Candied Lemon

In my last post I talked about making delicious lemonade. Doing so creates an excess of lemon peels. Normally I would simply add them to my compost bin, but before I did so something popped in my mind. The memory of delicious candied lemon peels. These are one of my favorite treats, and every time I am at a chocolatier shop without a doubt I get candied citrus peel (usually orange) dipped in dark chocolate. While I didn't have the chocolate, I thought candied lemon peels by their selves would be just as good.

Ingredients:

• 3 to 4 lemons washed
• 2 cups sugar 
• 1/2 cup sugar 

Directions:

1. Remove the peel from the lemon in vertical strips trying to leave off as much white pith as you can. 
2. In a small saucepan combine the peels with 2 cups of cold water and bring to a boil. 
3. Immediately drain and refill the pan with water. 
4. Repeat this process two more times to remove the bitterness from the peel. 
5. After the third dunking remove the peels from the pan. 
6. Measure two cups of sugar into the saucepan and add one cup of water. Set over medium high heat.
7. Bring to a boil and whisk until the sugar is dissolved. 
8. Drop in the peels, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer uncovered until the peels are tender and translucent. 
9. Drain and cool the peels. Keep the syrup for other uses. 
10. Place the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar in a large bowl and add the peels. Toss until peels are thoroughly coated. Take one peel out at a time shaking off excess sugar. 
11. Store in an airtight container. Keeps for several weeks in an airtight container. 
    
    
    

Making the lemon peels was a fun process that was easier than I thought it'd be. The only difference from the above recipe was using the water I'd boiled the lemon peels with. Because of that I used four cups of sugar. This resulted in two mason jars of lemon syrup. The peels were also wet, so I let them dry for a few days on my counter on parchment paper before putting them in the container. 

As of now I have not used this syrup, but I am excited to try it! The website I found the recipe suggests that I use them in iced tea, but I think they'd be delicious on vanilla ice cream. Any suggestions on what to use this on? The peels themselves are delicious, and maybe in the future I can try my hand at melting chocolate to make my own gourmet treats. 

Overall I give this recipe a 8.7 out of 10. 

Recipe source: https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/candied-lemon-peel?fbclid=IwAR0jzrDgWrO8kxXNIZcuf__tcjwWUAtdEi7fVHT4gEVJ7uDdKUPCcoDdMEw

Lost Lemonade

One thing that anyone who is close to me knows is that I love food. I not only love eating it, but I love watching people cook, researching recipes, and reading cookbooks. The other day I was going through my piles of cook books, deciding what to keep, what to get rid of, and looking for recipes, when I discovered a hand written one. My mother in law had been visiting, so I asked her if she recognized it. To her shock it was her own child cook book that had been missing for decades! Together we looked through it. Some recipes she still used to this day, some she'd stopped using long ago, and some she thought were lost to the ages. One of the latter was lemonade.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of water
• rinds of two lemons cut into pieces
• 1 cup lemon juice (5 to 6 lemons)
• 4 cups ice water

Directions: 

1. Combine first three ingredients in a sauce pan
2. stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. 
3. Boil 7 minutes.
4. Cool. 
5. Add lemon juice and ice water. 

Since we had all of the ingredients in the kitchen we decided to make it. The only difference was that we boiled the lemon juice with the first three ingredients. We made the lemonade, put it into my antique pitcher, and success! Everyone loved it and the drink was gone within moments. In fact we had to make a second pitcher to satisfy wanting mouths. 

Personally I've never truly enjoyed lemonade, but this was delicious! Tart yet refreshing and not too sweet. I found this perfectly wonderful, simple, and not to heavy on the pocket book. I plan on making this several times  in the future and recommend that others do as well, especially with their family. 

I give this recipe a 10 out of 10.

Gone with the Wind

Dearest readers I must apologize for having been so long absent! Life got crazy and time just slipped away from me, but I'm back and plan on doing blog posts more frequently!

Is there a better topic to start on than this literary classic? This is one of the reasons that I was so late in writing blog posts. This book was the longest I'd ever attempted to read, and as expected it took me quite a lot longer than other books, but finish it I did!

For the longest time I did not know what to think of this book. I'd first heard of it in high school from two teachers and two students. One student and one teacher said it was the best book they'd ever read and loved the movie while the other two insisted it was way too long a book and movie were dreadfully long with a boring plot. My grandmother loved this movie and watched it several times, but what finally sold me on it was my best friend. He was not a big reader, but he'd read this book in its entirety and had watched the movie several times. He watched it so much that he had three copies of it: a VHS copy, a copy on DVD, and the special collectors edition in a beautiful felt box.

After going to my favorite used book store I got myself a paper back copy, and after asking myself if I really wanted to do this I set out to read it. From the very first words I was hooked. I found that though the book was terribly long it was a delight to read. I grew invested in this girl, Scarlett O'Hara and enjoyed reading about her. In fact, when I did in fact finish the book I was surprised to find that I wanted more to read! 

The book could have been set up for an entire series. There are concrete sections of the book. Scarlett at home, Scarlett at the city, Scarlett back at home, Scarlett married, and then Scarlett married again are the sections of the book. My favorite of all of these sections is without a doubt the one where she is back at home at the war torn plantation. 

I think that out of every book I'd read Scarlett O'Hara is the heroine I respect and admire the most, which is funny considering that she's not exactly what you would call a good woman. Scarlett can be manipulative, conniving, and selfish, but despite these she possesses an inner strength and a desire to survive. She was smart and better at running a business than her second husband when it was shameful for a woman to be so, and yet despite society looking down at her she ran her own business and was successful at it, growing rich in the process. I admired her strength for not caring what others thought of her and being successful, but where her strength truly shines is her at home surviving at the plantation. 

Scarlett fled the city heading back home to Tara, the plantation. When she gets backs he finds it looted, all but destroyed, and all but the two most loyal slaves gone. Scarlett takes command and swallows her pride and does everything to survive. She picks cotton, forages for food, and takes leadership. While the others would have starved than done a field hand's work Scarlett doesn't question it and argues with them, forcing them to do what needs to be done. Without her dedication and commitment to surviving none of them would have made it. This section is the one that I remember the most fondly and think back on. 

Warning! Spoilers ahead.

The main plot of this movie is Scarlett pining over Ashley Wilkes. She does everything in her power to seduce and have the man for her own, but the true romance is with her and Rhett Butler. In the same way that Scarlett is not a good, moral woman Rhett Butler is not a good and moral man. This is what attracts him to her at first, and though he wishes for her to be his mistress he breaks his rule that he will never marry and asks for her to be his wife since that is the only way he can ever have her. Rhett adores Scarlett and spoils her giving her everything she wants. While to the reader it's clear he truly loves her, he never once seriously sat down and told her that. Scarlett is oblivious to his feelings thinking that since he never voiced them he didn't feel that way. This is why in the book I blame Rhett for their marriage failing. He should have been honest with her and told her the truth. Interestingly in enough the movie version adds this. There is an extra scene where Rhett sits down with Scarlett and asks that they start over. He declares his love for her and asks them to make their marriage better for the sake of their child, Bonnie. In the movie Scarlett turns away from him, something that I'm not sure the book Scarlett would have done. This is why in the movie I blame Scarlett for their marriage failing. Rhett was honest with himself and told her, but Scarlett did not take him seriously. I wanted their romance to work, and though it fails I find the ending satisfying and wish that Margaret Mitchell had written a sequel to bring the two together. For those who find the ending lacking there is in fact a sequel written, however the sequel is not written by Margaret Mitchell but is written by Alexandra Ripley; however, this book, Scarlett, is not one that I plan to read. I usually avoid sequels not written by the author. I will admit I was curious enough to look up the plot, but when I did I was not satisfied with the story and decided that I'd rather have Gone with the Wind alone without this story adding to it. 

After I finished the book I sat down to watch the movie. As with most movies based on books the plot suffers a bit. It feels like it's just skimming over the top, and with a book this long it is, despite the movie being almost four hours. Despite all this I did enjoy the movie and have watched it since a few times. The movie is a classic for good reason. The score is enchanting, the acting is fantastic, and the movie has scenes that are so beautifully shot that I remember them more clearly than perhaps any other movie.

Over all I give the movie 7.8 out of 10. If you are into epic stories, war movies not centering on soldiers, or cinema history I suggest you check it out. If you can get past the length of this gargantuan novel I highly suggest it and give the book a 9.0  out of 10.


Image source:
http://onlinestore.dcbooks.com/uploaded_files/books/bk_9781447237587.jpg
https://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/2017/5/14/c/a/0/ca0f723c-4263-48d2-b04c-7af56925240e.jpg

Wish

Dearest readers! I do not know how, but time seems to have gotten away from me and what started as a few weeks became months! I am terribly sorry and will try to be a better blogger. To come back from my time away I thought I would do something short and whimsical. One of my all time favorite mangas, Wish.

For those who do not know mangas are graphic novels. Similar to comic books, but imagine a whole novel in that format. People tend to think of mangas coming from Japan, but they can come from all over. Mangas are often very long, but Wish is refreshing in that it is only four volumes.

Warning! Spoilers ahead. 

Wish was one of the first mangas I read. The story is about a man and an angel. The man, known as Shuichiro, is a well to do doctor who is the strong quiet type. He owns his own home (which if you do not know is a big accomplishment in over-crowded Japan) and at age 28 he is pretty happy with his life. The angel, known as Kohaku, is a little ditsy but always tries her best. At times she can be a bit of a crybaby, but she has a good heart. Other major characters that are involved in the story is Koryu, a demon who loves to bully Kohaku, Hisui the angel of wind, and Kokuyo the son of Satan.

The story starts out as a simple one, but deepens as it goes on. Shuichiro is heading home from work late one night and spots Kohaku trapped in a tree. He saves her, and by angel law Kohaku must grant his wish. Unfortunately Shuichiro has no wish, so Kohaku begins living with him hoping that in time he will need divine help.

If you have not already guessed it, this story is a love story. As time progresses the romance between Kohaku and Shuichiro, angel and human, begins to grow. There is also a secondary romance with Hisui and Kokuyo. The high angel and demon prince met one day and fell in love. Romance between angels and demons is illegal, especially since the two are high up politically. So the two run away to Earth, abandoning both of their duties to be with each other. Kohaku was originally sent to Earth to find Hisui, so the angel and demon also begin to live with Shuichiro.

The story is sweet and I enjoy watching the romance between the two grow. There is a little subplot involving Shuichiro's father and mother. You find out that his mother was the spirit of a wisteria tree who disappeared when she returned back to the form of a tree. This is only one of the mysterious things about Shuichiro. The demons enjoy the smell of him and he looks alarmingly like Kokuyo, the demon prince. Kokuyo has a suspicion about him, but every time he tries to say something about it the people he's talking to walk away. It happens too often to be coincidental, and when he has Koryu go to hell to steal a special book to confirm his suspicion you start to wonder just who is the mysterious Shuichiro. Adding in the fact that he was adopted only adds to the mystery.

One point in the story that shook me was when the angels finally came to find Kohaku who had been missing from heaven. Kahaku wanted to stay but Shuichiro, not wanting to cause her trouble, told her to go; that he'd never have a wish for her. This broke Kohaku's heart, and when she left Shuichiro was startled to see tears in her eyes. Kohaku later decided to break God's law for the first time and traveled to earth on her own. Good, innocent Kohaku breaking the law was a huge shock. No one could believe it within her character to do something like that. It made her desire to be with him that much stronger.

As I read the story I thought that Shuichiro was a lost demon prince and that Kohaku was following in Hisui's footsteps. The truth was even more startling. It turns out that Shuichiro was near death. This was why the demons loved his smell since they eat souls and could smell that his soul was about to leave his body. The book Kokuyo had stolen was an account of those who soon would die, and he couldn't tell anyone this because God wanted to spare Kohaku's feelings. Shuichiro's death was rather ironic since he finally had come up with his wish, which was to have Kohaku stay always with him. Despite all this the story ends happily. Hisui is cast out of heaven allowing her to live guilt free with Kokuyo, and Kohaku is stripped temporarily of her powers and so that she may be put to sleep till Shuichiro is reincarnated and they can be together.

Personally I thought the ending was bitter sweet. I was happy that everyone ended up happy, but the reborn Shuichiro was not the same Shuichiro, even if he had the same soul. I would have been happier if Shuichiro had indeed been a lost demon prince, though I loved how the story surprised me at the very end.

The story talked about some interesting things. One of them was that angels can only consume milk. This does not really come up much in the story but is still interesting. Another was that demons and angels have no gender. The author mentions this pretty early on in the first novel. The book doesn't out right say it, but the author has it in a little note for the reader. For simplicity the author refers to angels as females and demons as males. Again this is never really mentioned but it is still interesting.

What I think is the most interesting tidbit is that the book talks about the string of fate. An invisible string that connects two people entwining around their finger. This string affects people who are meant to find one another and have an important story. The string ensures that no matter how far apart they may be that the two people always end up finding one another. The story of these two people tied by fate does not always have to be a romance, though in this story it is. I liked the idea of this and thought it a nice bit of culture to learn.

Over all the Wish manga series was a story I greatly enjoyed. I have read it several times and found the love story to be quite charming. I suggest that lovers of romance give this manga a try, even if they are not usually a fan of mangas. I give this story a 7.3 out of 10.

Sources:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/62/Wish_cover.jpg
http://www.faena.com/aleph/articles/the-legend-of-the-red-string-of-japan/

Holocaust Butterflies

While writing about my teacher's "Cafe Read-A-Latte" I remembered something else my teacher did that was kind of special. Once every two years this English teacher would get a special trunk that would help teach kids about the holocaust. She would teach the fifth and sixth graders at the same time since the trunk was only available certain points.

Before we knew what the trunk was for the teacher would start with us all colouring a beautiful butterfly. We would use crayons to fill in the wings, front and back, and then rub it with vegetable oil to make it shiny and translucent. Once the little critters were dry we would hang them from the ceiling. I remember thinking how beautiful the butterflies looked dangling above our desks.

This is when we were told we would talk about the Holocaust and were introduced to a special book: I Never Saw Another Butterfly. 

For those who are not familiar with this book, I Never Saw Another Butterfly is a collection of children's poetry and drawings from concentration class. We would look at other written works about the Holocaust, but the main focus would always be on a specific child. Our butterfly was to represent this child. At the end of our Holocaust lessons we would read the poem from our child to the class and then find out if the child survived or not. If the child survived the concentration camp our butterfly would remain proudly flying. If not, the teacher cut down the drawing leaving a lonely string in its place. While we were doing all this we were learning the historical side of the Holocaust from our history teacher. Even after all these years I still remember the name of my child: Miroslav Košek. His poem is as follows:

It All Depends on How You Look at It 

Terezin is full of beauty. 

It's in your eyes now clear

And through the street the tramp 

Of Many Marching Feet I hear. 

In the ghetto at Terezin, 

It looks that way to me, 

Is a square kilometer of earth

Cut off from the world that's free. 

Death, after all, claims everyone, 

You find it everywhere.

It catches up even those

Who wear their noses in the air. 

The whole, wide world is ruled

With a certain justice, so

That helps perhaps to sweeten

The poor man's pain and woe. 

This was a powerful lesson plan that even now makes me almost cry. The day that we read our child's poem to the class was an emotional one. To this day I can remember how thick the air was and how sore my throat was, full of un-shed tears. The girl in the front row had her head buried in her arms as two, red eyes with tears streaming down them stared back at me. As is expected most of the butterflies were cut down, and the strings were left up for the months to follow as a sad reminder of the children's death. I can still remember that my child, Miroslav Košek, died in the concentration camp. Again I say that this was a powerful lesson plan that still to this day stays with me. My English teacher was an amazing woman who knew how to make English fun and exciting. 

Sources: 

• https://www.amazon.com/Never-Saw-Another-Butterfly-Concentration/dp/0805210156/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501179954&sr=8-1&keywords=i+never+saw+another+butterfly
• http://www.troup.org/userfiles/929/My%20Files/ELA/HS%20ELA/10th%20ELA/10th%20Unit%202/10.2.1%20I%20never%20saw%20another%20butterfly%20summarizer.pdf?id=13343
• http://www.holocaust.cz/en/database-of-victims/victim/102119-miroslav-kosek/

Cafe Read-A-Latte

Feeling nostalgic, I thought I would talk about something amazing my teacher did in sixth grade. Once a quarter (four times in the school year) she would do something that she called "Cafe Read-A-Latte." The teacher would transform the classroom into a coffee shop by various methods. She would turn off all the lights and have real lamps that she brought in from home to set a dim glow. Then the desks would be pushed from rows into little tables covered in lace table cloths. The walls would be decorated in seasonal items, such as Christmas lights or cutouts of bats and pumpkins. The finishing touch was that she would bring in an industrial size peculator that would be used to make hot chocolate that we would eat with small snacks. Our English teacher would use this little event as a reward for reading. Only people who had read their books could attend and the students at the little table would spend the class time talking about their books while sipping chocolate. I do not remember the books that I discussed, but "Cafe Read-A-Latte" has always stuck with me. I was a big lover of reading before my teacher did this, but I always thought that this was a fantastic event that was rewarded to those who loved books.

Banana Bread

Hello everyone! As everyone knows (or should know) life has been a bit hectic. Hopefully life will slow down so that I can post more. There are a few things that have changed that will allow me to have a bit more free time. I have graduated, moved into a house with a dishwasher, and have gained a steady job. A jot that frees me from having to having to work two not so good jobs.

Despite my major, I have chosen to work in the field of hotels, the front desk to be specific. Though I never expected this to affect my cooking I could not have been more wrong. Working at a hotel gives me access to certain things. The first thing is that I now have access to the newspaper on a daily basis. As a child my mother always stressed that one should read the paper, so as I was perusing it on my break I was delighted to find a wonderful article on cooking. As the title suggests, the article was on banana bread. Here is a link on said article if you wish to read it.

http://www.semissourian.com/story/2411596.html

The other thing that I have access to at the hotel is over-ripe bananas. Apparently customers do not enjoy eating bananas with too many brown spots, so the fruit that gets to this state is free for employees to take home. When I saw a box of abandoned, over-ripe bananas on the same day that I found this article I simply thought it fate. This was how my night of baking came to be, resulting in:

a whole lot of muffins. I was not prepared for how many muffins a whole box of bananas would create. I was baking until the early hours in the morning. What is not seen in the picture is that in addition to all of these muffins there was also a loaf of bread. Having nearly passed out on the last two loads of muffins I decided to just pour the last bit of batter into a loaf pan to get rid of it (this was how I learned that my new oven has racks that were far too close to the ceiling). In case you do not want to read the article I will transfer the recipe over.

Three-Bowl Banana Bread

Servings: 2 loaves make 10 generous slices

Start to finish: 1 hour, 15 minutes (Active time: 15 minutes)

Pan: 8x4x2.5 -inch loaf pans, disposable aluminum pans work very well.

Ingredients:
* 3 large and very ripe, "brown" bananas (you can use 4 small bananas)

* 1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar, divided

* 1 teaspoon vanilla

* 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

* 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

* 1/2 teaspoon salt

* 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

* 3 large eggs

* 3/4 cup Crisco all-vegetable oil

* 1-2 cups toasted walnut halves, coarsely chopped plus more halves for decorating

* Flour and oil baking spray

Directions:

1. Toast walnuts in the oven at 250 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove and let cool.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
3. Meanwhile, mash bananas with a fork and add all but 1/2 cup of the sugar. Mix and add vanilla. Continue mixing until the mixture is completely smooth.
4. In a separate large bowl, measure flour and stir with a whisk or fork to aerate. Place 1/2 cup of sugar in the bowl. Add baking soda, salt, cinnamon and whisk well.
5. In a third bowl, mix eggs and oil with a blending fork until emulsified.
6. Using a fork, mix eggs well with the flour mixture. Add banana mixture to the egg-flour mixture and stir with a fork until completely combined. Add chopped walnuts and pour batter into prepared loaf pans, using a baking spray so that the bread doesn't stick to the pan. Decorate the top with walnut halves.
7. Bake for about 60 minutes or until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Remove from oven and let sit in the pan for 5 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack. Can be served warm or completely cooled. 

Nutrition information per serving: 513 calories; 267 calories from fat; 30 g fat (4 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 65 mg cholesterol; 326 mg sodium; 55 g carbohydrate; 3 g fiber; 34 g sugar; 7 g protein.


I have not made banana bread very much before acquiring this recipe. Though I love banana bread I do not enjoy bananas, and unfortunately stores do not often sell over-ripe bananas. Since my new job has provided me with an almost constant source of the browned fruit I have been able to make this bread to the point that I am practically sick of it. Even my fiance who loves banana bread does not want to touch it. Fortunately I have many family members and neighbors who love banana bread so much that they have started begging me to make it for them.


Though I have not experimented with many banana bread recipes other people have told me that this recipe is one of the best that they have tasted. I usually like to add stuff when make recipes, but other than taking out the walnuts I have not changed a single thing with this recipe, and I could not be more glad. This is a moist and flavorful recipe. Very simple and easy to do I am sure that anyone could make this despite their skills in baking. I have even made the recipe using a single mixing bowl instead of the three that the directions call for with great success. The only other things that I have played around with is topping the bread with oats (from a can of oatmeal) or changed the amount of bananas. The oats were pretty, but though I have done this twice I would probably not do it all the time. This decoration does not change much in the flavor or the texture in the bread, but I simply prefer it without them. As for the bananas, I have tried the recipe with four or even five bananas for a batch. Three is a good number, but more bananas adds for more banana flavor. The bread is still tasty even with the deviation from the amount of fruit included.


Simple directions, ingredients that are easy to find in anyone's home, and a delicious recipe. This is everything a good recipe calls for. I give it a 9.5 out of 10.