A Bear A Day - 3

B is for bear on.

Another day, another bear.

Today's bear is a sun bear. It was a difficult search for an adorable baby sun bear. Sun bears are known for their disgustingly long tongues, low immunities and hideous babies. One of the sun bears in the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago has been sick for 5 years now. After having jaw surgery to accommodate his abnormally long tongue (even for a sun bear), he has never bounced back. But here's a bouncy baby sun bear who seems to be doing just fine, for now. Barnaby (below) is an exception to the ugly baby sun bear rule as he is actually bearable to look at. As long as he keeps his mouth shut he might make it in this competition. Let's hope he doesn't get sick. Hang in there, Barnaby.

A Bear A Day - 2

B is for back-to-back baby bears.

Back with another baby bear so unbearably adorable it is unbelievable. Today's bear is a baby polar bear with a little bit to show off. He could be stretching or he might be a bit of an exhibitionist. But he always uses protection from, presumably, his mom (pictured).

His name is Barry, although he might be a girl. All baby bears will be referred to as boys, for obvious reasons.

A Bear A Day - 1

B is for Baby Bear.

For the remaining days of B week I'll be posting a picture of a baby bear each day. There will be bears from different branches of the bear tree (or bush): black, brown, grizzly, polar, panda, toblerone. At the end of the B weeks I'll rank them in order of 'bearability.' I hope you all can bear it...

The first picture for consideration is of a baby black bear. His name is Buster. He is kind of blue.By the way, I know baby bears are called 'cubs' but that doesn't start with b now, does it? (It does not.)

B Movies

It's Friday. People see movies on Fridays, don't they? Oh well, I do, sometimes, but maybe not this weekend. The Bs aren't looking good. The As weren't that great either. So far the most difficult part of incorporating letters into my life has been watching letter-appropriate movies. Here's some B movies I won't be seeing this weekend but you might, if you're bored. (I threw in some As too, since I skipped them last week, and, hey, did you know AVATAR is still in theatres? No wonder Salinger never left the house...then killed himself.)

The Blind Side - This movie could have Billy Bob Thorton in it alongside Sandra Bullock and Kathy Bates eating bon-bons and baking biscuits, and I still wouldn't see it during B weeks or any other weeks, because they put everything I don't want to see in a single movie: true stories (actors prettier than the people they're playing), people helping people (guilt-trips), football, and Sandra Bullock. All it is missing is blue people, really. I don't care that's it's Based on a Book. Plus, we already made this movie. It was called Rudy, and it was great.

The Book of Eli - Okay, I'll credit them for clever advertisements. Did you know the name Eli is in so many words?! rELIgion. bELIeve. ELIte. EvIL if you scramble the letters around. I almost wanted to see it for a couple of seconds. But then I learned what it's about: the end of the world. No more water, no move buildings, no more life...okay, a couple of people survived, but most importantly NO LAWS. Boring. No one wants to see that. Do you know what this movie should be about? Eli Whitney. That man invented the Cotton Gin. And anything involving gin is good in my book. Eli Whitney is why the apocalypse hasn't come yet. That's the Book of Eli I want to see.

Bones, The Lovely - It doesn't start with B but it has a B in it and it's another Based-on-a-Book film, and by a woman no less, which are 2 parts of the reason I will not see it. The other parts being: 3) it looks terrible and 4) that little girl is creepy and her name looks ugly on posters (Saoirse Ronan). Stop making bad movies, Marky Mark. Stop it.

Avatar - Despite the presence of three As in the title including one at the beginning I did NOT see Avatar during A weeks. For those of you assuming I didn't see it because I had already seen it since it's been out for almost a month now, you're wrong. I did not see it because it looks awful. I don't care how many Golden Globe Awards it won or how many Oscars it might win. Sometimes the Hollywood Foreign Press and the Academy are wrong. For those of you assuming I didn't see Avatar because I saw Avatar IN 3D or Avatar: A 3D IMAX Experience, you're just stupid, they're all the same movie. And finally, for those of you thinking you can change my mind, you're fools. Avatar killed a man. I don't want to die, at least, not seeing Avatar, nor immediately after wasting 3 hours of my life. I gave you Titanic, Cameron, and I still want those hours back.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel - First, I really think there should be another 'q' in there (squeakquel). I did NOT see the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. I don't really think I should have to explain myself on this one. Clearly it's because I don't want the memory of The Chipmunk Adventure movie ruined for me. That's the only singing chipmunk movie I need to see.

I'll probably just stay home and watch low budget B-movies or Basterds, Inglourious again. That works. By the way, if you haven't seen The Boy in the Plastic Bubble with John Travolta, that's what you're doing tonight.

A Bit 'Bout Bs

The letter B is the second letter in the Latin alphabet, or the American alphabet if referring to alphabet as Latin confuses or offends you. It's the letter grade overachievers never want to receive in school because it lowers their GPA and underachievers never want to receive in school because it's impossible to turn into an A without whiteout and some serious bolding. It's also the letter grade that will cause you to pause before entering a restaurant if posted outside. "I'm sure their ice machine was just broken on the day of the inspection. Bad luck!"

For those of you unfamiliar with the letter B here's a uppercase one: B
and a lowercase one: b.
They look about the same.
Here they are bigger and bolder: B and b.
Get out some paper and try drawing them on your own. If you can't figure it out, hold your paper up to the screen and trace it until you get it.

This is a lowercase D: d.
Don't get confused. I hear a lot of people mistake these two letters. I'm sure there is a clever way to remember the difference between lowercase Bs and Ds that they teach children in elementary school but I don't know it, because I only confuse lowercase Bs and Ps. So, just don't be dumb, figure it out. There you go, they both point to the outside of the word 'dumb'. How's that for helpful? I just hope you can spell.

Plural of B is Bs or bes, but not bees, that's a bug.

Bumblebees bitch 'bout buzzing when blarringly bright because they are blind.
The sentence 'bove has 9 Bs/bes in it. Can you find them?

B is also the name of a woman but usually it is spelled Bea and is referring to a man in a dress.

Like A, B is also a word but it's easier to tell in a sentence because an E follows it, or two if you're talking about the bugs.

Don't make any bets during B weeks you'll lose billions of bucks! (There are no numbers except billion with the letter b in it.)

B weeks!(Weeks 3-4)

It's B weeks, everyBody!
Things to look forward in B weeks:
Biscuits, Bowling, Blueberries and Beer.
Things you should not expect:
Babies, Beatles, Barbies, or Bangle Bracelets.

I left on an Airplane But I will Be coming Back on a Boat!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

And yet A-nother A Dinner - Autumn Apple Stew

A is for Apple.

Apples, apples, apples, that's the first food that comes to mind when people think of a food that starts with A. I blame those alphabet signs and cards from kindergarten. The A is forever associated with Apples in people's minds. It was in my mind when I made Autumn Apple Pork Stew (I know it's not autumn but I need whatever As I can get.). I also made Astypalaian Yellow Biscuits which are from the Astypalaia island of Greece. The two made for an interesting pairing. American and Greek, not too international. I'm not Greek, I just happen to be preparing a lot of Greek food during these A weeks. I guess they like the letter A associated with their food over there.
Autumn Apple Pork Stew: A-
I'll start with a confession, I made this stew in a crockpot, not exactly gourmet or culinaristically advanced, I know, but convenient. The stew contained actual apples (Granny Smith), apple juice and apple cider vinegar, in addition to other 'stewy' ingredients, like vegetables, and then pork. Similar to the mishap during the asparagus soup pureeing process, the stewing stew overflowed a bit and spilled some liquid onto the counter. I may have overfilled the crockpot a tad, but that can't be the reason why. My brother who not only cleaned up the mess but spun the mishap as well, said that spills ensure success. And he was right. The stew ended up tasting pretty good, although somewhat sweet due to all of the appley ingredients. I could have gone for some more saltiness and earthiness, but that didn't stop me from eating it. If I make it again, I'll add some ale in addition to the apple sauce, probably instead of the water.
Astypalaian Biscuits: A?
I had never made these before. I came across the recipe on epicurious looking for recipes and dishes that start with the letter A. They sounded interesting so I thought I'd try them. I can't think of anything similar to them so they're tough to explain. And I didn't quite follow the recipe perfectly. I did splurge and by some saffron though, but only because it was half price. Almost $9 for 1 oz. The culinarians crack. I formed the 'biscuits' (they are nothing like your standard bicuits, except ever so slightly in texture) into rings, or 'crowns as the recipe calls them, and baked them, but I opted to not bake them the second time around, because they tasted good the first way, and they were fully baked. I was concerned the second baking would try them out, but I'm going to give it a try with a few just to check. There's allspice in them and you can taste it. They're spicy and kind of sweet, fluffy and a little flaky. They are certainly like nothing I've made or tasted before, but I think I like them.

Recipes: stew. biscuits.