Research writing.
—from an article in Eugene Magazine
Themed potlucks have become a popular way to gather around food and drink. Themed potlucks are nothing new—we’ve all been to one. Like a margarita mixer where, thankfully, not everyone brings chips and salsa. What’s new are the themes themselves.
Last year I attended a birthday party where each couple was assigned a color. My partner and I had to wear red, bring a red gift and a red dish to share. We’d planned to bake some bread anyway, so we used water from steamed beets instead to make red bread. (It was actually pink bread, but we didn’t get points off for this.) The yellow couple brought a quiche, the browns a chocolate cake, and the greens an all-green salad. We were lucky that time, to have such a well-rounded meal.
Every month has multiple obscure “holidays” you can plan around. March is National Frozen Food Month and National Noodle Month. There’s also Pi Day (Mmm Piiiie), Dr. Seuss’s Birthday, or Single Moms’ Day. If there isn’t a holiday or a birthday to inspire you, just create your own parameter: deign your guests bring casseroles only, or dishes made in a slow cooker—great for weeknight gatherings. Or do the Iron Chef potluck, where everyone is given one ingredient to use, like carrots or strawberries. For a baby shower, try having nothing but pureed dishes.
Or there’s the un-PC but ever-popular Trailer Park potlucks. Dishes include things like the Ritz cracker mock apple pie, a Tater tot casserole, Oreo cookie pie, some kind of dessert involving Cool Whip, cream cheese and mayo in the same dish, or one of those cream of mushroom soup recipes. (At the one we attended, the food was barely touched.) For a more edible arrangement, consult the Ruby Ann Boxcar line of books, such as Ruby Ann’s Down Home Trailer Park Cookbook. She has a recipe for Blue Eggs made with bleu cheese, which would cover both the Trailer Park and Colored Food themes.
*recipes were included
Mmmmm . . . yellow—from “Orphans in Children’s Films: Why Harry Potter’s Parents are Dead and Willy Wonka is a Father Figure”
The true definition of an orphan is anyone who has lost one or both parents. And technically this loss of parent does not necessarily have to occur during one’s childhood. According to a scientific work entitled Parental Loss and Achievement, “The essential element in orphanhood that uniquely describes it is that no possibility exists for a return to a former family situation.”
Therefore, the children of single parents are orphans, such as Jeremy and Jemima in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or in the 1999 hit The Iron Giant, whose child protagonist lives alone with his mother. Having just one parent means greater vulnerability and isolation for the children. Having one parent creates a sense of insecurity in that there is only one—and what if that one dies? It also means greater hardship for the protagonist not only emotionally, but also financially. Also, if there is only one parent making money, that parent is likely to have less time available for parenting.
This single-parent scenario feeds a plot in two ways: A busy parent means the child or children are more susceptible to trouble (a.k.a. adventure)— and we get to enjoy a romantic subplot. (Who didn’t want Jeremy and Jemima’s dad to fall in love with Truly Scrumptious!)
Red Dye 40 is the world’s most prevalent food dye, found in most any unnaturally red foods. Basically, if it’s red, it’s probably Red 40. But beware of brown, blue and orange things, too. Without Red 40, Jell-O Chocolate Instant Pudding would look green (because there’s not really any chocolate in it) and Ocean Spray’s Ruby Red Grapefruit juice would lack that reddish hue.
Red 40 is especially prevalent in candy—where the concomitant sugar intake is the presumed culprit. It’s also in children’s medicines. Pedialyte popsicles, intended to replenish fluids in dehydrated children, contain Red Dye 40. Tylenol offers both red and dye-free liquid medicine for children. Benadryl makes a dye-free version of their allergy medicine as well. Most sick children don’t balk that their cherry-flavored medicine doesn’t look cherry-red, so why do manufacturers continue making the colored version? Would eliminating it be committing mea culpa? Isn’t it a mea culpa to make the dye-free version at all?
Also known as Allura Red AC, Red 40 has been banned in Denmark, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, and now the U.K.