In order to keep things a lot simpler, I've gone to a website with a blog. You can find my blog at The Garden School of Evansville. Just Google me, Judy Lyden, and it will come up as the GS of EVV. Thanks for reading. I hope there is a lot more writing now that I only have one place to satisfy!

Such is Life...

So I'm checking out at Rural King...you know, the K-Mart for farmers, and I've got one hundred and sixty pounds of ground corn cob for my guinea pigs to play in, a small bag - forty pounds - of potting soil, some last minute veggie plants all heading to school. So there I am, at the check out lane...so glad it went without a hitch, because my precious and wonderful son called from Detroit on his way back to Germany so he can be home for his son's birthday.

Now my precious and wonderful son builds Proton Therapy Units all over the world for cancer treatment. He's the top guy and flies everywhere --- in the next month he will probably be in St. Petersburg, Riyadh, Taiwan, San Diego, and probably many places in Europe. It's his job. When he tried to take his female lawyer to Saudi Arabia, they asked if he "owned" her...you get the picture.

So here is a young man with an important job talking to his mom who is now sitting in a very used parking lot in the light industrial section of Evansville, Indiana, in her seventeen year old jeep loaded down with ground corn cobs and potting soil. He's in a business suit with five hundred messages waiting to be answered on his phone, and I'm wearing short blue jean shorts and a $3.00 shirt from Walmart and using my "smart phone" which is usually smarter than I am.

How does this happen that a dichotomy of life styles has grown up between  mother and child to this extreme?

Hope.

I have come to believe that hope is the magic word...the magic wand in rearing children. I love what I do, where I am and my life. I wouldn't change anything about my life...it's sweet...but at the same time, my life is not my children's. It's mine. So while I've been living my own life, I have had great hopes that my children could do the exact same thing...live their own lives, doing what they want to do, and doing it well.

When my son was born, I hoped that he would do good things with this life, and I encouraged him to do great things at every point in life. I told him that he could reach for the sky and get there with enough effort and enough solid living.

When my daughters were born, I hoped that each of them would do good things with their lives, and I encouraged them in the same way I encouraged my son. "Anything is possible if you work hard enough."

I've gone round and round with several people over the years who believe that hope is a worthless passive waste of time. For me, hope is all the possibilities tied together...it belongs to a life lived cautiously, carefully, and prayerfully. It is open, healthy, broad, and encompasses all the human passions while it remains gentle and lovingly looks forward instead of back.  Hope is life's polish.

So as the sweat is dripping from my smart phone into my ear in the worn jeans, car, and parking lot, I talk freely about family, the cancer of a friend, his travel schedule, what Patrick wants for his birthday until they call him to board the plane. I'll talk to him again when there's time. Meanwhile he's living a good life and doing good things for others, and I'm living my life enjoying it to the hilt!

Been Ill

Normally, I am slightly suspect of people who are chronically ill. Those who simply always don't feel well; those who dwell entirely on the self as a virus abused individual; those who can't stop medicating; those who are ten years their own senior because they have been raked over the sick coals. You know the type.

As for me and my house - I'm never sick, and I think it has a lot to do with H2O, sleep, a fairly good diet and being active. Also, I think it has something to do with sleeping hot...at any rate, I'm rarely if ever sick...until last week. Somehow, I picked up a staph infection. I didn't even know what it was for a couple of days...then it invaded my person like a wildfire. Head, neck, ear, face, leg...I did the prescribed "MEC" gig, and they apparently put a band aid on a hemmorage.  By the time I got to my own doctor, she said, "Oh, my God...it could have killed you" and treated me with a super antibiotic which she said would probably rip me apart. Well, it didn't. I engineered a ways and means of taking the drug so that it didn't bother me.

The wound drained for seven days. I was unsightly and stayed home. Actually aside from the day I went to MEC, I felt fine during the ordeal. So this was my maiden voyage in illness. Yes, in 60 plus years, I've had a couple of colds and I had the flu once for four hours, and I've had a few bronchitis experiences when my son brought home an atypical virus...but generally, I feel good, and I want to keep it that way.

My compassion level has risen for those who fight the chronic attacks of sinusitis, allergies, IBS, arthritis, and other body disturbances and malfunctions. I can't fathom what it must be like to struggle with this daily. It was bad enough for ten days...

What I can't understand, however, is how someone can "live sick" and not do something proactively to change their situation for the sake of feeling good! People who could make their situation better by changing diet, losing a little weight, getting more exercise, drinking water instead of soda, and getting to bed on time. These are simple enough to do, and if the alternative is chronic illness...good grief.

I love being healthy...you might say I'm an advocate. Hope this speed bump doesn't indicate a future filled with obnoxious hurdles to be jumped every couple of months. That would truly be a nightmare. I like my freedom. I like being free of medications, free of body aches, pain, and that feeling that "I can't." Truly, I am very grateful for being free.

Now let's consider the kids...it's no different with children. Parents build children's bodies from the first moment of conception. What you give your child from conception to college is health through good habits and discipline. We've been talking about setting good examples at school, how that works, who should set examples, and how it's done. When parents offer great habits to their children, children benefit for the rest of their lives.

Here are the questions to ask about setting some basic health examples:

Is my child sleeping 10 hours at night?
What is my example for him or her? Am I up all night and then drag out of bed every morning?

Is my child drinking water during the day?
Am I drinking water in front of my child, or is my 1000 calorie latte or supersized soda providing my health example?

Is my child eating 1000 quality calories every day?
Am I weaseling out of my nutritional duty by stopping to pick up worthless calories for dinner too many times a week?

Is my child getting two hours of exercise every day?
Am I getting any exercise? What is my strength and vitality example for my child?

Is my child washing his hands EVERY time he comes indoors?
Am I?

It's a start.

Monday's Tattler...

This week...our book fair arrives. Parents and children will be able to view and shop for books this week. These are reasonably priced books and will make an excellent addition to your home library this year. Your children have learned so much this year, they are more than eager and able to do some reading for real. Please think of buying some books for your child this week.

Miss Judy is teaching reading now. Our main focus is on knowing letters, phonemes or sounds, vowels or air sounds from consonants or mouth sounds. We will be reading, recognizing words, reading books, making words, spelling words and having war games to see who is getting the most.

I need to know from the eleven children who have not turned in their summer forms. We need to know for field trips and swimming.

The weather this week will be beautiful. Please send children in light weight clothes they can really play in.

Have a great week!

Sunday's Plate...Cooking for a Crowd.

Just read a nice facebook post from a lovely friend who is grateful to her mom for teaching her to cook for lots of people cheaply. I herald this teaching because sooner or later, we will want to have a party and it's not cheap!

We cook for a crowd every day. Recently, Miss Molly and Miss Lisa have taken on the measure of lunch and have enjoyed doing all kinds of creative things with our food budget to the delight of the kids. It has been so successful, that we have empty plates at nearly every lunch.

At home a cook can make what she wants, but at school, we have "component" issues that have to be met. The USDA rule is two fruits and veggies at every meal along with protein and a bread product. We double much of what we are supposed to serve. This past weekend while shopping, I purchased forty pounds of fruit and veggies for the ladies to choose from to serve. I'm wondering if this will make even stronger meals. Hoping it will. Instead of reading and following a menu, Miss Lisa will be inventing from what is in the fridge. She will learn what spoils quickest, and what goes with what.

Miss Molly must choose her own entrees. As she makes the main course with Lisa's help, Lisa builds the fruit and veggie tray. The problem comes with budget and added extras. It all needs to be planned and executed without a million runs to the store. That's how you keep the budget down.

Taking advantage of the sales is always smart. Having a "general" idea of what the meals will be this week according to the ad that comes out mid week is an important part of making the budget go a little farther. Our budget is 31 cents a meal.

Making things stretch and still taste good depends a lot on creativity. Making something wonderful out of left overs and having the extras to do that helps. Three "free" meals from leftovers include egg rolls, quiche and soup. I can't imagine buying food to make any of those three things! When I make a quiche, whatever we've eaten during the week goes into the belly of the quiche. Egg rolls are chopped leftovers rolled in a shell and fried. Soup is anything at all put in a pot with a quart of strong chicken or beef bouillon.

Today I had two tiny pieces of left over chicken breast...I sliced them into fine strips and added some hard cheese and put that in the micro to melt the cheese. You wouldn't know that those sandwiches were made from less than two ounces of chicken.

The whole object of crowd pleasing and crowd feeding is to make it fun and have something most of your crowd wants to eat. With little kids, that often means finger foods. When most of what they are eating they can pick up like carrot sticks, apple slices, oranges rings, you can offer a little stranger variations like thin sliced turnips and dip. Turnips are cheap and they make a lot of chips. When the kids find out they are fun to eat, it allows the budget to stay firm and the eating to be plentiful.

Baking is a great way to keep a budget down. It would cost me $40.00 for muffins if I bought them, but I can bake them for as little as $1.00. Baking from scratch keeps a budget way down at home as well. It can all be freshly baked if you remember that batters hold for days. Making a dozen corn muffins on Monday will hold for two days, but the batter refrigerated will hold for a week. When it's time to start dinner, turn on the oven and make one muffin each. You can repeat this as often as muffins will go with your meal and each night they are fresh and warm and yummy!

It's the same with making cookies. Make one huge batter, roll the dough into tubes and freeze, and when you need a dessert, chop off as many cookies as you need just for the evening or afternoon. Always fresh, and not so many as to cause a weight gain....

The other side of the coin is not making the whole recipe at once. Tonight I'm trying a new leek, bacon, bread crumb casserole. It says use a pound of leeks...three halved...but that's too much food for Terry and me, so I will use half of that and make a much smaller amount. If we like it, I will do it again this week. Food waste is a real issue in today's home and in our American way of life. We must always be careful of wasting...we might want it tomorrow...

So I'll report back later about how this leek thing turned out...

Have a brilliant Sunday!

Teaching Again

So this week I've started teaching reading again. We have an excellent program for the very young child. Every child gets thirty minutes of reading, writing and arithmetic every day - Monday through Thursday. Our teachers each have a specialty: Miss Dayna is our arithmetic teacher; Miss Lisa is our handwriting teacher; and now, Miss Judy is our reading teacher.

So what does it mean to teach a three, four or five year old child how to read?

The first job of any reading teacher is to start at the beginning...a three year old child may not know that there are such things as letters or care.

You have to make "lettering" fun. So for a long time at the Garden School, we've developed very very short stories about each letter that really lets a young child wonder, think, laugh and enjoy that little squiggle on the page. Turn an A on it's side and you have an Airplane! a B looks like a Butterfly! Mr. C Clam lives under the sea...and so go the stories.

Many parents say, "My son knows all his letters."

And I always ask, "So if I show him a lower case q, he's going to know what it is?"

"Oh, no, I don't think so. But he can sing his Alphabet Song!"

Singing the Alphabet Song and recognizing all the letters are about as far from one another as having a dog and having a picture of a dog.

Getting three year olds to recognize letters is really far easier than most people imagine. Children are not visual learners...they are auditory learners becoming visual learners, so repeating something about four times usually teaches a child whatever you're trying to teach him. If you tell him about what he is seeing...it's a bingo right away. So when you turn that A on it's side...few children won't remember. It probably takes a month to teach eager children the alphabet letters and another month to teach the sounds.

The big sellers of "age appropriate" nonsense always cringe when I talk about three year olds learning letters and making phonemes for fun. It's as if I ran over their dignity with a truck. The truth is that three year olds WANT to know, so why not teach them? If they don't remember; they're not ready. If they don't pay attention; their minds are still with the angels, so try again next month.

Interestingly enough, children who are potty trained at a decent age - 18-26 months - are actually more eager to learn letters than children who are left in infancy through the third and fourth year. And it makes sense when you think about it. Children who become independent, and there are three big childhood independences: potty training, reading and driving a car, are keen to forge out on their own little life paths more readily than the child whose independence is repressed in a diaper.

By age four, most of our students have learned all their upper and lower case letters and know what sounds, or phonemes, these letters make, and they are putting sounds together to make words. This is the bridge to reading.

By five, our kids are reading and finding their own books and exploring new words and how sentences are structured. It's fun to make up a story, and by five, the cognition is ripe for invention, story telling, story inventing...it's called creative writing.

Teaching reading is a matter of consistency, repetition, and doing. New games and new activities stimulate the child towards bigger and wider goals. That's why I hate text books. Text books are a school aged diaper. They are repression in a stack of paper... I mean have you ever read a text book that is interesting? It doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to come up with thirty minutes worth of reading work for a three, four or five year old child. It takes a sense of this then that then this then that kind of mind set.

I've written several little texts for kids using our own choice of words and kids eat them up. They are very time consuming to produce, but the product is fun and rewarding only because they are personalized and aimed at OUR children's lives.

And practice always makes perfect. Children need to practice something in their own space and time. It doesn't have to be a huge copy assignment or even take very long. Homework for a very young child should be more of an independent study...what can I do all by myself...so that I can proudly show my OWN work to my mom or dad.

I like to send a new book home every day so that their little homework bag is inviting and calls them to WANT to open it at home. Once they see the book and look at it even for a minute, might make them take out their little sentence building words long enough to play a "how can I make this sentence longer and longer" game. That might make them want to write down what they built with the word cards. Then they might want to illustrate the picture.

Reading is a process, and families who turn of the TV in order that a nice little period of work-study can be achieved at home are blessed and will encourage early readers to read all their lives. Children will not read into adulthood if adults in the home never pick up a book. So find a little space with a little space and do a quiet independent study...only has to take about fifteen minutes.

Monday's Tattler

It's Monday again...time to get back to work...only seven weeks till summer!

Some changes at the GS...Miss Judy will be taking the reading classes for the next seven weeks. It should be a lot of fun and we are going to do some different and new things. I'll be working very closely with Miss Lisa for some interesting projects!

Miss Amy will be taking the afternoon Science class with the Kindergarten. This should be a wonderful experience for the children.

We have a few summer spots to be filled. If you have not filled out a reservation form, it's time!

The weather is changing again...and this week we could see some cooler days. Please send your child with a jacket this week.

If you need to fill out a new information card, please ask for one. If your phone number has changed or if there are other changes you need to make to the emergency card, it's time to fill out a new one.

Tomorrow, April 9, is our school's birthday. It is sixteen years old. Miss Judy will also have a birthday tomorrow. I have asked for a new kitchen gadget called a "vitamix." Looking forward to playing with it!

Have a great week!

Monday's Tattler

This week is a regular school week. Lots to do as spring weather continues to lure us outside and away from the books!

Lots of things in the hopper this month...a book fair in late April...field trips to work on...new schedules lurking...kids learning so much...experiencing great afternoons with Miss Amy. So delighted to have this project!

Garden is growing...and the fruit is set on the trees.

I will be gone from school Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as I visit my baby Anne in Chicago. Remember we are off on Friday for Good Friday.

Have a great week!

Sunday's Plate - Summer Salads

Every year people ask, "What do you do to your egg salad that makes my child crazy about it>"

Parents rarely believe that it's all about simplicity.

I use chicken eggs and real mayonnaise, and I do it in the food processor.

First you boil the egg about 20 minutes. Then you soak the un-pealed eggs in ice water. Then you peal and drop them into the food processor. Turn it on for maybe six "pops." Remove and add enough real mayonnaise to allow the egg salad to stick to bread.

Real mayonnaise has a cleaner taste than Miracle Whip or salad dressing. When you begin to "doctor" what you think is bland food with spices, vegetables, pickles or a dressing that has "real taste" to you, you lose kids. Miracle whip makes everything you use it on taste like Miracle Whip.

Eggs are a bland food. They have little taste, so when you "doctor" them you lose their taste in favor of whatever you put into your egg salad.

With other salads, it's always best to go plain with kids.

Children love pasta, so make summer salads with multi-grain pasta. Whole wheat is too heavy for kids.

To your pasta add things your child likes in large enough pieces that they can either eat the noodle or the extra. Most children like ham, bacon, hot dogs, chicken nuggets...so start your salad with one or more of those meats. Even if that's all you do, pasta and meat and mayo, it's a start.

If your child likes pickles, throw in a pickle that has pieces the size of an olive. It's the same with celery, carrots, olives, rasins...when pieces are too small, the child becomes suspicious...just like a man....so keep the pieces large enough to identify.

Keep adding new things to your salad and serve it once a week. Use it as a side dish.

Try tuna, sausage, raw zucchini, yellow squash and anything you think your child would eat. Salads are an easy evening's fare.

Happy Salading!

So How Does "Work Ethic" Emerge?

A child's work ethic ALWAYS comes from his or her parents. A work ethic develops from a child's perception of the good that his parents are achieving through work. A parent's attitude toward work should help build a child's ethic that's cheerful, responsible, and achievement driven.

As we all know, work can have a love/hate relationship with most people, and children know that pain by watching it sting mom and dad on a daily basis, but work is more than the love /hate relationship, and children should see that work provides an identity that stays with a person most of his or her life.

The achievement of work makes a person happy, and children should constantly see that achievement no matter the drudgery, the load, the hatefulness of the work - because drudgery has no meaning for very young children. They see only a dispirited parent. Happiness and achievement can be seen too, on the face...it's just the opposite of dispirited. Children should see their parents continuing to do the work with cheer and positivism even in the rough times.

Personality comes into play with the whole notion of work. Some people love to work. Some enjoy it to a point. Some people try to escape work at any cost. Some people refuse to work at all and mostly they learn these things at home. Some of it's humorous and some is tragic, but we've all known those we love to work with and those we want to run from.

Some people love work as a social entity. When you really look at what they accomplish, it's not very much. They go to work to be around other people, to have companionship. The work is not important nor consistent nor even gratifying. This is the "social worker."

Then there is the person who takes on all kinds of projects with great gusto and ends up foisting the responsibility of those projects on others or worse drops the ball half way through and ignores the repercussions. We'll call this one "The enthusiast."

Then there is the person who only takes on the work that is absolutely demanded of him or her, and does the absolute minimalist amount because when all is said and told, this person is always in the bathroom when work is assigned; always on the phone during the job, always busy with anything and everything he or she can think of so others have to always chip in to get the job done around her and in spite of her. We could dub this one "The minimalist."

There is the enormous mess maker with all the great intentions in the world who only manages to waste time, materials and everyone's patience. We could call this one the "Kettle" after Ma and Pa Kettle.

There is the silent independent worker who silently does his or her work without thought to anyone or anything besides getting at least part of the job done, and those who do part of the work leaving most of it because "they didn't know..." and can't communicate to find out.

And we have all known someone who fits these worthy titles. The question is, how did they get to be "titled?" It all begins with watching parents and discerning a work ethic that they come to understand that seems to be acceptable.

The "Social Worker" probably had parents who refused to allow the child to actually do anything. This child grew up "hands off" because mom or dad could do it better, wanted complete control and all the power. In other words, the child wasn't needed , and so, the child grows into adulthood with the idea that they are never really needed, and therefore, their presence is most social. Involving children in work fosters the idea that a person's presence is not only wanted, but needed. "I need you" is not something that should be avoided by adults especially toward children.

The enthusiast came from a work ethic that dabbled, was distracted, and never really finished anything. Parents who dabble in multiple activities and then lose interest often find that their children follow suit - the laundry half done, dishes always in the sink, the floor half swept, beds partially made, toys somewhat picked up, projects everywhere and a garden always in the making. This half done example entitles children who are developing an emerging work ethic to think that half done is enough...now apply that to an education, a job, a home or anything that needs completion. A work ethic that sees jobs through to completion demonstrates to children that the whole job is important - even the small ones. Completion demonstrates responsibility.

The minimalist grew up with stingy parents who probably had little and gave less. A minimalist has a small heart. I remember a line in a film I watched years ago when a poor man looked at another and said, "Your a little man. It's not because you are short in stature, but because you have such a tiny heart." A work ethic based on how little I have to offer the job, my associates and myself is a poor employee because they can't be trusted by the other staff. You can't teach someone generosity no matter how hard you try. The minimalist will always take and never give back. Children in a minimalist's family will be as stingy as their parents.

The Kettles come from a work ethic that balances between the minimalist and the enthusiast. It's just chaos at everyone's expense. Children who grow up in chaos have a long way to go to re-order their lives. Chaos begets chaos, and that's the tragedy of it.

And families who don't communicate, don't because it's just a lot easier when you don't. If I don't say anything, neither will you, and that will be an end to it...work, project, job, you...

On the positive side, there are those who love to work, love to achieve, accomplish and attain great things through work. The personality who loves the challenge of a job will engage in every human attribute they can in order to make the task at hand "work!"

At once the stage is set for work. There is solid positive communication so that others understand the work at hand. There is order maintained at every level, every step so that the work continues at a good pace while it serves the job and the other workers. Chaos is nipped in the bud, and the social workers are asked to take their lack of intentions elsewhere. There is generosity throughout the job, there is help, give and take, so that each worker can excel at what he or she is doing without losing momentum or feeling out of the loop.

If this very positive stage was viewed by children, children would see how work should be aimed at achievement and how the joy that comes from jobs well done can be owned.

It's not exactly "luck" that allows a person to do the work they like; mostly, it's a matter of hard work as a young student, then an older student and then as a fully engaged young adult. Working successfully toward a goal from youth allows someone the privilege of doing the work they want to do. It's called "earned," and this concept of "earned" is a must for dinner time discussion and those quiet times when children are really listening.

So if you want to know what your child is seeing, look in the mirror and ask yourself some of those scary questions...then do what needs to be done to give your child the best vantage point you can about work because when he grows up, he's going to be just like you!

Monday's Tattler

A short week this week. We will be in school on Monday and Tuesday and off on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for Spring Break.

We will do as much schooling as we can this week depending on how many children are out.

It's time to get your summer forms in now. If your child will be at the GS this summer, I need your summer form. If you don't have one, let me know, and I will give you another.

Have a great week!

Clearing out Sunday...

Sundays are work days for Terry and me. We always get up early...6:00 ish, and dress and go off to early Mass because we still believe. We are eternally grateful to God for all that He has given us, and we work hard to thank Him with everything we do. God's generosity and six days of work have meant the whole world to us, and we return the blessings with work of our own.

I know that Sundays are supposed to be a day of rest...they are unless you own your own business. We get our rest every evening when we spend several hours together doing what we want. It's a workable trade off. Besides, I think every day is Sunday... just as every day is Friday...you really can't have Sunday without Friday...

So Sunday becomes a day of clearing out to get ready for the week. I scramble off to the grocery store and lug tons of groceries back to school, and Terry brings them inside, and I put them away after I clear out the refrigerators and the kitchen of last week's leavings. Terry washes the floors and cleans the bathrooms, and after I've put all the food away in a clean kitchen, I work on the zoo room and clear away a lot of old bedding.

At home, we clean off desks, clear out all the receipts, I clean my own kitchen and get ready for a weeks new meals.

This weekend I cleared away a lot of the winter's garden debris. I cleaned out my email bank, my stack of catalogs, newspaper fliers from last week etc. I bought garden dirt and pots to work on the planting of our veggies. I organized the kitchen collected recipes and copied a few to cards for a changing cooking team.

Clearing away the old and getting ready for what is on the horizon is a really nice way to spend a Sunday. It's a kind of renewal about life and work and change. I'm a firm believer in always being ready for whatever, and you can't really do that unless you keep chipping away at the clutter.

The calendar is my friend, not my enemy most of the time. The clock is also my friend and not my enemy when I'm prepared for now as now unfolds. Being able to enjoy life - even Sundays filled with work - is not a challenge when you think ahead and do what needs to be done today today.

So on this pleasant Sunday...the work is finally done, and now it's time to take a little stroll. Blessings today on all of you who are working or not.

Monday's Tattler

A great big warm and wonderful congratulations to the children for a super play production. It was such a wonderful success. It's always a relief when it's done, but it's such a joy to do...especially on Play Day! I think I heard every line...

This week, it's art week at school. We are giving art lessons to the children. It's a follow the instructions and learn to use materials. We do this a lot, but it needs some reinforcing.

Back to regular classes this week.

Putting the garden together, and I believe Miss Lisa is going to create something really wonderful in her room...

Giant ham on the food agenda, a new marble cake, a new pulled beef perhaps if a beast can be purchased...some Alfredo, some homemade chicken nuggets and a to die for calzone.

It's going to be warm...short sleeves and shorts are a must...no stocking, leggins or boots please!

Have a super marvelous week!

The Classic Yellow Cake...

Micro two sticks of real butter for about 20 seconds.

Beat 1 3/4 cups sugar into the butter at high speed for about five minutes.

Beat in four large eggs and a tablespoon of vanilla or flavoring of choice - try Kahlua or bourbon or even maple. Try adding ground coffee at this point.

In another bowl, whisk 3 cups of flour and a tablespoon of baking powder and a 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

With your mixer on low, or with a wooden spoon, add 1/3 of your flour mix to the butter mix.

Beat in 3/4 cup of either buttermilk or plain yogurt.

Add 1/3 more flour; 3/4 cup more buttermilk or yogurt and then the rest of the flour until just barely combined.

Bake at 350 until done.

Everyone should know how to make a wonderful cake. Now...if you want chocolate, mix 1/2 cup cocoa in 6 tablespoons very hot water and add at the end.

Frosting is simple: in a food processor, process 1 stick butter and 4 cups of powdered sugar, add whatever flavoring you want. Add a tablespoon of milk, coffee, or orange juice or jam to make a flavored frosting. Too thick? Add more liquid...too runny? Add more sugar.

Have a great Sunday!

Is Someone Kidding Here?

"Boneless lean beef trimmings" are shown before packaging. The debate over "pink slime" in chopped beef is hitting critical mass. The term, adopted by opponents of "lean finely textured beef," describes the processed trimmings cleansed with ammonia and commonly mixed into ground meat. Federal regulators say it meets standards for food safety.

—Beef Products Inc. via AP

Comment: I find this totally unacceptable, but understandable coming from the government. As the food purchaser for my school, I spend $.50 per meal per student and we eat chopped sirloin which I get from the butcher. I wouldn't feed this pink slime to my barn cats. It just goes to show that the purchasers for school lunches just don't care. It CAN be done and done well and it costs a whole lot less than what the student is paying. SHAME!

By Nirvi Shah

Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.

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Schools that get their ground beef from the federal government will now have the option of buying it with or without a product that has been dubbed “pink slime.”

Never have schools known whether the ground beef procured by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for use in school lunches contained the ingredient, known in the food industry as “Lean Finely Textured Beef.”

Lean finely textured beef is a “product derived from beef-fat trimmings,” researchers at Iowa State University wrote in a report about its use in processed meat. They add that “while it is high in total protein, the LFTB contains more serum and connective-tissue proteins and less myofibrillar proteins than muscle meat.” Since it’s not made from muscle, it isn’t considered meat by some food experts.

In addition, the product is treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill some strains of E. coli and salmonella bacteria, although a story in The New York Times three years ago raised questions about the effectiveness of ammonia in curbing the spread of E. coli and salmonella.

In a statement issued today, the USDA said that although the product is safe to eat, “due to customer demand, the department will be adjusting procurement specifications for the next school year so schools can have additional options in procuring ground-beef products. USDA will provide schools with a choice to order product either with or without Lean Finely Textured Beef.”

Petition Drive

This isn’t the first time the product has come under fire, but fresh concerns about pink slime were raised last week, after The Daily newspaper published a story in which former USDA food inspectors discussed a 2002 visit to a production facility run by South Dakota-based Beef Products Inc., which makes lean finely textured beef. Describing what he saw, microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein told The Daily he did not “consider the stuff to be ground beef.”

Seizing on that story, children’s food blogger and lawyer Bettina Siegal of Houston started an online petition asking the USDA to stop using ground beef containing pink slime in the National School Lunch Program. In a little more than a week, the petition had collected more than a quarter of a million signatures.

“This is a huge, huge moment for consumers,” Sarah Ryan, a campaigner withChange.org, the site where Ms. Siegal posted her petition, said of the USDA’s action today. “The USDA is such a huge bureaucracy. It’s hard to make a change.”

Since the recent concerns were raised. Some school districts have gotten calls from parents about the contents of beef products served in school lunches.

One district in California posted information on its website with a response from its beef vendor, which said it does not sell the district meat made with LFTB.

Some federal lawmakers have also chimed in with letters to the USDA.

“Students enrolled in the school lunch program have little to no choice over what they eat and should not be forced to consume questionable meat,” wrote U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey. “The leftover scraps are treated with ammonia because they come from parts of the cow, often the hide, with high exposure to fecal matter. Despite the addition of ammonia, there have been dozens of cases of pathogens infecting the treated mixture. These troubling reports cast doubt on the USDA’s assertion that this process is perfectly safe.”

The meat product isn’t limited to school lunches. The ingredient has been used for years in beef products, including those sold in grocery stores and served by some restaurants.

In defense of lean finely textured beef, Beef Products Inc. has launched a new website,pinkslimeisamyth.com. It includes endorsements about the quality and safety of the product from former U.S. secretaries of agriculture, professors, and consumer watchdogs.

Questions remain about what exactly the USDA’s action means for schools, Ms. Ryan said.

In exchange for having the option of beef products that don’t contain lean finely textured beef, schools could end up paying to get meat processed without it for patties or other items.

Available USDA foods range from almonds to catfish to sunflower-seed butter. School district food directors can choose from among those items, based on an annual allowance set by the USDA. Meat is one of food-service directors’ top choices because it is expensive and can quickly eat up limited budgets. Schools pay for the rest of the food served in school breakfasts and lunches.Only about 20 percent of the food served in school lunches is procured through the USDA Foods program, formerly called the commodities program. Schools get the items at no cost, although some fees may be charged for storage or distribution of the items.

Although beef is a popular item, it’s unclear how much of the beef served in school meals contains lean finely textured beef. Of the nearly 112 million pounds of ground beef contracted for the school lunch program, 7 million pounds, or about 6.5 percent, are made by Beef Products Inc., the USDA said. USDA rules allow no more than 15 percent of a student’s ground-beef dish to be made of the company’s lean finely textured beef.

Tuesday's Teacher

How Eating At Home Can Save Your Life by Mark Hyman, MD

The slow insidious displacement of home cooked and communally shared family meals by the industrial food system has fattened our nation and weakened our family ties. In 1900, 2 percent of meals were eaten outside the home. In 2010, 50 percent were eaten away from home and one in five breakfasts is from McDonald's. Most family meals happen about three times a week, last less than 20 minutes and are spent watching television or texting while each family member eats a different microwaved "food." More meals are eaten in the minivan than the kitchen.

Research shows that children who have regular meals with their parents do better in every way, from better grades, to healthier relationships, to staying out of trouble. They are 42 percent less likely to drink, 50 percent less likely to smoke and 66 percent less like to smoke marijuana. Regular family dinners protect girls from bulimia, anorexia, and diet pills. Family dinners also reduce the incidence of childhood obesity. In a study on household routines and obesity in U.S. preschool-aged children, it was shown that kids as young as four have a lower risk of obesity if they eat regular family dinners, have enough sleep, and don't watch TV on weekdays.

We complain of not having enough time to cook, but Americans spend more time watching cooking on the Food Network than actually preparing their own meals. In his series, "Food Revolution," Jamie Oliver showed us how we have raised a generation of Americans who can't recognize a single vegetable or fruit, and don't know how to cook.

Family dinner has been hijacked by the food industry. The transformations of the American home and meal outlined above did not happen by accident. Broccoli, peaches, almonds, kidney beans and other whole foods don't need a food ingredient label or bar code, but for some reason these foods -- the foods we co-evolved with over millennia -- had to be "improved" by Food Science. As a result, the processed-food industry and industrial agriculture has changed our diet, decade by decade, not by accident but by intention.

That we need nutritionists and doctors to teach us how to eat is a sad reflection of the state of society. These are things our grandparents knew without thinking twice about them. What foods to eat, how to prepare them, and an understanding of why you should share them in family and community have been embedded in cultural traditions since the dawn of human society.

One hundred years ago all we ate was local, organic food; grass-fed, real, whole food. There were no fast-food restaurants, there was no junk food, there was no frozen food -- there was just what your mother or grandmother made. Most meals were eaten at home. In the modern age that tradition, that knowledge, is being lost.

The sustainability of our planet, our health, and our food supply are inextricably linked. The ecology of eating -- the importance of what you put on your fork -- has never been more critical to our survival as a nation or as a species. The earth will survive our self-destruction. But we may not.

Common sense and scientific research lead us to the conclusion that if we want healthy bodies we must put the right raw materials in them: real; whole, local; fresh; unadulterated; unprocessed; and chemical-, hormone- and antibiotic-free food. There is no role for foreign molecules such as trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup, or for industrially developed and processed food that interferes with our biology at every level.

That is why I believe the most important and the most powerful tool you have to change your health and the world is your fork. Imagine an experiment -- let's call it a celebration: We call upon the people of the world to join together and celebrate food for one week. For one week or even one day, we all eat breakfast and dinner at home with our families or friends. For one week we all eat only real, whole, fresh food. Imagine for a moment the power of the fork to change the world.

The extraordinary thing is that we have the ability to move large corporations and create social change by our collective choices. We can reclaim the family dinner, reviving and renewing it. Doing so will help us learn how to find and prepare real food quickly and simply, teach our children by example how to connect, build security, safety and social skills, meal after meal, day after day, year after year.

Here are some tips that will help you take back the family dinner in your home starting today.

Reclaim Your Kitchen

Throw away any foods with high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated fats or sugar or fat as the first or second ingredient on the label. Fill your shelves with real fresh, whole, local foods when possible. And join a community support agriculture network to get a cheaper supply of fresh vegetables weekly or frequent farmers markets.

Reinstate the Family Dinner

Read Laurie David's "The Family Dinner".

She suggests the following guidelines: Make a set dinnertime, no phones or texting during dinner, everyone eats the same meal, no television, only filtered or tap water, invite friends and family, everyone clean up together.

No matter how modest the meal, create a special place to sit down together, and set the table with care and respect. Savor the ritual of the table. Mealtime is a time for empathy and generosity, a time to nourish and communicate.

You can make this a family activity, and it does not need to take a ton of time. Keep meals quick and simple.

This is the most nutritious, tastiest, environmentally friendly food you will ever eat.

Conserve, Compost and Recycle

Bring your own shopping bags to the market, recycle your paper, cans, bottles and plastic and start a compost bucket (and find where in your community you can share you goodies).

Invest in Food

We should treat it that way. Americans currently spend less than10 percent of their income on food, while most European's spend about 20 percent of their income on food. We will be more nourished by good food than by more stuff. And we will save ourselves much money and costs over our lifetime.

Mark Hyman, M.D. is a practicing physician, founder of The UltraWellness Center , a four-time New York Times bestselling author , and an international leader in the field of Functional Medicine . You can follow him on Twitter , connect with him on LinkedIn , watch his videos onYouTube , become a fan on Facebook , and subscribe to his newsletter .