch break! Lunch break!
After lunch readalouds: Emily Dickinson poems; "Ra and His children"; Crystal Mountain.
And then some time with the Apprentice, who will be home before lunch today because the high school kids only go for an assembly and to meet in their homerooms and find their lockers and that stuff.
And then we're done.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Overheard (Wonder-daddy)
Squirrel 1: How does Dr. Who do that?
Squirrel 2: Duh, he's a Timelord. Like Daddy.
Squirrel 2: Duh, he's a Timelord. Like Daddy.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
So far this weekend
Things we've been doing:
1. The Apprentice and Mr. Fixit are out shopping for a backpack for her for school, since we suddenly realized her on-hand choices were between Franklin the Turtle and something that looked like she was ready for the High Arctic.
2. I've been doing updates to our support group's library database all weekend, plugging in ISBN numbers and trying to fix all the mistakes that our otherwise conscientious librarian (Mama Squirrel) has allowed to slip in over the past couple of years.
3. We had some excellent end-of-summer corn from our favourite vegetable stand, cooked in the pressure cooker--and that's almost as good as barbecued in the husk. We learned how to do this awhile back from Lorna J. Sass's book Cooking Under Pressure. You put a cupful of water and a vegetable steamer basket (we use the kind that folds up like a flower) into the bottom of the pressure cooker; husk and wash the corn, and put a few of the husks into the steamer; and stack the corn cobs, log-cabin style, on top of the husks. Put the top on the pressure cooker, turn on the stove, and bring the cooker up to full pressure. Then turn it off and let the steam out. That's it.
4. The Apprentice is planning another girls' knitting night, so she's been phoning around to everyone she can think of who likes to knit, crochet or cross-stitch. Ponytails would like to crochet something this fall too, so she's been looking at library books--she just has to decide what and get some yarn.
5. Mama Squirrel made a batch of the Hillbilly Housewife's hot cocoa mix, and sprang for a package of mini marshmallows from the grocery store this morning. We had some after we got the groceries put away. "I loved it, but it could use more marshmallows, a whole bag of them."--Ponytails
6. Crayons hasher first loose tooth two loose teeth.
1. The Apprentice and Mr. Fixit are out shopping for a backpack for her for school, since we suddenly realized her on-hand choices were between Franklin the Turtle and something that looked like she was ready for the High Arctic.
2. I've been doing updates to our support group's library database all weekend, plugging in ISBN numbers and trying to fix all the mistakes that our otherwise conscientious librarian (Mama Squirrel) has allowed to slip in over the past couple of years.
3. We had some excellent end-of-summer corn from our favourite vegetable stand, cooked in the pressure cooker--and that's almost as good as barbecued in the husk. We learned how to do this awhile back from Lorna J. Sass's book Cooking Under Pressure. You put a cupful of water and a vegetable steamer basket (we use the kind that folds up like a flower) into the bottom of the pressure cooker; husk and wash the corn, and put a few of the husks into the steamer; and stack the corn cobs, log-cabin style, on top of the husks. Put the top on the pressure cooker, turn on the stove, and bring the cooker up to full pressure. Then turn it off and let the steam out. That's it.
4. The Apprentice is planning another girls' knitting night, so she's been phoning around to everyone she can think of who likes to knit, crochet or cross-stitch. Ponytails would like to crochet something this fall too, so she's been looking at library books--she just has to decide what and get some yarn.
5. Mama Squirrel made a batch of the Hillbilly Housewife's hot cocoa mix, and sprang for a package of mini marshmallows from the grocery store this morning. We had some after we got the groceries put away. "I loved it, but it could use more marshmallows, a whole bag of them."--Ponytails
6. Crayons has
Friday, September 01, 2006
School for the Apprentice
I have a few more things to post about what Crayons and Ponytails will be doing this year, but I have also neglected The Apprentice. So this is All About Her.
After waiting all summer for an appointment, The Apprentice, Mr. Fixit and Mama Squirrel squeezed ourselves into a guidance counsellor's office at the local high school (Mr. Fixit's old school) and talked courses. It ended up that The Apprentice is going to take two courses there each semester this year: science and drama in the fall, and French and vocal music in the winter. The best thing about it is that she'll get to play in the labs (MUA HA HA HA)...the worst thing is that it takes a big chunk out of the day, what with getting there and everything.
And it's changed what's fair to expect from her other work, especially this fall when she'll be gone for a longer stretch of the day (the winter courses will just be during the afternoons).
So after The Apprentice gets home from school and fortifies herself, she'll work with Mama Squirrel for half an hour on English, logic, citizenship, and a bit of French to make sure she's ready for the winter course. Then she'll also work on poems, math and/or her Christian studies reading list before she gets to relax for awhile. After dinner (besides science homework) she'll have time to read some of the other books we had planned for literature, life skills, geography, biographies...maybe even science. I'll post about those later today.
But now I have to go and START SCHOOL!
:-)
Farewell, summer.
After waiting all summer for an appointment, The Apprentice, Mr. Fixit and Mama Squirrel squeezed ourselves into a guidance counsellor's office at the local high school (Mr. Fixit's old school) and talked courses. It ended up that The Apprentice is going to take two courses there each semester this year: science and drama in the fall, and French and vocal music in the winter. The best thing about it is that she'll get to play in the labs (MUA HA HA HA)...the worst thing is that it takes a big chunk out of the day, what with getting there and everything.
And it's changed what's fair to expect from her other work, especially this fall when she'll be gone for a longer stretch of the day (the winter courses will just be during the afternoons).
So after The Apprentice gets home from school and fortifies herself, she'll work with Mama Squirrel for half an hour on English, logic, citizenship, and a bit of French to make sure she's ready for the winter course. Then she'll also work on poems, math and/or her Christian studies reading list before she gets to relax for awhile. After dinner (besides science homework) she'll have time to read some of the other books we had planned for literature, life skills, geography, biographies...maybe even science. I'll post about those later today.
But now I have to go and START SCHOOL!
:-)
Farewell, summer.
Books for The Apprentice
Math: Mathematics, a Human Endeavor, by Harold R. Jacobs (text & workbook)
Literature: The Battle of the Books (Swift)
Pride and Prejudice, or another Jane Austen novel, or Jane Eyre
"She Stoops to Conquer" (play by Goldsmith)
"School for Scandal" (play by Sheridan)
An Anthology of Verse (edited by Charlesworth & Lee)
The Count of Monte Cristo
Citizenship, Government, Economics:
Are You Liberal, Conservative or Confused? (Maybury)
How Canadians Govern Themselves (e-book)
Economics, essays by Jane Haldimand Marcet
Ourselves, Book II, by Charlotte Mason
"Common Sense"
Biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Anton Lavoisier, Marie Curie, Abigail Adams
Science Reading: The Physics of Star Trek
Inventing the Future, by David Suzuki
The Case for a Creator, selected chapters
Darwin's Black Box, by Michael Behe
The Sea Around Us, by Rachel Carson
Life Skills Reading: Books by Don Aslett and Edith Schaeffer.
Christian Studies: The Hiding Place
The Fight, by John White
Know Why You Believe, by Paul Little
The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis
One other book by Paul Little or C.S. Lewis
Geography: The Walk across America, by Peter Jenkins
Heidi's Alp, by Christina Hardyment
Literature: The Battle of the Books (Swift)
Pride and Prejudice, or another Jane Austen novel, or Jane Eyre
"She Stoops to Conquer" (play by Goldsmith)
"School for Scandal" (play by Sheridan)
An Anthology of Verse (edited by Charlesworth & Lee)
The Count of Monte Cristo
Citizenship, Government, Economics:
Are You Liberal, Conservative or Confused? (Maybury)
How Canadians Govern Themselves (e-book)
Economics, essays by Jane Haldimand Marcet
Ourselves, Book II, by Charlotte Mason
"Common Sense"
Biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Anton Lavoisier, Marie Curie, Abigail Adams
Science Reading: The Physics of Star Trek
Inventing the Future, by David Suzuki
The Case for a Creator, selected chapters
Darwin's Black Box, by Michael Behe
The Sea Around Us, by Rachel Carson
Life Skills Reading: Books by Don Aslett and Edith Schaeffer.
Christian Studies: The Hiding Place
The Fight, by John White
Know Why You Believe, by Paul Little
The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis
One other book by Paul Little or C.S. Lewis
Geography: The Walk across America, by Peter Jenkins
Heidi's Alp, by Christina Hardyment
Friday, August 25, 2006
On the high seas
Crayons came in from the back porch (it was gray and windy out there) and said, "I'm on a gallant ship. Like in Little Tim. And you're all on the ship with me."
Monday, August 21, 2006
Rhubarb-Pear Crisp, yum
This recipe is what we had for dessert tonight. (Mr. Fixit and the Apprentice had to hurry because they were on their way to the Apprentice's voice lesson, but they had a bit anyway.) It calls for a pound of rhubarb, and we had only a few stalks because we have an un-cooperative rhubarb plant that doesn't like us to take too much at a time. But I just used what we had along with the pears, and it was still good. The ginger is a very nice addition.
(I changed a couple of other things, too: I left out the walnuts, didn't dab anything with butter, and used oil instead of butter to make the crumbs.)
(I changed a couple of other things, too: I left out the walnuts, didn't dab anything with butter, and used oil instead of butter to make the crumbs.)
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Perhaps if I perservere and blog frequently...
...we will go up to a Cute Rodent and maybe someone will comment on my posts.
Anyway, I've been a bit bored with the internet lately. Neopets is going VERY VERY slowly with its latest plot, The Cyodrake's Gaze. Okay, maybe not that slowly, but it doesn't seem like much is happening, and nobody has really figured out much that's all too important. I'm saving for a Lab Map, but I only have two pieces and I can't use Neopets every single day because it puts cookies on the computer. I can make about 10k a day when I do go on, though. I use this guide. I don't play all the games listed on there, just the ones that are still actually on. If you'd like a list of the ones I play, here you go:
And I am planning on trying their latest sponsor game, Shopping Adventure brought to you by Wal-Mart. The sponsor game system of earning Neopoints is quite easy. For instance, I can get roughly 600np for the Cars one. You may question the choice of my games, I mean, Hilary Duff? Since when do I listen to her? I don't. The game is simply an easy way to points for me. That's how I choose them.
Anyway...I said I was bored with the internet. Yes, I am. As I said, Neopets has lost its appeal (for a little while, anyway, I'm sure I'll be back). I get a very small amount of email, my Yahoo! Groups haven't been sending me that much mail, probably because people are on vacation, I don't have anything that needs looking up (like my 5 songs, or reviews for a new nail polish I'm buying).
What hasn't been boring, is the Falling Sand Game (thanks Queen of Carrots), it's always fun mixing and pouring and watching slugs explode. Also, blogging.
The real world has been fun, I had my Chicks over on Thursday. I got a larger turnout than I expected. I thought only B was coming, but I somehow managed two more, and lots of people coming next time.
I tried doing the doe-eyes-thing with eyeliner today. I'm not sure if my eyes look like doe eyes now, but it does look lovely. I used Wet 'n' Wild eyeliner as a base, then put purple shadow from The Color Workshop on top.
As usual, this has been a very random post, and I'm sure I confused some of you quite a bit with my ramblings on. :-)
~the apprentice~
Anyway, I've been a bit bored with the internet lately. Neopets is going VERY VERY slowly with its latest plot, The Cyodrake's Gaze. Okay, maybe not that slowly, but it doesn't seem like much is happening, and nobody has really figured out much that's all too important. I'm saving for a Lab Map, but I only have two pieces and I can't use Neopets every single day because it puts cookies on the computer. I can make about 10k a day when I do go on, though. I use this guide. I don't play all the games listed on there, just the ones that are still actually on. If you'd like a list of the ones I play, here you go:
- Aly & AJ: Personality Quiz
- Brother Bear
- Cars: Matching Madness
- Devo 2.0: Personality Quiz
- Disney Records Album: Move It!
- Hilary Duff: Matching
- How to Eat Fried Worms: Wormsicles
- Licca-Chan Trivia
- Material Girls: Personality Quiz
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Venus Vibrance: Find Your Neopets Vibe
And I am planning on trying their latest sponsor game, Shopping Adventure brought to you by Wal-Mart. The sponsor game system of earning Neopoints is quite easy. For instance, I can get roughly 600np for the Cars one. You may question the choice of my games, I mean, Hilary Duff? Since when do I listen to her? I don't. The game is simply an easy way to points for me. That's how I choose them.
Anyway...I said I was bored with the internet. Yes, I am. As I said, Neopets has lost its appeal (for a little while, anyway, I'm sure I'll be back). I get a very small amount of email, my Yahoo! Groups haven't been sending me that much mail, probably because people are on vacation, I don't have anything that needs looking up (like my 5 songs, or reviews for a new nail polish I'm buying).
What hasn't been boring, is the Falling Sand Game (thanks Queen of Carrots), it's always fun mixing and pouring and watching slugs explode. Also, blogging.
The real world has been fun, I had my Chicks over on Thursday. I got a larger turnout than I expected. I thought only B was coming, but I somehow managed two more, and lots of people coming next time.
I tried doing the doe-eyes-thing with eyeliner today. I'm not sure if my eyes look like doe eyes now, but it does look lovely. I used Wet 'n' Wild eyeliner as a base, then put purple shadow from The Color Workshop on top.
As usual, this has been a very random post, and I'm sure I confused some of you quite a bit with my ramblings on. :-)
~the apprentice~
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Cooking with the apprentice
A new quiz to do if you're bored. Made up exclusively by me.
What was the best ___ you ever had?
1. Pasta/spaghetti?
Fettucini Alfredo from a little restaurant downtown that's not there anymore.
2. Best chocolate chip cookies?
Neiman-Marcus cookies.
3. Birthday cake?
My hot dog birthday cake, complete with fries. I think the one I linked to is the right one, family members feel free to correct me.
4. Chicken burger?
A certain resturant's Monterey Jack bacon chicken burger *drools*.
5. Hamburger?
Mr. Fixit's. I'm not bad at it either.
6. Pumpkin pie?
If you give her some whipped cream, that Mamasquirrel can make one mean pumpkin pie.
7. What's your favourite food, and who made it?
Cabbage rolls. Preferably made by Mr. Fixit, with the little spice packets from the meat store.
8. Name three people you'd like to join in.
Mamasquirrel. Pippinsqueak. Katelyn.
What was the best ___ you ever had?
1. Pasta/spaghetti?
Fettucini Alfredo from a little restaurant downtown that's not there anymore.
2. Best chocolate chip cookies?
Neiman-Marcus cookies.
3. Birthday cake?
My hot dog birthday cake, complete with fries. I think the one I linked to is the right one, family members feel free to correct me.
4. Chicken burger?
A certain resturant's Monterey Jack bacon chicken burger *drools*.
5. Hamburger?
Mr. Fixit's. I'm not bad at it either.
6. Pumpkin pie?
If you give her some whipped cream, that Mamasquirrel can make one mean pumpkin pie.
7. What's your favourite food, and who made it?
Cabbage rolls. Preferably made by Mr. Fixit, with the little spice packets from the meat store.
8. Name three people you'd like to join in.
Mamasquirrel. Pippinsqueak. Katelyn.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
The CBC reports on homeschooling
(Thanks to HomeSchoolBuzz for pointing this out.)
The second of two columns on homeschooling by Beatrice Ekwa Ekoko (of the Radio Free School Reading Room, a radio show for unschoolers)appears on CBC.ca today. (The first, with readers' responses, is here.)
Normally I'd be turned off by an article that starts out, "While home-based education may seem like a risky or experimental new venture into unfamiliar territory"--oh no, here we go again with that dark-ages-of-homeschooling stuff. But it does get more interesting, since Ekoko is a homeschooling parent herself and obviously knows better.
I found these statistics interesting, although not surprising:...or maybe Dewey counts as point six. But it seems to me I just read an homeschool-bashing article somewhere that said that people with more than two children usually opt out of homeschooling. That seemed pretty strange to me, considering all the large homeschooling families I know. Well, there we have statistics to back us up. [Update: okay, I found it, and I it wasn't meant to be a homeschool bashing article but was just meant to tell you how much somebody thinks it costs to homeschool. And it was more than three children, not two. But I still think that's a strange comment. I guess they haven't talked to the Duggar family lately...]
I liked this quote too (from researcher Dr. Bruce Arai):
The second of two columns on homeschooling by Beatrice Ekwa Ekoko (of the Radio Free School Reading Room, a radio show for unschoolers)appears on CBC.ca today. (The first, with readers' responses, is here.)
Normally I'd be turned off by an article that starts out, "While home-based education may seem like a risky or experimental new venture into unfamiliar territory"--oh no, here we go again with that dark-ages-of-homeschooling stuff. But it does get more interesting, since Ekoko is a homeschooling parent herself and obviously knows better.
I found these statistics interesting, although not surprising:
According to the findings, a typical Canadian home-educating household is a white, Christian, two-parent family with a father as primary income earner. These families tend to have a slightly lower than average income because the mother usually stays home with an average 3.6 children (well above the national average of 1.1) of elementary school age. However, "mothers do contribute to the family income at a higher rate than in the past," [researcher Deani] Van Pelt notes.3.6, huh? I knew our family was too small...
I liked this quote too (from researcher Dr. Bruce Arai):
According to Arai's research, some parents felt strongly that home-schooling is part of an alternative lifestyle, but "the majority of parents … felt that they were normal in all respects, except for the fact that their children did not go to school."
Hungarian Stew
Well, that sounds better than Hungarian Leftover Roast Casserole.
The Deputy Headmistress was looking for recipes for leftover roast beef, and this is what I usually do with ours. It's one of those no-real-amounts recipes, which makes it hard to write out. But these are the basics:
You need 1 good chunk of leftover roast, chopped into small (fork-sized) pieces; 1 small onion, sliced; at least 1 clove garlic, chopped; sliced carrots; salt, pepper, 1 tsp. paprika, and a can of tomato soup. Bake this in a covered casserole for an hour, or put it in the crock pot for the afternoon. When it's heated through and the carrots are cooked, you can add a can of green beans, if you want to stretch it a bit, and a large spoonful of sour cream; you might put it back into the oven for a few minutes to warm up the beans. We usually eat this with noodles or perogies (the little potato-stuffed ones from the supermarket).
Mushrooms might be a good addition, too. If the sauce is too runny, you can thicken it with flour or cornstarch (mix the cornstarch with the sour cream before adding).
The Deputy Headmistress was looking for recipes for leftover roast beef, and this is what I usually do with ours. It's one of those no-real-amounts recipes, which makes it hard to write out. But these are the basics:
You need 1 good chunk of leftover roast, chopped into small (fork-sized) pieces; 1 small onion, sliced; at least 1 clove garlic, chopped; sliced carrots; salt, pepper, 1 tsp. paprika, and a can of tomato soup. Bake this in a covered casserole for an hour, or put it in the crock pot for the afternoon. When it's heated through and the carrots are cooked, you can add a can of green beans, if you want to stretch it a bit, and a large spoonful of sour cream; you might put it back into the oven for a few minutes to warm up the beans. We usually eat this with noodles or perogies (the little potato-stuffed ones from the supermarket).
Mushrooms might be a good addition, too. If the sauce is too runny, you can thicken it with flour or cornstarch (mix the cornstarch with the sour cream before adding).
Monday, August 14, 2006
The thing that lives in your brain
We realise that there is an act of knowing to be performed; that no one can know without this act, that it must be self-performed, that it is as agreeable and natural to the average child or man as singing is to the song thrush, that "to know" is indeed a natural function. Yet we hear of the incuria which prevails in most schools, while there before us are the young consumed with the desire to know, can we but find out what they want to know and how they require to be taught.--Charlotte MasonWe recently watched an episode from this past season's Dr. Who. In the classic sci fi tradition (as in, didn't we just see another episode like this about sucking up peoples' brains, and hasn't just about every sci fi show ever made plus The Exorcist used this idea?), the episode features an entity living in a little girl's head, using her brain (so that she sometimes talks in a REALLY WEIRD VOICE), and sucking up other human beings for its own purposes.
This particular entity inside the little girl's brain happens to be sustained on love and companionship--LOTS of companionship (in fact, in its natural state it has millions or billions of siblings). The problem is that it's inhaling companionship in the form of people, at an ever-increasing rate (by the end of the show, it has sucked up an entire Olympic stadium full of spectators and has plans for the rest of the world). Of course in the end (SPOILER), it finds its proper companions and joins them inside a little egg-sized spaceship, leaving the little girl free of the REALLY WEIRD VOICE.
There is a point to telling you about this (and it's not meant as an advertisement for the show). We each have such an entity inside our physical brains (or somewhere in there): it's our mind, and it's sustained on knowledge. In its healthy state, it desires, craves knowledge; other things cannot properly be substituted. Knowledge, not information, and there's a difference: information is short term, spit back out again or forgotten, made up of facts without "informing ideas." Knowledge is long-term, swallowed, digested, processed, used. It's like when you say in French "Je connais," which is different from "Je sais." They both mean "I know," but they are different kinds of knowing. "Je sais" is used for a fact, like "I know it's raining out," but "Je connais" is used in "I know you."
If the food is available, the entity will suck it up in whatever quantities are available (even Olympic-sized). It will do whatever it can to find its proper food AND YOU CAN'T STOP IT. BWA HA HA HA.
Well, you can. Unfortunately.
There is a cure for knowledge-hunger. Just like vinegar smashed up the Slitheens (careful, that review has some language), if you can get hold of some Incuria it's quite easy to stop the knowledge-hungry mind.
I can touch here on no more than two potent means of creating incuria in a class. One is the talky-talky of the teacher. We all know how we are bored by the person in private life who explains and expounds. What reason have we to suppose that children are not equally bored? They try to tell us that they are by wandering eyes, inanimate features, fidgetting hands and feet, by every means at their disposal; and the kindly souls among us think that they want to play or to be out of doors. But they have no use for play except at proper intervals. What they want is knowledge conveyed in literary form and the talk of the facile teacher leaves them cold. Another soothing potion is little suspected of producing mental lethargy. We pride ourselves upon going over and over the same ground 'until the children know it'; the monotony is deadly.--Charlotte MasonIncuria is related to the idea "not curious" and it's properly translated "carelessness," but in this sense, it means a lack of appetite for knowledge. Not caring about it. Someone who's incurious is apathetic, unobservant, careless. ("What would you like to eat? I don’t care. Some lovely cream of wheat? I don’t care. Don’t sit backwards on your chair. I don’t care. Or pour syrup on your hair. I don’t care.")
Where do you get enough Incuria to stop the appetite for knowledge? You can start by offering lots of TV and computer time; provide lots of dull school lectures; and most of all, spread the idea that knowledge is Dull and Irrelevant and that anything contained in a book of over 100 pages isn't worth the trouble. You can make the entity go away or at least not bother you much.
But please don't.
But what if all were for all, if the great hope of Comenius––"All knowledge for all men"––were in process of taking shape? This is what we have established in many thousands of cases, even in those of dull and backward children....we are so made that only those ideas and arguments which we go over are we able to retain. Desultory reading or hearing is entertaining and refreshing, but is only educative here and there as our attention is strongly arrested. Further, we not only retain but realise, understand, what we thus go over. Each incident stands out, every phrase acquires new force, each link in the argument is riveted, in fact we have performed THE ACT OF KNOWING, and that which we have read, or heard, becomes a part of ourselves, it is assimilated after the due rejection of waste matter. Like those famous men of old we have found out "knowledge meet for the people" and to our surprise it is the best knowledge conveyed in the best form that they demand. Is it possible that hitherto we have all been like those other teachers of the past who were chidden because they had taken away the key of knowledge, not entering in themselves and hindering those who would enter in?--Charlotte Mason
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