Hot Root Soup My twins have been totally absorbed by Brian Jacques Redwall series. They do the typical things kids do... pretend they are characters from the books, act out scenes, write stories from the books, shout slogans from the book while diving off the diving board, and (much to their mother's astonishment and pride) set the songs in the books to music. (I am unable to compose even a simple tune without slipping into familiar melodies, so their ability to write tunes for these songs truly astounds and thrills me.)

I've even joined in the fun, making recipes from the books...

Strawberry Fizz (one can frozen strawberry daquiri base, and one bottle of non-alcoholic strawberry champagne. It's delightful!)

Recently I've made hot root soup (a selection from the onion family -- a yellow onion, several cloves of garlic, scallions, leek, shallots, what have you -- chopped coarsely. Carrots, celery, parsnips, cabbage, and other such vegetables, chopped in bite-size or smaller pieces. shrimp -- I use raw with the shells on, peel them and save the shells to make stock. Paprika (hot root) and cajun spice blend. Fry the onion family in butter till the pieces are translucent. Add strained stock made by boiling the shrimp shells in a quart or two of water (depends on how much soup you want to make). Add carrots, celery and other hard vegetables, and the spices. (Spice to your taste; we like spicy and hot food, so I put in a lot!). Let boil til the veggies are soft. Add cabage and shrimp. Cook till shrimp is pink and curled. (Note you can use pre-cooked shrimp, in which case you want to hold off adding the shrimp until the cabage is limp, then you add the shrimp and cook just enough to heat the shrimp through.)

It's yummy and the leftovers save quite well.

Most of all, it's fun to encourage the kids in their fun. And it brings up memories of when, as a young girl, I acted out stories I had read or movies I had watched. I remember quite distinctly a whole Lassie phase that I went through. (Of course, I wasn't the boy, I was Lassie!)

I wonder how many authors go through phases of fandom as youngsters, and when they make the leap into their own stories. My pretend games were very much fanfic in life. I never wrote the stories down, creating my own (heavily inspired by a variety of sf tv shows) worlds when I started writing. I suppose it makes sense that writers/artists/creative people would have an active imagination as kids and that the things that engaged their minds -- books, movies, tv shows, pictures -- might serve as fodder for those imaginations. But you don't often hear it mentioned. Might make for an interesting panel in a conference some day...  ¶ 10:54 PM