Bees, Basil, and Summer Spaghetti (The Farmer's Market is Open!!:))

On this lovely Thursday, our local Farmer's Market re-opened its stalls, and we took a little bite of summer. Not a big bite, because the good stuff isn't quite ready yet.

Rhubarb and green onions, as well as the best fresh pasta (Black Pepper flavor) and salsa. If you are in the Pittsburgh area, try to find Mia Cucina Pastas and Cinco de Mayo Salsa at one of your local fairs. You won't be disappointed. 

The kids love exploring the stalls, especially the bees and the sno-cone stand.

Apparently, the girls don't take kindly to taxes on Whiskey (for you history fans out there;)). 

Here's what I made when we got home. I don't pretend to be a food blogger. But I like to cook. And this is the easiest thing ever. I call it Summer Spaghetti.

Dice five medium sized tomatoes and chop green onions. Add both to bowl. Zest and squeeze one lemon into the tomatoes and onions. Mince four leaves of basil and add (I also grate in one clove of garlic, which adds a nice spicy note to the sauce). In the meantime, grill one package of chicken tenderloins (I do mine in a grill pan), and, once cooled, shred and add to sauce. I also add a decent amount of salt and pepper. I mean, crank the hell out of both grinders. Also, a decent helping of olive oil. I'd say a 1/2 cup.

Before the noodles fall in love with the sauce. 

Now, the noodles here are key. The better the noodle, the better your outcome. The noodle lady I buy from has all different kinds of fresh noodles (beet, garlic, spinach, parsley), but I'm a huge fan of the Black Pepper Pasta. When you cook fresh noodles, be careful. They cook fast. 3-4 minutes max.

I also constantly turn them in the pot with tongs, so they maintain their individual identities. 

When the noodles are done to your liking, ladle them directly into the dish. The hot water helps the sauce to break down and bind to the noodles. Here's what you get. It is pure deliciousness (and these weren't even good tomatoes). Imagine it with height-of-the-summer, juicy-mouthfuls-of-sweetness tomatoes.

Yum. The bite of the fresh noodles flavored with pepper, the acidity of the tomatoes and lemon, the ground bass of a good olive oil, and the sharpness of the green onions. So, so good. You have to try it. 

We ended the day with a walk in the field. The light was soft, but sharp. And it sharply brought to me how beautiful my little girl really is.

Oh, the boots. 

Until tomorrow! ~Alice

My Cinderella Moment ...

Last weekend, when I was out trolling the thrift shops for some new finds, I came across these shoes. In a size 6. The bad thing about thrifting is you can't just say, "Well, let's look on the shelves and see if they come in another size." Because they don't. I had a Cinderella moment, thinking, "What can I do to squeeze my size 8 1/2 foot into these wicked snake pumps?" Turns out, nothing. Short of cutting off a little bit of heel and some toes. Call me jealous;). ~Alice

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Deep Thoughts (on Cannibalism in Fairy Tales. Yeah, creepy. I know)...

Via

I've been thinking a lot .... A LOT ... today about why everyone always wants to eat each other in fairy tales.    Something that both a few intuitive students and a good old friend from graduate school pointed out to me in the last few months (thanks, Josh - you know who you are). Think about it: Little Red Riding Hood is swallowed up by the wolf; the Evil Queen wants to eat Snow White's heart for dinner (or her lungs and liver, depending on which version you read); a young girl watches another be chopped to pieces and seasoned as she is prepared to be eaten by a band of salivating robbers; Beauty is afraid the Beast will gobble her up the moment she sets foot in his castle; the evil witch in Hansel and Gretel tries to fatten up and then bake the little children lost in the woods; Talia's rival has what she thinks are her husband's children served to him in a Robert sauce. The list could go on and on.

Even in today's modern fairy tales, there's a lot of cannibalism going on. Coraline is nearly devoured by her fake father and her Other Mother. Max threatens to eat his mother, and is sent, as a result, to the land of the Wild Things, who just might eat him if he's not careful. The Monster House (the Fat Lady at the circus, turned house, who punishes wayward children in her neighborhood by devouring them if they trample on her lawn). Let's take up some more popular fairy tales.

In Twilight and The Hunger Games, as in the fairy tales referenced above, others’ craving for the heroine’s body and soul is crucial to the stories’ evolution.  Bella Swan wanders in a forest teeming with ravenous wolves and voracious vampires who vacillate endlessly between their instincts to devour her sexually or literally feast upon her flesh.  Katniss Everdeen, perpetually starved, her skills as a survivor honed by the need to provide food for herself and her family, finds herself plucked from her native soil in the Appalachian mountains by a tyrant government and deposited in an arena where she herself eventually becomes food, hunted down by werewolf muttations that have been programmed to gorge themselves upon Katniss and the other remaining tributes.  In both, Bella and Katniss, new Gretels lost in the woods, are subjected to cannibalistic threats that influence both their development as people and the outcome of their stories.

My question, then, is this (or I guess I should say, my questions, then, are these - I have a lot of questions): How do the modern young-adult tales Twilight and The Hunger Games adopt and adapt the threats of consumption and cannibalism, as well as the connection between devouring and desire, that appear in the fairy tales they draw on as their sources? Why is food, and more particularly the girl objectified as food, so crucial to each series? How do the numerous references to food, eating, purging, and being consumed echo similar references to food and hunger in traditional fairy tales? And perhaps most crucially, how do teenage audiences, primarily young girls, process the connection between the girl’s body as an edible substance and the arguments about love, gender, and sexual politics that are at the core of each of these series? 

I'm really curious to hear what you have to say. If you're a fairy tale/children's literature lover like me, what do you think? ~Alice

All work and no play ...

Makes Jill a dull girl. 

Via

One of the scariest scenes ever in cinematic history, in my humble opinion, is that moment when Wendy Torrance discovers that her husband Jack, all this time, has been writing the same sentence over and over and over again, in various different ways, with different punctuation, spacing, layout on the page. Sure, it's scary because Wendy realizes all of a sudden that Jack is completely and utterly off his rocker. But I also think it's scary because dude has a serious case of writer's block. 

I'm nearly there myself tonight. Writing the same lame-ass sentence over and over and over again in various different patterns, with different punctuation, spacing, layout on the page. Gertrude Stein might be proud. There is nothing worse than those moments when the Gods of inspiration do not sing to you. When the muse remains silent. And you plod along through the forest of words, all of them tasting rather bland. 

All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl. And completely and utterly bored with herself. ~Alice  

The Wonderland Hop #9

Welcome to the Wonderland Hop #9!! Link up those favorite posts of yours - the ones that made you laugh, cry, scream.  Every week, we feature our favorites. This week, we were loving the following links:

This Firecracker Chicken from Life with the Crust Cut Off (what a cute name for a blog:))!

I've been kicking around the idea of doing a 5K. If Krystal from My Life of Travels and Adventures can do it with a stroller, I should quit being a wuss and JUST DO IT;)!! Congrats, Krystal!!:)

This post from Lisa at Chronically Content, all about cutting corners when illness strikes. Her ideas are useful in any kind of situation where you have to cut corners in order to make do. 

If you were featured, feel free to grab a button:):

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We only have a few pesky rules (the usual suspects): 

• Follow The Owl's Skull on some platform (GFC, Bloglovin', Twitter, Facebook).

• Link up our blog in your specific post (grab a button; it's super cute;)).

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• Drop me a line in the comments to let me know that you dropped by to visit so I can return the favor and follow you back. On that note, please click through the other links, drop the posters a line or two, follow the ones you really want to follow. 
• Tweet or share the hop on Facebook/Google+ etc.; the more, the merrier!! I also tweet each post throughout the week as they are linked up. 

Tweet

Peace, love, and link-up!! ~Alice

A Mother's Day Tea Party: Mad Hatter Style

I truly hope that you had a happy Mother's Day. Here, in Wonderland, we had a Tea Party. With wine. It was lovely. Two things I want to share. First, the wild table we set.

Second, my "Smother's Day" cards. Soph drew hers on the dry-erase board with non-erasable marker. So there's that. As for Mags, I knew I was unique, but her card takes the cake LOL. Furthermore, on the other side, she listed the things she would do for me today, including "Make your bed," "Do the Dishes," and "Fill up your Glass." Now, I'm sure her teachers must think I drink like a fish on the homefront, forcing my eight-year-old to be my bartender. Sigh;).

Happy Mother's Day! ~Alice

Saturday Night Projects: Upcycling from My Shed

I spent most of the day today sleeping in (I mean, waaaaay in ... like noon), eating yummy pancakes, going to the book store, and thrift shopping. A perfect day if you ask me. Feeling a little guilty about the general malaise of the day, I decided to undertake a few simple projects when I returned home.

When we moved into our house last August, we discovered that the previous owners had left a hodgepodge (I love that word) of stuff in the shed. Last weekend, I dug through some of the junk, pulling out the little gems below.

I have ideas for all of these loveys. Today, however, I stuck to the dry-goods barrel and the metal tub. 

The first project I tackled tonight was staging the barrel, which I wanted to use untouched (I love its rough patina). I thought it would make a perfect place to rest a cocktail (my cocktail brain is always thinking;)).

Next, I tackled spray-painting the metal bin, which I decided would house all of the girls' crap that I didn't want to leave lying around in various states of disarray (which will no doubt happen anyway;)).

The wine may be to blame for the "S" being a little wonky. What the hell;). 

Finally, I framed and hung my one-of-a-kind Cheshire Cat du Noir, painted by my lovely friend Debbie at Funky Trunk Treasures.

He's found his rightful place next to my cabinet of curiosities:). I'm going to try to commission an Alice based on the Maurin Quina green fairy to go with him. Stay tuned.

Now that's enough work for a Saturday. Until tomorrow. ~Alice

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