Final product — Mango Muffins

INGREDIENTS:

2 2/3 cups White Whole Wheat Flour

5 teaspoons of Baking Powder

1 teaspoon of Salt

1 cup Agrave Syrup (or 1 cup Honey)

1/3 cup  Vegetable Oil

1 cup cold Milk

1 Egg

1 1/2 cup of mashed Mango

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (400 if using Honey). Prep 24 medium muffin cups by spraying with baking spray.

2. Mash Mangos and set aside.

Mashing the Mango. I used frozen Mango Chunks that I let thaw in the refrigerator. 

3. In a large bowl combine the Flour, Baking Powder and Salt.

4. In a smaller bowl combine the Agrave Syrup (or Honey), Oil, Milk and Egg

5. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and combine until moistened.

6. Add the Mango.

Mixing in the Mango

7. Divide batter evenly into the muffin cups and bake for 25 minutes (18 if you are using Honey). Muffins are done when they turn golden brown and pass the toothpick test.

These almost remind me of pineapple upside down cake, but with out the super sweet shot of brown sugar. They are moist but not gooey. Hope you like them.

Thanks to my wonderful daughter, Maggie, today’s Secondary Character profile is only a day late. She gets all the credit for this one, as I have been too busy cooking up graphic design concepts for the 2014 season of one of my favorite npo’s the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory. So here’s the fabulous Maggie with her take on Frozen and Olaf (thanks Maggie!!!)

Image courtesy Disney

WHO: Olaf

FROM: Disney’s Frozen

BY: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Shane Morris

PRODUCED: 2013

Image courtesy Disney

PROS:  He is eternally optimistic, sees the good in everybody. Olaf is loyal, he tries hard to protect others and doesn’t judge. He is afraid of very few things

CONS: He’s also clueless (he doesn’t know that he can melt.) He is too ready to trust.

MOST SHINING MOMENT: Taking care of Anna in the castle

Olaf character sketches. (Image courtesy Disney)

LEAST SHINING MOMENT: His song (we disagree on this. Although I haven’t seen the movie, one of my voice students, Hope, played his song for me and I thought it was adorable.)

Why Maggie suggested Olaf: He a character you could easily discount, but the story would be the lesser for it.
We see though him an outward expression of who Elsa could be. That’s something we don’t get from Elsa because she is Anna’s foil.

Image Courtesy Disney

“How lonely it is going to be now on the Yellow Brick Road.” — Ray Bolger

Image courtesy Wikipedia

Ray Bolger was born on January 10th, 1904 near Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Today marks the anniversary of his death, at 83, in 1987.

Bolger, born Raymond Wallace Bulcao, was a song and dance man who won hearts on  stage, in films and on TV. He is most famous for his role as the Scarecrow in the 1939 MGM movie The Wizard of Oz.

He started out in Vaudeville as one half of “Sanford & Bolger”. The duo became the top Vaudeville dance act in the country in the 1920’s. Here’s a clip of Ray doing a soft shoe number from Washington Square…

In 1926 he was discovered by show biz player and talent scout Gus Edwards. Edwards

… hired him for the Broadway show A Merry World. Numerous Broadway roles followed including the lead in the Rodgers and Hart 1936 classic On Your Toes. The strength of that performance earned him a movie contract from MGM. [findagrave.com]

Bolger played himself in 1936’s The Great Ziegfeld. He followed that with a movie a year for MGM (Rosalie in 1937 and Sweethearts in 1938). He was cast as the Tin Man for Oz, but when he realized that the character’s movements would be impaired by the “metal” costume Bolger convinced the producer to let me switch to the Scarecrow.

Image courtesy MGM

The Wizard of Oz was the last movie on his MGM contract (they opted not to re-sign him),  though Bolger did come back to make the 1946 The Harvey Girls (again with Judy Garland).  Bolger went over to RKO before heading back to Broadway. In 1948 he starred in Where’s Charley and won a Tony for “Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical.”

On the small screen he had his own variety show (The Ray Bolger Show)  and his own sit com (Where’s Raymond) along with a slew of guest and recurring roles on top rated network shows.

Image courtesy IMDb.

In all he starred in 14 Broadway shows and 18 major motion pictures in a career spanning over six decades.

He died of bladder cancer five days after his 83rd birthday. Bolger was the last surviving main cast member of the Wizard of Oz.

Image courtesy MGM

If you are a Wizard of Oz fan you might like Wendy’s Wizard of Oz page (There you’ll find cast bios, photos, a full script and lots more.)

Also if  you are a Wizard of OZ collector   you might want to  check out the collectionary  at  http://thecollectionary.com/club/wizard-of-oz

“Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.” — John Singer Sargent

Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau)  1883-1884

John Singer Sargent was born on this day in Florence, Italy in 1856. Today is the 158th anniversary of his birth.

Instead of bio, I thought I’d just give you a a mini gallery of his work today. A picture is worth a 1,000 words…

A Bedouin Arab

A Capriote

Sargent’s painting of Mrs Charles E Inches

Violet Sargent

If you like Sargent and live near Boston  you should check out the central libraries Sargent Hall (Click Here for a link).