Category Archives: Thought of the Day

November 18, 2013

Muffin Monday: Pumpkin Molasses Surprise

By ritalovestowrite

Pumpkin Molasses Surprise Muffins

Finished muffins

Finished muffins

INGREDIENTS:

Muffins:

  • 1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
  • 1 cup White Flour
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1 teaspoon Salt
  • 1 teaspoon Ground Ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
  • 1 cup packed Brown Sugar
  • 3 tablespoons Molasses
  • 1/4 cup Oil
  • 2 Eggs
  • 1 cup canned Pumpkin
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  • 3/4 cup Almond Milk

Filling:

  • 8 oz  softened Cream Cheese (I used light Cream Cheese)
  • 1/2 cup White Sugar
  • 1 cup canned Pumpkin

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare 14 muffin cups with cooking spray and a light dusting of flour.

2. Combine the Whole Wheat Flour, the White Flour, the Baking Soda, Salt, Ginger and Nutmeg in a medium bowl.

3. In a large bowl, mix the Brown Sugar, Molasses, Oil and Eggs until smooth. Add 1 cup of of Pumpkin and Vanilla and mix well. Add the Milk and mix well.

4. Add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture and stir until well combined.

5. To make the Filling: Combine the Cream Cheese, White Sugar and remaining Pumpkin from the can (about 1 cup) and mix until smooth.

Partially filled muffins cups on the right and top have batter and filling. The one at the bottom left is complete with a top layer of batter.

Partially filled muffins cups on the right and top have batter and filling. The one at the bottom left is complete with a top layer of batter.

6. Partially fill the 14 muffin cups about 1/2 full of the Muffin batter. Center a generous tablespoon of the Filling in each muffin, top with the second half of the batter. (Be sure to cover all the Filling.)

8. Bake for 20 minutes. Test to see if the muffins are done by employing the toothpick test. The Filling will still be soft, but the muffins should be done.  Let cool completely before eating. (That filling is really hot! Don’t burn yourself == no matter how wonderful they smell right out of the oven.)

The molasses gives these muffins a powerful punch of flavor. The pumpkin/cream cheese filling serves to sweeten and balance the muffins. These would be excellent with some hot tea.

Muffins fresh from the oven.

Muffins fresh from the oven.

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Special thanks for Amy Mc for suggesting the muffin recipe I used for inspiration.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Muffin Monday, Muffins, Thought of the Day

November 17, 2013

Secondary Character(s) Saturday: Ariel and Caliban (The Tempest)

By ritalovestowrite

English: Ariel and Caliban

I’m doubling up on Secondary Characters today because I…

  1. JUST got home from seeing the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory’s ensemble version of The Tempest
  2. didn’t manage to get in a post yesterday
  3. can’t decide between Ariel and Caliban
  4. am master of my own island… I mean blog… and can pretty much do as I please.

WHO: Ariel and Caliban

FROM: The Tempest

BY: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

WRITTEN: 1611

PROS:
Ariel– As assistant head mischief maker on the island Ariel shows a can do attitude when it comes to pleasing her* master, Prospero. She’s persistent in asking for her freedom from the magician, and although it’s been 12 years, she’s optimistic enough to think she’ll actually achieve it. She is a creature of the air, a spirit who can disappear and do magic.

Caliban — He’s the island’s true heir apparent. He knows every animal, every cave, every stream. He’s strong.

Ariel (from The Tempest)

Ariel (from The Tempest) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CONS:
Ariel — She mischievous. Her drive to gain her freedom blinds her to the morality of what she’s instructed to do.

Caliban– He’s different. He’s not as “smart” as his Eurocentric counterparts in the play. He’s ugly. All that makes him a monster, right? He certainly gets called “monster” often enough in the course of the play. Oh, and the powerful white guy wants his land. That’s never good. Sorry, but its hard not to feel compassion for Caliban. 12 years prior to the start of the play Prospero landed on his island and essentially planted a flag on it and started to call himself king. Suddenly Caliban became Prospero’s servant, then slave.  Prospero and Miranda tried to educate Caliban early on, but, beyond learning to speak, it didn’t take.

MOST SHINING MOMENT:
Ariel — The Most Shining Moment goes to Ariel when she wakes up the Prince and Gonzolo just in time for them evade assassination.

Caliban de "La Tempête" de William S...

Caliban de “La Tempête” de William Shakespeare (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

LEAST SHINING MOMENT:
Caliban — The Least Shining Moment goes to Caliban in an offstage moment sometime before the play begins. Back when Prospero and Miranda were still in the “lets educate the monster” stage of their relationship. Caliban misunderstanding the nature of Miranda’s kindness  — he’d only known one other woman, his witch (literally) of a mother — and unable to control his own nascent sexuality tries to rape her. Bad move.

* Although Shakespeare wrote the role of Ariel for male actors, it was played tonight by the lovely and very talented Jenna K. Rossman, a woman. And since every time I’ve seen the show — this is my third time seeing it live — the role has been done with a woman playing Ariel, I’m just going to go ahead and use the feminine pronoun.

Caliban, on the other hand,  is almost always played by a man. This time around he is played by wonderful James Miller.

Rossman and Miller were also in the company’s version of A Mid Summer Night’s Dream this summer.

Prospero is being played by Ian  Blackwell Rogers (He was this summer’s Hamlet), and Miranda is  being played by Kathryn Zoerb (who was Juliet earlier in the season.)

This ensemble production was put together with limited rehearsal time (18 hours) and no director (it is actor driven). To add the Shakespearian experience audience members have the opportunity to rent nerf tomatoes and lob them at the actors should they flub a line (or if they are just really nasty characters.) Given the intimate setting  of the Shakespeare Factory’s home stage at The Great Hall Theatre at St. Mary’s a few flying tomatoes really adds to an already enjoyable show.

The Tempest runs until Nov 24. Click HERE for details on how to get tickets. 

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Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Secondary Character, Shakespeare, Thought of the Day

November 15, 2013

New Flag for an old problem

By ritalovestowrite

Today I created a new flag.

Peace flag

It is my response to the number of Confederate Battle Flags that have cropped up in my county in the last couple of years. It seems odd that a Northern Maryland County (we border Pennsylvania) is suddenly dotted with field colors that last saw legitimate  action in 1865. But I’ve noticed more and more of them on flag poles, hanging in from front porches and in upper story window along the rural route of my daily commute. Its not like there’s one on ever block, but there are too many to be ignored.

The latest one appeared today. It was on private property (I presume) but it was displayed high enough to be seen from the interstate, just before an off ramp. How very welcoming.

The Confederate battle flag, called the “Southern Cross” or the cross of St. Andrew, has been described variously as a proud emblem of Southern heritage and as a shameful reminder of slavery and segregation. In the past, several Southern states flew the Confederate battle flag along with the U.S. and state flags over their statehouses. Others incorporated the controversial symbol into the design of their state flags. The Confederate battle flag has also been appropriated by the Ku Klux Klan and other racist hate groups. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, more than 500 extremist groups use the Southern Cross as one of their symbols. [Infoplease.com]

I ignored them when they first started to appear, then I got embarrassed by them, then I got angry by them. But what could I do?
How could I show the world that I disagree with this symbol synonymous with hate groups? Well, one way to protest a flag is to hang it upside down* but when you hang Ole Dixie upside down… it still looks like Ole Dixie.
rebel flag updown
I needed a response that said I am a peaceful, loving person, and I believe that THAT is the side we should be showing to our neighbors and visitors. That is the side I want to celebrate, and that’s the flag I want welcoming people to my community.

I suspect I’ll get some unhappy responses to this post. Perhaps some one will tell me that flying the Rebel Flag  is part of their Freedom of Speech. I believe strongly in the Freedom of Speech, and I’m glad I live in a country that allows me the right to speak up when I see something that I wrong. (And it is wrong to fly a symbol that is allied with the KKK and more than 500 extremist groups.)

And if you are flying THAT flag to show your appreciation of Southern culture, do us all a favor… get in touch with your inner  Southern gentleman and find another Southern icon to celebrate… Pecan Pie, perhaps.

*(I know … that’s also the way  you show distress,)

4 Comments | posted in Thought of the Day

November 12, 2013

Anne Hathaway 11.12. 13 Thought of the Day

By ritalovestowrite

“No one has ever been able to tell me I couldn’t do something because I was a girl.”–Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway (Photo credit: Horustr4n)

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway  was born on this day in Brooklyn, New York, USA in 1982. She is 31 years old. She is the the middle child to Gerald and Kathleen Hathaway. Her father is a lawer, her mother is a an actress. When Hathaway was six the family moved to Millburn, New Jersey. There she attended the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School, the Wyoming Elementary School. She started acting in earnest while at Millburn High School and at the near by Paper Mill Playhouse. She studied at Vassar then transferred to New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

A soprano, Hathaway performed in 1998 and 1999 with the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall and has performed in plays at Seton Hall Preparatory School in West Orange, New Jersey. Three days after her 1999 performance at Carnegie Hall, she was cast in the short-lived Fox television series Get Real at the age of 16. [IMBD]

In 2001  she got her big break with the role of awkward duckling turned princess as Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries.

Cover of "The Princess Diaries (Full Scre...

Cover via Amazon

In the last dozen years she has danced on both sides of the line that divides juvenile/young adult (Ella Enchanted, Hoodwinked, The Devil Wears Prada) and mature roles (Brokeback Mountain, Becoming Jane, Rachel Getting Married). Last year she played Selina (aka Cat Woman) in The Dark Knight Rises and Fantine in Les Miserables.

Here’s Hathaway singing I Dream a Dream from Les Miserables…

Anne Hathaway at the 83rd Academy Awards

Anne Hathaway at the 83rd Academy Awards (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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November 12, 2013

Versatile Blogger Award

By ritalovestowrite
The Versatile Blogger Award

The Versatile Blogger Award (Photo credit: nhighberg)

WOW!  Thanks  Rachel at Sunset Boulevard for nominating me for a Versatile Blogger Award! I really appreciate it!

The rules for the Versatile Blogger Award are as follows:
  1. Display the Award on your Blog. (There it is over on the right)
  2. Announce your win/nom/nod with a post and thank the Blogger who nominated you.
  3. Present 15 deserving Bloggers with the Award.
  4. Link your nominees in the post and let them know of their nomination with a comment.
  5. Post 7 interesting things about yourself.

I’d like to share the love by nominating the following blogs:

  1. emmanonymous
  2. Just Nice Stuff
  3. Books at Middlemay Farm
  4. clotildajamcracker
  5. transcendingbordersblog
  6. Texana’s Kitchen
  7. sethsnap
  8. Belle Grove Plantation Bed and Breakfast
  9. The Literary Workshop Blog
  10. Peter Galen Massey’s Book Blog
  11. Gunsmoke and Knitting
  12. The Daily Post
  13. Bucket List Publications
  14. Recipes and Raised Beds
  15. Viewfromtheside’s Blog

Seven “Interesting” things about me…

  1. I do a variety of fun stuff for my real job, including… designing book covers (paper and e-book) and teaching voice at a local performing arts studio.
  2. I really do NOT like mice — dead or scurrying — in my house. (A problem this time of  year when one lives in the country.)
  3. I have the sweetest little cockapoo dog… most of the time.
  4. I sing, play guitar, bass, and ukulele. (Just got the uke and I love it.)
  5. Fall is my favorite season of the year.
  6. I want to go to England and Ireland and do a Lit tour of all the places in my favorite books, and of all the houses where my favorite authors lived.
  7. I am having a difficult time finding seven things that are remotely interesting about myself. (At least things that wouldn’t give spammers or hackers vital secrets about me that might help them break decode my most illusive passwords and security questions.)

Congrats to the 15 bloggers I’ve nominated. I’ve tried to choose folks who I have nominated for other awards. It was hard to choose just 15 from all the awesome blogs I follow, because I really want to say GREAT JOB EVERYBODY!

 

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4 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Thought of the Day

November 11, 2013

Muffin Monday: Apple Cranberry Walnut Muffins

By ritalovestowrite
Cranberry Apple Walnut Muffins

Cranberry Apple Walnut Muffins

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
  • 3/4 cup Sugar
  • 1/4 Vegetable Oil
  • 2 Eggs
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  • 1 cup finely diced Apple
  • 1 cup chopped Cranberries
  • 3/4 cup chopped Walnuts

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prep muffin cups with baking spray.

2. In a large bowl mix the Whole Wheat Flour, Baking Soda and Pumpkin Pie Spice.

3. In a blender puree the Sugar, Vegetable Oil, Eggs, Vanilla Extract, Apples & Cranberries.

4. Mix the liquid into the dry ingredients until smooth.

5. Add the Walnuts.

6. Divide the batter evenly  into 12 muffin cups.

7. Bake for 20 minutes until muffins are golden brown and pass the toothpick test.

8. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before enjoying.

Cranberry Apple Walnut Muffins fresh from the oven.

Cranberry Apple Walnut Muffins fresh from the oven.

I like the bit of crunch from the walnuts. These are moderately sweet and yummy.

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5 Comments   |  tags: | posted in Cooking, Muffin Monday, Muffins, postaday, Thought of the Day

November 11, 2013

Roy Scheider 11.10.13 Thought of the Day

By ritalovestowrite

“The important thing is to do good work, no matter what medium you do it in.”– Roy Scheider

Roy Scheider in Jaws

Roy Scheider in Jaws (Photo credit: Michael Heilemann)

Roy Richard Scheider was born on this day in Orange, New Jersey, USA in 1932. Today is the 81st anniversary of his birth.

He is the older of two boys born to Anna and Roy Bernhard Scheider.

Roy was  very athletic growing up. He loved basketball, and especially boxing. At 140 pounds he was a welter weight. He boxed  between 1947 and 1953 and even participated in the Golden Gloves.

He put down the gloves in college and began to act. After studying acting at both Rutgers and  Franklin and Marshall he  spent 3 years in the Air Force. Once out the military he landed the yin yang of acting roles (he worked with the New York Shakespeare Festival and on two soap operas —  Love of Life and The Secret Storm.)

After a few low-budget films he scored in Klute  with Jane Fonda in 1971. Then came his break out role (and first Oscar nom.) in The French Connection.

In 1975 Scheider took the role of everyman police chief Brody in the film adaptation of Peter Benchley’s Jaws.

Scheider … shared lead billing with Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss in the tale of a New England seaside community terrorized by a hungry Great White shark. “Jaws” was a blockbuster, and for many years held the record as the highest-grossing film of all time. Scheider then turned up as the shady CIA agent brother of Dustin Hoffman in the unnerving Marathon Man (1976). [IMBD]

After a few years of so-so movies he hit gold again with his mesmerizing portrayal of Bob Fosse in All That Jazz. Scheider earned another Oscar nomination for the film.

Mr. Joe Gideon

Mr. Joe Gideon (Photo credit: geminicollisionworks)

Other work includes: Blue Thunder, 2010, 52 Pick-Up Cohen and Tate The Russia House and the TV series SeaQuest 2032, but for Scheider his trifecta would always be The French Connection, Jaws and All That Jazz.

He died in Febrary 2008 in Little Rock, Arkansas after a long battle with multiple myeloma.

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November 10, 2013

Secondary Character Saturday: Eli Thompson, Boardwalk Empire

By ritalovestowrite

[Image courtesy: HBO]

[Image courtesy: HBO]

Who: Eli Thompson

From: Boardwalk Empire

Intertitle from the HBO television program Boa...

Intertitle from the HBO television program Boardwalk Empire (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Premiered: 2009

Pros:  Loyalty to his wife and children, and to a lessor degree his brother, Nucky. Complex character.

Cons: Breaks the law if it fits his, or Nucky’s, agenda.

Most Shining Moment: Eli’s character arch took quite a twist after he was released from prison. He went from one of my least favorite characters to one of my favorite. He goes from being an Atlantic City sheriff to a nobody. That humility helps his character enormously. Even when he is given a nothing job under the show’s most annoying minor mob boss, Eli holds his own. His best moment is when he tries to warn a caravan of truck drivers carry a shipment of hooch that there is an ambush in the next town. The truckers ignore him, and the insuring massacre is the start of a gang war. Another excellent Eli moment  happens at the end of the season  when Nucky and his troops are help up at a lumber yard. Eli drives thru the night to get help from a certain  Al Capone  in Chicago.

Least Shining Moment: All of Season One.

[Image Courtesy: HBO]

[Image Courtesy: HBO]

Why I choose Eli: I’m a sucker for flawed, conflicted characters, and Eli Thompson is certainly that.  Boardwalk Empire is full of characters I have no business rooting for. A corrupt, murderous sheriff shouldn’t be any where on my list of favorite characters, but there he is. That is in part due to Shea Whigham who plays Eli with employing a full pallet of emotions (from violent to vulnerable, sometimes subtle, sometimes blunt) and in part due to the writers of Boardwalk Empire.

Of course, this being HBO, the show is filled with rude language and R rated behavior. The network doesn’t seem capable — or at least willing — to tell a good story with out bad language, gratuitous sex, and the objectification of  women. Given the subject matter of Boardwalk Empire I supposed a certain amount of that is part of the story, but I think HBO takes the simple, titillating way to ratings, when good story telling and terrific acting — which they have in spades  — will get them there.
Boardwalk Empire is based on the book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City by Nelson Johnson. The show is now in its fourth season on HBO.

[Image courtesy: HBO]

[Image courtesy: HBO]

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November 8, 2013

Thinking about playwright David Ives 11.7.13 Thought of the Day

By ritalovestowrite

My smart, funny, creative daughter is directing/producing a tribute to David Ives at St. Mary’s College of Maryland this weekend. That got me thinking about the brilliant, strange playwright David Ives.

The two one acts they will be doing at St. Mary's are "Words, Words, Words" and "The Death of Trotsky."

The two one acts they will be doing at St. Mary’s are “Words, Words, Words” and “Variations on The Death of Trotsky.”

David Ives was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA on July 11, 1950. He grew up on the south side of Chicago and attended Northwestern University. He worked for a few years as an editor at Foreign Affairs Magazine before entering the Yale School of Drama where he earned his MFA in playwriting. Ives is a Guggenheim Fellow and he currently lives in New York City.

Playwright David Ives [Image courtesy: Broadway.com]

Playwright David Ives [Image courtesy: Broadway.com]

He is…

probably best known for his evenings of one-act comedies called All In The Timing and Time Flies. All In The Timing won the Outer Critics Circle Playwriting Award, ran for two years Off-Broadway, and in the 1995-96 season was the most performed play in the country after Shakespeare productions. His full-length plays include Venus In Fur, which recently enjoyed a vast critical and audience success Off-Broadway; New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza, which won the prestigious Hull-Warriner Award; Is He Dead? (adapted from Mark Twain); Irving Berlin’s White Christmas; Polish Joke; and Ancient History. He has translated Feydeau’s classic farce A Flea In Her Ear as well as Yazmina Reza’s drama A Spanish Play, and his translation/adaptation of Pierre Corneille’s The Liar premieres this spring at Washington’s Shakespeare Theatre Company. He is also the author of three young-adult novels, Monsieur Eek, Scrib, and Voss. [American Theatre Wing.org]

He was nominated for a Tony Award for his play Venus In Fur which he later turned into a film script.

bigstock-Editable-vector-illustration-o-49993844

How many monkeys would it take to write Hamlet? I guess it depends on the monkey. [Image purchased from BigStock.com]

Words, Words, Words features three monkeys in a large cage with typewriters. The monkeys, Kafka, Milton and Swift, are part of a scientific experiment which hopes to prove that given enough time three apes hitting random keys on a typewriter will produce great literature — in this case, Hamlet.

Trotsky cor 05

Trotsky cor 05 (Photo credit: Luiz Fernando / Sonia Maria)

Variations on the Death of Trotsky is (as its title indicates) a series of fictional variations on a very real historic event, the death of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. There are eight variations that echo both high and low brow literature.

Words is a long time Ive’s favorite of mine (along with Philadelphia and Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread) But I’ve never seen  or read Trotsky so I’m really looking forward to this weekend’s showcase. If you are reading this at SMCM I’ll see you at the White Room (theatre).

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Leave a comment   |  tags: | posted in David Ives, postaday, Theatre, Thought of the Day