How to Suck Honey from Honeysuckle

Today I met Ben, who taught me how to pluck a honeysuckle blossom and taste the clear droplet of sweet nectar (before a bee gets it). Ben says when he and his friends are outside they sometimes get distracted by honeysuckle and forget the game they were playing. He says, furthermore, that honeysuckle honey is addictive. In the 20-second video, Ben shows how it's done. Written instructions are below.
Written instructions:

1. Pluck 1 trumpet-shaped honeysuckle blossom.
2. Find the tiny green bulb at the blossom's base. Pinch it lightly and slowly pull it out of the blossom. This draws out the thin green stamen.
3. On the tip of the stamen will be your drop of honey. Place on tongue.

Missouri Loves Frozen Custard

This was the line at Spooner's frozen-custard stand on a Monday night in May. In Wisconsin we ate ice cream, but Missourians go for frozen custard. The differences: Ice cream is based on dairy products and has air whipped into it; frozen custard includes egg products as well as dairy, and is not whipped. In Missouri they also make "concretes," which is taking your sundae and all your mix-ins and blending them so you get a cup of smooth frozen stuff and can't tell what's in it unless you taste it. I want to see my custard, my hot-fudge sauce, marshmallow fluff, graham bits, whipped cream, nuts, and cherries, and sculpt 'em and blend 'em like a painter with my plastic spoon. Maybe when it's hotter, I'll have the banana split.

My First Layer Cake Sucks

 

Read about Nikola Tesla's Radiant Energy Capture device, U.S. Patent. No. 685968, and on YouTube saw small ones that work. Just about to go out to Radio Shack for capacitors to build my own Tesla device to generate free electrical power, I decided it was high time I baked a layer cake with my new cake pans, and picked a yella cake recipe out of Betty Crocker's old-old cookbook. You know the one: The ring-binder with all the salt, fat, and sugar that makes everything taste like Mom's.

Step 1. Made the layers all right and even used cake flour. It's true that the eggbeater wouldn't work in the batter and I didn't have a mixer so I used an electric hand blender, very unusual, but after baking, the layers seemed okay.

Step 2: Whipped the icing out of powdered sugar and lemon. Easy, and it looked divine! Daydreamed about the people I'd call to come have some cake and coffee.

Step 3: In fact I should have made a heck of a lot more Frosting, with butter and cream, and not one cup of the much thinner Icing. Until now I did not know the difference. A thick coat of frosting would have hid what I politely call the cake's "irregularities."

Step 4: Tried to tart up the poor cake by putting pineapple rings on it like my Aunt Elsie did. I laughed and laughed.The layering does not look so bad. But the cake was not tender (did I overbeat?) and the icing too sweet and the whole thing not worth eating, even by a sweet fiend. Final Score: Cake 1, Divine 0. Ah, home cooking. I should have built the Tesla device.

Stolen Kisses

The H.O. Wilbur Chocolate company of Lititz, Pennsylvania invented and popularized the “chocolate buds” shown above in 1894, and it is widely insinuated that the Hershey company a few miles over “borrowed” this idea in 1907, mass-manufactured it, and made history. (Here’s a cool blog by an 11-year-old who collects every flavor of Hershey’s Kisses.) In 1909 Mr. Wilbur sued Hershey and lost. Similar in size to Hershey’s Kisses, the Wilbur Buds have a rounded bottom stamped “WILBUR” as you see. Both dark and light Wilbur Buds are deeply flavored and melt much more slowly than Hershey’s, and are less chalky and sugary but more cocoa-y and waxy. A former student and Kiss connoisseur ordered Wilbur Buds, available online, just to see what they were like and thought to share them with her former teacher. How sweet is that? The dusty-looking “bloom” on them, or on any piece of chocolate, is what happens when humidity gets to the candy, as in the refrigerator.