ALA | Banned Books Week

ALA | Banned Books Week

Harvest Moon Show 9.24.10

The full moon of September happened the same night as the Autumnal Equinox ( Sept 23).
The last t ime that happened was September 23, 1991. It won't happen again until 2029.

Mid-Autumn Festival takes place the 15th moonday of the 8th lunar month.

Music:

Shine on Harvest Moon by Coleman Hawkins
The Fox went out on a chilly night by Tom Chapin
Hello, Harvest Moon by Ronno
Shine on Harvest Moon by Leon Redbone
Shine on Harvest Moon by The Kings of Dixieland
Harvest Moon by Bedlam
Harvest Moon by Neil Young

Moon Princess by Marc Cheekly from Pod Stories for Everyone
Clear Moon Quiet Winds by Bejing Angelic Choir
The Moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival from album Music China Guangdong Music

Books
The Fox Went out on a Chilly Night: An Old Song Illustrated by Peter Spier
Hello, Harvest Moon by Ralph Fletcher Illustrated by Kate Kiesler
Possum's Harvest Moon by Anne Hunter
Moon Magic: Stories from Asia by Katherine Davidson

Moonbeams, Dumplings, & Dragon Boats: A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities & Recipes by Nina Simonds, Leslie Swartz & The Children's Museum, Boston

Harvest moon on fall equinox won't be seen again until 2029 - CSMonitor.com

Harvest moon on fall equinox won't be seen again until 2029 - CSMonitor.com

Proposed Name Change For High-Fructose Corn Syrup Still Misleading ~ Newsroom ~ News from CSPI ~ Center for Science in the Public Interest

Proposed Name Change For High-Fructose Corn Syrup Still Misleading ~ Newsroom ~ News from CSPI ~ Center for Science in the Public Interest

Beet It!

Meet the Beets.

 Here is a brief introduction to beets.
If you have a favorite beet recipe you would like to share, please do.

Beets scientific name is Beta vulgaris 

General types of beets:
Tuberous beets- taproot of the plant * most have a brilliant scarlet color thanks to pigments betacyanin(purple)  and betaxanthin (yellow)

Garden beets- 

if you don't have the gene to break down the pigment betacyanin you will have red or purple urine after eating beets

Sugar beets- 

high in  sucrose and account for 30% of world's sugar

 Fodder beets

( mangelwurzel)

Spinach beets- grown for greens- Chard is a form of beta vulgaris

Beets are believed to be derived from the sea beet from the shores of the Mediterrean and Atlantic coasts of Europe and North Africa. ( The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson).
Check out the chemical structures of galactose and sucrose:
http://www.3dchem.com/molecules.asp?ID=419#
http://www.3dchem.com/molecules.asp?ID=59

How to eat?
To preserve the phytochemical pigments eat your beets raw or cook them as quickly as possible.

Recipe from15-Minute Beets

Prep and Cook Time: 5 minute prep; 15 minute cooking Ingredients: 3 medium beets, about 3" in diameter 1 medium clove garlic, pressed or chopped 2 tsp fresh lemon juice 1 TBS balsamic vinegar 3 TBS extra virgin olive oil sea salt and cracked black pepper to taste Optional: 1 TBS balsamic vinegar 10 fresh basil leaves, chopped 1 TBS chopped dill 1 TBS chopped chives 2 TBS Feta cheese

Directions:

1. Fill the bottom of a steamer with 2 inches of water.
2. While the water is coming to a boil, wash beets, leaving 2 inches of tap root and 1 inch of the stem on the beets. Cut beets into quarters. Do not peel.
3. Steam covered for 15 minutes. Beets are cooked when you can easily insert a fork on the tip of a knife into the beet. Although some of their colorful phytonutrients are lost to the steaming water, there is plenty of color and nutrients left in the beets.
4. Press or chop garlic and let sit for 5 minutes to bring out their health-promoting properties.
5. Peel beets using a paper towel.
6. Transfer beets to a bowl and toss with remaining ingredients while they are still hot.
   Serves 2

Source: www.WHFoods.com

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

TODAY'S SPECIAL

THE BEET IS THE MOST INTENSE of vegetables.

The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.

Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering

inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.

The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't

squeeze blood out of a turnip . . .

The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens
when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the
autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded
moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once
connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.

Gross beetles in Similac

similac recall

Harvest Moon Festival- Asia

The 15th day of the 8th month on the Lunar Calendar is Mid- Autumn Festival (Zhong Qiu Jie) celebrated in China and throughout Asia. On the Western calendar that is Wednesday September 22, 2010.


Other harvest festivals in Asia: Korea three-day Chuseok festival; in Vietnam Tet Trung Thu,  and in Japan Tsukimi festival. This is a time to celebrate and admire the huge Harvest Moon. 
One way to celebrate is to share dinner with your family and enjoy mooncakes.
Celebrating outside with beautiful lanterns is also part of some traditions.

Here is a story about Mid-Autumn Festival in Malaysia http://allmalaysia.info/msiaknow/festivals/midautumn/
and another from School of the Seasons http://www.schooloftheseasons.com/midaut.html

I think I might attempt a simple mooncake recipe.

Pitter Patter Clang and Clatter- Fair Show

Friday September 17, 2010 Show
County Fair!

Featured Book:

Country Fair by Gail Gibbons
Music and Stories:
Farm Families
Barnyard Bludes
County Fair by Chris LeDoux
She Moved Through the Fair by Hadrian's Wall
Scarborough Fair by Michael Silverman
Poem: The Farmer & Queen by Shel Silverstein
Grandma's Patchwork Quilt
State Fair Polka by Happy Louie and Julcia's Polka Band
Pumpkin Hair by Gunner Madsen
Cotton Candy on the Circus Trapeze by Craig Riley
Ate too much of my favorite food- Lunch Money
Cotton Candy by Dinah Shore
Donut Song by Fabulous Food A Pam Schiller book and cd
Turkey in the Straw by  Gyspy Queen, The World's Most Famous French Gasparini Carousel Organ
Tonight, Tonight by Dan Zanes
Waltz Suite  from Carousel- Rogers and Hammerstein - Original Broadway Cast

Child Nutrition Bill

Food Safety Bill

Martha Stewart's Corn Dog recipe

Corndogs are my favorite fair food. Here is a recipe to try at home from Martha Stewart:

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for dusting sausages
• 2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 4 precooked smoked chicken sausages (13 ounces total) *
• Ketchup and mustard, for serving (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Make a well in center; add milk, eggs, and oil. Mix just until combined.
2. Insert an ice-pop stick into one end of each sausage, leaving a 1 1/2-inch handle. Dust with flour; tap off excess. Using handle, rotate each sausage over bowl as you spoon batter to coat evenly. Place on sheet; bake 5 minutes. Remove from oven. Using a spatula, reapply batter that has slipped onto sheet. Return to oven; bake until golden, 20 minutes. Serve with ketchup and mustard, if desired.

* Good Guide's highest rated hotdog is Organic Prairie Uncured Beef Hotdog- look for it in the freezer section http://www.goodguide.com/products/296173-organic-prairie-uncured-beef-hot-dogs-frozen
 

Read more at Marthastewart.com: Baked Corn Dogs Recipe - MarthaStewart.com

Fair Food

We all know fair food is not the healthiest fare. In fact it seems the vendors are pushing the limits of sanity in some of the foods offered.  Fried beer & batter fried bacon with creamy dip anyone?
 Fair food is the perfect combination of fat on fat on sugar on sugar on fat on sugar that drives your mind crazy wanting more and more. So beware. Plan what you want in advance. Share with someone.
If you are on a diet for medical reasons you might use the following chart to see how your favorite fair food might ( cross your fingers) fit into your diet.
The anticipation is always better than the reality of fair food.

Food Dyes Database

Check out this great resource for know what food dyes are in your foods. http://www.iatp.org/brainfoodselector/

Bipartisan Food Safety Bill Poised for Floor Vote ~ Newsroom ~ News from CSPI ~ Center for Science in the Public Interest

Bipartisan Food Safety Bill Poised for Floor Vote ~ Newsroom ~ News from CSPI ~ Center for Science in the Public Interest

Dirty Dozen

Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen and Clean 15

The Environmental Working Group put together a list of produce retaining the most pesticides ( Dirty Dozen) and the least amount of pesticides (Clean 15).  If you can't afford purchasing all organic produce consider purchasing the fruits and vegetables of the "Dirty Dozen"  grown organically or locally without pesticides. This will decrease the residual pesticides you ingest.
Find out more at www.foodnews.org

Pitter Patter Clang and Clatter- September 10, 2010- Apples

September is Apple Month
Did you know there are 7500 varieties of apples grown worldwide?
2500 varieties are grown in the United States.
How many can you name?
Fun Facts
Apples are members of the rose family. Crabapples are the only apple native to the United States.
Apple seeds grow different kinds of apple trees from the parent plants. So if a gardener wants to grow a favorite type of apple he or she must use a technique called grafting. Grafting in a nutshell is fusing two plants together. For apples, a gardener inserts a stem with leaf buds into another tree.
Here is a detailed guide with pictures from Washington State University
http://www.ncw.wsu.edu/treefruit/graft/

Nutrition

AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY!
Diets high in fruits and vegetables decrease a person's risk of developing chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, asthma. Remember it is no guarantee but the closest thing we have to a silver bullet.

Apples are full of antioxidants and phyto-chemicals that support health in a variety of ways. 
Find out more on antioxidants and phyto-chemicals on separate posts.

High in fiber- a medium apple has 4 grams of fiber! Fiber supports heart and digestive health.

Source of vitamin C

Eat apples whole to get the most of what they can offer. Cloudy apple juice has more flavonoids then clear filtered juice.

Apple related music

An apple a day Patty Biscoe
Johnny Appleseed Gene Autry
Johnny Appleseed Joe Strummer
The Old Apple Tree Molly and Jack Tuttle
Don't sit under the apple tree The Andrews Sisters
 
Stories/Characters

Johnny Appleseed
William Tell
Magic Apple
 
Links of interest

www.allaboutapples.com

www.bestapples.com

www.healthychoices.org

www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org