Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

Venn Diagram of Candy Bars

Yesterday I presented a flowchart of candy bars. But I think a flowchart is not the best way to show the variations of candy bars and their ingredients.

What is the best way?

A Venn diagram!

Venn diagram of candy bar ingredients

I suppose it would be more appropriate to call this an Euler diagram rather than a Venn diagram, but not many people know or care about the difference.

I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey; and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.

Revelation 10:10

Flowchart of Candy Bars

Some of you may have ignored this post when you saw that the title contains the word flowchart. But that would mean that you’re not reading this, so why am I bothering to explain that?

Here is a flowchart that documents the choices among candy bars, in case you are overwhelmed at the grocery check-out.

flowchart to decide which candy bar to eat, based on its ingredients

Transcript (although it’s hard to type a flowchart in plain text) :
Which candy bar is right for you?
Do you like chocolate?
Do you like peanuts?
Do you like caramel?
Do you like peanut butter?
Do you like a lot of peanuts?
Do you like nougat?
Do you even know what nougat is?
Do you like crunchy stuff?
that sticks to your teeth?
Do you like coconut?
(I’m not going to bother listing the various candy bars)

So I went to the angel, telling him to give me the little book. And he said to me, “Take it and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.”

Revelation 10:9

Christmas Cycle

Here is how things are in my house for most of the month of December:

vicious cycle of chocolates at Christmas

Transcript:
Hey! There’s no chocolate in the house!

It’s the Christmas season. We need to have chocolate and cookies and stuff.

(make/obtain sweets)

These are yummy. It’s hard to stop eating them.

Oh good – they’re gone. Now I don’t have to worry about self-control anymore.

The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, But the stomach of the wicked is in need.

Proverbs 13:25

Things Not to Feed a Child

Specifically, things not to feed a child who is not potty trained.

Alternate title: how to make enemies in the church nursery

I don’t like potty humor, except for maybe this one case. But parenthood brings you into certain situations that you wouldn’t discuss otherwise.

Today is such a case.

It’s for a public service, though, not a cheap laugh. I know there is at least one new father who reads this blog, and there are things he might want to know so he doesn’t have to learn the hard way. In order to bring him up to speed, I am publishing this list of foods to avoid giving your child if you will be changing his diaper within the subsequent 24 hours.

  • Blue Moon ice cream
  • Corn
  • Blueberries
  • Spinach
  • Chili

Apparently the color blue is not easily digested.

And I wonder why we even eat corn since it appears to not be used at all by the body. Surely there must be a better use of one’s energy than eating and attempting to digest corn. Unless maybe it is just exercise.

Parents who have gone through the diaper-changing phase:
Any other foods to avoid?

He said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down there and buy some for us from that place, so that we may live and not die.”

Genesis 42:2

Peaches 2011

With the raspberry picking out of the way, we decided to go peach picking. I took the 3 older boys to an area farm and sprayed them well with insect repellent (the farm doesn’t use pesticides so that they can be certified as natural or organic or whatever).

I inquired at the weigh station about peaches and was told that the next group would go out in about 10 minutes. We could either wait or we could go pick raspberries until then. It didn’t matter to me, so I took a vote among the boys and it was 2-1 in favor of raspberries. So off we went.

This time, they all liked picking raspberries and did a fine job of doing so.

picture of children picking raspberries

We had a couple of buckets, so we had some sharing issues
(3 boys – 2 buckets = 1 child complaining about not having a bucket).
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Raspberries 2011

It is raspberry season, so we took our annual trip to go pick raspberries. It’s not much of a trip, since it’s only a few miles away. It’s quite convenient, in fact, especially with 3 children in tow.

picture of children picking raspberries

The baby was sleeping, so I took the other children.
Last year, the older two did a decent job of picking the berries.
Last year, I had Gamma in a backpack carrier, so he did fine too.

This year, the older two just ran around and played in the open field.
I sent them there after too many complaints about bees and mosquitoes and thorns.

picture of some raspberry bushes

Gamma just stuck by my legs and asked to be picked up or carried or to go home the whole time.

picture of children picking raspberries

I picked a few pints of raspberries.

picture of a container of fresh raspberries

The boys got to see some sandhill cranes, which apparently like to frequent the raspberry farm.

picture of two sandhill cranes on a gravel driveway

And that’s good enough for a while.
We froze about half the raspberries, so we can enjoy them throughout the year.

and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up.

Matthew 13:4

April in the D

picture of corn skewers for corn on the cobThe temperature last week (10 days ago) reached in the 70s, with plenty of sun. We did break out the sunscreen, for me and for the kids. I had setup the trampoline, so everyone had fun outside.

With weather like that, we figured spring was here. I bought charcoal for the grill, and we were all set for good weather until October.

It snowed yesterday. Not just some-snowflakes-came-down snow, but had-to-clear-the-car-windows type of snow. We had right around an inch of accumulation.
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