If giraffes aren’t the most majestic animals in the world, I don’t know what are. This past week, while vacationing in Arizona, I was able to feed a giraffe at the Phoenix Zoo and got a fantastic look up close and personal at these lovely creatures.
It was just our luck that my family and I got to the giraffe feeding platform just before they closed the feeding time down for the day. A lovely volunteer (they have about 500 there at the Zoo!) led us up to where the giraffes were hanging out and explained just how to give them their food. The volunteer gave my daughter a piece of Belgian endive to feed the giraffe, and we adults got small pellets to hand over. The giraffe seemed very curious about us; it was very gentle in reaching its long tongue out for the food and taking it. The tongue gently “kissed” my fingers as it found its way to the pellet. Chelsea was afraid to hand over the endive when it was her turn, so I got to feed the giraffe about four times. Amazing.
The Phoenix Zoo was a lovely spot which houses a plethora of fantastic animals, many of which are commonly also found in the wild in the Arizona desert. I totally recommend a visit if you’re ever in the area.
When I make pizza it’s usually different every time, but sometime last year I made a pizza with pesto and ground beef that turned out so yummy that I actually wrote down the recipe. I made it again last night and, oh, it was good. If you’re in the mood for homemade pizza soon, here’s the recipe:
1 whole wheat pizza dough shell (I make my own with Cooking Light’s Whole Wheat Pizza Dough recipe, and I save the second dough portion in the freezer for later use)
1/3 cup green pesto (or enough to lightly cover the shell; I use Cooking Light’s Cilantro Walnut Pesto recipe, but any pesto will likely do)
3/4 lb ground beef
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium yellow pepper, diced
1 1/2 to 2 cups mixture hard cheese (I’ve used combinations of mozzarella, cheddar, smoked cheddar, garlic & chives, and gouda in various versions), grated
Pre-make pizza dough and roll into a shell on a greased stoneware pizza pan. Pre-make pesto according to recipe directions. Freeze remaining pesto in small portions (eg. 1/4 cup) for later use.
Preheat oven to 475 F.
Spread pesto onto the ready-made or unbaked pizza shell. Fry up the ground beef and onions together until cooked through and add to pizza. Spread out yellow peppers on pizza. Top with grated cheeses.
Put in oven and bake for 12 minutes or until the cheese is golden on top. Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes. Cut and serve.
The other day I was reminded of the classic children’s story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” It’s a Hans Christian Andersen tale about two weavers who swindle an emperor with a set of new clothes that are supposed to be completely invisible to anyone who is unfit for their position or stupid. Everyone around the emperor, including he himself, pretends that they can see the invisible garments, for fear of being ‘outed’ as incompetent or dumb. In actuality, though, they have all been taken advantage of because there is no substance to the clothes at all. There is nothing there. In the end, when the emperor goes to display his new “clothes” to a crowd, only a small child is brave enough to speak up and say, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”
I was reminded of this classic story when I attended an author reading in Victoria the other night with a famous Canadian author. The presentation was eclectic, strange, weird, and very short. As I sat there amazed that someone this famous could get away with a presentation that was so sub-standard and uninspiring, I also wondered what other people in the room were thinking. Were they amazed and thrilled at this display of quirkiness which left me cold? It got me thinking how often we treat celebrities with too much awe.
Now don’t get me wrong, this writer is good. They do have talent which immediately puts them in a different category than someone who is famous just for being rich or pretty. But in this day and age, shouldn’t we expect a bit more? Someone was paying this person to be there to connect well with an audience of hundreds of people and inspire them to read using the words that they said and the image that they displayed. I think that ’someone’ was shortchanged. And so were we all.
The truth of the matter is, we do judge a book by its cover. It’s not enough for only the words inside to be a great read. If the cover doesn’t inspire us to crack the book open and discover the beauty inside, we will have lost out on that beauty forever. Shouldn’t celebrities be the same? The other night I was not motivated to read this author’s new book simply because I lost almost all respect for the person themself when I saw them speak in public. I wondered how many other people felt the same, but yet still observed hundreds of people lining up to get the author’s signature at the end of the reading. Clearly, many in the room were more impressed by the scene that had unfolded than I. Or they didn’t care because the person was famous.
Is it too much to ask for the famous to rise to the challenge of their positions? Sure, I realize that they are just people too. But it is sad when you see someone in person that appears to be so revered and the little voice inside you just has the urge to shout: “But you gave us nothing at all!”
It actually isn’t all that bad … I just liken it to the old witch’s house in the Hansel and Gretel story. This year’s house is a little gnarled, a little cracked, a little mossy (OK well not mossy but you get the picture), but it will still taste just as good I’m sure. What can I say? It’s a lot homemade and it’s all ours.
The other day Chelsea and I had some time on our hands so we went down to visit the Bear Wear bears all dressed up for Christmas at the Hotel Grand Pacific here in Victoria. I thought looking at all the bears dressed up in all different ways would be really exciting for Chelsea.
While she did seem to like the bears in general it was frustrating for Chelsea that a couple of bears were sitting in toddler-sized ”cosy cars” similar to ones she gets to play in at daycare. But, lucky for me, her frustration at not being able to sit in the cars herself was short-lived and we were able to tour around to see all of the bears without an incident.
Of course, in a ‘you buy them a toy but they still play with the box’ vein, the best part for Chelsea seemed to be after we’d left the hotel and came upon about 40 ducks hanging out near the pond in front. They were quite tame and probably used to getting fed by humans, so when we stopped to look at them they came right up to us. Suddenly we were surrounded! After I knelt down beside Chelsea to make sure she didn’t take a swipe at one of them, another one kept poking me in the butt with his beak! Ouch! (I told him that I don’t normally keep bread in my back pocket.)
Chelsea could have stayed there for hours but I nudged us on our way eventually. So much for the bears … it was the ducks that stole her heart that day!
Beth