[Image] is this what they mean by a stone age diet? there's a little meme circulating on facebook (tho' i think it originated on reddit) - it asks: what was the coolest thing your parents did for you as a kid?

~ the first thing that leapt to mind was that they didn't baptise me as a baby, thinking that when (if?) i was baptized, it should be something that i chose for myself, because i wanted it and understood what it meant. i did eventually choose to be baptized and join st. andrew's presbyterian church in iowa city. it was at a time when i needed to believe there was something else after we die - i'd lost my favorite uncle and my favorite cat, bob, around the same time and since my uncle was a veterinarian and bobby had suffered horribly with kidney cancer, i needed to believe that they were together in heaven. so i got baptized. now i'm no longer sure about all that, but at the time i made the choice, it was the right one for me.

i've been pondering that question today, as the government and the teachers' union in this country cannot agree and today a lockout of the teachers around the country began. with some reluctance, i told my child that we were going to do a homeschool assignment (do you know how hard it is to find some ideas/curriculum that aren't religious if you google it? shocking, but the stuff of a different post.). she has two friends here and i told them they could pick the topic they wanted to work on and we'd find ways to do a whole range of things - reading, writing, science, cooking, art, history, maybe even math (not my strong suit). i was thinking vikings, but they chose food.

i've decided to have them look at different time periods and the food that was common then. with the prevalence of the paleo diet at the moment, i asked them to research (google) it a bit - what did they really eat in the stone age? what sweeteners did they use? was there loads of meat? were there any grains? what root veggies were available? was there really as much cabbage as in my new paleo cookbook by danish hottie chef thomas rode? i told them they could use google and the cookbook and that they should create a pinterest board with what they learned. i want them to create a presentation about it and then, tomorrow, i want them to cook a paleo meal. they're sixth graders and tho' only 12, are starting to be a bit teenager-agtig (that's that danish suffix that's just better than -ish), so they were a bit reluctant to start with. one of them developed a fever of 39 and i'm not sure how far they got. but they do realize that i'm serious and that this has to end in the kitchen.

next food time period i want them to investigate is the viking era (see, i will get vikings in there). after that, i'm going to have them read the chapter about maple syrup in the little house books and then make a meal ala little house. they say this lockout will last for at least two weeks, maybe longer. but there's no reason not to learn something in the meantime. and hopefully, sabin will eventually look back on it as one of the cool things her parents did for her as a kid.

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i love REI's april fool's joke - adventure kitten gear.