Poppin' & Rockin'

POPPIN': This weekend is another Teen Feed session for us, and we have been playing around with dessert ideas. One thing that's always a hit with that crowd is a Crispy Cereal treat station. There are basic squares of the bar cereal mixed with marshmallow, but then they can choose toppings, like icing, different sprinkles, mini chocolate chips and such. I thought it would be fun to put the "pop!" in the cereal that doesn't pop unless you put it in milk, and thought Pop Rocks would make a fun topping. Then I remembered they cost like $1 for a tiny package of them. It would be super expensive to have enough to sprinkle atop 50 or so desserts. Naturally, my next thought was, "I wonder if you can make Pop Rocks ... "

I figured there's be sugar and baking soda involved, and after Annabelle Googled a couple of recipes, that turned out to be true. Citric acid is also involved, as is corn syrup. 

We used a DIY Pop Rocks recipe from a site called Bluprint. It's been awhile since we've boiled sugar, so we were a little nervous watching it approach the 'hard candy' mark (about 295 degrees Farenheit). 

Once it reached that temp, we quickly added in the other ingredients, which included food coloring and some orange extract, for flavor. 

Then we poured it out onto a prepped surface (a cookie sheet covered in parchment and dusted in powdered sugar), and waited, impatiently, for it to harden.

Once it did, we each eagerly popped a tiny portion into our mouth. And ... no popping. Granted, it did fizz, but who wants a Fizz Rock? Nah.

I turned to YouTube and found this guy's more science-y video. One thing he does right is add the food coloring and flavor first, before it boils, instead of after, unlike the recipe we found. I think it would work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsSwvmNEr0Q

That said, no way we're doing all that to make some popping candy. :)

I turned to another video - a professional chef who works for Bon Appetit. She was tasked with making a popping rocks candy. First thing she did was watch the video above, ha ha.

Second thing she did is make a batch that was exactly like what we made. Her conclusion: It fizzes, but doesn't pop. Which is exactly what we found to be true.

Turns out, making popping candy is not very DIY-friendly.

In case you haven't heard quite enough on the topic, check out this Science of Popping Candy video from Gastronaut.


ROCKIN': We were fortunate to see The Rolling Stones when they were in Seattle last week. Last night, they played the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and before the show actor Robert Downey Jr. made an announcement that the team behind NASA's InSight Mars lander has named a Red Planet rock after the legendary band. 
(Video here: https://videos.space.com/m/yO6Z7juy/robert-downey-jr-reveals-name-of-rolling-stones-mars-rock-at-rose-bowl?list=6DUiA9a3)

The rock in the center of the image below is the newly-named rock. It was tossed about 3 feet by NASA's InSight spacecraft as it landed on Mars on November 26, 2018.  According to a JPL press release, "several divots in the orange-red soil can be seen trailing Rolling Stones Rock. It's the farthest NASA has seen a rock roll while landing a spacecraft on another planet."

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

In response to the honor, the band said, "What a wonderful way to celebrate the 'Stones No Filter' tour arriving in Pasadena," home of Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  "This is definitely a milestone in our long and eventful history. A huge thank you to everyone at NASA for making it happen."

Here's a short animation JPL created to commemorate the event.

And, of course, there's a video, complete with a Stones' soundtrack.


KNOCKIN': Our never-ending spruce-up-the-downstairs project that has spanned a couple of months now. Most recently, I painted doors downstairs, and the kids learned how to replace a doorknob. It can be a little tricky, but it's totally doable if you follow instructions and have the right mix of patience and brute force. 

Winging It

FLIGHTY: I'm still trying to catch up (and catch my breath!) from last week, which was oh-so-busy.

Friday afternoon, we had a chance to pay tourist, hanging out at The Museum of Flight with some family, including an East Coast-dwelling guest. We spent the bulk of our visit in the always-entertaining air park portion of the museum. It's outdoors, but entirely covered, making it comfortable to visit year-round. 

The photo above in the belly of a 787. We couldn't help but notice it has "hips" (see the bulges on the body near the landing gear?).

Visiting the first Air Force One jet is always a highlight. Here, CJ and Annabelle mug for the camera along with former President Richard Nixon and China's Zhou Enlai.

The jet is a specially-built Boeing 707-120, also known as SAM (Special Air Missions) 970. It was delivered by Boeing in 1959 to replace then-President Eisenhower's Super-Constellation. 

The flying Oval Office featured what was then a well-appointed galley and sophisticated communication equipment.

An "oval office" within the flying Oval Office. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon almost certainly sat here once upon a time. Those were the good old days, before presidents sat on a toilet and posted nasty Tweets.

A peek out of the window of the Concorde gives you an idea of just how packed the air park is with aviation attractions.  

Inside a vintage 747, we learned that the "black" box is actually orange.

Below, CJ and DB (Cooper, that is) strike a pose.

Below is a shot of the building where CJ and Annabelle spent most of their private pilot ground school hours.

We did spend a little time in the museum's Space Gallery. I had to laugh at the IKEA-instructions like stickers on the Soyuz capsule, instructing people how to open it. I suppose it's there because the Soyuz could inadvertently land in a remote location, and some local with no aerospace training would have to let the cosmonauts out. 

Artsy

PROJECTING: Busy week last week. We were up to our elbows in fondant, buttercream, Perler beads and spray paint. 

After checking out the Birthday Dreams' list of request for cakes for homeless kids, CJ found a child who wanted a Super Mario Bros.-themed cake. We *had* to take that on. (As you may recall, in our last place, CJ's entire bedroom was painted in a Super Mario Bros. mural.)

Annabelle was busy on another project (more on that later), so CJ and I had to do most of the heavy lifting on this cake. 

We made mushrooms and Goombas (pictured at the top of the post). We had to call Annabelle in for Mario's head and body, however. 

The cake was three layers of chocolate brownie cake with vanilla and mini chocolate chip filling, covered in marshmallow fondant. 

We put the birthday child's name on top of the cake in a Mario Bros. font. The name is rather clumsily obscured in these photos, for privacy purposes, but it looked really cool! :)

Meanwhile, Annabelle was busy with another 'little' project. About three weeks back I'd sent her notice about The Museum of Flight's Space Art juried art show/contest. She ignored that  info, but last Wednesday morning, I asked her, "Are you really not going to do anything to try to get into the art show?" Well, she had a change of heart and then spent hours and hours and hours the next two days creating.

It had to be a 2D/on the flat entry, so she decided to do a melted Perler bead creation on canvas. She settled on an astronaut's helmet, with a starry scene in the visor.

The toughest part was getting it to scale and getting it outlined properly.

 Filling in the middle was more fun.

After the beads were on the boards, it was all carefully taped off and pulled off the boards and then melted together via an iron.

She spray painted a canvas (using techniques she'd learned by air brushing cakes!), and then glued the astronaut on it.

It turned out great, and she found out that the work was one of 18 that will be featured in the museum's art show this coming weekend. How about that!?

SATIRE-DAY:  Friday night, we made our way to the Paramount Theater for a show (our second of the week). This time it was Weird Al as the main attraction. 

Billed as his "Strings Attached" tour, Al was playing with a 40+ piece orchestra. 

In fact, the opening act was the orchestra, which played a stirring selection of John Williams' movie themes. I would have gone to the theater just to hear that!

Afterward, there was a short intermission, and then it was on with the show. Annabelle will tell you more about it. ...

On August 17th, my family and I attended a concert at the Paramount Theater featuring “Weird Al” Yankovic and a full symphony orchestra; many would think this is quite the odd combination, but it definitely works in its own ridiculous way. During this show, Weird Al played many of his more popular parody songs, including “White & Nerdy,” “Amish Paradise,” and my personal favorite, “Word Crimes.”

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He also sang a few original songs, such as “Jackson Park Express” and the 26-second long “Harvey the Wonder Hamster”.

The showmanship of the concert was astounding, and every single part of it was punctual and well executed. The opening act with the orchestra’s warm up sounded very good, and the acoustics of the Paramount worked well with the nature of the instruments. The only improvement I could think of was that the singers’ microphones sometimes felt a bit too quiet in comparison to the orchestra and instruments, making it difficult to hear certain lyrics. Aside from that, the show was amazing! More information on the tour and future stops can be found at weirdal.com/tour/.

Al ended with a couple of Star Wars songs: "The Saga Begins" and  "Yoda" (sang to the tune of The Kinks' "Lola."

We enjoyed our 'cheap' seats in the first row of the third (and last) mezzanine. Whoever filmed this had a *much* better view.
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