While driving in the Woodlands, Graham asked me if I'd ever eaten parsnips. I haven't, but that didn't stop me from giving a detailed description of the parsnips mentioned in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy (drool, drool - wonderful food writing).
"Hot mashed parsnips with pools of butter melting down the sides," I said hungrily.
"Pools of butter?" asked Annie. "That doesn't sound healthy at all."
"No," I laughed. "It doesn't, does it?"
"But what a feast!" said Graham, who actually keeps most veggies at an arm's length.
"Yes, but it sounds like the last feast," said Annie.
"You mean the best feast," responded Graham.
"No, I mean that after the feast your eyes will turn to Xs," she said.
"That means you're dead," she added with a whisper.
#2 - Snow White
Annie and her friend Annika saw a preview for the blu-ray version of "Snow White" (and pardon me if I know nothing about blu-ray, but it seems like just another way to say 'Buy our whole movie catalog' to me), and the preview included the mirror telling Snow White, "You're the fairest of them all!"
"What does fairest of them all mean?" asked Annika.
"It's a good thing," said Annie. "It means that you're the one who works the best with other people and helps other people. You're very fair."
Would that it were so, darling girls!
8 comments:
Pools of butter could make me eat absolutely anything: Yum, shoe leather with pools of butter! So perhaps they would make parsnips good, too. How on earth do you have book dialogue memorized? I just re-read Death Comes for the Archbishop for the 100th time, and I cannot quote you one single line. ALSO, I love Annie's description of fairest --- your wonderful children.
I have always loved Farmer Boy - the descriptions of the food were amazing. Sadly, to be contrasted with buckwheat pancakes for months during The Long Winter. I think Laura became so amazingly descriptive when Mary went blind and Pa instructed Laura to be her eyes. The Guthrie Theater is putting on musical version of "Little House on the Prairie" with Melissa Gilbert as Ma. I would love to take Elin. I would not love to pay the ticket prices. We'll probably just stick to reading our "My First Little House books"!
Elin says in her prayers lately, "I miss my cousins so much. I know they are coming in a week but I miss them SO much." Tell your fairest princess that her Minnesota cousin is thrilled beyond belief that the Texas cousins are a-coming!
Dear Annie,
May you never lose that definition of "fairest of them all." And may all of us adopt it. If we all sought to be your version of "fairest of them all" instead of the way Snow White means, I think this world would be a very different place.
Sara
Love the comments but even more that you present them so articulately. You too are the fairest of them all in both senses.
Leila said,
We just got some turnips from our neighbors garden. I have never eaten turnips but I bet they would be good with pools of butter too.
I agree with your mother--whole-heartedly.
Hey, with enough butter we could do boiled leather belts too?
I love annie's common sense. She is not just "lucky" as she says..........but a thoughtful lady.
ha ha! Your kids always crack me up!
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