Ratatouille and Podcast to Feed the Soul

I ate very healthy this weekend, and actually was able to get my boyfriend to try ratatouille. He is a meat and potato guy. If he had it his way he would have hamburgers and hot dogs every day of his life. (To me that would be a very boring food life). I had my ratatouille with polenta.

Here is the finale container. I did not use a mandoliue to make mine. I followed Smitten Kitchen's recipe for ratatouille.

I have been listening to a lot of Podcasts on my IPhone. I can't seem to get enough of them. I am listening to

The Splendid Table has interesting tidbits about food, restaurants and recipes. Listeners also ask questions. All their information can be found here.

And if you haven't heard Jacob Nawrocki at Operation Self Reset. You should start listening to him. He has lots of energy.

Information about his podcast can be found here.

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The Resourcefulness of Peasants

Here is my poor little upside down chicken. My chicken has actually had a tremendous adventure before jumping into this pan. This recipe was really very simple but then again, it is peasant food. The was drenched with chicken stock. To be more specific this chicken swam in it.

Juicy Roasted Chicken
Recipe Original by Evelyn Rogers
Adapted from : Vidalia Onions: Blue Blue Recipes
1 chicken, about 4 1/2 lbs
3 cups water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 medium Vidalia onion, chopped into pieces
1/2 cup dry sherry
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon salt
Mix the water, sugar, Vidalia onion, dry sherry, salt, and ginger in a pot and bring to a boil.
Clean the chicken. When the mix comes to a boil, add to the chicken and boil for 10 minutes. After you add the chicken you may have to turn the heat down slightly.
Take the pot off the heat and let rest for 20 minutes.
Take the chicken and put it into a shallow pan with a pan and roast at 375F about 40 minutes or until tender.

Here is the chicken stock that is leftover.
Cool this chicken stock. Pour them into freezer containers, label and freeze.

Now I have never made chicken stock before, let alone tried it in this fashion. So I definitively know it is different.

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Where are the empowering Girl Toys?

I am sitting down with a hot cup of tea mulling over these two presentations.

Superhero action figures from Cassandra Goduti

Superhero action stickers from Cassandra Goduti

I recently created, and these super girl stickers which I can thankful say I have never bought. The only thing that comes to my mind, what were they thinking?

I am not always big about destroying artwork because this is someone’s artwork. Superheroes to me have always been empowering, so having female superheroes are even more empowering to me. The artwork in these stickers are not empowering to me.

Superheroes are always branded with bold colors, not pinks and pastels. If a little girl wanted these stickers, I think she would want them for the colors, and she would have no idea who Supergirl is. So there is a whole disconnect.

DC Superheroes (toys) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Women ought to be able to be women. I don’t think they should be made to feel like they have to be the one to raise the kids (by herself), clean the house (by herself), and cook the meals (by herself). Family and marriage is a partnership. Even though husbands are unable to bear the children, that doesn’t mean that they can’t bear some of the responsibility of running and taking care of the family and the household besides paying the bills. I know there are families already where husbands share in the responsibility; well it should be reflected in the toys.  This leads to what we are selling to the kids.


It is very hard to find female action figures, or, of course, superhero stickers, with female superhero stickers because there are none on the market. I am pretty sure the companies will tell me there is no market for these toys/stickers and that is why they are not selling them. If I were in their office they would pull out all their facts and figures, based on fifty years of sales. Since all they care about is the bottom line there are no female superheroes, even if they are in the movie theaters. Little boys want to play with little male superheroes and all little girls want are things that are girly pink and purple. The parents may not be happy with the choices but they have to choose between the toys available on the shelves unless their kids are deemed unpopular if all their friends are playing with these toys.

The stickers and the female action figures can be as empowering in some ways as the arc reactor was for Tony Stark in Ironman. He used it to power his gadgets, and he used it to empower himself.

All these items are ready and available for boys when you go down the action figure aisle and the sticker.

Merida is a lovable character, who can be inspirable; well I was really appalled to see these stickers.

Merida is not a puffy sticker type of girl. She rejects anything girly. Any girl who is a real fan of this character will probably not purchase these stickers, because to me they show the merchandisers don’t know anything about the products they are selling. So I say ‘Eewww!

Were all these products created by men?

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