Not My Mama's Breadpudding

I love bread pudding. It ranks right up there with tapioca on my list of sweet, gooey, comfort that you can eat with a spoon. I grew up eating a lot of bread pudding. My mama has a reputation for her bread pudding. Most of the time it is the traditional combination of stale bread, raisins, sugar, eggs, milk. But other times, especially during our annual beach trips, my mom's bread puddings take on a life of their own.

My mother is the queen of saving and re-using items. That ingenuity and creativity has served her well in making art, but it is not necessarily a good thing when it comes to bread pudding at the beach. You see, when you have a beach house full of people, you have lots of left-overs. By the end of the week my mom has usually assembled quite an interesting collection of food items to add to the dreaded always surprising bread pudding...half-eaten bowls of cereal, old grapes, apple chunks, limp pasta, and perhaps even a random piece of broccoli. Yes, my mama's beach house bread pudding is quite unique and always memorable.

Earlier this week, while flipping through one of my well-loved Barefoot Contessa cookbooks,I stopped at the recipe for croissant bread pudding and it hit me that I had never made bread pudding for my own children. I don't know why. It seems like such an easy, kid friendly dessert with a direct connection to my roots, and yet, I have never done it. And then I came down with a horrible case of strep throat (which is still causing me problems). Suddenly, my desire to make bread pudding shifted gears from nostalgia to a desperate need for comfort at its most extreme: something warm, soft,easy to swallow, and full of vanilla sweetness. And that's exactly what this recipe is. It's not my mama's bread pudding recipe, but it brings me just as much comfort and makes me smile to think of her beach house puddings. Click here for the Contessa's recipe (FYI, I cut the recipe in half for our family of four). I'd give you my mama's recipe but it is a well-guarded family secret and that is probably for the best.

A Storybook Village and Alphabet Glue

You know that question about having dinner with a famous person? Well, over the past couple of days Camille and I have been having a similar, but perhaps even more entertaining discussion. Here's the question: if you could create your own village full of your favorite characters, who would you want to be your neighbor? And what would their house look like? 

It all started with Annie's new and fabulous on-line magazine, Alphabet Glue. It's a delightful concoction of everything we love: books, book related crafts, book inspired gardening, bookish games, lists, and even a library scavenger hunt. This an amazing resource for families, teachers, librarians, and book lovers of all ages, but even more than that it offers the kind of inspiration that you get from reading a really, good book. You know what I am talking about, right? One of those books that stays with you, nudges itself into the little nooks and crannies of your brain, creates little sparks of inspiration where there previously hadn't been anything, and works its way into conversations with friends and strangers...it's so good you just have to tell everyone. Yep, that's what Alphabet Glue feels like to me.

And Camille's storybook village is the perfect example of that Alphabet Glue magic. About a week ago, Annie kindly sent me a copy of the magazine and while gobbling it up, Camille and I became fixated on the tutorial for storybook character houses. We used the template for building the first house. A lovely purple house for Ling and Ting. The template worked nicely especially with oil pastels on the colored card stock, but halfway through the construction stage Camille began to list all of the other favorite characters she wanted to live next door to Ling and Ting. So to move things along a bit, I dug out a few small boxes from our recycling bin to use as "pre-fab" homes. We covered our table with scrap paper, glue, buttons, stickers, and spent the next two days in a creative frenzy. And that's how Camille's village grew to include an old woman with a magic pasta pot, a grumpy amphibian, and spunky thing-finder.

So here's my question for you and/or your kids? If you were to construct a storybook village, who would your fictional neighbors be? Post your answer in the comment section and perhaps you will be one of two lucky winners to receive the first edition of Alphabet Glue. Winners will be announced on Saturday, April 2nd. And if you don't win, don't be disheartened. Head over here, buy your own copy, and before you know it you will be thinking, talking, and creating books. Alphabet Glue is sticky like that!

Toad's House

Pippi's House

Strega Nona's House

March List

Sorry for the recent lack of blogging. I blame it on a combination of internet issues and the string of sunny days which drove us outside every day, all day. We needed that. So before March officially ends here is my March List:

Ching Chong: "You destroy the power that racism has by turning it into something positive" Jimmy Wong in a recent NPR interview. Listen to the interview, watch the nasty rant that inspired the song, and then play the song over and over again.

Book Decor: What's not to love about this?

Backstep: about dancing, parenting, and stepping back

School for Hackers: truly hands-on learning

Kiki and Coco in Paris: to make you smile

The Way We Get By and Will They Know Me Back Home?: Both so powerful in their own ways. 

Lego Quilt: so very wee wonderful