My wife is going to be upset at this—we're going to have to have a couple more kids, just so I have an excuse to take advantage of the Geologic and Paleontologic Cook Book. It's got recipes for Ammonites in a Blanket, Cephalopod Celery, a Cheese and Bugles Coral Reer, an Edible Devonian Marine Ecosystem (I've always wanted to eat a whole ecosystem), Trilobite Cookies, and much more. This is wonderfully kid-oriented…too bad my kiddies are all turning into serious-minded old adults.
But wait! I'm immature enough for a whole family of kids all on my own! I also do the cooking…I think we're having Cephalopods in a Blanket for dinner tonight.
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Since our recent trip to Vermont, SteelyKid has been obsessed with building blanket forts. These have mostly been in the living room, leading to a bit of angst at the end of the day when we need the blankets back.
Turn the blanket 45 degrees and fold down the farthest corner. Place baby with neck over the fold. Bring one side of the blanket across baby and tuck in behind. Bring lower extension of blanket up over the baby, and tuck one side into the same side you tucked the side into.
Within 15 minutes of my 6:00 am flight from Austin to Baltimore, I knew it was going to be a long, COLD, 3-hour trip. I'd already turned off the overhhad vents to stop the frigid air from blowing on me, and contorted myself into a ball on my seat trying to stay warm.
"My girl, my girl, don't you lie to me,
tell me where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, in the pines, where the Sun don't ever shine,
Damn you, this made me realise I was laughing so hard at Conservapedia that I've missed lunch--and I'm in France, where missing a meal (ought to be) a crime--but hey, those Trilobite Cookies look promising. And Professor Hart's tagline is great:
How about cooking for grandkids? Or is it too soon for that?
Those trilobite cookies look amazing, and I see just how to do them without using butter. Coolness. I want a paleoconfectionary laboratory of my very own!
The "Note" at the bottom of the trilobite cookie page made me laugh so unexpectedly I aspirated some saliva and now I can't stop coughing. My lungs don't like you very much right now, Prof. PZ! :)
Any ideas for how to improvise one of those bizarre dough-syringe contraptions he uses?
Even I'm not geeky-baker enough to buy a whole weird machine just for cookie trilobites.
If it will make things easier on your wife, you can borrow my kids. I know they'd love the trilobite cookies! Mmmm.
Trilobites are definitely best if served on the 1/3 shell...
MissPrism, I wondered the same thing. I also noticed that the contraption he had looked a great deal like a caulk gun, so I wonder if one took a Pringles can, cut a hole in the lid to the appropriate squiggly shape, cut out the bottom to make it condensable, then filled it with dough and put it in a caulk gun...
My husband will be out of town this weekend and not available to laugh at me, so I'm tempted to actually try this. :)
To compliment your creations, don't forget the Octodog. It's the Frankfurter Converter that turns your wiener into an eight-armed wonder. :D
Carlie: a caulk gun works pretty well as a cookie press.
And many things will curl up in a tentacular manner if you cut them to expose surfaces of different structure/composition than the outside, then dip them in cold water. This works on many kinds of shredded vegetables, and probably on sausages too.
Okay, I'm all over it. I have a 9-year-old son who has an autographed picture of Paul Cereno on his bureau and still claims he's going to be a paleontologist when he grows up. I've bookmarked the book of cookery. TX.
This is so cool! We've been making trilobite cookies for awhile, which made a trip to the Smithsonian even MORE fun (as if that place could get any better) but Ammonites in a Blanket is going to SO rock my boy's world!
Cookie presses can be had quite inexpensively, Miss Prism. Check your local supermarket.