MARCH breAK! 2012: Sweetening St. Patty’s Day Brunch: Lime Mint Syrup

We made this simple syrup for Bea to pour over her pancakes this morning. She’s a lime fanatic! The mint flavour is extremely mild. Omit the mint altogether, and you have a lovely lime syrup!  This syrup will also mix with your brunch beverages. St. Patty’s Day Mojitos, anyone?

Lime Mint Syrup
Adapted from a recipe in Topp  & Howard, The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving
Makes .25 pint

Ingredients
3 limes
.5 c white wine
.5 c sugar
1/3 c torn fresh mint leaves

Method
Zest all three limes with a microplane.
Juice the limes, setting 1.5 tbs juice aside in a bowl.
Heat wine, sugar, mint and zest in a sauce pan.
Bring the ingredients to a boil, uncovered, over medium high heat.
Cover the pan, reduce the heat to medium low, and simmer for 8-10 minutes.
Remove the pan from the stove top and let the syrup cool completely.
Strain the syrup through fine mesh into a glass jar.
Strain the lime juice into the jar through the same sieve and compost the remnants.
Incorporate the juice into the syrup with a small wooden spoon or rubber spatula.
The lime mint syrup will actually look like a small pot of gold!
Store any left-overs in a well-sealed container.

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MARCH breAK! 2012: Snake Sock Puppets

Today, we finished reading and illustrating our book,  A Study in Emerald. To celebrate, we munched on Frogwiches (homemade gingerbread sandwich cookies), and we made sock puppets of all the major characters in our story. When the kids were done, we got out the old doorway puppet theatre I made way back before Bea was born, and they put on a puppet production of the story!  I’ve posted a Gallery of pictures just below, and a DIY/How-to for the puppets at the bottom of the page. 

 Snake Sock Puppet Gallery

Sir Lochrann Holmes and Seann McUaitson

Detectives Gallagher and Na’Sraide

Siobhan/Cailloan and Haggerty

The Pythons: Strangerson and Drebber

Wiggins, the snake-urchin and Mrs. Houghston, the landlady

Mrs. Limerick and her son, David

Irene Adder
 
The Nest
(Seann Clancy was not availble for a photo today.)

Our Puppet Theatre from 2003 is still in use!
 
The puppets in action!
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DIY Snake Sock Puppets

Supplies

Socks
Googly Eyes
Ribbon
Hot Glue and Gun
A large, old wooden or metal spoon

Method
Choose a pairs of googly eyes, and a few inches of ribbon into a forked tongue for each puppet.

Wiggle the sock down over a large old spoon.

Glue eyes just below the seam at the foot of the sock.
 
Flip spoon around so that you can’t see the eyes/seam of the sock.
Glue about 1 inch of the ribbon down, pattern side down down the centre towards the tip.

Let cool for a moment before removing the puppet from spoon.
 
Play!

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MARCH breAK! 2012: A Study in Emerald, Day 5, Story and Illustrations

We just finished reading and illustrating A Study in Emerald!  Today, the kids used chalk pastels dipped in water, oil pastels, and woodless coloured pencils to complete their cover pages for the book, as well as their illustrations for the seventh and final chapter.  Afterwards, they indulged in Gallagher’s Favourite Frogwiches (ginger sandwich cookies) and they made Snake Sock Puppets, putting on a condensed puppet production of the entire book! I’ve provided something of a summary of our final chapter, below.  A gallery of the kids’ illustrations follows.

Summary: A Study in Emerald, Chapter Seven, A Light in the Darkness 
Na’Sraide shares the details of Strangerson’s murder.  Since he hasn’t returned to the serpent police station yet, he has some of the evidence from the crime-scene with him.  Insepcting a bakery box of Amphibian Farls, which, unlike Mrs. Houghston’s lovely frog breads, appear to be full of small bones and soaked in what appears to be some kind of syrup, Holmes exclaims that he has solved the case.  He then feeds the farls to McUaitson’s pet doormouse, Edgar Allen, in order to test his theories, exulting in the dramatic conclusio to the old mouse’s life (no worries, he’s packing an antidote!). Gobsmacked, Gallagher and Na’Sraide appeal to Holmes to reveal the name of the culprit.  Rather than naming the murderer, however, Holmes, with the help of the street-urchin Wiggins, lures the culprit right up into the coiling-room of 221B Barrow street.  But who dunnit, in the end? And who was the murderer’s wily, female-snake of an accomplice?  And just why were they bent on seeking “Revenge”? You didn’t think we were going to let the snake out of the bag, did you?  …. Ah now, you’ll just have to wait for us to edit and publish our story… We WILL tell you, however, that while the case comes to a full resoultion, A Study in Emerald concludes with the suggestion of a fresh new adventure for McUaitson and Holmes. Later that morning, the mysterious Eireen Adder steals her way into the coiling-room at 221B, begging for assistance… It seems she thinks she’s being followed.

Cover Art & Illustrations

Tobes:

Book Cover, A New Portrait of Sir Lochrann Holmes

Amphibian Farls Soaked in Poison

Edgar Allen on his little throne

Haggerty in a Neck-cuff

Bea:

Book Cover, the Pythons, Strangerson and Drebber, on a ferry to Ireland

Eireen Adder, A Very Special Portrait

Sir Lochrann Holmes in a thought bubble or a thinking fog…

Edgar Allen must choose between two Amphibian Farls
“Let’s see which one he eats.”

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MARCH breAK! 2012: A Study in Emerald, Day 4, Story & Illustrations

We’re on day four of our five day Illustrate-Your-Own Book  project. The kids have been trying different artistic techniques each day to create illustrations for the story I wrote for them, The Adventures of Sir Lóchrann Holmes: A Study in Emerald.  Today, after we made our Python Masks, we read chapter six (of seven) out loud to Blaise, who was home for the day.  Since I had to leave for an appointment, he took charge of the illustrations. Now, he’s actually an artist, so today’s explorations of  MIXED MEDIA proved to be the kids’ best efforts to date!!!  Illustrations to follow today’s plot summary, as usual. 

Summary: A Study in Emerald, Chapter Six, “Tobias Gallagher Shows What He Can Do” 
McUaitson discusses the contents of his scrapbook: news coverage of the crime. The serpent papers, the television news, and the online community were in a frenzy about the “Wolfe Tone Mystery.” First and foremost, they wonder about the presence of a Python in Ireland. Then, they increase the tension by revealing that the murdered Python, Drebber, had a secretary named Strangerson who may yet be on the loose in Dublin. The two pythons stayed at the boarding house of a Mrs. Limerick, near the docklands.   Next, Holmes then receives a visit by a whole knot of street snake urchins who inform him that they haven’t yet found the serpent he is looking for.  Just as the urchins disperse to go back to their spying, Gallagher arrives, claiming that he has arrested the murderer, young David Limerick, and laughing at his colleague Na’Sraide, who has gone off after Strangerson. Gallagher reports that during his visit to Mrs. Limerick’s boarding house, Mrs. Limerick’s daughter, Cailloan, convinces her mother to “Tell the truth” to him.  Mrs. Limerick confesses that the afternoon before the murder, her son David chased Drebber out of the house with a Shillelagh after he found an inebriated Drebber assaulting his mother in the coiling room.  The young Limerick’s alibi for the time of the murder is a lie, Gallagher claims. Just as Gallagher is wrapping up the conversation about his prisoner, Na’Sraide enters with news that he has just found the other python, Strangerson, dead in a rooming house near the ferry dock.     

Illustrations

Tobes:

Tobes shows David Limerick wielding his Shillelagh.
Oil Pastel, watercolour, and ink transfer.

One of the Barrow Street Snake Urchins
Watercolour (painted over a tape image of a snake),
Oil Pastel (to fill in snake), and paper collage (buildings).

McUaitson’s scrapbook of media coverage of the mystery.
Paper and oil pastel.

Tobes and Papa:

Sargeant Gallagher eats a frog sanwich cookie and explains the mystery.
Dyed Paper, Construction Paper, crayon, watercolour, and oil pastel.

Bea:

Holmes pays a street urchin for his troubles.
Watercolour, crayon, and oil pastel.

McUaitson reading his scrapbook of case memoribilia.
Watercolour, oil pastel, crayon, and ink.

Warrior Python inflicting damage.
Watercolour

 
“Snakesung” brand television, tuned to the “Fork-Tongue Channel,” where the anchor reports a murder, with and inset video of the crime scene over at Wolfe Tone Stret.
Collage, crayon, oil pastel, watercolour.

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