My brother-in-law, Richard “Woody” Curran, is running the Boston Marathon today. Here is his progress:
Category: Random News
Pillsbury Bake-Off winner: A million-dollar cookie
Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas
| Latest News
DOUBLE-DELIGHT PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES
¼ cup dry roasted peanuts, finely chopped
1/4 cup sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup powdered sugar
1 (16.5-ounce) package Pillsbury Create ‘n Bake refrigerated peanut butter cookies, well chilled
Preheat oven to 375 F. In small bowl, mix chopped peanuts, sugar and cinnamon; set aside. In another small bowl, stir peanut butter and powdered sugar until completely blended. Shape mixture into 24 (1-inch) balls. Cut roll of cookie dough into 12 slices. Cut each slice in half crosswise to make 24 pieces; flatten slightly. Shape 1 cookie dough piece around 1 peanut butter ball, covering completely. Repeat with remaining dough and balls. Roll each covered ball in peanut mixture; gently pat mixture completely onto balls. On ungreased large cookie sheets, place balls 2 inches apart. Spray bottom of drinking glass with nonstick cooking spray; press into remaining peanut mixture. Flatten each ball to ¼ -inch thickness with bottom of glass. Sprinkle any remaining peanut mixture evenly on tops of cookies; gently press into dough. Bake 7 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling rack. Store tightly covered. Makes 24 cookies.
PER COOKIE: Calories 150 Fat 7 g (1.5 g sat) No cholesterol Sodium 125 mg No fiber Carbohydrates 17 g Protein 3 g
SOURCE: Carolyn Gurtz, Gaithersburg, Md.
TOFFEE-BANANA BROWNIES
America’s Favorite Recipe, 2008 Pillsbury Bake-Off
1 (19.5-ounce) box Pillsbury Traditional Fudge Brownie Mix
½ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup water
3 Eggland’s Best eggs
1 ½ cups toffee bits (divided use)
1 cup macadamia nuts, chopped
2 firm ripe medium bananas, cut into ¼ -inch pieces (2 cups)
1/3 cup caramel ice cream topping
Heat oven to 350 F. Generously spray 13×9-inch pan with non-stick cooking spray. In medium bowl, stir brownie mix, oil, water and eggs 50 strokes with spoon. Add 1 cup of the toffee bits, the nuts and bananas; stir just until well blended. Pour into pan. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup toffee bits over top. Bake 38 to 48 minutes or until center is set when lightly touched, top is slightly dry and edges just start to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely, about 2 hours. For brownies, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. To serve, drizzle each brownie with caramel topping. Cover and refrigerate any remaining brownies. Makes 24 brownies.
PER BROWNIE: Calories 260 Fat 15 g (3 g sat) Cholesterol 105 mg Sodium 75 mg No fiber Carbohydrates 30 g Protein 2 g
SOURCE: Gwen Beauchamp, Lancaster
If I did it with a group and at a different time of year, maybe I’d make it farther than Morgan City
New Orleans bicycle ride to help Red Cross:
Looking to repeat the success of the MS 150, the Greater Houston Area Red Cross will launch a Houston-to-New Orleans bicycle trek in October. Riders on the six-day, 538-mile Tour du Rouge will see bayous, maybe alligators and other wildlife ? and some of the devastation caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
As part of the move, found some posts that never made it up for whatever reason. Here’s one that is still relevant
Mark and Blinky on Flickr – Photo Sharing!:
From: Brian@*****.com
Subject: Somebody ate a Power Pellet
Date: February 3, 2007 4:19:16 PM CST
You made me curious and I had to find the answer to the trouble you’ve been pac’ing. Wonder how much urban art will appreciate before someone has to acquire it?
(I was on your website ’cause I was looking for images from Johnson’s Cyclopedia and you had that “Vienna Ref 33 Unframed” map. Not what I was trying to find so onwards and upwards… )
Felicitations on your upcoming nuptials.
from http://www.artsjournal.com/man/archives20050601.shtml
Invader at sixspace: An artist named Banksy has been getting a lot of pub by invading art museums and installing fake paintings in galleries. The idea seems kind of lame, the exact kind of thing that a general assignment writer at AP finds exciting, but that everyone else finds tedious.
Much more clever is the work by a French artist who goes by the way-too-gimmicky name Invader. He treats built-up environments, like Los Angeles, as if they were the playing field of a video game. At night, during a recent stay in LA, he drove around the city and ‘invading’ areas by placing his little tile-and-resin critters on buildings, billboards, signs, and the like. Some critters look straight out of Pac-Man, others like pixellated versions of pop-culture iconography. (And by installing at night, Invader mimics the look-and-feel of early video games, which were made up of colored dots on black fields.)
If you’ve driven around Los Angeles in the last week or two you have probably seen Invader’s work on LA landmarks, lightposts, on the entire side of a building (somehow), on the boardwalk, or on the beach. I was strangely thrilled to find one on La Cienega, in the Culver City gallery district.
I can’t imagine that they feel as right anywhere else. (Invader seems made for the festivalism of the biennial circuit, I suppose. Yawn.) The entertainment industry (+ Eli Broad) runs LA. Movie and TV billboards are everywhere. A few times a year a porn company invades the Sunset Strip with a risque billboard, sucks up the hoped-for publicity, and then limps away. Why shouldn’t art invade the urban environment too? (Disclosure: sixspace owners, and art.blogging.la webgods Caryn Coleman and Sean Bonner are good pals.)
As a postscript, it appears that the one by Stages is gone; I looked for it when I did the show there last month, and it was not to be found.
I was grabbing lunch the other week at kraftsman bakery, when I witnessed this:
Apparently, she hurt her ankle and her doctor-friend was examining it for her, but then never felt the need to stop examining it. Normally, I’d be fine with this, but this was IN THE MIDDLE OF A RESTAURANT. Luckily, I had finished my sammich and was just nursing some coffee til my next client. I felt compelled to stay to see how long she’d keep her bare foot up on the table and how long he’d keep holding it, but they were still in this position when I left about 20 minutes later.