Jennifer Moorman's Blog, page 28

Cooking Through Fiction: Dark and Grimm German Bread

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Are you guilty of watering down a story because otherwise it might be too dark or too gritty or too scary or too much-too much? I’ll admit I like rainbows and unicorns and Care Bears and sunshine and daisies. I have probably asked for the kid-friendly version of a story a gazillion times.
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When someone says, “I have to tell you what happened,” I normally ask, “Is this a sad story?” I need to be prepared. Don’t spring dark, gritty, scary, too much-too much stories on me. My heart needs to know that I’m about to venture down a dark path, and even then, I’m not always ready.
In Adam Gidwitz’ book, A Tale Dark and Grimm, the narrator warns the reader that the tale is, in fact, dark and grim. You might think you know the story about Hansel and Gretel, but let me warn you, you likely...

Little Blackbird Now Available!

The wait is over! Little Blackbird is now available!
Summary: At five years old, Kate Muir blacks out. She sees a vision of her parents, a man with blue eyes, and a semi-truck with broken headlights. After another episode on her tenth birthday, her mama explains the meaning of these strange occurrences—Kate has the ability to see the future. But no matter what she sees, her mama forbids Kate to alter what is to come.
Kate, unlike her charming brother, Evan, has trouble fitting in with the...

Cooking Through "The Baker's Man": Rainbow Truffles

[image error] 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

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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...

Cooking Through Fiction: Smoked Salmon and Bacon Paté

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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

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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

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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: Snicket’s Lemony Blueberry Sweet Rolls

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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 Fiction: Extraordinary Apple Pop Tarts

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Extraordinary — (adjective) beyond what is ordinary or usual; highly exceptional, remarkable
I am a lover of words (a logophile). I can admit to being so nerdy that I am saddened when a word (especially hundreds of words in a language) dies. The Oxford English Dictionary labels these words obsolete. I bet thousands of words are thinking, Man, I hope I don’t become obsolete—oh, no, there goes hugger-mugger!Hugger-mugger was a real, useable word once. Feel free to bring it back. It means “to act...

Cooking Through Fiction: Snicket's Chicken Pesto Pasta

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There are likely many different types of TV watchers, but I’m going to talk about two kinds today. Type 1: watches TV and doesn’t talk about what’s happening on TV; and Type 2: watches TV and incessantly asks questions about what’s happening on TV. I’m afraid I’m Type 2 (to everyone’s annoyance around me). What can I say? I can’t help it. I ask a lot of questions.

And my questions aren’t always valid. Sometimes there’s a real gem of a question in there, but mostly, I ask questions such as “Why...