Garlic S'mores Goldfish Crackers

GRANDCHILD ADVISORY/ LEVEL ORANGE-YOU-GLAD-I-ONLY-HAVE-ONE: I am hooked on my Grandkid and as always, addiction tastes better when you can draw others into your vice and get them hooked right beside you. I do realize however, that like the times my Father forced us to view slide after slide of the Grand Canyon.... you just have to be there to appreciate its cuteness (I know, I know...... Grand-eur would have been closer to a pun. Love to you all. Today's a good day!

My blog guest host today is my grandson Gavin, who is currently home-schooling himself in the culinary arts. He feverishly works his tidy whitey didy off every day to come up with a new and tasty snack for all to enjoy. Today he will show us how to make garlic s'more's goldfish crackers. (YUM?)

With limited vocabulary, he uses visual aids and grunts to teach the thousands who flock to see him perfect his art. Each recipe begins with the selection of proper cooking utensils and we see him here evaluating this bowl for its capacity,

its sturdiness,

and it's ability to showcase his finished recipe properly.

Chef Gavin uses only quality ingredients and demonstrates here his penchant for Penzey's Spices. However, he insists that the success of this particular recipe necessitates that the Penzey's garlic powder bottle be completely empty of its contents. (I've learned to never question his procedures... it makes him cry)

Step 1: Gather one snack container of smore's goldfish crackers and one empty jar of Penzey's garlic powder (Gavin's instructor stands behind him for guidance and any questions Gavin may have.)

Step 2:
Remove the lid from the empty Penzey garlic powder bottle. (again with the instructor nearby in case of emergency)

Step 3:
Shove entire empty garlic powder bottle into snack container.

That's it! In just three easy steps and with only two (really only one) ingredient, you too can have a special homemade snack for the day! Please feel free to write me with any questions regarding this recipe. Any mistakes and/or misinterpretations are my own.

Now here's a video to see the chef in action:

Physical Therapy?

Nope, not the kind of physical therapy that has you stretched on a rack, with half-assed promises to heal your messed up vertebrae or cure the hitch in your get-along. Nor the type where you tug on rubber bands, sit on plastic balls, or use myriad other torture devices to heal various broken body parts.

I'm talking about REAL physical therapy. One on one where the only energy spent is tucking yourself under a blanket with someone you love. The kind of physical therapy that tugs on your heart strings good and hard and causes healing tears to fall freely down your cheeks. This kind of physical therapy:

Or maybe it's the release of tension and stress that happens as the result of viewing the innocence, love and sweetness shared between a boy and his dog.

I only know that no doctor could have given me any pill, exercise or magic potion to heal my broken heart like my Buster boy did over this past weekend. I love you Gavin.

The New Other-Side-Of-Fifty

What exactly is this blog about? I can see more than a few of you who've been with me for the last several years scratching your heads and thinking, "Well Mags, we really have been your regulars because we're avid food blog readers and we like your recipes." A couple of you will admit to enjoying my warped sense of humor and I think the rest of you just stop by to see what I'm up to.

This blog never started out to be a cooking/food blog. It was really meant to be more of a journal of my life after turning 50. I started with random posts about moving out of state, my home and being newly retired, and then eventually found out that I love to cook (now that I have time!) It was during that newfound love of cooking era that I started getting interested in photography and in building my base of readers. I'm quite proud of how far I've come in the blogging world, but the thanks for that success belongs to you, my followers, for regularly checking out what I'm cooking up in my cauldron.

Where am I going with this? I'm going back to the beginning folks. I'm returning to my real reason for blogging, which is journaling about whatever it is I happen to be feeling for the day. Perhaps something has tickled me on youtube. Maybe I've got some family photos I wish to make available for family and friends. It could be that I just need to bitch about a doctor's appointment or my insurance company who won't pay for one of my medications.

Bottom line. This is no longer strictly a food/recipe blog. It is MY blog to heal MY life at a time when I need some serious healing. I apologize to everyone who comes here to find new and exciting recipes (especially to thisoldbroad) but as of this point in my life, I've just lost the desire to return to that arena. Someday perhaps. Or maybe I'll throw a recipe in here and there just for my own future reference.

I won't hold it against any of you who decide to drop from my regular reading list. There's WAY too much good food out there to waste any more of your time looking here.

Thank you again for your past support. I really have appreciated your love and prayers.

Mags

In Case You Were On Mars This Past Week...

For all of you who were out of the county, country, or off the planet this past week, please take a look at this video and tell me that it doesn't remind you of your parents/grandparents, or maybe yourself? (I say this only because I wonder what the bank drive-thru has recorded of me.) I laughed myself silly because it reminded me of my Dad going through McDonald's drive thru a few years back and asking: "Now, this Big Mac.... is that some kind of sandwich?"

And Then There Were Eight

It is not easy gathering a family of nine siblings together. The family base is Glandorf, Ohio, but almost half of us have left the nest for other parts of the U.S. The second Saturday in December has been set aside for over 20 years for the big family Christmas party, but very rarely could all nine of us be there. Weddings brought most of us together as well, but there always seemed to be at least one of us who couldn't make the trip. This photo is from Christmas, 2009, and it is the last photo I have of all of us together. Please note the bunny ears being made by my two oldest brothers, the (ahem) mature ones in the family.

When we did manage to get the entire group together, of course the cameras clicked away as we posed like a class graduating from Clown College. I don't think we ever managed to get a photo where everyone was behaving. That's our family. We love to laugh. When we get together we usually laugh so hard we cry. And then there are the times when we cry so hard we laugh. Steve, as you look down at us from Heaven, know that we cried and laughed A LOT this night, and in your honor, we finally managed to get a serious picture of the brothers and sisters you left behind.

This will be my last post regarding cancer in any way, shape or form. I'm so very tired of being sad and depressed and hubby tells me that if I'm not dead or happy in five years, he's going to divorce me. I'm on a mission to be both alive and happy.

Next week, I hope to be cooking up something special, because it's been way too long, hasn't it my friends?