My Hero, the Master of Google-Fu

I've been tracking down out-of-print books from my childhood. Usually I only remember some of the plot, not the title or author. With the help of google, I had compiled a nearly comprehensive list of books that I wanted:

Balch, Glenn: Little Hawk and the Free Horses (Little Hawk must tame a band of mustangs to save his tribe from the white men and the Apaches. Probably incredibly not PC now, but one of my favorites when I was a kid.)
Bell, Thelma: Captain Ghost (A mysterious man teaches several children how to turn a fallen tree into a sailing ship.)
Brock, Betty: The Shades (People's shadows live lives of their own in an enchanted garden.)
Nash, Mary: Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians (When the three children don't like their new nanny, the youngest turns to magic.)

Still, there was one book that I had treasured that I could find no trace of. I remembered the title as "The Queen Bee, and Other Stories." It was a collection of nature fables that were rather twisted. Unfortunately, all of the keywords I could think of were not specific enough to find it on google.

A few days ago I was telling Corvus about the stories in this book. He also writes fables that tend to be twisted, so he was very interested. He rose to the challenge and applied his google-fu to the problem.

And, believe it or not, he found it. The book I remembered was The Spider and Other Stories by Carl Ewald, not "The Queen Bee." He also found the complete text for the story "The Queen Bee" in The Junior Classics, Volume 8, verifying that this was indeed the author we wanted.

I'm looking forward to finally getting my hands on this book that I've remembered for so long.

What a Haul!

In the course of packing up our bookcases, Corvus and I found about four boxes of books we were willing to part with. We took them to Bookmans, a local used bookstore. I figured that we would have over $100 in trade credit, so we went crazy in the classics and children's sections. After all, the credits won't do us any good in West Virginia. Here is what we got:

Alexander, Lloyd: The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, The Foundling, Westmark
Babbitt, Natalie: Tuck Everlasting
Baum, L. Frank: The Wizard of Oz
Beowolf
Dahl, Roald: The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda
Grahame, Kenneth: The Wind in the Willows, The Golden Age
Howe, James: The Bunnicula series
Jackson, Shirley: The Haunting of Hill House
Kjelgaard, Jim: Irish Red, Outlaw Red (we already have Big Red)
Koehler, W.R.: The Koehler Method of Dog Training
Lovecraft, H.P.: The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories
Martin, George R.R.: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings
Milne, A.A.: The World of Pooh
Norton, Mary: The Borrowers, The Borrowers Afield, The Borrowers Aloft
Paterson, Katherine: Bridge to Terabithia
Sharp, Margery: The Turret (sequel to The Rescuers, which I already have)
Taylor, Theodore: The Cay, The Trouble With Tuck
White, E.B.: Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, The Trumpet of the Swan

All this for only $115 in trade credit. In the words of Happosai, what a haul!

How to Make Perfect Stovetop Popcorn

Don't skimp on the oil. There needs to be enough oil at the bottom of the pan to halfway submerge the kernels, otherwise the popcorn will be hard. Hard popcorn is the reason I've never really liked air-popped corn, and the reason I've been experimenting with stovetop popcorn.

A 4-quart pot is just the right size for a half cup of unpopped kernels. I prefer a taller pot to a wider one, but I don't have any rational reason to back that up. A gas stove is also incredibly helpful, but that's true of cooking in general. I don't know if I would attempt stove-top popcorn on an electric stove.

Pour enough oil into the bottom of the pot so that the kernels will be about halfway submerged when they are added. I've found that peanut oil is the tastiest of the oils we have on hand, but I want to order some cocanut oil. That's what they use at the movie theatres.

Toss three kernels into the pot, put the lid on, and turn the gas up to just past medium. Have the rest of your popcorn premeasured, because things will move fast once you get started. Likewise, have a bowl ready to put the finished popcorn into.

Once the three kernels have popped, add the rest of the kernels all at once. Put the lid back on and shake the pot to coat all of the kernels with oil. Turn the gas down lower--it's between 1 and 2 on my stove.

Once the corn starts popping, lift the lid up slightly (pointing away from you) to vent the steam. Trapped moisture will make the popcorn hard. Occasionally shake the pot so that the unpopped kernels will work their way to the bottom. When the popping slows to a second or two between pops, turn the gas off. The last few kernels will probably pop from the ambient heat. Carefully pour the popcorn into the bowl. With any luck, it won't be burned and there won't be too many unpopped kernels.

At this point, Corvus and I have become so good at popping corn on the stove that it's just as easy as using the air popper. And it tastes so much better.