Fiona stirs the foam atop her London Fog with her finger while doing math. We now make our London Fogs with decaf earl grey tea, a tablespoon of café-style vanilla syrup and proper steamed milk from our espresso machine. Math and London Fogs are both comfort foods for Fiona, who has been delighted to learn of the invisible fraction hidden in every whole number. Who would have guessed that 5 is actually "five oneths"? But it makes her cackle with delight over the logical good sense of it all.
Sophie has been struck by the urge to sew. It's been at least a couple of years since she's done a major sewing project. True to her nature she's taken on a big project. She's found a lovely organic cotton-bamboo-spandex fabric out of which she wants to make a sleeveless swing dress. She's madly tracing off pattern pieces, laying out and cutting her fabric. The pattern is filled with infuriating options like "matching line for sleeveless option" and "cutting line for tunic option." She's figuring it all out.
And Fiona is as I type this working her way through our favourite Ginger Crinkle recipe, stirring in molasses, rolling out balls of dough, dredging them in sugar and lining them up on a cookie sheet. Ginger Crinkles
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
1 3/4 cup flour
2 tsp. dried ground ginger
1 tsp. each of cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
a extra 1/4 cup sugar
Whisk together oil with 1 cup of sugar. Whisk in egg and molasses. In a separate bowl mix together flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Dump into oil-sugar mixture and mix well. Form into 2.5 cm balls and dredge in remaining quarter cup of sugar. Place on lightly greased cooking sheet and bake in 375˚F (190˚C) oven for 12 minutes.
A box of cheesemaking supplies and instructions arrived in the post this morning too, so we may soon be kneading our way to mozzarella and squeezing out discs of gouda. Stay tuned.
Looks like some great things happening at your house, Miranda! I love the look of that beautiful steamed milk Fiona has. I'm very interested to hear how your cheese making goes.
ReplyDelete~Bonni
I just love coming to your blog and reading your posts. Your family is such a creative, positive example of what I'd like to model our homeschooling/unschoolingn on. With two almost four year olds (my daughter reads at a Grade 2 level and reminds me much of your Fiona), it's refreshing to read stories of older kids and think of all the exciting times we have ahead.
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