Friday Finds: The Best Sugar High

You are, of course, all aware of my predilection for cooking. However, I'm not sure that I've ever truly express the depth of my sweet tooth. I also have a "fat tooth" but that's another blog post...

Today I'd like to introduce you to two things:

1. My wonderful friend John's awesome cartoon strip, Dork Tower, and

2. Igor Bars

Named for the character Igor, from Dork Tower, these diabetes-inducing treats include:

chocolate chip cookie dough (from recipe on bag of chocolate chips or purchase pre-fab dough in a tube)
 peanuts, 1.5 cups
 caramels, 100
 milk, 3 teaspoons
 semi-sweet chocolate chips, 16 oz.
 Rice Krispies, 6 cups
 marshmallows, 10 oz. (or one very large jar of marshmallow creme)
 margarine (eliminate if using marshmallow creme)
 M&Ms, any variety
 toffee chips or bars
 anything else you think is excessive

Here's the link to the original recipe. If you scroll down on the page, you'll find a number of ridiculous and yummy variations.

And here's the original comic with a pretty perfect representation of what happens when you eat Igor Bars:

 

If you end up making these, please write me and let me know how you like them! Also, please read Dork Tower. It's consistently one of the funniest commentaries on all things dorky and popular culture.

Bon Appetite!

- Alex

Yesterday's Dichotomy

Here at Mighty Distractible, we like to keep things crafty and (relatively) light. We talk about knitting, sewing, embroidery, cooking, books we've read, movies we've seen. But, every now and again there's a story of cultural relevance that we feel the compulsion to comment on. Today is one of those kind of posts.

My dear friend, John, captured it beautifully.

As most of you know, we live in Wisconsin. And, as if the political events of the last 500-odd days haven't been enough to keep us on our toes (and more than a little bummed out about the state of our lovely state), yesterday we made history with one of the most heinous shootings in recent memory. Hot on the heels of the mass shooting in a Colorado movie theater, our "event" had the added poison of being a hate crime. The shooter attacked a Sikh temple - killing six and wounding three, including a police officer who was trying to help a victim.

Seriously, what the F*CK is wrong with people?

These people are not the enemy.

My heart breaks for the dead and for the surviving families and friends. I can't imagine what their life must feel like today - how confusing the world must look to them. And for the rest of us for having to know that this kind of insanity is happening all around us - seemingly more and more often. Am I getting older and noticing it more or is our world becoming more fractured and violent every day?

I spent a good portion of yesterday asking myself this question.

Deserved celebration.

Then, a funny thing happened on my way to depression. NASA landed a rover called Curiosity on the surface of Mars. Almost 70% of previous Mars missions have failed and, against all odds, this amazing team of scientists managed to fling a car-sized mobile lab onto the surface of the planet - and not break anything. Within seven minutes of landing (smoothly, I might add), the rover started transmitting. We received transmissions with only a 14 minute delay. (There's a nine hour delay to see Olympic events... I'm just sayin'.) This was, undoubtedly, one of the most amazing and successful scientific events of my lifetime. And the whole damn thing only cost $2.5 billion dollars. I think it's time to start siphoning off some defense money and giving it to NASA. Seriously.

It's hard to stay sad when something so miraculous happens.

So, that was the roller coaster that was yesterday. And, while the success of the Curiosity helped off-set my completely crushed heart about the shootings at the temple, I simply can't get over the state of our world today. If only every event could be a Curiosity.

Chins up, all.

- Alex