Dangerous uses for peanut butter.

I once supped with a bachelor who poured chocolate syrup on his pizza. BeauJo’s located in three spring towns, (Idaho, Steamboat and Glenwood), and elsewhere in Colorado, furnishes honey to put on their thick crusts. Okay, I can deal with that, but chocolate syrup?

Fortunately, peanut butter isn’t pizza. Everyone knows that Elvis liked to put bananas on his peanut butter sandwiches. I like mine with sharp cheddar cheese, or perhaps sprinkled with bacon bits. Think that’s strange? How about mixing peanut butter with vinegar, chilies and soy sauce and pouring it over noodles? Live dangerously.

Matzo Ball Soup for Gentiles

It was recently Thanksgiving here in the U.S. of A. and perhaps you have a turkey carcass somewhere around the house. If so, you’re in luck because you can make matzo ball soup. If not, Christmas is coming—consider serving turkey.

Easy Matzo Ball Soup Recipe
Make turkey soup.
Make matzo balls.
Drop the matzo balls into the soup.

Okay, maybe that was a little too easy. Just what is a matzo ball anyway? Matzos are the, often bland tasting, crackers that Jews eat during the Passover season. Matzos commemorate the time when the ancient Jews were captives in Egypt. Upon gaining their freedom, they had to beat it out of Egypt so fast that they didn’t have time to wait for their bread to rise.

Purchase matzo meal in the kosher section of your grocery store. Look for a recipe for matzo balls on the package. Follow it. Find a recipe for turkey soup. Follow it.

Make sure you refrigerate your matzo meal mixture before you roll it into matzo balls. A one-inch diameter is about right. Toss the matzo balls in your turkey soup. They will expand as they cook and their color will lighten. When done, the outer segments will be soft, and the interiors, slightly firm. Mazel tov.

Take two aspen and call a tree surgeon.

Colorado conifers have undergone major bark beetle infestation since 1996. Forests show ugly patches where the needles are diseased and red rather than healthy and green. Biologists claim some types of bark beetles are increasing because more can survive warmer winters. Due to climate warming, their range expands into higher altitudes and more northerly latitudes.

If you spend some time in the mountains, you can’t help noticing the degree to which spruce and pine trees are dying off. But you may not know that aspen are suffering, too. An article by Michelle Nijhuis in the December 2008 issue of Smithsonian, addresses the issue.

Foresters began observing aspen die-off in western Colorado in 2004. Although aspen bark beetles, borers, fungi, and diseases have all attacked the aspen, the underlying causes of aspen decline are high temperatures and draught, which stress the trees allowing them to fall victim to secondary causes.

It’s said that you can’t control the weather, but apparently people can, and have, influenced the climate. Global warming has begun, but perhaps it’s not too late to slow its progress. If we don’t, those beautiful mountain vistas may not be.