A holiday treat and a CD winner

And the winner is:
First let me announce the winner of the Sara Groves O Holy Night CD. As chosen by completely random integer generation, matched to the order of commenting, and a little birdie told me it was Erin! Congratulations! Just drop me an e-mail to [my name] at sbcglobal dot net and we'll talk delivery. Enjoy!

And the holiday treat is:
Every year during the holiday season, Mrs. Euphrony's family has a tradition of making peanut butter balls - a conglomeration of peanut butter and sugar all wrapped up in chocolate. And here's how you make them.

Ingredients:
40-oz peanut butter
2-lb powdered sugar
1-1/3 cup butter
24-oz chocolate chips (I like dark chocolate, Mrs. E likes semi-sweets, her grandmother likes milk chocolate)
½ bar paraffin wax
(This makes ~150 peanut butter balls. Adjust the amounts to how many you want.)



Allow the butter to soften. Mix it together with the peanut butter and powdered sugar. Allow the dough to cool, then roll into balls ~1” in diameter. (I lay them out on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper.) Freeze the dough balls before dipping in chocolate. If they are too warm/soft, they will fall apart when they are dipped in chocolate.

To melt the chocolate chips, you will want to use a dutch oven. If you don't own a dutch oven (like me) you can fake it by melting the chocolate chips and wax in a metal mixing bowl set on top of a pot of water that is at boiling. The indirect heat allows the chocolate to melt more smoothly and not freeze up. Also, make sure that no water gets into the chocolate, as it will cause the chocolate to seize as well. Any way, melt the wax and chocolate together. The wax will give the final balls a nice shine. (What, you didn't know that you eat wax in chocolate all the time?)


Dip dough balls in chocolate and place onto a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. Only put a couple in the chocolate at a time (they like to stick together). I use a pair of small tongs to pick them out of the chocolate. Refrigerate to allow chocolate to set. Don't store the peanut butter balls in an air-tight container, or the chocolate will discolor (not at all appetizing). The extra melted chocolate once your finished with the balls is excellent for making small chocolate candies and lollipops (bonus!).

Now, Mrs. E strongly resists this idea, but I've always wanted to roll something like a chocolate chip or marshmallow in the center of the dough balls. Feel free to do what you want, and enjoy!

Tags: Free Music, Sara Groves, Giveaway, Holiday treats, Peanut butter balls

At Sea

When we last saw Euphrony, he was meandering about Tennessee catching fireflies with his daughter at a friends house. He is still in Tennessee, not on a cruise.

So how many of you know what it means when you say someone is at sea? Besides referring to taking a cruise it can also mean that a person is totally clueless, lost as it were. Apparently, that can be said of a certain engineer on vacation right now.

Go ahead and laugh at me. I'm mentally disengaged. My thought processes couldn't decipher simple algebra, much less the complexities of packing for two adults and two children for a ten-day trip. Yep, the logistics have failed me.

First, a simple thing. I left the kids swim gear at home. No swim suits, no swim toys, no goggles - nothing. Not a terribly unusual occurrence, but it did take me three full days to figure it out. But that's not the worst. Oh no, not by far.

Part of our grand planning was to wash clothes in the middle of our trip. Pack less, much easier. Until I leave our dirty laundry bag at my friends house in Jackson - a two hours drive from Nashville (where we are now). Oh well, so much for planning. Maybe next time my brain will vacation with me (I hope so, at least). For now we'll make due with what we have and be thankful that we're driving back through Jackson in a couple of days on our way home. Clothes will be recovered, and we will survive.

Unless my brain slips into a deeper coma, that is.

Till then, check out the bloggers for the 40 Day Fast - Lorijo talking about justice in Peru and Fayola talking about clean water. Tomorrow is Licia, a nurse in Haiti (I can't read her blog without copious tears), and Chris, talking about Kiva and microfinancing. Go read their blogs today.

Discovering: Benny Carter

You know, I somewhat pride myself on knowing music. Especially good music. What a joy it is to be humbled in my knowledge! Yesterday, listening to our local jazz station (the good jazz, not the "smooth jazz" that makes me hate saxophone music) I heard a show remembering Benny Carter. To my shame, I had never heard of Benny Carter before. To my joy, I now have.

Benny Carter recorded music over nine decades, and was a huge influence in jazz, really introducing the jazz saxophone, introducing jazz to Europe, and the formation of early swing music. Here are a few quotes said about Benny Carter:

The problem of expressing the contributions that Benny Carter has made to popular music is so tremendous it completely fazes me, so extraordinary a musician is he. - Duke Ellington

Everybody ought to listen to Benny. He’s a whole musical education. - Miles Davis

He’s everything a musician would want to be. - Ella Fitzgerald

When I grow up I want to be just like Benny Carter. - Dizzy Gillespie

Thankfully, it is never too late to start listening to great music. The radio program I was listening to played his original composition "Symphony in Riffs", starting with a recording from the 1930's and then segued to a performance from 1992 in San Antonio. If anything, Carter's playing sounded better when he was in his eighties than in his twenties. Amazing!

Here is a video of Benny Carter playing with a few others in 1995 - when he was 88 years old! His solo comes in at 3:00; the song is "Crazy Rhythm". And it is amazing how great his music is even in his twilight. Enjoy.


Tags: Benny Carter, Jazz, Saxophone

Puke N' Pass©: The Family Game of Infectious Disease Exchange

Come on and try the new family game sensation! Everyone is playing it! Your kids will love it! Once you start playing, you'll never stop! It's Puke N' Pass^©! You start the game when someone in the family plays with some other person - knowingly or unknowingly - and comes how to introduce the rest of the family to the game.

Once home, one of your children will immediately pick up on the game. Then the real fun begins! You get all the perks - fever, cough, sneezing, runny nose, puking. As an added bonus, the game also comes with whining, crying, fits over medicine and doctor visits, and sleepless nights!

But wait, there's more!

This is the family game, after all. And what is a family game if you don't have the whole family play? When you play Puke N' Pass^©, you automatically get the whole gang in the game. No fighting to find time to sit around a table together. No tokens or fake money to keep track of. And, best of all, no cheating is possible because there is only one rule to this game: get sick or stay well. And like Monopoly, this game really never ends. You can play for weeks and weeks - even while your doing other activities - and still not reach the end of the game!

Call now! Supplies are not limited, but you simply can't wait to play. Come by and shake my hand and you and your whole family can start playing Puke N' Pass^© just like my kids have been. Don't wait! You don't want to miss out on this kind of fun!

Things to remember at the rodeo

So for my Good Friday holiday, we decided to attend Houston's annual orgy of all-things cowboy, carnival, and concert - the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. If you've never been, here are a few tips to remember to maximize your enjoyment, especially with young kids.

1) Eat. EAT! For example, go to the New Braunfels Smokehouse stand and get a bratwurst on a bun with some sauerkraut, slather on some spicy mustard and enjoy. Chase it with some creamy Marble Slab ice cream. Yum!

2) Get your picture taken with a statue of a pirate mustang. A must!


3) Go ahead and let your kids play some of the carny games. They may get a good haul of stuffed animals from the fishing game.

4) Go to the pig races. Not only is it great family enjoyment, but you can pick up this key chain.

It is called the "Poopin' Pig". Duh!

Tags: Houston, Rodeo, Carnival, Games, Prizes

Things found in my pantry that I have no idea how they got there and no intentions of ever consuming

Diet Orange Slice - bleah!


Tags: Diet Orange Slice, Pantry, Mystery

Little epiphanies

I had a couple of little epiphanies last night. First, I decided that hearing loss is not a natural process of old age. It is, instead, a natural process of parenthood. From infants who scream in your ear as you try to sooth them to kiddos who scream for no reason at all, parents seem doomed to deafness.

The second epiphany came late last night. It is, in my humble opinion, the secret to exercise and weight loss for the chubby parent.

Step 1: Pick up the aforementioned screaming infant (or toddler, as the case may be).
Step 2: Find an open area or trail through the toys on the floor, preferably a circuit of between 30 and 50 yards.
Step 3: Walk the circuit, while simultaneously swaying and rocking the loud child and singing/cooing in a futile attempt to calm them.
Step 4: Repeat Step 3 ad infinitum.

I have great expectations for this potentially next great exercise fad, both personally and in the arena of infomercials. Look for the programs on your TV, coming soon!

Tags: Parenting Tips, Deafness, Exercise, Infants