Useful links for bookmaking in the classroom Wednesday, Feb 3 2010 

Bookmaking and Public Appearances and lesson plans , , , , tiedyefor 1:22 pm

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting a session at the ESOL Conference at Kennesaw State University.  In truth, I had contemplated presenting back in October or November – whenever they were calling for presenters.  Then, I forgot about it – things are moving so fast this year!

I thought that, since I had not sent in an official presenter application, that KSU had forgotten about me, too.  So, imagine my surprise last month when I got an e-mail asking for my presenter information…  I decided to go ahead and go for it.

I had planned vaguely last fall to maybe give a presentation on making mini books in the classroom.  I have collected all sorts of resources on the internet, as well as bought many MANY possible supplies for making books.  So I gathered as much as I could find:  student examples, reference books, the photo albums and other book vehicles I had accumulated over the years.

Then, I worked and worked to plan on what handouts to provide with my session.  I included information on folding 8, 12, and 16 page books from one piece of paper, and I demonstrated these using LARGE pieces of sketchpad paper in the front of the class.  I also had a last minute inspiration to use some sentence strips to make little accordion books.  There were 35+ attendees, and I ran out of handouts because I had only made 35 folders of paper.

I worked very hard to compile a list of internet resources on the more accessible and fun mini book projects that I could find.  I told the attendees that I would make them available online.  Here we go (this may take more than one post):

8 page mini book:  There are many MANY sites that give instruction on how to make a book out of 1 piece of paper.  Some people call it a “hot dog” book.  I realize now that, since I gave people a copy of the folding directions, I didn’t include a link to folding directions.  Here is a link from Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord’s wonderful website called Making Books with Children.  At the bottom of the page, you can click on a link to print a PDF document of the instructions.

Pocket Mod:  I could probably write an entire post on the wonders of the Pocket Mod, the free recyclable personal organizer, and I may.  One day.  For now, if you go to PocketMod.com, you can explore the different types of pages you can add to this little 8 page book – made, of course, from one printed page of paper.  You can even print out 8 tiny copies of the folding instructions for projects on 8 page books in your classroom!

That is only the tip of the iceberg – there is also a free piece of software called the PDF to PocketMod Converter (click on the link to the right of the page to download).  With this utility, you can type up 8 pages of your own and convert them to a mini book!  The only caveat is that you have to first convert your 8 page Microsoft Word document into an Adobe Acrobat document, or PDF.  If you have a Mac, there is already a utility to do this.  If you don’t, then you need to find a PDF converter to download.  I have BullZip PDF on my computer.

Additional useful links:

  • Eduzone has a tutorial on formatting text on a computer for a mini book using Microsoft Word, I think.
  • ReadWriteThink.com has a “staple-less mini book generator”  that allows students to format their own mini book, then print it out.
  • ArtJunction.org has a tutorial on making an 8 page paper bag book.  There are also story ideas.

Now, I am going to just try and put the rest of my links up – I did categorize them.  They are by NO means exhaustible in scope.

16 page mini books – a step up from the 8 page.  These are also called maze books or meander books:

Accordion books – there are LOTS of links on these:

Stapled books – these are simply made by folding paper in half and stapling the “spine”.  They are also called “chap” books:

Books in a Box – Most of these are accordion style, but some of the boxes are hand-made – you could put other kinds of books in a box, too.

I still have more to list, but I need to sign off and continue later!

 

New Vintage Loteria Designs: La Muerte and El Cupido Thursday, Jan 7 2010 

CafePress and Loteria and Maison Celeste , , tiedyefor 11:43 pm

Just in time for Valentine's Day!

I love my Vintage Loteria Cupid!  I don’t know if it is a boy or a girl… The image is from an old Loteria set that I bought at a flea market in Mexico.  This version has been around for a long time, and has been copied so many times that the pictures are rather grainy and murky.  I love building them up from 3/4 inch by 1 1/2 inches to a usable size, then cleaning them up and making them beautiful again.

I think I am getting the hang of standardizing my image sets for CafePress.  I upload about 5 huge files to my image basket for each design I make.  The sizes of the images range from 9 by 12 inches to 23 by 35 inches.  I have found that the rectangles do well for shirts and oval objects, but the posters need specific measurements to get rid of any white edges.  The squares work well for circular items as well as squares, so I haven’t gone to the trouble yet of tailoring my designs to a circle shape (or an oval) yet.

Death in a pink frame...

My other design is La Muerte – which is seen in a lot of Loteria decks (The Cupid is not as common).  I like this image, which is a little more dynamic than the traditional standing Death in the Don Clemente deck.  I also liked the blue color in the background as opposed to the pink on the D.C. deck.  I chose elements that bring out the skeleton’s colors, as well as the scythe.  This is the 9 by 12 inch image.  The larger image for the poster has a pattern of colorful sugar skulls on the top and bottom, with a turquoise stripe coordinating the whole thing.

I like the idea of mixing up the designs in my shop, so that everything doesn’t just have the same image.  For one thing, one image won’t do for all of the items.  I have learned that over the years after my original impulsive shop opening with my Valentine designs.

I have 10 designs right now in the Vintage Shop.  After I’ve done two more, I can think about designing a calendar.  I have been selling quite a few calendars with my Milagros and Loteria themes.  It is very gratifying!  Here is a link to the Calendar Shop.

 

Three Kings Day is today Wednesday, Jan 6 2010 

Food and Mexico and Recipes and School and Slow Cooking and drinks and teaching , , , , tiedyefor 9:11 pm

I bought two rosca de reyes yesterday at the Buford Highway Farmers Market.  Today is Three Kings Day and also the first day back for the students.  I thought that I would treat them to a little celebration.  By the way, I may not have been looking in the right places in the past for rosca, because it now seems pretty easy to find.  This morning, when I went to get serving plates at WalMart, they had them too.  They were bigger than the ones I bought for the same price.

While looking around for juice boxes or something for the kids to drink with their cake, I made up my mind to make some atole to serve as well.  The tradition is to drink chocolate atole, called champurrado, with the cake.  I bought some packets to make rice atole, knowing that I would have to augment the chocolate factor, and add sugar as well.  When I got back to the internet, I found that I had all of the necessary ingredients at home to make atole with harina de masa.  I still needed milk.

Here are some links on atole, while I’m at it:

I worked on the atole for a while, using bowls, two different sized pots, a strainer (to get the broken cinnamon sticks out), and whisks and spoons.  I can’t really describe what I did, but I followed the package directions and kept adding Hershey’s cocoa, brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon and vanilla and even a little more milk until I got something that was thick without being chocolate pudding.  Then I wondered how I was going to serve it hot at school…

I washed out an Igloo drink cooler and put it in there.  Then, my mother came up with the brilliant idea of using my slow cooker.  That’s what I did.  I brought it to school, poured the hot chocolate liquid in, and set it on high until it got hot, then turned it on low to keep warm until after lunch.  Worked like a charm.

We only ate one of the king cakes in class – there were two little babies in it.  That’s strange to me, because there is only one in a Louisiana or French cake.  I have another left over.  Maybe I’ll offer it up to the teachers, or maybe I will make bread pudding out of it.

Two years ago, I made bread pudding from pan de muertos.  I think I will do something similar with the king cake.  It already has candied fruit on the top. I may take that off and chop it up instead of putting in the ate candy as I did in the recipe below.

Bread of the Dead Pudding

1 pan de muertos (large) cut into 1/2-inch cubes
8 large eggs
2 cups whipping cream
2 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar and 1 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup calvados (apple brandy) or dark rum
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup ate candy (or buy a brick of ate and cut into cubes)
1/2 cup raisins (I only had brown, but golden might be nice)

Preparation
Place bread cubes in 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan. Whisk eggs, whipping cream, milk, sugar, calvados, and vanilla extract in large bowl to blend. Pour over bread cubes (I used a square baking pan and was afraid it would overflow, so I used a 1/2 cup measure to add the custard a little at a time.  I worked out perfectly) Let stand 30 minutes, occasionally pressing bread into custard mixture. (Can be prepared 2 hours ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake until pudding is set in center, about 50 to 60 minutes. Cool slightly. Serve warm.

Happy Three Kings Day!

 

King Cake, anyone? Sunday, Jan 3 2010 

Blogging and Food and France and Mexico and Recipes and teaching and travel , , tiedyefor 12:22 am

roscas at the bakery

I am thinking about finding or making a king cake to bring to school on Wednesday.  It is Epiphany.  I remember well my different encounters with King Cake.  I am from Lafayette, Louisiana, so I have had all sorts of New Orleans style king cakes.  Being a gourmand, I have to admit that my favorite kind has always been one with as much cream cheese, fruit filling and icing as possible.

When I was living in France, I got turned on to the galette des rois, which is a puff pastry confection with frangipane inside.  Frangipane is a type of almond paste – coarser and more natural than marzipan.  I think it is also put in almond croissants.

When I came to Georgia, I had a great time sharing the king cake tradition with my students and friends.  I even would go all the way to New Orleans for Mardi Gras “just” to bring back kings cakes for my high school French students.  I know, the sacrifices we teachers have to make…  The most notable year was when I transported the aforementioned loaded cakes home and forgot to keep them horizontal.  Can I just say that we had a major collapse on our hands?

I used to have dinner parties in January, and I was so excited to find a bakery in Atlanta that made the frangipane filled cakes.  They were more expensive, so I was loathe to get those for my 6th graders that I taught at the time.  But I did buy a couple for one of my dinner parties.  My French friend clucked disapprovingly at my addition of a raspberry coulis, but I thought it went very well with the cake.

I only recently became familiar with the Mexican version of the king cake, called a rosca de reyes.  It is a relatively plain concoction – a yeast bread with fruit and maybe some nuts that is garnished with candied fruit.  I just happened to be driving home one January 6th when I passed a panaderia in Marietta.  They were making hundreds of roscas, and they were selling like, um, well – hotcakes.

I purchased a couple – one to share with my colleagues at school and a smaller one for my students.  I think they were pretty expensive:  $20 for the small one and $30 for the larger one.  Before I went home that night, for some reason I stopped by my favorite taqueria to have a couple of tacos de lengua.  I happened to mention to the proprietor that I had snagged these cakes on the other side of town, and she ended up buying one from me.

I was looking for recipes online and found this little group forum invitation.  You may go to the website, but here is the deal:

How to participate:
Please read and follow the instructions below. King Cake 2009

  • Bake or buy a King Cake, take pictures (if possible) and blog about the cake and your family tradition and don’t forget to mention who was the “crowned” king
  • Please link back to this announcement in your post, and eventually to the roundup.
  • Fill in the form below and your post will be listed in the roundup.
  • Last day of submission is January 8

If you click on the link to the right and look at last year’s contributors, you will see that there are all sorts of cake traditions for Epiphany.  I just read that even panettone – that Italian fruitcake that is on sale now everywhere – has been used for king’s cake as well.

Here are some more:  The Bolo Rei – from Portugal, the Tortell from Catalonia, Vasilopita from Greece, Banitsa from Bulgaria, etc.

Maybe I’ll make my old cheap stand-by.  One year, I purchased cans and cans of pop and serve cinnamon rolls.  It was easy:  I just opened up the cans, separated the rolls, and arranged them in circles or ovals – just like a real king’s cake.  I made some extra icing and either colored the icing green, purple, and yellow (Mardi Gras colors) or used sprinkles in those colors on white icing.  It was pretty good, too.  I just waited to hide the token or baby until after the cakes were done.

Hey, I just found a similar recipe from Sandra Lee of Semi-Homemade!   Here is another using crescent rolls and a filling…  I did NOT, however, find and “easy” rosca de reyes recipe.  Hmph.

 

My New Year’s Day Menu Friday, Jan 1 2010 

Food and Recipes and Vacation , tiedyefor 9:21 pm

Okay, I gave a little thought to our New Year’s Day menu – since I was able to stop by an open Publix after I went to see New Moon.  I already had two pork tenderloins (next time I buy from Costco, I am going to open the little vacuum sealed packages of two and separate the loins out), but I had no greens and no black-eyed peas.

I didn’t even try to find fresh black-eyed peas – 5:00 PM on New Year’s Eve is not the time to be picky!  I got two cans of the Publix brand.  I was able to get my hands on the last bag of Glory brand Collard Greens, and I was set.  Here is what I fixed:

First, I made the Cornbread.   I used this recipe from Celiac.com.   It calls for ground corn meal (I used the Bob’s Red Mill Medium Ground Corn Meal that has been in my freezer for a while) and masa harina (or, Harina de Masa – I used Maseca) as a flour substitute.  I didn’t have any buttermilk, so I substituted SaCo Cultured Buttermilk Blend (I checked the ingredients, and they look to be gluten-free).

The only part of the procedure that needed to change in the recipe was to add the Buttermilk Blend (which is dry) to the dry ingredients.  Then I added the water to the eggs and stirred them up.

I decided to write down my recipe and procedure, since I substituted and didn’t use a cast iron pan.  Try it:  It is a good recipe – my mother found the original last year and used it to make a great cornbread dressing.

Corn Bread #2.1 (Gluten-Free)

2 cups cornmeal (Bob’s Red Mill Medium Ground)
1 cup Masa Harina (Mexican-style corn flour used for tortillas)
8 Tablespoons SaCo Cultured Buttermilk Blend (4 TBSP. per cup of water)
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups water
Canola oil spray for the glass pan

In one bowl, combine dry ingredients and cut in oil with a pastry blender (I used a fork). In another bowl, crack 3 eggs and beat with a fork.  Add 2 cups of water and beat with a fork until the eggs and water are mixed.  Then stir the egg mixture into the dry mixture and blend with the fork.

The original recipe calls for a cast iron pan, which I don’t have.  I used a glass pan, about 7 or 8 inches square.  I sprayed it with Canola spray and tried to melt butter in the bottom of the pan, but ended up dumping most of the butter out.

Bake at 425F degrees for 25 minutes, then turn and bake 15 minutes more or until done.

While the cornbread was baking, I made the Collard Greens.  I chopped and sauteed 1/2 red onion, 5 mini yellow bell peppers, 3 cloves of garlic, and 15-20 slices of Hormel Pepperoni (the Original kind – the Turkey is not gluten-free) in 1/4 cup of olive oil and a dollop of dark sesame oil.  When the veggies were soft, I added 4 cups of Organic Chicken Broth, 1/2 Tbsp. of Better than Bouillon Ham base, a couple of shots of balsamic vinaigrette and Wheat Free Tamari sauce.  After the liquid came to a boil, I added the bag of Glory Turnip Greens and tossed them in the liquid.  Then I lowered the heat and simmered the mixture until greens looked done.

Last night, I massaged the pork tenderloin with Williams-Sonoma Coffee and Spice Rub.  Then I added a little olive oil and lime juice and salt and rubbed that in as well.  I put it in the fridge overnight.  Today, I cooked the tenderloin in the oven – it only took about 20-25 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 425 degrees.

Since Williams-Sonoma seems to have discontinued this item (even with a recipe on their website that calls for it), I found someone on Recipezaar who made his own version:

Ancho Chile and Coffee Rub -

1 Tablespoon French Roast coffee beans
1 teaspoon dried ancho chile powder
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds

To prepare the rub:  Place the ingredients in a heated heavy skillet.  Shake the mixture over the heat and allow to toast for 1 minute or until mixture begins to release a strong aroma.  Pour into a spice or coffee grinder and grind to a coarse powder.

Finally, I strained and dumped two cans black-eyed peas with a can of chopped tomatoes and mild green chiles, one cube each of Dorot garlic and cilantro, and a cup of chicken broth with some of the collard green drippings.

It all came out great and there are plenty of leftovers, since there are only two of us here.

The only New YAmbrosia: A New Year's Tradition?ear’s Meal traditional item that I compromised on was the Ambrosia Fruit Salad.  Ambrosia is a fruit salad made with orange sections, coconut, and maraschino cherries (some people add pineapple).  My family used to have it for dessert – whether we wanted it or not – becaus it represented happiness in the new year.  I didn’t want to make Ambrosia, mainly because my husband avoids oranges for his gastric reflux and I didn’t want to eat that much salad myself.  So I came upon a compromise.  My husband downloaded a song or two from the band Ambrosia.  Clever, huh?

Then, while I was looking up links on New Year’s traditional foods, I could find nothing about having ambrosia on New Year’s Day.  It was mentioned as a dessert item on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but none of the sites I found required it for a New Year’s meal. I didn’t find it under “lucky foods“, either.  When I mentioned this omission to my husband, however, he asserted that his family also ate it as a New Year’s tradition.  Does anyone else have an opinion?

Well, it sounds like my husband is dismantling the Christmas tree, so I guess that signals the end of the holiday season.  I still have two more days of vacation, then two days of inservice at school before the children come back.  They come back on Three Kings’ Day, so I may have to find a Rosca de los Reyes to serve.

 

House of the Scorpion Loteria Card 3 Thursday, Dec 31 2009 

Books and House of the Scorpion and Loteria and teaching , , tiedyefor 1:49 pm

El Latigo Negro

This is another of the Loteria cards that I designed digitally for my Loteria Card Lesson plan based on the book House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer.  The first card was called Durango, and the second was called Property of the Alacran Estate.  Each card is meant to represent an aspect of the story – and I have read this book and listened to it on CD over 50 times, so my references can be pretty detailed.

This card represents El Latigo Negro.  When Matt Alacran (the clone) was left alone at the Alacran Estate – when the other children were away at boarding school – he relied on a rich fantasy life to entertain himself.  He would often pretend to be one of a few television heroes that were played on the estate television.  Since El Patron insisted that life at the Estate be kept the same as when he was a child, these TV series were rather vintage – maybe from the 1950’s or 1960’s.

El Latigo Negro was the only character I was able to find on the internet.  He was a Zorro-like character who wielded a long whip instead of a gun, I think.  That actually makes me think of a great George Hamilton film called Zorro, The Gay Blade because the gay brother used a whip…

But I don’t think that this is what Mrs. Farmer was referring to when she referenced the character.  ;-)   I don’t even know if she had anyone specific in mind.

It is difficult to find information on El Latigo Negro, but I found a very interesting blog post here written by an aficionado of old B movies.  According to that post, El Latigo Negro was honored in two series.  The one referenced in the post – I think – was part of a trilogy made in the late seventies.  But there was also a trilogy of films made in the 1950’s, as well as a series of comic books based on the character.

The other two heroes mentioned were Don Segundo Sombra (Sir Second Shadow) and El Sacerdote Volante (The Flying Priest).  The Don Segundo Sombra I found was based on a 1926 novel about a gaucho, so I don’t think that was who Matt admired.  The description in the book says that Matt’s Don Segundo drove sports cars and seemed more like a James Bond character.

As for The Flying Priest, I think she made him up, but it makes a great visual – a flying priest who flings holy water on demons and burns them like acid.  Hee hee.

 

Aguas Frescas with Alcohol Wednesday, Dec 30 2009 

Recipes and drinks , , , tiedyefor 11:33 pm

Of course, I looked for aguas frescas that were used as alcoholic drink

Tamarind Margarita

mixers. In downtown Norcross, a Mexican restaurant called Zapata served me a tamarind margarita that was pretty good. And, in looking for a recipe for that, my search turned up with recipes for a Gitatini (a Ginger Tamarind cocktail), a Tamarind Martini (from Cooking Light), a Tamarind and Vodka Cocktail (served in a pitcher), and Tamarind Borracho (drunken tamarind). Oh, here’s a Tamarind Margarita with a Chili Rim… Quite a few of the recipes call for Tamarind Concentrate, which I just found in an ethnic grocery.

Of course, since aguas frescas are basically fruit juices, you can just add alcohol to them, and Boom! – you’ve got a drink.  But I thought that I would look to see if anyone had purposefully created a cocktail using aguas frescas as a base.

Here are some more cocktail ideas:

Aguas at the Loteria Grill

I found an Australian company called Sunbeat that makes condensed syrups in exotic flavors.  They have PDF files of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks using all sorts of unusual ingredients, such as dragon fruit, hibiscus, rooibus, lemongrass and ginger.

I came across that site while looking for a Hibiscus version of a Sea Breeze coctail, which is made with Cranberry Juice.  I also found a New Orleans restaurant called The Green Goddess which has a very unusual food and drink menu.  I found this description: Organic Tru Vodka, Hibiscus from Sudan on the Nile River, Acai Juice from the Brazilian Rainforest,  finished with Jamaican Pink Ting.

Okay, I am sure that there are other recipes out there, but I need to wrap this up.  I have a tendency to search things to death – does anyone else do that?

 

Aguas Frescas – other than Horchata Tuesday, Dec 29 2009 

Mexico and Recipes and Restaurants and drinks , , , tiedyefor 11:24 pm

My first experience with trying to make aguas frescas was in the interest of my Spanish Exploratory class -  I developed this day where we ate “Crazy Mexican Sweets.”  The Klass mixes were the first I tried and it was horchata.  First thing I learned after mixing it in a bottle was that sugar MUST be added.  I had some Mexican children in Spanish Exploratory (which cannot be avoided in the scheduling world) and someone politely tasted it and shared that info with me.

So, yes, there are mixes for aguas frescas that are little more that Kool Aid.  Here is a link so you can see all of the Klass mixes.  I think that the tamarindo and jamaica are passable, but skip the limon – it is very VERY acidic.

Next on the  list are bottled aguas frescas – which are a pretty good substitute if you don’t want to take the time to make them yourself.  They are also good to bring to a tasting – for example, if your Spanish students wanted to have a food day.  Bonadea Drinks offers 11 flavors, including pepino (cucumber?) and has very clean, slick packaging.  It is sweetened with agave for you health nuts out there.  Morela Aguas Frescas has many flavors as well.  Cañita  Brands offers only jamaica and tamarindo.  Even Kern’s Nectars is getting into the act with jamaica (full of antioxidants!), tamarindo and limon.

Okay, if you don’t know what an agua fresca is, it’s basically a drink made of pureed fruit, sugar and water.  The mixture is blended together and strained to make a refreshing beverage.  For further enlightenment, here is a Los Angeles Times article on aguas frescas – and another from the L. A. Times on where to find freshly made ones.  Apparently, they take their A.F. (aguas frescas)  seriously in L. A.

Here is a Guide to Mexican Fruits from MexConnect.com.  This is for your reference.  After you have read all of the enticing and creative recipes here, you may want to personalize your own fruit!  To get you started, here is a Basic Agua Fresca Recipe with variations.  Here is another page with the basics – they call them Mexican Coolers.

What follows is basically a collection of recipes and variations I have found on the internet through hours of research…

While I was researching, I came across Rachel Laudan’s blog.  She has a lot of posts about exotic foods, but if you click on her Aguas Frescas tag, you can find several unusual drink recipes.  Here is one for Agua de Viernes de Dolores which I think is colored from beet root but it has all sorts of fruit and even shredded iceberg lettuce in it!  Another unusual agua is made with Apricot Leather – it actually has Middle Eastern provenance.

Finally, I did an Amazon.com search to see if anyone had a book out yet on aguas frescas.  I found Cool Waters: Refreshing Homemade Thirst Quenchers by Brian Preston-Campbell – This looks like a really good book with recipes for flavored waters and ice cubes.

P.S. – I did find an interesting variation on Horchata from a restaurant called Guelaguetza in Los Angeles.  It has chopped prickly pear fruit (tuna) and pecans (nueces) on top.  Yum!

 

Common Themes in Magic Tree House and Time Warp Trio:Part 2 Monday, Dec 14 2009 

Books and School and teaching , , tiedyefor 3:10 pm

Wow!  It was three months ago today that I wrote Part 1 about common themes and topics in the Magic Tree House and Time Warp Trio Series.  I really like these books because they teach history and culture (the MTH series also addresses science and nature), as well as reading.  Here are the other topics I gleaned from my research.

Cowboys and Indians:   In the Magic Tree House Series, there are a couple of possible books to be read together with the Time Warp Trio book.  Perhaps it could be the project for a group of three students.  There’s Ghost Town at Sundown, where  Jack and Annie go back to the Old West (1880?) and are accused of being horse thieves.  In Buffalo Before Breakfast, they go back to the Great Plains almost 200 years ago and meet a Lakota Sioux boy who hunts buffalo.  The activity guide for Ghost Town is here and the one for Buffalo is here.

In The Good, The Bad and The Goofy, the Time Warp Trio is transported to the Wild West.  They meet the cowboys and the Indians, showing both sides of the frontier battle.  This story is also available on the DVD Past, Present & Future.  Even though it is discontinued by the manufacturer, you may still be able to pick one up on eBay or used on Amazon.  Here is a link to the lesson plan, which has a lot of resources to go with it.

Ancient Rome and Pompeii: Vacation Under the Volcano is the Magic Tree House book that takes Jack and Annie to Pompeii – just before the volcano erupts!  There are two on-line activity resources: one here and another here.  But there is also a Magic Tree House Research Guide on Ancient Rome and Pompeii.  Be aware  that the reading level of the Research Guides is higher than that of the series books.

See You Later, Gladiator is Book 9 of the Time Warp Trio series and they go from an innocent wrestling match to the Roman Colosseum.  See You Later, Gladiator was also part of the TV series, but it is on neither of the DVDs released by that company.  There is a great lesson plan to go with it called Gladiators.

Ancient China:  Day of the Dragon King – the only thing I don’t like so much about the Magic Tree House is that sometimes they are not precise in the stating the date.  The fact that Jack and Annie go through a tomb housing clay soldiers must refer to the the terra cotta army in Xi’an.  That would be sometime after 210 B.C.  Here are the activities from the MTH site.

In contrast, the Time Warp Trio books and TV episodes give a timeline or date (usually)  to orient oneself (Orient – get it?).  Wushu Were Here, I think, is a graphic novel set in China as well.  It is set in the Tang Dynasty, which is after 600 A.D.  There is an interesting lesson plan resource with some cool ideas for further reading.

Vikings:  Vikings are fun, right?  In MTH Viking Ships at Sunrise, Jack and Annie see the Vikings attach from the island where they are land in the middle of a monastery.  I think that one of the activities highlights illuminated writing, which was done by the monks at that time.

In Viking It and Liking It, the Time Warp Trio lands on Leif Ericsson’s ship.  The story was also made into an episode on their series, which is available on Time Warp Trio:  Passport to Adventure.  The lesson plan has, among other activities, a Viking Jeopardy Game.

I still have three more to go – later!

 

Milagros as Wedding Cake Charms Monday, Dec 7 2009 

Food and Latino and milagro , , , , tiedyefor 7:11 pm

Here is a two layer cake with charms attached to ribbons

About 20 years ago or so, I had a college roommate who hailed from Abbeville, Louisiana.  She went to LSU for her “MRS” and eventually got it (him?).  When I went to her wedding reception, the first thing I learned was that she had made and decorated the entire three or four-tiered wedding cake herself (It was a red velvet – her colors for the wedding were antique white and red).  That was impressive enough – but she also introduced me to a Southern tradition I had never heard of before: the wedding cake charm pull.

Mignon Faget charm set

At one website I visited while researching this post, it is claimed that this tradition came from the French Creole settlers to Louisiana.  It is definitely more popular in the South.  In fact, the New Orleans jeweler, Mignon Faget, has a set of beautiful charms in sterling silver.  The Mignon Faget Cake Charm Set ($395) includes a Set of eight symbols:  Marriage (rings), Eternal Beauty (nautilus shell), Luck (red bean), Red Hot Romance (chili pepper), Prosperity (fleur de lis), Opportunity (moon profile), Stability (Corinthian column), True Love (heart).  Mignon Faget is an institution in New Orleans.

The most common explanation of the Wedding Cake Charm Pull is found under Victorian wedding traditions.  Ribbon pulling is a wedding tradition that can be dated back to the Victorian era when the bride would ask her baker to hide special wedding charms in a designated layer of the wedding cake. This was symbolic of the bride’s wishes of good fortune for each of her bridesmaids. Each charm is attached to a ribbon, and the ribbons are draped outward from the cake so that each bridesmaid can pull a ribbon and discover the charm that will reveal her fortune.

Each charm symbolized a different fortune. For example: an anchor symbolized adventure, the wedding ring indicated the next to marry, the four-leaf clover was an omen of good luck, etc.  Other common symbols were the coin (prosperity), a camera (fame and fortune), and the thimble (spinsterhood!).  Most people leave the thimble out…

Here are some websites that sell Wedding Cake Charms, and also provide the meanings behind each charm:

It is true that this is a good idea for other occasions.  There is a set for baby showers, graduation parties, birthday parties – my favorite was one for a little girl’s tea party.  Going with the Latino theme, it only follows that quinceaneras are next.

When I got married, I thought I would like to do something like a cake charm pull, too.  I wasn’t going to do it for the wedding itself, but thought about it for the bridesmaids’ luncheon.  It was at a Mexican restaurant called La Paz in Vinings (Georgia), where I was living at the time.  The luncheon was pretty small and intimate.  The guests were my mother, my future mother -in-law, an old friend of the family, my two bridesmaids (my sister and my best friend), and my little niece, who was going to be the flower girl.

I ordered this small, but really over-the-top chocolate cake from a great little bakery that used to be in Buckhead.  I think it was called Sweet Stuff and it may now be in Roswell.  The baker decorated the cakes with all sorts of tinsel and ribbon and it was very festive.  I tied the charms to these beautiful silk ribbon – exactly like this, but in several different color combinations. I arranged them under the cake board so they didn’t get all messy.

Isn't this pretty?

I was originally looking for milagros to use for my charms – La Paz at the time had a Mexican import store on the lower level.  I didn’t like their selection of milagros (or maybe I lacked imagination at the time) so I went with gold-toned charms instead.  But one day, I will come through with a milagro cake event.

Milagros (also known as an ex-voto or dijes) are religious folk charms that are traditionally used for healing purposes and as votive offerings in Mexico, the southern United States, other areas of Latin America, as well as parts of the Iberian peninsula. They are frequently attached onto altars, shrines, and sacred objects found in places of worship, and they are often purchased in churches, cathedrals or from street vendors.

Milagros come in a variety of shapes and dimensions and are fabricated from many different materials, depending on local customs. For example, they might be nearly flat or fully three-dimensional ; and they can be constructed from gold, silver, tin, lead, wood, bone, or wax. In Spanish, the word milagro literally means miracle or surprise.

From Teresa Villegas' Loteria installation

While I was doing my research, I decided to try searching under the terms “dijes” and “ex voto”. If you look up “dijes” on Google, you will just get standard charm bracelet charms, however.  An ex-voto can be a milagro,  an ornate heart, a painting, or some other representation of thanks or petition. It’s complicated.  For our purposes now, we are talking about the little metal charms.

Use your imagination – of course, there are lots of hearts – that’s easy.  All you have to do is provide the meaning.  There are little houses (stability), people kneeling in prayer (your prayers will be answered), horses (travel), a hen (good mother), angel or cherub (true love), a man or couple dancing…  There are also modern things like airplanes, trains, and telephones.

There are a couple of good books that can flesh out some of the symbolism for you.  I have two of those books.  I really love Milagros: A Book of Miracles by Helen Thompson.  The artwork is by Paddy Bruce and includes a lot of stamped tin accents.  It’s a fun book to read, and discusses the spiritual implications and applications of milagros.  Here is an excerpt from the book I found online.  You can also preview the book on Amazon.

The other book I have is a more academic work.  It is called Milagros: Votive Offerings from the Americas and is written by Martha Egan.  The outside is decorated by a lovely pattern of milagros – I once purchased an unmounted rubber stamp with that pattern.  But I digress…  I found another book called Vow:  The Way of the Milagro by Kay Leigh Hagan.  It manages to be somewhere in between the other two in idea, but with much fewer words.

Here are some other Milagro Resources:

  • The Collector’s Guide – a good resource with history and use of milagros.
  • Zanzibar Tribal Arts – this site sells milagros and has some meanings.
  • World Folk Art.org – great selection of unusual milagros – some pricey.
  • Sacred Art Images – good milagro category explanations.
  • Stranded.com – bead site.  The milagros meaning chart was salvaged from Fausto’s Gallery website, which seems to be closed now.
  • Saints and Martyrs.com – great selection – they say that their milagros are made from sterling silver and they are priced accordingly.
  • Tesoros.com – a good selection, including milagros on plaques from Peru (they are still small, but might make a nice change of pace.

 

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