Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Click here to read about how this nutty, yet popular, holiday got started. We’ve been talkin’ like pirates here at home all day.

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My Grandma Nellie pounded into my brain that if a recipe is too rich – savory or sweet – I should never consider cooking or baking it.This has always stuck with me, or rather haunted me in a way. I picture a 2 inch version of Granny standing on my shoulder with her hands on her hips while I’m reading recipes. “Don’t you dare bake that!”

My favorite TV chef by far is Ina Garten. She sometimes uses more cream and mayo than I’d ever consider using, but her basic cooking philosophy is marvelous. I’d love to have her over for dinner for great conversation and to show her that I am just as good a cook as she. Both she and her husband seem like interesting people. Some years ago Ina had a recipe for Pecan Squares, which must be the ultimate tasting food, because they are so rich, sweet and fattening. I have that cookbook and recently saw a repeat of that old episode. So I decided to please my late Grandma by trying to figure out just how many calories are indeed in that recipe. Here’s what I came up with:

These are approximate for the entire recipe (20 servings)….

• Butter (9 sticks!!!)  = 7,290 Calories = 520 grams saturated fat
• Honey = 1030 Calories
• Brown Sugar = 2,485 Calories
• White Sugar = 258 Calories
• Eggs = 240 Calories = 4.5 grams saturated fat
• Pecans = 6,575 Calories = 66 grams saturated fat
• Cream = 210 Calories = 15 grams saturated fat
• Flour = 1,800 Calories
• Total Calories = 19,880

The recipe suggests these are cut into 20 bars, so that is about 1,000 calories for each bar and over 30 grams of saturated fat. (1 Pecan bar is equal to the calories of 5 Hershey Chocolate Bars.) Each Pecan Square has 3.6 Tbsp of butter alone. I don’t want to figure out the cholesterol. It would be too upsetting.

What if you cannot resist and you eat 2 of these? Do we want our kids to get used to tasting and loving foods as rich as these?  Do you want to consume that many calories and grams of fat and not even get full eating it? Do you want to know how many hours of running it would take to burn all that off? I say no to all the above.

Okay my curiosity got me, and I looked it up. A 120 lb. woman would have to run for 2 hours and 15 minutes at 5mph to burn off one Pecan Bar!!! OMG!!!!

There’s nothing wrong with occasional indulgence, but my Grandma Nellie was right. Sometimes too much is just too much.

Sorry Ina. I still love your show.

I got my hair cut today and was not expecting to find such great characters in the salon. Here’s what I saw:

1. 95 (at least) Year Old Man with Walker – This is a first. I was sitting in the chair waiting for a shampoo when an ancient, hunched  over man shuffled by with his walker. He was being assisted by a younger man, because the walker was not enough to hold him up. I looked up and nearly died when I saw the old man had neon orange hair dye on his head, eyebrows and moustache. This was not a color that one would ever find in the natural hair rainbow. Oh how I’d love to have been able to interview the old guy.
2. Bagel Hoarder - The salon puts out a tray of bagel chunks and a tub of cream cheese near the coffee for patrons to enjoy. They are usually dried out and hard to swallow. I observed an elderly woman shoveling them in her mouth, 3 at a time. She was coughing, but still shoveling them in. Then she started talking to someone and bagel crumbs were flying out of her mouth. I was getting nervous, thinking that she would choke to death, but somehow she managed to live through it. When she turned and walked away from the food, I noticed that she was blinking a lot and had cream cheese all over her eyelashes.

Look around you. Observe people. Listen in on conversations. You never know when you’ll find inspiration for a character in your next story.

As a parent of a high school senior, I can tell you that college is ridiculously expensive these days. Ivy League and many other private colleges cost over $50,000 per year with room and board and tuition. And it’s not only elite schools that are pricey. I have an adult niece who is going to massage therapy school for 1 year, and her tuition for that is over $12,000.

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There are millions of American high school students who cannot even afford to attend public, local colleges. But I read about a town in Michigan that is offering each of their high school seniors a $5,000-per-year scholarship to cover 4 years of college. 9 out of 10 students in the Baldwin School District come from needy families so  the town has gotten together to make donations to begin funding this program. Hooray for Baldwin! Read about it here.

College should be available for everyone in the USA who wants to go. It shouldn’t be a luxury. Don’t you agree?

As the rest of the USA is winding down its vegetable gardens, we Southerners are just getting started. Last year I had the best organic tomatoes I’ve ever had. So I’m doing it again this year – only bigger and better.  These seedlings you see in the photo are 3 days from planting! Welcome to Miami’s heat, sun and humidity. This climate really helps speed the germination process. The trick then is keeping the plants from frying in the tropical sun. The seedlings will be transplanted soon to larger cells and then a few weeks own the road, they will planted in humongous pots and placed along my backyard driveway.  It’s the perfect place for them, with the ideal amount of sun and easy access to the garden hose. I’ll have my first harvest around Christmas time.

If you missed my gorgeous tomatoes last year, click here to take a look.

Today President Obama spoke to the nation from Wall Street about our financial crisis, undoubtedly the worst since the Great Depression. It is one year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The word is that we are making progress, but the economy is nowhere near stable. For the millions out of jobs and losing their homes, there is no sense of stability yet.

Listening to Obama speak made me think about financial responsibility. Our nation did not get into this mess overnight. And no one person or organization is to blame. Families did not lose their homes to foreclosure overnight either. We all know there has been exhaustive discussion in the media regarding just exactly it was that put us in this catastrophic financial mess. Now we need to focus on making significant changes so history does not repeat itself.

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Here’s what I know:

1. Growing up in a middle class family in the 1960s, most kids did not receive nearly the volume and cost of gifts kids receive today-  not even the “rich” kids. At Christmas, there were 1 or 2 gifts for each child.
2. If a child wanted something, he had to work for it.
3. Most people did not live in huge homes like they do today.
4. Many families had only one car. Very few teens had their own cars.
5. Americans did not consume nearly the volume of goods they do today.
6. People were more grateful and seemed happier to me then.

So what happened?

1. We got sucked in by mass marketing efforts.
2. We wanted what others were having.
3. We lost our focus about what is important.
4. We got greedy.
5. We got used to having much more than we need.

So what can we do today to make sure our children do not become a credit crisis statistic when they are young adults?

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1. When they are in elementary school, talk to them about money and how difficult it is to make for most people.
2. Set up some type of a savings plan for your kids from birth.
3. By the middle school years, show them your check book and explain the simple facts about paying bills.
4. Explain how credit cards work and how the interest multiplies when you do not pay off your balance each month.
5. For high school age kids, talk about the basics of our mortgage crisis and how homeowners signed loans they did not fully understand and how their lack of control of spending led them down a destructive path. Tell them about the bad decisions banks made.
6. Be frank with them about the statistics of debt in America. It is easy to find data online.
7. If you are an overspender yourself, show your kids how you are making changes – no matter what their age may be. If your kids see that you buy everything you want when you want it, and you overbuy for them, they will be under the false impression that there are no spending limits.
8. Give your children chores and reward them in small ways when they do their jobs well.
9. Have your children work toward special gifts – a new computer, musical instrument, ipod, etc.
10. Raise your kids to be grateful for what is important. Achieve this two ways: 1) by you being grateful yourself and 2) by you and other family members not spoiling them with gifts and goods.
11. Work as family on downsizing. Less clothing, less gadgets, less shopping, less consuming. Less waste. My saying is that “More should be taken out of your house than is brought in.”
12. Experience the rewards of giving as a family. Rather than buying every member of the family 10 or 20 Christmas gifts, buy 1 or 2 modestly priced gifts and spend some time or money on needy families in your community. You don’t have to wait for the holidays for giving. People need food and clothing year round.
13. Shift the focus of your family from consuming to enjoying the simple things. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to have a lot of fun together.

There’s that cliche: “The best things in life are free.”

Something we should all consider.

My alma mater, Florida State University, listed The Travel Adventures of Lilly P Badilly: Costa Rica on their Seminole ByLines page. This page features all kinds of books published by FSU graduates and faculty. There are so many books published by grads that it took over 1 year for my listing to show up!

Please read my latest article about Montreal on WanderingEducators.com.

What philosophies or sayings  of yours will your kids always remember because you recite them so often? Here’s what my role models taught me, good or bad, true or false:

Grandpa Joe, the wisest of them all

1. “A can of Comet is still only 33 cents. There’s no excuse for Americans to have dirty houses.” Mom
2. “Wearing underwear with holes in it and a fur coat at the same time shows you have no class, even though no one else can see it.” Dad
3. “It will rain only if you forget to take your umbrella, so take it. If you forget to bring it home, it will surely rain.” Grandma Nellie
4. “Debt is your enemy. If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it. You don’t need it anyway.” Grandpa
5. “A winner never quits. A quitter never wins.” Mom, who borrowed that from Napoleon Hill
6. “Floss, floss, floss, each and every time you eat.” Grandma (FYI – this has led to my excessive compulsive flossing disorder)
7. “If you want to teach a child to love something, act like you hate it yourself.” Dad
8. “Always keep a container of homemade spaghetti sauce in your freezer for last minute dinner guests.” Mom
9. “Every man wants to marry a good cook.” Grandma
10. “Be honest. Do the right thing. Sleep well at night.” Grandpa
11. “It’s all good.” Stepfather

Q. What is the longest River in the US?

A. Missouri River

Q. What is southernmost city in the USA?

A. Key West

Q. What state has produced the most presidents?

A. Virginia

Q. What is the largest city in the US land wise?

A. Jacksonville, FL

Q. What is the highest mountain in the US?

A. Mount McKinley, Alaska

Q. What is the smallest state land wise?

A. Rhode Island

Q. What is the most densely populated state?

A. New Jersey

Q. What city in the US holds the world record for the hottest temperature ever recorded?

A. Death Valley, CA. 134 degrees F.

Q. What state has never recorded a below zero temperature?

A. Hawaii

Q. What is the least populated state?

A. Wyoming