Jennifer Moorman's Blog, page 18

Cooking Through The Baker's Man: Rainbow Truffles

Randy Pausch, writer of The Last Lecture, said, “Never lose the childlike wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us.” Try and remember what it was like when you saw the world through childlike eyes full of awe, when so much of what you saw was so marvelous it stole your breath, left you speechless.Walt Disney said, “Too many people grow up. That’s the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don’t remember what it’s like to be twelve years old.” It’s...

Cooking Through "The Baker's Man": Mexican Chocolate Truffles

Eating healthier foods can give us all sorts of benefits, such as stronger bones, bodies, and minds. Eating avocados gives you shinier hair and smoother skin. Eating strawberries boosts short term memory and burns fat. Eating dark chocolate lowers your blood pressure. I would like to add that eating chocolate makes me happier.Healthy foods make us, well, healthier, but there are other benefits of food. When people visit Bea’s Bakery in The Baker’s Man, they can find just the treat that they n...

Cooking Through Fiction: Miss Trunchbull's Chocolate Cake

Roald Dahl is one of my favorite writers, and Matilda is one of my favorite children's books. Matilda is a sweet exceptional girl, but her parents think she's just a nuisance. She expects school to be different, but that's not possible when Miss Trunchbull is the headmistress.My sister loved the movie, and we used to watch it over and over again. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is of the chocolate cake. When Bruce is accused of sneaking into the kitchen and eating Miss Truncuhbull's "m...

Cooking Through Fiction: The Giver's Red Apple Pie

Can you imagine living in a seemingly ideal, although colorless, world of contentment and conformity? Your freedom of choice and your independence are non-existent. Instead, you are surrounded by sameness, but you don’t even know everyone is all the same.Imagine not knowing the vibrancy of colors, not knowing what sunshine feels like as it warms your face, or the pelt of rain against your cheeks. Imagine never feeling pain or sadness, but in giving up the difficult emotions and experiences, y...

Cooking Through Fiction: Smoked Salmon and Bacon Paté

Have you ever noticed that when people travel through time or space, they don’t seem to be preoccupied with food or travel snacks? I would not be this person. I need to know there will be snacks because I know that I will get hungry—I don’t care how awesome time traveling might be.In Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Wrinkle in Time, Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace journey through the universe by means of tesseract. What is a tesseract? In geometry, the tesseract is defined as a 4-dimensional anal...

Cooking Through Fiction: Cinnamon-Sugar Candied Pecans

One thing I love to see while traveling down back roads on my way to somewhere new is a hand-painted, side-of-the-road sign advertising some tasty treat around the next bend. Boiled peanuts! Peaches! Honey! (Okay, these signs are all in Georgia because so is Lost Lake!) But who doesn’t love those signs? Who isn’t tempted to stop?While driving toward Lost Lake, Kate and her daughter pass an army of hand-painted roadside signs that promise fresh fruits and candied nuts. They’ve been salivating...

Cooking Through Fiction: Lost Lake's Ham and Cheese Puff Pastry

Thomas Wolfe wrote a novel titled You Can’t Go Home Again in which the main character realizes that although he can literally go home again, his home will not be as he remembers. The phrase “you can’t go home again” has come to represent the idea that once you leave home for bigger and brighter places, every attempt you have to relive youthful memories will fail. Is this true? I say, “Not really. Not for me.” And not for Kate and a slew of others in Addison Allen’s Lost Lake.In fact, many cha...

Cooking Through Fiction: Emma's Fruity Pebbles Sweet Rolls

Mystic Water is a town steeped in enchantment and wonder. From its townsfolk to its businesses to its history, most locals know that anything can happen.Emma Chase, the local assistant librarian, loved the sweet rolls that Anna O'Brien baked at Bea's Bakery. When she was younger, her daddy bought her one at least once a month and always as a surprise.Emma would eat the sweet roll as slowly as possible to make it last as long as possible. When Anna moved to Wildehaven Beach, Emma knew she'd ne...

Cooking Through Fiction: Snicket’s Lemony Blueberry Sweet Rolls

What makes a great friend? Someone who is there for you when you need a person to listen to you ask thousands of questions during TV shows (I’m not saying this is me, but this is me.)? Someone who brings you chicken noodle soup when you’re sick? Or someone who doesn’t laugh when you trip over your own feet (Does this person exist?)?In Snicket’s second novel in the series All the Wrong Questions, Snicket would likely say a friend does these two things: 1) looks for you when you are missing, an...

Cooking Through "The Baker's Man": Oreo Christmas Truffles

Poet Pablo Neruda wrote, “Laughter is the language of the soul.” When was the last time you laughed? Can you remember when you last laughed so hard that your face and your stomach ached, when tears rolled down your cheeks?If you can’t immediately recall when laughter burst from your smile, then you need to stop by Bea’s Bakery in Mystic Water and order at least a half dozen Oreo Christmas truffles.If you haven’t closed your eyes, leaned back your head, and felt a laugh rise from deep in your...