Tag Archives: tips

So Fortunate

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The time was summer. The place was Wisconsin. Katie was shopping at an antique mall when she discovered The Good Fortune Cookie (Chronicle Books, 2015) inside a dealer nook. After flipping through a few pages and laughing at the unique format, she knew the book belonged at our library. As an added bonus, it included recipes to make your own fortune cookies, so to the literary testing kitchen we go! Take it away Katie!

The book itself is simple and adorable. The spiral-bound pages divide into three sections, which you can flip to create hundreds of fortunes (very similar to the Shakespearean insult book Dr. Dana reviewed here). What’s especially cute is that each section is backed with brightly colored paper, as you can see above. But the most intriguing part for me were the recipes in the back of the book. I’ve never made fortune cookies!

A quick glance let me know that I had most of the ingredients on hand. But there was something listed I have never encountered before: superfine sugar. I stopped by three different grocery stores and none of them carried it. Turns out superfine sugar (also called caster or quick-dissolve) is required when the sugar needs to melt and mix faster into batters or creams. It’s not recommended to substitute regular granulated sugar. Thank goodness we had a small food processor in the back of our pantry…I was able to grind the granulated sugar to superfine.

sugar 3

The recipe instructions are very concise, and it didn’t take long before I was ready to  bake the cookies. I carefully scooped four blobs of batter onto a greased baking sheet, spread it out roughly four inches. Checking in on their progress, I was surprised to see the four squares of batter had expanded and had come very close to combining into one enormous cookie!

I separated the dough as best I could and added an extra few minutes of baking time for the edges to turn brown. The recipe specifically states to keep a close eye on your cookies because overcooking can happen very quickly, which I can confirm happens in a split second if you aren’t paying attention.

Once I felt the batter was baked, I tried to fold my first fortune cookie. The dough was hot! Very hot! Somehow I missed the author’s wise suggestion to invest in a pair of candy gloves, which would have protected my fingers from getting burned. Not deterred, I followed the folding instructions with nimble fingers while singing a rendition of “Hot Hot Hot” by Buster Poindexter. The fortune cookies looked great, but they were HUGE!

Lesson learned. Make smaller spreads of the batter and be speedy when folding.

The book’s estimate of about 20 cookies per batch was spot-on as I went through the baking and folding steps an additional four times. With each attempt, the size of the cookie got smaller and I was faster folding the hot dough. The final two rounds of baking, I was confident enough to add the paper fortunes created from the book, and folded the cookies around them.

By the end, I was pleased my fortune cookies were almost the same size as a cookie you would receive from a restaurant. Moving from left to right in the image below, you can see the timeline of my cookie progress. On the far lower right is a restaurant fortune cookie for size comparison.

After sampling one (okay, three) cookies throughout the baking process, I can attest that they are really delicious. In the future, I think I’ll replace the almond extract with vanilla, or add some lemon or orange zest to enhance their flavor. There’s also a recipe for chocolate fortune cookies which basically reduces the amount of flour and adds cocoa powder.

Note: as far as making the paper fortunes for the cookies, I found instructions for an online template in the book, but the link no longer works. However, the book does tell you the correct size of the fortunes so you can easily do it on your own.

The Good Fortune Cookie – both the book and the recipe – receive my seal of approval!

Ransom is as Ransom Does

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Quick! You have 90 seconds to describe the inside of Chuck E. Cheese, using only 75 random letters. OK, how about asking your neighbor to borrow something from their kitchen? Summarize the Star Wars movies? Explain to a grocery store worker why you have a monkey with you?

Welcome to Ransom Notes (by Charty Party), an awesome word magnet game that challenges up to six players to create the best description they can…using very few words…and zero grammar!

ransom notes box 4Retailing for around $40, the game includes 840 word magnets, 6 metal player submission cards, and 255 prompt cards.

I will tell you that the game does not come out of the box ready-to-play…you have to individually separate multiple sheets of magnets. But after that, you’re ready to go!

Each player gets a metal submission card, and grabs 3 pinches of the letter tiles (about 75 tiles total). Then each player organizes their letters facing up. This process takes a WHILE. But I will say that the 2 players I played with had a good chuckle over their words, and were spontaneously stringing together funny sentences while also getting organized for game play.

The round begins when a prompt card is flipped. Players then have 60-90 seconds to come up with a response using their magnet tiles (note: I played this game with my 13 and 10 year-old, and we extended that period to 2-3 minutes). When the time’s up, everyone shares their ransom note! The results prompted much laughter. Here’s one of our rounds:

With the results revealed, a Judge is selected (and there’s a new judge every round). You can decide who judges the round, or – and I really like this – you can spin the bottom of the game box on the table. One side has “you’re the judge” printed on it, and whoever it lands facing is the Judge!

you're the judge 5 The Judge picks the winner of the round, and the winner is awarded the prompt card. The next round begins, and the game ends when one person has won five prompt cards total. The Judge can pick themselves to win a round, but the rest of the players must unanimously agree.

In summary, Ransom Note is really funny and we enjoyed it!  It’s simple to play, and there is a whole lot of creative writing happening. The prompt cards are hilarious and unusual. The game box states Ransom Note is intended for ages 17+ but that mostly refers to some of the more adult prompt cards. Those can easily be removed from the deck if you’re playing with younger kiddos. My only quibble is that the magnet words don’t always adhere to to metal game cards very well. But you only have to use them for a short amount of time, so eh…it’s fine.

Highly recommended!

From the Desk of Mr. Sherlock Holmes

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In the age of electronic communication – texts, emails, Slack, Zoom – there’s something magical about receiving an old fashioned letter in your mailbox. It’s even more thrilling when the return address says the correspondence is from Sherlock Holmes!

Our library has worked with Detective Holmes on multiple occasions. We helped him solve the mystery of a missing tiger (virtual escape room) and also track down an antidote to poison that had been released in the Princeton water system (in person escape room). And younger detectives can try rebus puzzles here. Yes, we believe our crime solving skills are top-notch and we needed a new task. So when Katie discovered a mystery-solving mailing game, she decided to give it a test drive! Take it away, Katie!

“Dear Holmes” is a monthly subscription that mails mysterious letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes directly to your mailbox. You receive five letters every month: four letters with clues and one letter with the answer. The challenge is to solve the case before the master literary detective himself sends his solution. When you sign up, you select one of three levels of membership spanning a year: we subscribed for three months for $60. There’s a gift option for sending letters to those who enjoy figuring out whodunit, and you can pause or renew your subscription at any time.

My first letter arrived in early June and I had my magnifying glass at the ready. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do, so as I read I would make mental notes of strange coincidences, interesting conversations, and odd happenings that were shared by the writer of the letter. When the solution message from Holmes arrived at the end of the month, I found myself saying “oh yeah!” and “I knew it!” as I was reading his explanation. When I received the next letters, I paid close attention to all of the critical details shared in the document. I highlighted passages and wrote notes in the margins, all while asking my own questions and making comments about who may be behind the crime. And I was right! I didn’t figure out every piece of the puzzle, but I had pinned the correct person behind the dastardly deed.

The attention to detail within the letters is really remarkable. The behind the scenes authors who write the story lines provide every minute detail to make you believe you are communicating with a person living in Victorian London. The paper and envelope are extremely high quality, and the font that is used is somewhat reminiscent of the era.

“Dear Holmes” a fun activity for your entire friend or family group, whether you are living close together or are on different sides of the country. It’s a mystery that isn’t solved immediately, so there’s time to debate and discuss before the next letter arrives. It’s also something you can do entirely on your own. There’s no provided age range, but I would suggest 12+. I recommend “Dear Holmes” wholeheartedly!

A historical note about the intro photo, which was taken in the William Elfers ’41 Reading Room on the third floor of Firestone Library. Discreetly tucked under a staircase is the personal secretary desk of John Witherspoon, who was President of Princeton University from 1768-1794 and is a signer of the Declaration of Independence. One can only imagine Sherlock Holmes scribbling his own letters using a similar style desk!