EVERY MURDERER HAS M.O.M.

CLUE®, one of America's favorite board games, was created in 1944 in England by Anthony Ernest Pratt.  Pratt received a patent for the game, which he named CLUEDO.  He sold the game to Waddington Games, but it was not launched until 1949 due to post-war shortages of various materials.  Parker Brothers obtained the U.S. rights to CLUE® from Waddington's in 1949.  Hasbro now owns Parker Brothers.  CLUE® is sold in over 40 countries from Brazil to Sweden, New Zealand to Abu Dhabi. The same successful murder-detection formula seems to work well in any language. 

 

Pratt described himself as "an introvert full of ruminations, speculations and imaginative notions".  Who knew that meant murder and mayhem? 

The object of play is to discover who murdered Mr. Boddy, where he was murdered and with what.  In the UK, Dr. Black is always dead.

One of the few pictures of Dr. Black

 

Mr. Boddy

Players strategically move around the nine rooms and secret passages of a mansion as Miss Scarlett, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock or Professor Plum. 

 

Weapons are the wrench, rope, candlestick, revolver, dagger or lead pipe. 

 

My playmates and I used to play it for hours.  It was always the perfect thing for a rainy Saturday afternoon.

 

I'm not sure how modern kids view the game.  After 60 years of Perry Mason, Columbo, Rockford Files, Magnum PI, Law and Order, CSI, and Criminal Minds, everyone knows that the solution of every murder case requires that the perp must have the Means, the Opportunity and the Motive to have murdered the victim . . . M.O.M.

Will 21^st Century kids immediately spot the lack of motive in Clue?

Why Dr. Black or Mr. Boddy were murdered remains a mystery.

 

Little Bo Peep and the Lost Porridge

Easter is not complete without an Easter basket.  I think the 'bead and pin' basket fits the bill quite nicely.

 

The basket pictured above is a fabulous foot tall and made in the 1950's.  Called a Victorian Bride Basket or Little Bo Peep basket, the bottom is open, so it can be slipped over a narrow bud vase.

 

I think Little Bo Peep would have loved it, but would not have been able to figure out why her flowers kept falling out of the bottom.  She was quite the dim bulb.

Pay attention:

'Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them.'

What? They're big fat puffs of wooly animal! It's not like she dropped her contact in the grass. Sheep are not exactly known for sprinting.  They stand around eating all day and maybe saunter a bit.  How far could they go?  Did she even try to find them? Did she look in the next meadow?  Did she look behind her?

What a lazy pill.  I hope she got a punishment.  Like no porridge for supper.

That would have meant English porridge made by boiling barley flour and water.  ICK.

It's not much of a punishment to miss that tasty treat, but not so with Norwegian porridge. 

Norwegian porridge, called Rømmegrøt, is a thick, warming, filling supper dish that, like many traditional ethnic dishes, is a 'love it' or 'hate it' menu item.

I wholeheartedly vote YUM!  It's perfect for evenings when you are completely snowed in.  Pretend you are in a cozy Norwegian mountain cabin and enjoy your supper.

 

              

Good grief!  How do you pronounce Rømmegrøt?

ROOM uh groot (Roll your R's, ignore the funky Norwegian O's and you're pretty close)

 

 

What's in it?

1/2 Liter (2 C + 2 T) Full Fat Sour Cream 

1/2 Liter (2 C + 2 T) Whole Milk

2 Deciliters (1/2 C) All-purpose White Flour   

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

Cinnamon

Butter

 

Now What?

Heat the sour cream to a boil and boil for about 3 minutes.

Lower the heat and stir in half of the flour.

Stir until there are no lumps.  Try not to lose interest.

Stir in the rest of the flour and milk little by little until the porridge is thick and silky and “hangs” on the spoon.

Bring to a boil.

 

And then?

Serve with sugar, cinnamon and butter.  Makes enough for four people or go ahead and just be a pig.

 

Donkeys and Elephants

I think the Republican Elephant and Democrat Donkey have outlived their usefulness.

 

The cute mascots, originally sketched by Thomas Nast in the 1800's seem worn out and not particularly descriptive of either party.

 

 

 

Let's pick something new, like the Republican Rottweilers and the Democrat Dalmations. 
 

Both run around making a lot of noise and neither is very good at getting things done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The World's Worst Recipe

Autumn is on its way.  It's time to start looking for that other glove.  It's also time to start thinking about tummy-warming comfort food. 

In the 1960's, our family had a favorite.  Fondue

 

We were active and frequent participants in the craze.  We dipped color-coded long forks into chunks of lean beef and plunged them into boiling peanut oil.  We tried ... not always successfully ... to avoid burning ourselves and each other. Dangerous food is always fun.

 

We also regularly treated ourselves to cheese fondue, made in a crockery fondue pot. We loved this in the sixties. Of course we also ate Spam.

Make this if you dare.

BROCCOLI-CHEESE FONDUE

• 1 pound Velveeta cheese.  Don't be frightened.  It will appear to be made of rubber.
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup.  Don't be frightened.  It is beige and gelatinous goop. 

• Pinch of garlic salt
• 1 box frozen chopped broccoli, thawed.  Cheap generic is preferable.
• Small package of slivered almonds
• White wine that has been in the refrigerator a month

Cook and drain broccoli.
Melt cheese and mushroom goop over low heat.  
Add broccoli, slivered almonds, garlic salt and a shot of the wine.  
Serve in a crockery fondue pot with bite-sized chunks of stale french bread.

It's a great way to eat your weekly limit of sodium and fat in one meal.

 

If there is any left over, you can always heat it up and pour it over slices of fried Spam.

 

 

 

 

Hey Quaker! These Cookies are Nothing to Smile About.

My kid taste buds kicked in when I saw the ad on TV for my favorite treat, the baked perfection known as the oatmeal raisin cookie.  Even better, they were made by none other than Quaker Oats, Emperor of Oatdom.

My mother used to bake my favorite cookie using the recipe inside the lid of the familiar cylindrical paperboard box with the smiley Quaker man on the front.

The cookies were chewy and moist and yum yum yummy.  No nuts.  No chocolate chips.  Just raisins.  I am an oatmeal raisin cookie purist.

In the grocery store, I hunted in the cookie maze until I spotted the smiley Quaker himself.  Oh joy!

Then gloom.  The package said banana nut.  A travesty. 

It's neighbor said chocolate almond.  Heresy.

Next to chocolate almond was cranberry and yogurt. 

Was I sleepwalking in a bad cookie nightmare?

Not wanting to cry in the store, I frantically pushed packages around until I finally found one on the very back of the shelf that said Raisins.

Oh joy!

Of course I couldn't wait until I got home to try one.  I tore open the box on my way to the car, then tore open the individual wrapper. 

The first bite!

Then gloom.  The soft baked object from the Quaker package on the cookie shelf in the cookie aisle tasted nothing like my mom's oatmeal raisin cookie.  Not chewy.  Not oaty.  Not even close.  It was soft.  It was dry.  It was gummy.  It had a weird flavor.  It was ick ick icky. 

I threw the rest away.

The box revealed why these faux oatmeal cookies are such a disappointment.  The Quaker changed his own recipe.  His new recipe has more than 50 ingredients.  This is it:

Whole grain oat flour

Enriched flour (Bleached and unbleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron,

      thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)

Raisins

Whole grain rolled oats

Sugar

Whole wheat flour

Palm and high oleic canola oil (with TBHQ preservative)

Fructose

Invert sugar syrup

Mid-oleic sunflower oil

Raisin paste

Inulin

Granola (whole grain rolled oats, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, sugar,

        partially hydrogenated soybean oil, honey, brown sugar, molasses)

Dried eggs

Modified corn starch

Corn syrup

Poly dextrose

Leavening agents (sodium bicarbonate, ammonium bicarbonate)

Oat fiber

Propylene glycol

Mono and di-esters of fat and fatty acids

Mono and digycerides

Soy lecithin

BHT

Citric Acid

Wheat gluten

Molasses

Calcium phosphate

Salt

Natural flavor

Cinnamon

Allspice

Corn starch

Enzymes (1422-RV1)

Here is the original recipe, first printed on the box in 1955.  It has 11 ingredients.  It still makes my perfect favorite cookie:

2 cups flour
½ t salt
½ t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
½ t ground cloves
1 cup vegetable shortening
1 ½ cups brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
2/3 C sour milk (make by adding scant T lemon juice to milk)
1 1/3 cups Quaker oats
1 cup raisins

Sift first five ingredients together.

Cream shortening and sugar. 

Add eggs and beat until smooth.

Add dry ingredients in small amounts alternatively with milk.

Stir in last three ingredients.

Drop by teaspoon onto greased cookie sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees until golden and springy to the touch, usually for 8 minutes.

Cool slightly.

Pour the milk.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.