(Thanks to Kristie Wells for the beautiful picture of Grace with the newspaper story about Blogher.)

What follows is a very long post about BlogHer ’06. While usually I’d blog this at my personal blog, A Mama’s Rant, I feel an obligation to my editors at ClubMom who gave me the pass to the conference and to my fellow ClubMom bloggers as well. I’ll come back to books and food tomorrow.

BlogHer ’06 was amazing. And I’m still exhausted. That’s what 13 1/2 hours of sleep over 3 days will do to you. (When Arianna Huffington in the closing keynote talk mentioned that sleep deprivation is a huge issue, I had to laugh.)

First, meeting many of the ClubMom bloggers, as Amy has already documented so well, was thrilling. These women are smart, fun, silly, serious, haughty, goofy, lovely, warm, generous and every other adjective you can think of to describe a group of awesome women. There’s great joy in finding such like minded people who 1) know what a blog is, 2) can have deep conversations about blogging, politics, motherhood, and business plans, and 3) can have a lot of fun too, like the me. you. me. discussion and drunken yoga at 3 a.m. (I think it was Jenny of Big Slice, but it was dark out.)

But there’s sadness, too. I have a lot of acquaintances but few deep friendships outside of my family. There’s very few women I’ve met in my life that I truly click with. Several are in the Chicago/Milwaukee area, one in San Diego, and a couple down in Denver. With one exception, many of the women I’ve been hanging with locally don’t "get it" whether it’s about blogging, motherhood, politics, feminism, music, or education. And my girlfriends who do "get it" are far, far away or too busy to get together except for a couple of times per year, if that.

I have so much more in common with the women who attended BlogHer (those at ClubMom and women who blog elsewhere) than I do with people in my neighborhood, and that really pisses me off. Yet, through ClubMom and BlogHer I have access to virtual sisterhood of like minded souls who I hope to keep meeting and working with in the future. Maybe one of you will move to my neighborhood, too. (Yes, Genuine is only a mile away, but he’s a fella and his kids all have cooties. Mrs. Genuine’s cool though.)

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I thought I’d leave you with a few recipes, cookbooks, and Denver Post articles to enjoy while I’m at BlogHer.

First there’s these recipes from Fix-it And Enjoy-it Cookbook: All-purpose, Welcome-home Recipes. I adore the sweet potato fries sold at a local Cajun restaurant. If it wasn’t for the fries I don’t think we’d eat there as much, so I’m thrilled to find a recipe to make them at home.

Yam Fries
Kathy Keener Shantz, Lancaster, PA

Makes 6 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Baking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1. 2 Tbsp. olive oil
2. 1 tsp. salt
3. 1 tsp. pepper
4. 1 tsp. curry
5. ½ tsp. hot sauce
6. 4 medium-sized yams, sliced like French fries

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine oil, salt, pepper, curry, and hot sauce.
2. Stir in sliced yams.
3. When thoroughly coated, spread on lightly greased baking sheet.
4. Bake at 375° for 20 minutes, or until tender.

(Photo courtesy of b. decot.)

Yam fries would be a great side for barbeque or steaks on the grill. And speaking of grills, have you ever tried to make peach melba on one? Check this decadent recipe out! (Don’t know about you, but my local Safeway has peaches on sale right now. We always have oodles of raspberries in the fridge, too.)

Grilled Peach Melba
Stacy Schmucker Stoltzfus, Enola, PA

Makes 4 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Grilling Time: 5-10 minutes

Ingredients:

1. 4 large, unpeeled peaches or nectarines
2. 2 tsp. sugar
3. 2 cups red raspberries, fresh or frozen
4. sugar, optional
5. vanilla ice cream

Directions:

1. Halve and pit peaches or nectarines.
2. Press fresh or thawed raspberries through sieve. Save juice and discard seeds. Sweeten to taste with sugar, if needed.
3. Grill unpeeled peaches cut-side down for approximately 2 minutes. Turn peaches over. With cut-side up, fill each cavity with ½ tsp. sugar, and continue grilling until grill marks appear on skins.
4. Serve immediately with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and drizzle with the raspberry sauce.

(Grilled Peach Melba picture courtesy of Everyday Food on PBS.)

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I got into cake decorating wanting to make memorable birthday cakes for my children. For Nathan, I’ve made a Sponge Bob, golf, and motorcycle cakes and he’s loved them all.

When I found out I was pregnant with a Lucie, I bought "girlie" cake pans of dolls, castles, and daisies and looked forward to making pretty-in-pink cakes for her birthday.

Then we found Lucie was allergic to eggs and all plans where abandoned. As a substitute, I’ve made ice cream cakes or just put ice cream in a bowl with candles on top.

Then I came across recipes for dirt and sand cake and realized, hey these don’t have any eggs in them. Yes, we can eat this!

(Yesterday, I tragically discovered that like most bread products, Oreos have soy in them, another thing we just found out that Lucie is allergic to. Unlike eggs and peanuts, I’ve never seen her react to soy by breaking out in hives or throwing up. Still, I will be limiting her access to all foods containing soy, including Oreos, whenever possible. I’m hoping that some of the generic or healthier versions of Oreos don’t have soy, but I doubt it since EVERYTHING has soy in it now.)

Jane’s Dirt Cake
There are many variations of dirt cake. I chose this one from MarthaStewart.com since it gives good tips for using a real terra cotta flower pot. (You could use a plastic one as well.)

Serves 12 to 15. When making dirt cake, it’s important to begin and end with the ground Oreo mixture. Martha’s friend Jane Heller likes to serve her dirt cake creatively: She presents the cake in a sterilized terra-cotta pot, then inserts sunflowers (their stems wrapped in plastic) into the cake for decoration. Sterilize the pot by placing it in the oven at 350° for two to three hours. Avoid using any pot that has been glazed.

Ingredients:

1. 1 sixteen-ounce package Oreo cookies
2. 12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
3. 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
4. 4 packages (3.9 ounces each) instant chocolate pudding
5. 4 3/4 cups milk
6. 3 recipes Sweetened Whipped Cream , or one 16-ounce carton frozen whipped topping, thawed
7. Candy (gummie worms, rock candy, "rock" jelly beans, candy bugs, etc.) for decorating

Directions:

1. If using a flowerpot with a drainage hole, reserve 1 cookie to place over hole to prevent leaking. Place remaining cookies in the bowl of a food processor. Process until mixture resembles dirt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, combine cream cheese and butter, and stir until creamy. Set aside.
3. In another large bowl, whisk together instant-pudding mixes and milk; stir until well blended. Using a rubber spatula, fold pudding mixture into cream-cheese mixture. Fold in whipped cream.
4. In a flowerpot or bucket with a 5-quart capacity, alternate layers of cookie “dirt” and pudding mixture, starting and ending with cookie “dirt.” Chill at least 4 hours or overnight before serving. Garnish with candy.

(Photograph by Todd Atkinson, courtesy of MarthaStewart.com)

Sand Cake
From Real Simple magazine – Yield: Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients:

1. 1 12-ounce box Nilla Wafers (you could probably substitute vanilla Oreos)
2. 1 8-ounce container Cool Whip
3. 2 3-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
4. 1 4-ounce package vanilla instant pudding mix
5. 1 1/2 cups milk
6. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7. Candy shells, gummy fish and sharks, etc. for decorating

Directions:

1. Make the "sand" by crushing the Nilla Wafers with a potato masher or in a food processor.
2. With a mixer, combine the Cool Whip, cream cheese, pudding mix, milk, and vanilla.
3. Layer a fifth of the crumbs in the bottom of a large, clean sand pail.
4. Top with a third of the pudding mixture, then a layer of crumbs.
5. Continue layering, ending with crumbs.
6. Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.
7. Decorate with the candy shells.

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Back in October 2005, my satellite TV provider changed the PBS Kids channel into PBS Kids Sprout, the 24-hour channel for preschoolers. I wrote about it in "Sprout Update" on my personal blog, A Mama’s Rant, since it was a topic of discussion among my friends. (I was pro Sprout since it was a lifesaver when staying up all night with a then sick Lucie.)

This week I’ve gotten over 25 40 comments and thousands of hits per day on this post. Why? Because Melanie Martinez, the host of "The Good Night Show" made two comedy videos seven years ago that spoofed teen abstinence public service ads and featured jokes about vibrators and sex acts. Melanie was subsequently fired by PBS after she told her producers about the videos last week.

I find it interesting that someone commented on my blog back on July 11 about the video and sarcastically called Melanie a "nice roll model." Was her outing – and the comments around it – the reason for her firing? Still it makes no sense since PBS’s Sesame Street has featured some other "nice roll models" like Robin Williams, Johnny Cash, and Richard Pryor who all have admitted to drug problems, and other stars like Susan Sarandon, Robert DeNiro and Glenn Close who’ve all done adult work in their film careers.

PBS released this explanation of the reasons for firing her. In the meanwhile, a Save Melanie Petition has been started as well as the BringBackMel blog with links to news stories and the PBS Ombudsman. The Philadelphia Inquirer has been covering this story as well in Sprout Grows Sillier (towards the end) and Videos Lead to Firing of Children’s Show Host.

My feelings? PBS is extremely hypocritical considering that, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

"In 2004, actress Alison Bartlett, who plays veterinarian Gina Jefferson on Sesame Street, appeared semi-nude in a love scene on The Sopranos. At the time, Sesame Street’s executive producer said the Sopranos role was not a conflict."

But I think it’s more sinister than Melanie being fired for work she did seven years ago. I have a strong feeling that she was pregnant and this was her producers’ excuse for firing her instead of working around her pregnancy. I could be COMPLETELY WRONG (gawd, I hope so) but lately she had been looking a little plumper around her face and neck and she had a bit of a tummy bump. Her jacket seemed recut to be looser. Also, the recent addition of the puppet character, Star, seemed a way to conceal her tummy as well.

Melanie has not been interviewed in the press yet about her firing, so only time will tell if I’m right or not.

(May 3, 2006 file photo in Paulsboro, N.J. Associated Press)

With Paul gone at a chemistry conference in New Hampshire, and my trip to BlogHer imminent, I’ve cooked up a batch of one of my kids favorite dishes, Taco Soup, for Nana and the kids to eat while we’re gone. Those of you familiar with Weight Watchers may have come across this recipe before (1 cup = 4 points). But my kids love this and tend to eat it for dinner, lunch and even breakfast.

Taco Soup

Brown 1 lb. very lean chopped meat (I used ground venison, but you could use turkey or beef) with one large diced onion in a large stew pot.

Add:

• 16 oz canned tomato sauce
• 16 oz canned kidney beans (rinsed)
• 16 oz canned pinto beans (rinsed)
• 16 oz garbanzo beans (rinsed)
• 16 oz canned yellow corn (undrained)
• 16 oz canned diced tomatoes
• 1 3 oz. can of diced green chilies
• one packet of dry ranch dressing
• 1 packet of taco seasoning mix
• 1 1/2 cup water

Directions:

1. Heat to boiling. Immediately lower heat to simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Garnish with cilantro or shredded cheddar, jack or Mexican style cheese.

This recipe works great in a crock pot. After browning the meat and onion, put everything (except the cilantro and cheese) it in your crock pot to slow cook the rest of the day.

Since this recipe has so many ingredients already, adding a few leftover veggies, sausage or lunch meat could only enhance its flavor, it reminds of the fable of stone soup, or the Scandinavian nail soup story.

Here are some books that feature this classic tale:

• Some Friends to Feed: The Story of Stone Soup – by folksinger Pete Seeger, the tale comes in story-song and packaged with a CD. For kindergartner through second graders.
• Stone Soup (Aladdin Picture Books) – Marcia Brown’s 1947 Caldecott winner is based on the French version. For ages 4 to 8.
• Stone Soup – For kindergartners through second graders, author Jon Muth takes the tale to to China where the tricksters are no longer hungry travelers or soldiers but Buddhist monks.
• Stone Soup – Heather Forest’s version is also for ages 4 to 8. However, Susan Gaber’s illustrations feature a culturally mixed village population while giving a nod to the classic French and Swedish tales. An added bonus is that a stone soup recipe is included in the book.