Cool for school
Let kids take a "pet" to school with colorful, soft insulated lunch totes from Built. Their insides are wipe-cleanable and free of BPA, PVC and vinyl. Meet Astor Owl. His sibs? Delancey Doggie and Cornelia Kitty. They're $20 each.
For a store locator or to buy, go to builtny.com.
'Apocalypse Cakes'
Crashing stocks, oil spills, tsunamis and other disasters -- when life gets tough, the only thing you can do is eat cake. That's the motif behind San Francisco writer Shannon O'Malley's new tongue-in-cheek cookbook, "Apocalypse Cakes: Recipes for the End" (Running Press, 128 pages, $14).
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What began as a DIY publication -- a series of darkly funny comments and recipes inspired by assorted global disasters, copied at Kinko's and distributed to friends -- has become a small, square, hardcover book that's perfect for the Urban Outfitters crowd. Grandma, not so much. Profanity and political incorrectness abound. There's a definite whiff of self-congratulatory outrageousness.
As for the recipes, you'll laugh at some of the titles -- Global Jihad Date Cake, Obesity Epidemic Pound Cake and 2012 End-of-the-Mayan Calendar Chocolate Cupcakes.
But when the state of world affairs reaches a peak this bleak, the only thing one can do is realize, as O'Malley declares so succinctly in her introduction, that "We're doomed. Eat cake."
Sweet Snackimals
Maybe if you ask nicely your kids will share their Snackimals from Barbara's Bakery. The newest flavors -- deliciously crisp peanut butter and richly flavored double chocolate -- bring the line of sweet critters to six.
The suggested retail price for a 7.5-ounce bag: $4.19. For a store locator, go to barbarasbakery.com.
Can it
If you are new to canning, or simply are looking for new ways to put up whatever your garden grows, I've found three websites helpful:
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n CanningAcrossAmerica.com is a nonprofit collective of cooks, gardeners and food lovers "committed to the revival of the lost art of 'putting up' food." There's great information on getting started, intriguing recipes and cook-to-cook questions and comments.
n FreshPreserving.com (sponsored by Ball) has some intriguing recipes and is a go-to source for harder-to-find equipment and supplies. (Two extras that are essential are a wide-mouth funnel and a jar lifter for taking filled jars from a water bath.)
n SweetPreservation.com has recipes for canning stone fruit and lovely, free, downloadable label designs. There is also a helpful resource guide with links to other canning sites.
