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