Superb Salad for Supper

Our friends Leslie and Dave invited us and another friend, Michael, to their house for supper last night.  We drank Leslie's famous Bloody Caesars, they grilled chicken, Michael brought fresh fruit, and Susan made cookies as well as a delicious salad that I highly recommend you try, Faithful Reader.  Susan searched the Interwebs for a new recipe and found this one:

Sankthansaften at the Lake

Today was our Sons of Norway lodge's celebration of Sankthansaften or St. Hans Aften ["St. John's Eve"] or Jonsok ["John's Wake"], all ways to refer to the Scandinavian celebration of Midsummer's Eve.  The summer solstice is June 21, but Norwegians celebrate it on June 23 (and our lodge waited until today to take advantage of the weekend).  Like many holidays, Sankthansaften has pagan roots but became a Christian holiday that, by now, is mostly a secular event: an annual excuse for Norwegians to party.  They go to beaches or rivers to fish and play in the water, they barbecue pølser ["sausages" or hot dogs] and roast marshmallows and drink alcohol, and they light bonfires and enjoy the evening sun.

What Norwegian-American wouldn't want to add this to his/her calendar?!

Norse News and Notables

Our family enjoyed Norwegian language and cultural camp last summer (recall Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4?) so much that we decided to go again this summer!  Preparing for that has me in a Norwegian frame of mind, so I thought I'd share some recent Norse news and informational tidbits with you:

School Lunches, Part III

In an effort to combat childhood obesity, First Lady Michelle Obama is promoting her Let's Move! campaign, part of which focuses on teaching children about proper nutrition and healthy eating.

Sadly, many children do not get healthy food, or are allowed to choose non-nutritious food, when they eat at school every day.  Faithful Reader, you have already read about that problem in Part I and Part II.  Well, First Lady Obama is using her position to address that issue, too, with her Chefs Move to Schools program.  It encourages trained chefs to "adopt" their local schools and teach students, teachers, food service workers, even parents and community members about healthy and delicious food, proper nutrition, and cooking techniques in a positive, engaging manner.

Catablogue: Animal Review

Animal Review

The "About" page at this site says simply, "This site reviews animal species objectively." The brevity and intentional inaccuracy of that description are clues that those who write this blog are out for humor, but so is the silliness of the mission itself: to review animal species as one might a movie or a novel or a theatre production. It's ridiculously awesome.

In each blog entry, the bloggers choose a species and write about its merits and drawbacks, finally coming up with an arbitrary grade to summarize their "review." One species might be extremely dangerous and get an A from them just because they don't want to get on that species' bad side; another species might have evolved certain characteristics that the bloggers don't think are that impressive and thus get an F from them essentially for being boring. Sometimes "cute" gets a species bonus points, but looks alone don't cut it in most cases.

One of the joys of reading the blog is discerning the fact from the fiction; both are interspersed throughout each entry. The scientific name of each species is given, but the English translation of the Latin words is never reliable (e.g., the sidewinder rattlesnake's name Crotalus cerastes is translated as "Have you see this thing move????"). Footnotes are provided but more often direct the reader to a made-up "fact" or some humorous commentary than to a scientific citation.

Still, you will learn while laughing. Fiction may make each review fun to read, but fact is the basis--so you can laugh at the bloggers' description of how an alligator is like the old coworker who refuses to learn how to use new office technology, but at the same time you'll learn facts about the alligator's lack of significant evolution over the past however-many years, how it kills its prey, why it has upward-facing nostrils, etc.

It's fun to read, so it's easy to overlook the learning that's happening while the entertaining is going on. I laughed out loud throughout the entry on the sea cucumber, but now I shall forever remember its unique (and incredibly ridiculous) defense mechanism. I recommend this site to any child who is learning in school about animals, or to any adult who has an interest in animals, or to any human who can read, who has a sense of humor, and who likes to get smarter.

(What is a catablogue?)

School Lunches, Part II

It appears that no one read my post on school lunches a week ago--or cared enough about it to share a response. Well, I'm undeterred . . . here's a followup.

• The New York Times reviews the ABC show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
• A nutrition professor follows up with a review of her own for The Atlantic
• Chef Ann Cooper talks about her efforts to improve school food programs because, without changing the food we're serving, "we're feeding our children to death"

This is a fascinating and somewhat astonishing topic to me--that we have gotten to a point at which people must be convinced that it's important to feed our children good food and teach them about proper nutrition?!

Wow. Just wow.

School Lunches

Strangely enough, in the past few days, I have been thinking a lot about school lunches.

On a social networking site, a friend posted a link to a blog maintained by a teacher who is normally a health-conscious eater, choosing organic fruits and vegetables and avoiding highly processed foods and those high in sugar. She is appalled by what is served to her students by the school lunch program, whose menus nevertheless meet the minimum standards established by U.S.D.A. guidelines. To raise awareness of this issue (i.e., to alert unsuspecting parents and other citizens to what is being served to school children in the name of "healthy school lunches"), she has chosen to eat dinner at her school each day, and she posts photos, descriptions, and reactions daily on her blog. Check it out: Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project. Do the daily meals at her school resemble those served at your local schools?

Compare the pre-packaged offerings shown on the former blog with the homemade, from-local-ingredients offerings shown on this blog: Mr. Ferguson's Classroom. The culture of food is quite different at his school (which, this year, is an early elementary school in Japan), where children assist with serving the food, everybody eats from real plates using real utensils at tables with table cloths and napkins, everybody says a "secular prayer of thanks" to those who cooked the meal before anyone begins to eat, adequate time is allowed for a relaxing pace throughout the meal, and each menu features lots of fruits and vegetables bought from the local market and made with care with a focus on nutrition rather than on herding the maximum number of students through the lunch line in the minimum amount of time for the minimum amount of cost of ingredients and labor. Students eat everything served to them, too, regardless of how little they may prefer a particular food item on the plate.

Have you ever watched any cooking shows featuring British chef Jamie Oliver? He happens to have just won the 2010 TED Prize for his plan to educate students and parents about healthy eating and home cooking and to improve the quality of school lunch programs as an effort to combat obesity and its resulting health problems (by the way, as a result of poor diet and lack of exercise, our nation's children are the first generation not expected to live as long as their parents). You can watch his acceptance speech here. This past Sunday, a new television show premiered on ABC: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. It chronicles Mr. Oliver's efforts in Huntington, WV to transform unhealthy eating habits in the community and its schools.

A few times, I have eaten at our daughters' schools with them, and I rather enjoyed the food, which the girls say that they enjoy, too. I certainly haven't seen the children served trays of food in hermetically sealed carboard containers, as at the school featured in the first blog that I mentioned. There definitely is a rush to school lunch, though, as the adults move the children through the lunch line and then off to recess and then back to the classroom on a pretty tight schedule.

It would take a full-scale rethinking of how school lunch programs operate in order to slow down the pace of the noon meal and to focus on nutrition and social communion over efficiency and economy, and I don't know if this is on that many people's radar as an issue deserving of much attention (in light of other concerns that may seem more pressing) . . . especially for people in communities where a lot of families still sit down together each evening for a home-cooked meal. Would that that were the norm, though, and not the exception.

Ole Holmes and Dr. Sven Watson?

The Sons of Norway blog recently published a post about this article from the Wall Street Journal: "The Strange Case of the Nordic Detectives." The article notes the international popularity of Scandinavian crime fiction and asks, "What's the appeal of all this blood on the snow, police boots crunching over frozen grass[,] and detectives whose every utterance comes in a puff of visible breath against a background of interminable night?"

The article is worth reading for the writer's answer to that question. Along the way, she mentions several Scandinavian authors and titles of their detective fiction so that you can head to the nearest library, bookstore, or online book source and sample the genre for yourself. Check it out!

Homemade Soup, Christmas Decor, Norwegian Advent, and Ancient Greek Poetry

Have patience, Faithful Reader. Yes, another week has come and gone without a Scandinavian Saturday meal for you to read about and enjoy photos of. This and this explain what we ate instead (and why) the past two weeks. And this week I didn't prepare a Nordic feast because of an abundance of Thanksgiving leftovers that needed to be used up, and I didn't know what Scandinavian thing to do with cold turkey other than to make smørbød ["open-faced sandwiches"].

Instead I made homemade turkey soup that simmered all afternoon: bacon, a couple onions, a bunch of celery, carrots, potatoes, leftover cooked broccoli and cauliflower, turkey stock, chicken stock, beer, fresh thyme, dried rosemary herb mix, cracked black pepper, seasoned salt, lemon pepper, garlic, fresh parsley, scallions, leftover turkey, and--at the end--cream. It was mighty delicious, I must say.

In between making supper and sitting down with my laptop to get some work done, I helped a bit with Christmas decorating. I moved some furniture and got the tree set up and strung with lights and then let the ladies decorate it (well, except for the hiding of the pickle ornament, which is my job--remember?). We usually put the Christmas tree upstairs in the living room, but this year we decided to try it downstairs in the family room. There's plenty of room there for it, after all, and it does look nice there, adding a beautiful sparkle to the family room where we spend many an evening together. There's also plenty of room to stack presents underneath and beside it . . .

Thanks to Susan and the girls, the entire house now looks Christmas-y and is ready for the arrival of our holiday guests: Susan's sister Cassie, her husband Nick, and their son Davis, who will be in Dickinson with us for his very first Christmas! Yay! It's bound to feel more like Christmas for them here in ND than in SC anyway. Yesterday as the girls would set out this or that Noel knickknack on a table or shelf, they'd remark how Davis should enjoy grabbing for it or chewing on it, etc. Funny how we're looking forward to Davis' getting into things in our house, but when it was our own children doing the crawling around and grabbing, we weren't so thrilled. Hm.

In lieu of tales of my own Scandinavian cooking this week, I offer you this morsel to sate your desire for something Norwegian: info about Advent in Norway from someone who lives there(remember this catablogue entry from a couple months ago?). It seems appropriate to share it with you today, the first Sunday of Advent . . . and the day after the night on which I usually make Norwegian food for my family. The blogger offers us readers not only a traditional Norwegian Advent song but also a traditional Norwegian Advent calendar that is so simple, you may even have the supplies in your kitchen right now to make it and set it out to use and enjoy. Check it out!

P.S. This is neither Scandinavian nor Advent-related, but have I mentioned that, a few weeks ago, Hillary checked out from the library the Greek epic The Odyssey and that we have been reading it aloud as a family? It's pretty fantastic, actually, to see the girls "getting into" the story and hear them asking/answering questions about the people, the Greek gods, the plot, the characters' motivations, the dramatic irony (e.g., "We know ___, but the characters don't know that!"), etc.

So far we're at Book IV, in which Telemachus, searching for news of his missing father Odysseus, has arrived at Lacadaemon to ask Menelaus if he knows what became of Odysseus following the end of the Trojan War, in which both Menelaus and Odysseus had fought. Got that? The girls do.

And they know that Menelaus' wife Helen essentially caused the Trojan War by leaving her husband and running off to Troy with its handsome prince Paris, causing the Greeks to board warships to Troy to reclaim Helen . . . thus starting the decade-long Trojan War. So the girls knew perfectly well the meaning behind Helen's words when, thinking back in time while speaking to her husband Menelaus in Book IV, she says, "When all you [Greeks] fought at Troy, launching your headlong battles just for my sake, shameless whore that I was." I did get a "What's a whore?" after that, of course. Classic literature = good times for the entire family!

By the way, I'll save you a trip to the library to check out The Odyssey for yourself. You can read it online here, and this site is a helpful source of information to serve as a companion to your reading.

Catablogue: Mangled English

For the final catablogue entry of the month, I offer you a veritable smorgasbord of blogs all related to abuse of the English language. I realize that it can seem elitist to revel in the speaking and writing errors of others; after all, nobody's perfect--and the English language's usage rules are constantly evolving to reflect our changing world and the inventiveness of people who enjoy playing with language for effect. But ignoring the rules of grammar, usage, mechanics, etc., for no apparent reason is a different matter altogether. When the rules are broken egregiously or ignored so inexcusably as to constitute an affront to the sensibilities of the general English-speaking populace, then one of these bloggers is likely to point it out:

Literally, a Web Log: An English Language Grammar Blog Tracking Abuse of the Word "Literally" -- Someone who says, "I literally died of laughter!" but who is not speaking from beyond the grave is a person who doesn't understand how to use the word "literally."

Apostrophe Catastrophes: The Worlds' Worst. Punctuation; -- Oftentimes a reader can figure out the meaning behind a poorly punctuated sentence, but should he/she have to? And let's review: except in the case of lowercase letters (e.g., "dot your i's and cross your t's"), the apostrophe is not used to form plurals. Stop inserting apostrophes in phrases such as "music of the 1980s" (not "1980's") or "apples are on sale" (not "apple's")!

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks -- When a reader sees quotation marks, he/she judges from the context whether the author is directly quoting someone or being ironic (e.g., if my car comes back from the garage just as inoperable as when I brought it in, I could write that the mechanic "fixed" my car). That ironic effect is achieved unintentionally by businesses that toss in quotation marks randomly on signs or ads or menus (e.g., the breakfast special suddenly sounds suspicious when the menu lists it as a breakfast "special").

GrammarBlog: Mocking Poor Grammar Since 2007 -- The sidebar of this blog asks, "Do you think people who don't know the difference between 'your' and 'you're' should be strung up by their gonads? You do? Welcome to GrammarBlog." That says it all.

(What is a catablogue?)

Catablogue: Free-Range Kids

Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Kids the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry

This blog has a mission: to reduce paranoid parenting and increase children's autonomy. Its sidebar proclaims that free-range parents "do NOT believe that every time school-aged children go outside, they need a security detail." Instead, what kids need is instruction on how to keep themselves safe and then opportunities to practice those lessons. Teach them how to cross a street, how to respond to a threatening stranger, how to wear a bike helmet, how to read a bus schedule, how to use a telephone, etc.--and then let them walk to school, bike to a friend's house, hop a city bus to the library, and so forth.

One could get the impression from news stories and radio show hosts that the world is a foreboding place for our children--full of danger at every turn in the form of kidnappers and sex offenders lurking in the bushes, or poisons and allergens in school cafeterias and city park sandboxes. However, Free-Range Kids seeks and shares facts regarding the dangers that children face (many of which are statistically quite improbable) in an effort to convince contemporary parents to go ahead and let their kids out of their sight once in a while.

Kids must develop in their youth the skills needed to live independently later in life. They require a degree of freedom in order to test their boundaries and explore the world in which they live. Although parents must, of course, take steps to ensure that their children are relatively safe, they need not live in perpetual fear. Unfortunately the paranoid parents most in need of reading Free-Range Kids aren't likely to. Instead they're too busy escorting Junior to every single soccer practice--or walking him across the street on his way to a neighbor child's house--or laying out his toys so that he needn't face the psychological dangers of having to make up his own games (or his own mind) during playtime--or contacting a lawyer to initiate a frivolous law suit against some entity or another for failing to prevent some harm that has befallen Junior but that could not have been foreseen or that was a natural circumstance of Junior's own actions.

But if you know any people who are only moderately over-protective parents, there may still be hope for them yet! Take them to Free-Range Kids and read through some of the posts together. Their children will probably thank you!

(What is a catablogue?)

Catablogue: The Pioneer Woman

The Pioneer Woman: Plowing Through Life in the Country . . . One Calf Nut at a Time

Just clink the link above. Really. How can I do justice to The Pioneer Woman in a brief catablogue description? You've got to see it for yourself. Well, okay, I guess you deserve some indication of what it's about.

The subtitle of the blog should tell you a little something about the blog as well as the blogger's fun attitude. She fell in love with a rancher and uses her blog to write about her "decade-long transition from spoiled city girl to domestic country wife" (citation). It's a fascinating ongoing story, but the blog is enjoyable even if one is sampling bits and pieces rather than exploring the archives and reading everything.

Separate sections of the blog are devoted to cooking, home and garden, homeschooling, and photography. The "Confessions" tab (at the top of the blog) will take you to the most blog-like entries in which she records her thoughts about her family and their life on the ranch. In each section are photos and other attractive visual elements as well as good humor that comes out in the way the blogger uses language to comment on what's going on in her life.

And because I'm a "foodie," I have to recommend a tour of The Pioneer Woman's recipes, which are accompanied by illustrative photos. Just try to look through the photos for the Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever without working up an appetite!

(What is a catablogue?)

Catablogue: What Not to Crochet

What Not to Crochet

This blog is in the spirit of Moggit, Craftastrophe, and Cake Wrecks: laughing while cringing. The focus of the site is so simple: share photos of needle work that probably ought not to have been made. Scroll through the blog for examples from the world of fashion, art, and crafts. There are bras, bikini bottoms, and men's athletic supporters made from yarn and hemp (the blogger's concern: that the "pink bits" will poke out). There are clothes for animals, animals made from yarn, and clothes made to look like animals. There are projects crocheted with the sole purpose of seeing whether it's possible to create with yarn.

The blogger does share photos, too, of impressive crochet samples--so if you crochet, you may be inspired in your own work by some of the photos . . . but definitely warned not to create tacky, tasteless projects exemplified by other photos. This blog is good for a laugh, and it fills a void left by the absence of another similar blog: You Knit What?? (which, although no longer being updated, is still available for viewing photos of "craftastrophes" from the world of knitting).

(What is a catablogue?)

Catablogue: Book Blogs

Yep, not one but three blogs are featured today! Considering that I'm married to a librarian, that I used to be an English teacher, and that reading is pretty important in our family (I submit this and this as supporting evidence), I'm a little surprised to look back and note that I have not offered any literature-related blogs in the catablogue until now. If you are a reader, a promoter of literacy, someone who desires to read more but doesn't know where to start, or some combination thereof, you'd do well to check out any of these blogs.

The Book Lady's Blog

I like the straightforward title. Books are this blogger's profession and passion ("I'm on a mission to share the love of reading and keep the written word alive in our increasingly digital culture" [citation]). Along with book reviews (a standard component of many book blogs), the Book Lady shares information on undertaking reading challenges, facilitating book clubs, entering book-related giveaways, and listening to/meeting authors at book signings or public readings. Two recent posts to sample:

• Did you know that Book Blogger Appreciation Week is coming up soon? Let the Book Lady tell you all about it.
• If you wanted to raise someone's interest in a literary classic, what contemporary (and theoretically more "accessible") work would you recommend to be read along with that classic? The Book Lady has some ideas for possible pairings.

Everyday Reading

This blogger is a librarian who originally intended to use the blog as a means for sharing her book reviews but who has, over time, added posts about whatever topics strike her fancy. She sounds like a fun person both in those "You know, I've been thinking about . . ." kinds of posts as well as in her reviews, which are written in clear language and a conversational voice (e.g., "There was one literary device in this book that made me kind of crazy" [citation]). Two non-book-review posts to sample:

• The blogger offers a possible life motto for herself ("Live Light") and tells how getting her reading materials from a library rather than a bookstore enables her to enjoy books without being obligated to store, move, dust around, sell, or dispose of them after reading them--just return them to the library and be done.
• The blogger recommends a heart-tugging article she has read that reminds her "of things that are painful to remember" but that she "want[s] to be reminded of anyway." The one-two punch of reading her post about the article and then the article itself reduced me to tears.

Maw Books Blog

This blogger calls reading her "great escape from being a stay-at-home mom"(citation) and writes reviews of every book that she reads. And she reads all kinds of books, so when perusing her blog, you're as likely to read about memoirs or adult fiction as about children's literature or parenting books. Maw Books Blog offers book-related contests and giveaways, book- and author-related news, reader polls, book lists, etc., with the occasional post about events or people from the blogger's personal life. She even shares her "library": what she has read recently, what she's reading currently, and what she plans to read next (an impressive list). Two interesting posts to sample:

• She shares the movie trailers for current and upcoming movies that are based on books, possibly increasing both viewership and readership.
• She reflects on her penchant for owning lots of books when, in fact, she rarely rereads books, speculating that the joy of keeping books comes from being able to reminisce about a pleasant reading experience when she sees a particular book title.

(What is a catablogue?)

Catablogue: Stop Homework

Stop Homework

Today is the start of the school year here, so it seems an appropriate day on which to share this particular blog with you. I hadn't heard of Stop Homework until it was cited in an article that I read this summer, so I checked it out briefly. Because I'm not a regular reader of the blog, or a visitor who has spent much time perusing its archives, I can't say that I have any strong opinions about it or insight into it. I can only say that its focus--discussing the worth of homework for students--is important for anybody to consider who is a student, parent, educator (teacher, principal, etc.), or other citizen interested in what's happening in your local schools.

The blogger's biography states that she is a parent who "has been an anti-homework activist from the time her older child entered first grade." However, from what she writes in the posts to her blog, she seems less anti-homework and more anti-busywork. She writes from the perspective of a parent frustrated with homework tasks that do not accomplish enough for a child's learning to be worth the personal time that they consume (potential "family time" that is spent, by the child, doing homework or, by the parent, cajoling the child to complete homework).

So it seems that she--and like-minded commenters on her blog--want teachers to think carefully about the purpose and results of the homework that they assign. She also encourages parents to initiate, at their children's schools, conversations about homework policies and practices. Stop Homework doesn't seem to advocate never assigning homework at all. But homework assignments are not, in and of themselves, the mark of a serious teacher or a rigorous course. You don't have to dig too deeply into the blog's past posts to find a parent who blames excessive homework on his/her child's lack of interest in learning or reading, or a teacher who outlines his/her approach to designing effective at-home assignments.

Check out Stop Homework. You may agree with what you read, or disagree, or start to rethink your own beliefs about homework for school children. So long as it gets you thinking (or, potentially, talking to others and/or taking action), it will have been worth the visit.

P.S. Family Homework Answers is a similar kind of blog that, in addition, links back (click "Home" at the top of that blog) to a site with homework-related resources for teachers (e.g., questions to ask oneself before assigning homework), for students (e.g., study resources and suggestions), and for parents (e.g., how to communicate with a teacher about a child's homework).

(What is a catablogue?)

Catablogue: Morsels and Musings

Morsels and Musings: A Scattered Collection of Recipes and Thoughts

Surprise, surprise: another food-related blog has caught my eye! Morsels and Musings has a decidedly international bent; it makes recipes from around the world look and sound appealing and, with clear instructions in the numerous recipes, perfectly accessible, too. Well, so long as you can get your hands on all of the ingredients, that is. Local grocers do not offer cavolo nero in the produce aisle or stock smoked salt amongst the spices, so I can just cross out this recipe. Oh, and I can't find persimmons. Or sumac. Or kaffir leaves. Or . . .

But the point is that, supposing you're able to obtain all the necessary ingredients, you can access any number of recipes from Morsels and Musings to expand your culinary horizons by trying dishes from across the globe. If you're on a mission to find and prepare an international recipe from someplace in particular, start with the blog's sidebar and scroll down to "Regional Categories." You have some very specific options to choose from--not just "Asia," for example, but "Central/South Asia," "North Asia," "Southeast Asia," or "Oceania/Australasia"! (I love options.)

Or you could scroll down a bit further and find (still in the sidebar) "My Favourite Blogs," each blog listed with the country represented by its blogger. This list--and "Chefs Online" and "Food-Related Links" still further down in the sidebar--expands your opportunities to explore multicultural cuisine via Morsels and Musings.

If you peruse Morsels and Musings in reverse chronological order, you will enjoy the blogger's stories about traveling and dining out interspersed with posts about her cooking and baking, and you will get to know personal details about the cook behind the diverse dishes. If you'd rather use the blog strictly as a source of new recipes, however, I recommend the recipe index, which is organized by category so that you can choose from a list of soups, or a list of appetizers, etc. Either way, it's a very user-friendly and appealing blog.

Why should Morsels and Musings take an around-the-world approach to cooking and eating? Well, it might be a result of the blogger's being a half-American Australian omnivore living "down under" with her vegetarian Swedish husband! She writes, "My aim is to explore international cuisines and try to cook my way around the world as well as use interesting and exotic (to me) ingredients that I stumble upon" (citation). I'm glad that she's also sharing it all on the Interwebs with you and me!

(What is a catablogue?)

Catablogue: Moggit

Moggit: The Guilty Pleasure of the Decorating World

This blog is to interior decorating as Cake Wrecks is to cake decorating (remember?). Except that Moggit keeps the commentary in each post to a minimum and largely lets the "decorating" speak for itself. Sometimes the featured photos are of some hideous product that can be purchased and put in one's own home; sometimes they're of some room that has been hideously decorated by an interior designer; sometimes they're of some piece of hideous artwork that has been created by someone without taste, style, or talent. Always they inspire a combination of cringes and laughter, perhaps even a sense of schadenfreude because we readers have not been duped into paying good money for the hideous wallpaper, curtains, paintings, rugs, furniture, sculptures, etc., that somebody else bought (or that the makers are hoping to sell to dupes who have no clue).

To illustrate:

• Decorate your bathroom with a blood-splattered shower curtain and bloody footprint-stained bath mat meant to suggest that Janet Leigh's character from the movie Psycho was murdered in your home. (Achieve the same effect in the dining room with a gruesome tea set and in the bedroom with crime scene headboard art.)
• Spend $26,000 to own what an artist has named "Chest of Drawers," numerous sets of drawers randomly stacked on top of one another and bound together by a tautly pulled canvas strap. To match, buy a similarly constructed end table made of a stack of books with wooden boards tied to the top and bottom.
• Furnish your living room with a concrete couch.
• Pique your guests' appetites by seating them at a dining table beneath a rat chandelier and serving their food on dishes painted to look as though insects are swarming all over them.
• Decorate your home with a vase that resembles a uterus, throw pillows made to look like wrapped condoms, and a lamp in the shape of a nude man (the penis is the on/off switch).

There is educational value to this blog; if you find on Moggit photos of something that you would consider stylish, you will have learned how off-the-mark you are. Moggit is a money-saving tool, too; do not buy anything featured on the site! Moggit's real value, though, is as a source of laughs. Check it out and enjoys the chuckles.

(What is a catablogue?)

Catablogue: Twig and Thistle

Twig and Thistle: Finds for Everyday

This blog is about a lot of things that I'm not at all about: graphic design in fabric and print, sewing, crafts, party decorating, handmade stationery, etc. However, it's so visually appealing that I still like it! Twig and Thistle's sidebar proclaims it to be "a collection of daily inspiration for home and life," and I can see how it would be. Looking for theme ideas (including invitations, decorations, and food) for a baby shower, bridal shower, or birthday party that you're throwing? Planning a wedding reception and want some ideas for tasteful decor and favors for the guests? Seeking inspiration (e.g., fabric, patterns) for your next needlework project? Wanting to keep busy with a craft or make something homemade for a gift but running out of ideas? Then, yes--you guessed it--Twig and Thistle is your source!

You have to visit the blog to appreciate fully the simplicity of the layout and the beauty of the photographs. Just to give you an idea of the variety of topics covered, I randomly chose a month (January 2009) from which to share an illustrative sampling:

• beautiful graphic design on skateboards
• well designed upscale clothing for dogs
• tasteful paper goods from a Swiss letterpress shop
• fun designs on Mexican postage stamps
• do-it-yourself party decoration: a pennant string of triangles cut from one's own choice of fabric

If your covetousness is aroused by Twig and Thistle, you might wish to peruse its online shop (reopening tomorrow) or patronize the blog's sponsors (check out the current sponsor in Twig and Thistle's sidebar). Or, for free, you could spend time browsing the archives of Twig and Thistle or consulting the blog's sidebar and exploring the sites recommended there. Or just check in once in a while to see the most recent post . . . and let the beauty of the topic and its presentation calm or inspire you.

(What is a catablogue?)

Catablogue: Fahrenheit 350°

Fahrenheit 350°: The Temperature at Which Sweets Happen

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I've featured food blogs previously in my catablogue. I love eating, and I enjoy experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen (and eating the creations of others who enjoy doing the same--that's you, Susan). I especially love desserts (thank you, Mom, for that gene). If you do, too, then check out Fahrenheit 350° by "a dessert blogger" who offers such things as

• restaurant reviews with plenty of photos of each menu item sampled and a particular emphasis on the dessert options (for example)
• dessert recipes with accompanying personal stories that serve as enlightening background and effective lead-in for the food (for example)
• a sidebar listing categories so that you can go directly to posts about whatever topic interests you, be it a type of dessert item (e.g., "crust," "frosting") or a specific ingredient (e.g., "lemons," "strawberries")

Some of Fahrenheit 350°'s posts offer links to the blogger's sister's blog, French Knots, which not only offers some of the recipes mentioned on Fahrenheit 350° (e.g., "Today we made this food item. For the recipe, head over to my sister's blog") but also features photos and information on a variety of other topics, such as gardening and quilting. Quite the industrious and creative family!

(What is a catablogue?)

Catablogue: Said the Gramophone

Said the Gramophone

The bloggers behind Said the Gramophone call it "a daily sampler of really good songs." They post MP3s of songs for visitors to listen to while reading the accompanying descriptions that they have supplied. You can play each song right in your browser, or you can download it to listen using your own player. If hearing the song or reading Said the Gramophone's commentary on it makes you want to buy the album (which is highly encouraged in the blog's sidebar: "Please go out and buy the records!"), you will find yourself usually able to do so by clicking on a purchase link provided within the post.

Points of mention:

• Count on an eclectic selection of music from Said the Gramophone. I haven't found any "Top 40" hits on the site, but I have heard international music, surreal covers of songs by other artists, alternative offerings, and lots of songs by artists of whom I have never heard. Ever. Which I think is terrific. This is a favor to the featured musicians (expanding their audience) as well as to us readers (expanding our musical horizons).
• You can peruse the site's archive of past posts, but don't count on being able to listen to songs posted too long ago. Said the Gramophone wishes for visitors to sample songs and then go buy the albums, not rely on the site as a music library.
• In the sidebar, Said the Gramophone recommends many favorite blogs, marking those that are music-related in case you're interested in delving deeper or finding even more music resources online.
• The bloggers are Canadian, which should be endorsement enough (Canada = cool).

Sometimes, the commentary accompanying a song will read less like a review or description and more like a narrative or perhaps stream-of-consciousness journaling inspired by the song. Don't be put off. Just go with it and trust that the overall effect (the blog's words plus the musicians' performance) is holistically harmonious. (Did I mention that Said the Gramophone is the brainchild of Canadians? We ought to support our friendly neighbors to the north. Don't ask questions; just log on and listen.)

(What is a catablogue?)