The Recipes of Iconic Authors: Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Roald Dahl, the Marquis de Sade & More

in Books, Food & Drink, K-12, Literature | September 24th, 2013

dahl-kitkat

It comes as no sur­prise that Roald Dahl, author of Char­lie and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry, pos­sessed a sweet tooth. Hav­ing daz­zled young read­ers with visions of Cav­i­ty-Fill­ing Caramels, Ever­last­ing Gob­stop­pers, and snozzber­ry-fla­vored wall­pa­per, Dahl’s can­dy of choice was the more pedes­tri­an Kit-Kat bar. In addi­tion to savor­ing one dai­ly (a lux­u­ry lit­tle Char­lie Buck­et could but dream of, pri­or to win­ning that most gold­en of tick­ets) he invent­ed a frozen con­fec­tion called “Kit-Kat Pud­ding.”

The orig­i­nal recipe is, appro­pri­ate­ly, sim­ple enough for a child to make. Stack as many Kit-Kats as you like into a tow­er, using whipped cream for mor­tar, then shove the entire thing into the freez­er, and leave it there until sol­id.

Book pub­li­cist and self-described lit­er­ary fan­girl Nicole Vil­leneuve does him one bet­ter on Paper and Salt, a food blog devot­ed to the recipes of icon­ic authors. Her re-imag­ined and renamed Frozen Home­made Kit-Kat Cake adds bit­ter­sweet choco­late ganache, replac­ing Dahl’s beloved can­dy bars with high qual­i­ty wafer cook­ies. It remains a pret­ty straight-for­ward prepa­ra­tion, not quite as deca­dent as the Mar­quis de Sade’s Molten Choco­late Espres­so Cake with Pome­gran­ate, but sure­ly more to Dahl’s lik­ing than Jane Austen’s Brown But­ter Bread Pud­ding Tarts would have been. (The author once wrote that he pre­ferred his choco­late straight.)

Vil­leneuve spices her entry with his­tor­i­cal con­text and anec­dotes regard­ing ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry can­dy mar­ket­ing, Dahl’s hatred of the Cad­bury Crème Egg, and his dog’s han­ker­ing for Smar­ties. Details such as these make Paper and Salt, which fea­tures plen­ty of savories to go with the sweet, a deli­cious read even for non-cooks.

Mean­while, dessert chefs unwill­ing to source their ingre­di­ents from Rite-Aid’s Hal­loween aisle might try Sylvia Plath’s Lemon Pud­ding Cakes (“Is it taboo to write about bak­ing and Sylvia Plath?” Vil­leneuve won­ders), C.S. Lewis’ Cin­na­mon Bour­bon Rice Pud­ding, Willa Cather’s Spiced Plum Kolache or Wal­lace Stevens’ Coconut Caramel Gra­ham Cook­ies.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Ham­burg­er Recipe

Allen Ginsberg’s Per­son­al Recipe for Cold Sum­mer Borscht

How to Make Instant Ramen Com­pli­ments of Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion Direc­tor Hayao Miyza­ki

Ayun Hal­l­i­day  doc­u­ment­ed her own sweet tooth in Dirty Sug­ar Cook­ies: Culi­nary Obser­va­tions, Ques­tion­able Taste. Fol­low her @AyunHallliday

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“The Autobiography of Jane Eyre” Adapts Brontë’s Heroine for Vlogs, Tumblr, Twitter & Instagram

in K-12, Literature, Media | September 10th, 2013

Lest you remain unaware, Jane Eyre has a vlog. And though I would fain speak well of it, the truth must out. I pre­fer my Jane with bon­net strings knot­ted firm­ly beneath her chin. This Jane, as embod­ied by project co-cre­ator, Alysson Hall, often seems like a fan putting togeth­er a home­made audi­tion tape for Girls.

I sus­pect that’s the demo­graph­ic most like­ly to appre­ci­ate Char­lotte Bron­të’s rein­vent­ed hero­ine.  Like The Lizzie Ben­net Diaries, a self-declared “online mod­ern­ized adap­ta­tion” of Pride and Prej­u­dice, The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of Jane Eyre takes a trans­me­dia approach, seri­al­iz­ing across mul­ti­ple dig­i­tal plat­forms.

In addi­tion to the YouTube chan­nel, Jane tweets to over 1500 fol­low­ers, and uploads pho­tos to Insta­gram. Her video diary might not be my cup of tea, but I must con­fess, I do rather enjoy her tum­blr. Per­haps not as much as I’d enjoy reread­ing the nov­el (find it in our col­lec­tion Free eBooks and Free Audio Books col­lec­tions), but it’s not a bad way to while away a minute or two.

Put anoth­er way, any­one who likes read­ing Bron­të is prob­a­bly amenable to pic­tures of tea cups, dead trees, and Tim Bur­ton’s ani­mat­ed dolls.

Jane’s embrace of social media is shared by many in her orbit, includ­ing Mr. Rochester’s employ­ee, Grace Poole, and his 8‑year-old daugh­ter, Adele, whose (ille­gal) Twit­ter feed will appeal to any pre­co­cious lit­tle smar­ty­pants eager for ran­dom facts regard­ing Bernese Moun­tain Dogs and Uranus’ moons.

The veil is lift­ed some­what on the series’ Face­book page, where the cre­ators inter­act with fans out-of-char­ac­ter and address mod­ern tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, such as soft­ware issues and audio glitch­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

20 Books Peo­ple Pre­tend to Read (and Now Your Con­fes­sions?)

Bron­të Sis­ters Pow­er Dolls

Jane Austen’s Fight Club

Ayun Hal­l­i­day was gob­s­macked to learn that her sec­ond book, No Touch Mon­key!  has been made avail­able in ebook form.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Watch an Animation of Shaun Tan’s All-Ages Picture Book The Lost Thing

in Animation, Books, K-12, Life | August 26th, 2013

What would you do if you crossed paths with a jin­gling lost thing whose oven-shaped body, crus­ta­ceous claws, and fleshy ten­ta­cles would seem right at home in Hierony­mus Bosch’s Gar­den of Earth­ly Delights?

Scream? Run? Release your bow­els?

The anony­mous nar­ra­tor of The Lost Thing, a fif­teen-minute ani­ma­tion born of Shaun Tan’s all-ages pic­ture book, attempts, instead, to iden­ti­fy it empir­i­cal­ly through care­ful obser­va­tion, cal­i­brat­ed mea­sure­ment, and con­trolled exper­i­men­ta­tion. When the sci­en­tif­ic approach fails, he assumes respon­si­bil­i­ty for his strange find, lead­ing it through a clank­ing, grimy land­scape where san­i­ta­tion crews deflate beach balls with pointy sticks after the joy­less hol­i­day crowds are dismissed—a vision of steam­punk in defeat.

We’re loathe to hit you with any more spoil­ers. Suf­fice it to say that this is a fine exam­ple of inno­v­a­tive­ly adapt­ed source mate­r­i­al, and that even­tu­al­ly our sto­ic hero—voiced by British-born Aus­tralian com­ic Tim Minchin—and his charge arrive in a land­scape that should cause the inhab­i­tants of the Island of Mis­fit Toys to stop moon­ing over San­ta.

You will find The Lost Thing list­ed in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch a Whim­si­cal Ani­ma­tion of Ita­lo Calvino’s Short Sto­ry “The Dis­tance of the Moon”

Watch Ani­ma­tions of Oscar Wilde’s Children’s Sto­ries “The Hap­py Prince” and “The Self­ish Giant”

Hard­er Than It Looks: How to Make a Great Stop Motion Ani­ma­tion

Ayun Hal­l­i­day picks all man­ner of jet­sam off the curbs of her Brook­lyn neigh­bor­hood. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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The Hand Puppets That Bauhaus Artist Paul Klee Made for His Young Son

in Art, K-12, Theatre | August 23rd, 2013

klee puppet

My kids used to beg their dad to help out with their impromp­tu pup­pet shows. He com­plied by hav­ing our daugh­ter’s favorite baby doll deliv­er an inter­minable cur­tain speech, hec­tor­ing the audi­ence (me) to become sub­scribers and make dona­tions via the small enve­lope they’d find tucked in their pro­grams.

klee puppets 4

Like my hus­band, artist Paul Klee (1879–1940) loomed large in his child’s ear­ly pup­pet work. To mark his son Felix’s ninth birth­day, Klee fash­ioned eight hand pup­pets based on stock char­ac­ters from Kasperl and Gretl — Ger­many’s answer to Punch and Judy. The boy took to them so enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly that his dad kept going, cre­at­ing some­thing in the neigh­bor­hood of fifty pup­pets between 1916 and 1925. The cast soon expand­ed to include car­toon­ish polit­i­cal fig­ures, a self-por­trait, and less rec­og­niz­able char­ac­ters with a decid­ed­ly Dada-ist bent. Klee also fixed Felix up with a flea mar­ket frame that served as the prosce­ni­um for the shows he put on in a door­way of the fam­i­ly’s tiny apart­ment.

PaulKleePuppets

When Felix set out into the world at the age of eigh­teen, he packed his favorite child­hood pup­pets, while his dad hung onto the ones born of his years on the fac­ul­ty of the Bauhaus. Felix’s por­tion of the col­lec­tion was almost entire­ly destroyed dur­ing the bomb­ing of Wurzburg in World War II. Dr. Death was the only mem­ber of the orig­i­nal eight to escape unscathed.

klee puppets 3

You can find a gallery of Klee’s pup­pets here, and a book ded­i­cat­ed to Klee’s pup­petry here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tchaikovsky Pup­pet in Time­lapse Film

Pup­pet Mak­ing with Jim Hen­son: A Price­less Primer from 1969

Bauhaus, Mod­ernism & Oth­er Design Move­ments Explained by New Ani­mat­ed Video Series

Free: The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art and the Guggen­heim Offer 474 Free Art Books Online

 Ayun Hal­l­i­day is okay with pup­pets as long as she can hold them at arm’s length. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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8‑Year-Old George Orwell Sends a Cute Picture and Error-Filled Letter To His Mother, 1911

in K-12, Literature | August 14th, 2013

orwell drawing

It’s hard to imag­ine a time when George Orwell did­n’t exer­cise mas­ter­ful con­trol over the Eng­lish lan­guage. But if you go far enough back, you’ll find proof that every writer starts some­where. We all begin as mor­tals.

In Decem­ber 2, 1911, an 8‑year-old Eric Blair (the birth name of Orwell), wrote a let­ter to his moth­er, Ida, detail­ing his day-to-day affairs at St. Cypri­an’s School, a board­ing school in South­ern Eng­land. The let­ter is sweet for many rea­sons, not least because of the pho­net­ic spelling/misspellings that run through the note. The original/uncorrected text appears below. It’s one of many let­ters gath­ered on GeorgeOrwellNovels.com, and it’s also the very first let­ter pub­lished in a new vol­ume this week, George Orwell: A Life in Let­ters. The endear­ing let­ter was appar­ent­ly sent with a cute pic­ture enclosed. You can see it right above.

My dear Moth­er, I hope you are alright,

It was Mrs: Wilkes birth­day yes­ter­day, we had aufel fun after tea and played games all over the house. We all went for a walk to Beachy-Head.

I am third in Arith­mat­ick.
‘Its’ very dull today, and dosent look as if its going to be very warm. Thank you for your let­ter.

It is get­ting very near the end of the term, there are only eigh­teen days more. On Sat­ur­day evening we have dnc­ing, and I am going to say a piece of poet­ry, some of the boys sing.

Give my love to Father and Avril. Is Togo alright, We had the Oxford and Cam­bridge Match­es yes­ter­day. Cam­bridge won in the first and third, and the sec­ond did not have a Match. I am very glad Colonel Hall6 has giv­en me some stamps, he said he wold last year but I thought he had for­goten. Its a beast­ly wet day today all rain and cold.

I am very sor­ry to hear we had those beast­ly freaks of smelly white mice back.
I hope these arnt smelly one. if they arnt I shall like them.

From your love­ing son,
E. A. Blair.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load George Orwell’s Ani­mal Farm and 1984 as Free Audio Books

The Only Known Footage of George Orwell (Cir­ca 1921)

George Orwell Explains How to Make a Prop­er Cup of Tea

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Free Comic Books Turns Kids Onto Physics: Start With the Adventures of Nikola Tesla

in Comics/Cartoons, K-12, Physics | July 21st, 2013

physics cartoon for kids

Physic­s­Cen­tral, a web site run by The Amer­i­can Phys­i­cal Soci­ety (an orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sent­ing 48,000 physi­cists), has cre­at­ed a series of com­ic books designed to get kids excit­ed about physics. If you click here, you can enjoy Niko­la Tes­la and the Elec­tric Fair for free online. The 2008 com­ic book pits Thomas Edi­son against Tes­la, the unsung hero of elec­tric­i­ty and mag­net­ism. Also on the Physics Cen­tral web site, you can enjoy four free comics from the Spec­tra series, which presents the adven­tures of a mid­dle school super­hero, who pos­sess­es all of the great pow­ers of a laser beam.

We’ll be sure to add these comics to our col­lec­tion of Free K‑12 Edu­ca­tion­al Resources.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Thomas Edi­son and Niko­la Tes­la Face Off in “Epic Rap Bat­tles of His­to­ry”

A Brief, Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Thomas Edi­son (and Niko­la Tes­la)

MIT & Khan Acad­e­my Team Up to Devel­op Sci­ence Videos for Kids. Includes The Physics of Uni­cy­cling

Free Physics Cours­es

425 Free eBooks: Down­load to Kin­dle, iPad/iPhone & Nook

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Mr. Rogers Takes Breakdancing Lessons from a 12-Year-Old (1985)

in K-12, Television | July 12th, 2013

?si=n‑0RQ9D05LhJIcZi

Feb­ru­ary 13th, 1985 shall be remem­bered as a tru­ly beau­ti­ful day in the neigh­bor­hood, for that is the date on which Fred Rogers learned to break­dance (sort of).

In no time at all, 12-year-old instruc­tor Jer­maine Vaughn had Mr. Rogers wav­ing, moon­walk­ing and learn­ing how to press play on a boom box so he could demon­strate some “very fan­cy things” regard­ing the first pil­lar of hip hop. (“I’d nev­er be able to do that,” his pupil says admir­ing­ly, and pre­sum­ably truth­ful­ly.)

The tele­vi­sion icon’s leg­endary sin­cer­i­ty is on dis­play through­out, even in this pirat­ed ver­sion, which swaps out the wimpy orig­i­nal track in favor of NWA’s 1989 “Fuck Tha Police,” a move that would’ve pleased Eddie Mur­phy’s Mr. Robin­son.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mr. Rogers Goes to Wash­ing­ton

See Ste­vie Won­der Play “Super­sti­tion” and Ban­ter with Grover on Sesame Street in 1973

Ayun Hal­l­i­day will always be Fred Rogers’ tele­vi­sion neigh­bor. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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David Bowie Narrates Sergei Prokofiev’s Children’s Symphony Peter and the Wolf

in K-12, Music | July 3rd, 2013

Some of the 20th century’s great­est actors have nar­rat­ed Sergei Prokofiev’s sym­phon­ic sto­ry Peter and the Wolf, includ­ing Peter Usti­nov, Alec Guin­ness, Ralph Richard­son, John Giel­gud, Basil Rath­bone, Edna Ever­age, and one of my favorites, Boris Karloff. In 1978, David Bowie joined this illus­tri­ous com­pa­ny with his record­ing of the clas­sic for RCA Vic­tor with the Philadel­phia Orches­tra. Find part one above. Click links for part two, three, and four. Or pur­chase a pris­tine copy online here. Or here it all free on Spo­ti­fy here:

Bowie begins, as do all of the nar­ra­tors, with a brief sum­ma­ry of how this sym­pho­ny works, with dif­fer­ent instru­men­ta­tion rep­re­sent­ing the var­i­ous char­ac­ters (see here for full text of the sto­ry and descrip­tion of themes):

Each char­ac­ter in the tale is going to be rep­re­sent­ed by a dif­fer­ent instru­ment of the orches­tra. For instance, the bird will be played by the flute. (Like this.) Here’s the duck, played by the oboe. The cat by the clar­inet. The bas­soon will rep­re­sent grand­fa­ther. The wolf by the French horns. And Peter by the strings. The blast of the hunters’ shot­guns played by the ket­tle drums.

Bowie has said he that he made the record­ing as a present for his son, Dun­can, then 7. Prokofiev, com­mis­sioned by the Cen­tral Children’s The­atre in Moscow in 1936 to help cul­ti­vate the musi­cal tastes of young chil­dren, wrote the sym­pho­ny in four days. As Tim Smith points out in an essay for PBS, Peter and the Wolf has “helped intro­duce gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren to the instru­ments of the orches­tra and the con­cept of telling a sto­ry through music.” I know it will be a part of my daughter’s musi­cal edu­ca­tion. I’m pret­ty sure we’ll start with Bowie’s ver­sion.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

David Bowie Releas­es Vin­tage Videos of His Great­est Hits from the 1970s and 1980s

The Sto­ry of Zig­gy Star­dust: How David Bowie Cre­at­ed the Char­ac­ter that Made Him Famous

Rare 1946 Film: The Great Russ­ian Com­pos­er Sergei Prokofiev Plays Piano, Dis­cuss­es His Music

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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