Studio3Music Blog

Sep
1

Luscious Blackberry Bars

Posted in Bits and Pieces, Recipes

For 10 ½ months a year, we are content to hate this plant, aka Rubus armeniacus, classified as a “noxious weed” by the State of Washington. Then for 6 weeks or so, we can’t get enough of its luscious berries!

The Himalayan blackberry has quite a circuitous history. A man named Luther Burbank found this in a plant catalog in India. He then introduced it to America in 1885, calling it the “Himalaya Giant”.  Working backwards, researchers found that the plant originated in Armenia, then made it to Germany in 1835, spread to England, and then was transported to India by the English. Luther Burbank also brought us such interesting creations as elephant garlic, Shasta daisies, and pineapple quince.

The Himalayan (or should I say Armenian?) blackberry grown on canes up to 30 feet in length in dense thickets. Covered, as we all know, by prickers and thorns. It is hard to control due to its rampant growth and enormous root system. In addition, it sucks up most of the water around it, which means that nearby plants don’t get enough water to thrive.

However, my googling indicates there are lots of goats-for-hire companies (think Rent a Runiment) who will hire their herds out to eat those invasive plants. I will tell you that I grew up with goats, and while they won’t eat tin cans, they will eat almost everything else!

I suppose I need to get back to the luscious part of this blog. My friend Karissa gave me this recipe, and I just had to try it. Mmmmmmm…. Delicious! It’s so good that you might need some creative excuses to eat it more than once a day. It’s fabulous for breakfast over Greek yogurt, good plain for a snack, and of course, with “whup cream” (as it’s known in my house) for dessert.

The first time I made it the berries needed a little sugar, but the next time, I found an unraided patch of giant juicy berries that required no sweetener whatsoever.

Blackberry Bars
1 c. packed brown sugar
1 c. butter, softened
1 ¾ cup flour
1 ½ oats
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
4 cups blackberries washed with sugar added to taste
Mix sugar and butter.  Stir in remaining ingredients until crumbly.  Press 2/3 into bottom of 9×13 pan.  Top with berries (drain juice first).  Sprinkle remaining crumble mixture and press gently onto berries.  Bake at 400º for 25 minutes or until light brown.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who is sitting here typing with 8 purple fingers, 5 puncture wounds, 3 giant scratches and 1 still-embedded thorn obtained while picking berries for her teacher-neighbor’s its-your-first-day-of-school-you-must-be-too-tired-to-cook dinner she makes their family every year.

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Aug
30

Back-To-School Brains: Extroverts & Introverts

Posted in Child Development

Did you know that your child will learn best when his brain is happy?  Each person has a unique brain that functions most effectively under specific circumstances.  In my last blog, I talked about how Julie Anderson’s book explains that the brain has learning preferences.  Some brains prefer to take in information through the eyes [...]

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Aug
28

When you run out of words.

Posted in Bits and Pieces, family, parenting

I sat at the dining room table with my head in my arms and just sobbed. Our studio email accounts had disappeared, our website was being migrated from a very slow, old server to a new one, and the ½ hour project turned into a week-long nightmare, and the site was down during our busiest [...]

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Aug
26

I’m so embarassed.

Posted in Child Development, Our Time, Village

  The following is taken from an email one of our Kindermusik moms (and newest teacher!) sent to our Studio3Music teacher loop. It’s an amazing inside perspective, and we thought you’d find it interesting as well. Right about the time that Samantha turned a year old, her behavior shifted dramatically in class (at least to her [...]

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Aug
24

Showdown at Suppertime

Posted in family, parenting

5:30 pm – The dinner table is set.  Grilled chicken, brown rice, broccoli.  Standard dinner fare at the Venning home.  Nothing outrageous, nothing wild, nothing exotic or offensive.  5:40 – We enjoy a dinnertime chat as we eat and make plans to go on an evening bike trip.  The Little Mister is happily eating his [...]

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Aug
22

Rob’s Disorganized Brain

Posted in Child Development

A couple of days ago I blogged about how we taught Rob to put together simple sentences by lots of repetition and modeling. I promised to tell you why that worked. So, here we go. How the brain processes information Anything that we hear, see, feel, touch, or taste in our environment is called a [...]

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