Secret Pockets -- and Aprons, Books, and Connections

A Is for Apron -- ABCs: Aprons, Books, and Connections

Everyone likes a secret and including a secret pocket in a garment is a fun thing to do.  This green apron has a secret pocket -- with a treasure inside.

And another secret as well...  All is revealed in A Is for Apron -- ABCs: Aprons, Books, and Connections

A unique presentation featuring the history of aprons, connections to books, and myriad of ideas for reading, sewing, creating, and building a literacy environment in your community.  A great keynote or luncheon presentation at functions which might include tradesmen, parents, educators, sewing enthusiasts. Sewing guilds.

 

McBookwords has a dozen or more authors that speak with young readers.  If you would like to investigate having this presentation for your organization  --  please contact us at McBookwords. A presentation for  all types of groups that are interested in literacy and  books, and arts such as sewing and creativity with fabric.

Aprons for the Smallest Cooks

Aprons - a Touch of Whimsy.
Just finishing adding the buttons to the latest aprons -- Check them out at Greenfroggifts on Etsy.  
Take a look here!

1 each of designs #1 - #2 - #3
Child's aprons approximately 18 in. x 22 in.
#1 - Fish with pocket and ruffle version: Fish motif, gold wave background. Adjustable neck - three buttons purple, green, and yellow. String ties can be tied in front or back. Pocket. Pleated ruffle at the bottom of the apron body.
Apron is double fabric - fish motif on the front, gold with orange wave on the reverse and as accent.
#2 - Gold fish pocket and full pocket of porthole blue fabric. Pocket same as background. Adjustable neck - with buttons. String ties can be tied in front or back.
Apron is double fabric - tumbling fish motif on the front, porthole fish fabric on the reverse and as a pocket with gold accent.
#3 - Porthole Fish in ocean apron with full pocket with fish in ocean motif across the bottom of the apron (tumbling fish motif fabric is also the apron backing).  White trim.

Do you have a book package that you'd like to order -- suggest something special just for you...  Visit Greenfroggifts on Etsy for the latest choices. 

Order cookie cutters, aprons, and baker's cloths from Green Frog Gifts -- unique gifts -- many $10.00 or under.

Rhubarb - 'Tis the Season

rhu·barb  

/ˈro͞oˌbärb/

Noun The thick leaf stalks of a cultivated plant of the dock family, which are reddish or green and eaten as a fruit after cooking. The large-leaved Eurasian plant (Rheum rhaponticum) that produces these stems.

Synonyms --pieplant

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Rhubarb makes a delicious Rhubarb pie — whether alone or combined with strawberries. Rhubarb Pie is a staple in the restaurants in the Amana Colonies - a historical area in the middle of Iowa.  Making a good crust is a talent -- and if making it fresh, time-consuming.  Much quicker and just as delicious is a good rhubarb crisp.  It takes only minutes to put together and then into the oven while you are preparing for guests or making the rest of the meal.  Serve it warm with ice cream (we like using a butter crunch) or with whipped cream.

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Cite this article:

McElmeel, Sharron. (2014, April 2). Rhubarb -'Tis the Season. Green Frog Gifts (Blog). http://bit.ly/rhubarbtime2

 Visit Greenfroggifts on Etsy 

Sweet Sorghum - molasses (An Iowa Tradition)

Sweet Sorghum

Historical: Maasdam Sorghum Mills

Maasdam Sorghum Mills-website

www.maasdamsorghum.com

My mother grew up in the 1920s on a farm in the Urbana - Center Point area (Iowa).  She recalled only having sorghum (sometimes she referred to the syrup as molasses)* to sweeten her morning oatmeal.  Sorghum was also the syrup the family used on pancakes and waffles.  When she tired of eating pancakes with sorghum, day-after-day, she would open a jar of canned peaches and eat peaches on the pancake, or perhaps applesauce.  But most often her morning breakfast would include sorghum.  Sweet sorghum syrup was commonly referred to as sorghum molasses or just plain molasses, although molasses is actually a byproduct of sugar cane or sugar beets.   After World War II, sorghum production dropped significantly,  as raising and harvesting sorghum, for syrup, was very labor intensive.  Now less than 1 million gallons of syrup are produced annually in the United States -- most of it in seven states in addition to Iowa (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee).  One of the only surviving sorghum mills in Iowa, the Maasdam Sorghum Mills, 6495 E. 132nd St. S., Lynnville, Iowa 50153, began operation in 1926.  I've never been to their mill but the process and history is the subject of a video at https://youtu.be/hV6ztHccDy0.

In later decades, well after the 1920s, when my siblings and I were growing up on an Iowa farm, there was not a crop of sorghum plants - and despite the fact that my mother had tired of sorghum in her own childhood, commercially available molasses was often used for baking in her household.  We most often used Brer Rabbit Molasses.  We had two favorite recipes: Applesauce Molasses Cake and Molasses Cookies.  The original recipes came from a little recipe booklet distributed by the Brer Rabbit company.  These have been adapted over the years.

Most people associate Brer Rabbit Molasses with New Orleans, but these vintage company brochures (and the Brer Rabbit Penick Waffle and Pancake Syrup) establishes the connection between Brer Rabbit Molasses (and Penick Syrup) with Iowa.  Penick and Ford Ltd established a plant in Cedar Rapids Iowa, built on the remains of the Douglas Starch works plant that had been rocked by an explosion in 1919.

Order cookie cutters, aprons, and baker's cloths from Green Frog Gifts -- unique gifts -- many $10.00 or under.

*Molasses vs. Sorghum

The sorghum plant, a type of grass, was introduced into the United States from Africa in the early part of the 17th century. Sorghum syrup is a natural sweetener made by processing the juice that is extracted from the sorghum plant.  Special equipment is used to crush and extract the juice.  Farmers sent the sorghum stalks to mills for the extraction.  Sorghum syrup is produced primarily in the United States and is used as a substitute for sugar. It tends to have a thinner consistency and a slightly more sour taste than does molasses

Molasses was also introduced to the United States during the 17th century when traders started transporting it from the Caribbean to New England where it was popular as an ingredient for rum. Molasses was the most popular sweetener until the late 19th century because it was more affordable than sugar. Molasses is the by-product of processing sugar cane into sugar. The sugar cane plant is stripped of its leaves and the juice is extracted from the cane by crushing or mashing. The juice is boiled to concentrate it, which produces crystallization of the sugar. The result of the first boiling and removal of the sugar crystals is called “first molasses” (mild) and is the sweetest tasting. “Second molasses” (dark) is created from a second boiling and removal of sugar crystals. “Blackstrap” is the result of a third boiling of the syrup. The darker molasses is considered bittersweet.

The history of the Penick and Ford Plant in Cedar Rapids Iowa is detailed on the company's official site.
The company is now the Penford Corporation.

1903: The Douglas brothers form Douglas Starch Works in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

1919: Douglas Starch Works is sold to Penick & Ford, Ltd.

1965: Penick & Ford is purchased by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

1971: R.J. Reynolds sells Penick & Ford to the Univar Corporation.

1984: Penick & Ford and Great Western Malting, set up as divisions of Penwest Ltd., are spun off from Univar.

1989: Great Western is divested.

1997: The company changes its name to Penford Corporation.

1998: Penwest Pharmaceuticals Co. is divested.

2002: Penford relocates headquarters to Denver, Colorado.

Penford's present-day facility produces ethanol and corn syrup and maintains a large facility in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa.