Who doesn’t love a tomato? Apparently in the United States, very few. The average American consumes 72 pounds of processed tomatoes and 18 pounds of fresh tomatoes annually. That’s a whopping 90-plus pounds of the antioxidant rich vegetable (okay, technically a fruit) per year. And when perusing Lawrence Davis-Hollander’s Tomato cookbook, you see why. They’re delicious. And versatile. Covering everything from sauces to quiches to desserts (really!), the collection of recipes, many contributed by celebrity chefs, will have you kicking off the start of tomato season in style. To get you going, check out this simple, but tasty, pasta dish…

Spaghetti with Slow-Roasted Tomatoes, Basil and Parmesan Cheese

Since 1994, when she opened her restaurant Rialto, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, chef Jody Adams has been winning awards for her interpretation of the classic regional foods of the Mediterranean. Adams wrote In the Hands of a Chef: Cooking with Jody Adams of Rialto Restaurant with her husband Ken Rivard. This is one of her favorite dishes—full of bright flavors and rich tastes, yet unfussy in conception. If you do not like arugula, substitute baby spinach leaves. The slow roasting both caramelizes and concentrates the flavor of the tomatoes, thus enhancing more ordinary commercial varieties. If you start with a full-flavored cherry, such as Peacevine or Matt’s Wild Cherry, all the better.

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for roasting
1 large white onion, cut into 1/2-inch dice
6 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
18 basil leaves
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
48 ripe cherry, grape, or sweet tomatoes, rinsed and dried
3 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 pound spaghetti
2 cups lightly packed arugula
1/4 cup basil, cut into thin ribbons
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 250˚F.

2. Heat 1/4 cup of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat; add the basil leaves and red pepper and stir well.

3. Toss the tomatoes with 1 teaspoon of the salt and sugar and place them in a roasting pan with sides. The pan should be large enough to hold the tomatoes in a single layer. If they won’t fit, use an additional roasting pan and more oil. Spoon the onion mixture over the tomatoes. Add enough oil to come halfway up the tomatoes. Roast until the tomatoes are tender but not falling apart, about 3 hours. Stir once, gently, during the roasting. (You can roast the tomatoes up to 6 hours ahead of time, if convenient.)

4. To finish the dish, bring a large pot of water with the remaining 2 teaspoons salt to a boil. Add the spaghetti and stir constantly until the water returns to a boil. Cook until the pasta is al dente, about 7 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, heat the tomatoes with the onions and oil in a large shallow saucepan over low heat. When the pasta is done, drain it and transfer to the saucepan with the tomatoes. Add the arugula. Toss well. Add the basil and toss again.

6. Serve in a warm shallow bowl with Parmesan sprinkled over the top.

In the above-and-beyond category, our own Kevin Davidson (art department) dons a banana suit to walk the halls at this week’s Book Expo America and give out free copies of Workman’s Bananagrams books. Kevin attracted tons of attention, including that of a roving correspondent with video crew in tow. Thanks, Kevin!

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of grilling season for many–the long weekend and warm weather being the perfect excuse to fire up the grill. Check out these samples from How to Grill, The Barbecue! Bible, and the brand new Planet Barbecue! for delicious recipes perfect for your grill’s seasonal debut–and don’t forget, all three are great gifts for Father’s Day!

“If people say, ‘He was here on earth to make sure tongue twisters and limericks got together,’ that’s not so bad. I was best man at the wedding.”

So says Lou Brooks, the man responsible for the delightful – and delightfully difficult to say – Twimericks: The Book of Tongue-Twisting Limericks, in a recent interview on one of our favorite blogs, House of Cat.

If you’ve caught the Twimericks bug, head on over to www.twimericks.com for games, puzzles, and so much more mischievous fun.

(Should your tongue become twisted into a Perfect Over-and-Underhand Bavarian Pretzel Knot, however, don’t say you haven’t been warned…)

Since I work in our digital department, I haven’t gotten a chance to go to BEA (BookExpo America–a publishing convention) in years past. But with the addition of the “Digital Book Zone” and plenty of online and digital discussions to go with it, this year I got to spend a morning walking around the booths.

It’s just like any other convention…except it’s filled with books! And people talking about books! No wonder everyone around here gets so excited about it every year. (considering we’re all book nerds!) And the rumors of Workman’s amazing booth were definitely true–it’s clearly the most colorful one.

The only one that was nearly as vibrant was the American Girl books booth–which had some amazing shades of pastel going on–but even they couldn’t match the Workman booth’s unparalleled height. The Workman area is framed with tons of giant book covers piled high, and a tall Workman clock to boot!

Of course, we had our wonderful authors signing books with fans lining up around the corner, the best tote bags in the house (our legacy–photo to follow), and a co-worker dressed like a banana in honor of our Bananagrams series.

Insert your own Arrested Development Banana Stand joke here

Ok, so that last part was pretty unusual, but I think a banana mascot would be a wonderful addition to our daily office life, so I hope that suit isn’t a rental! (not that I’m volunteering for the job…)

Summer vacation is right around the corner and kids will want to play! If parents are searching for fun (and educational!) projects to occupy the time, then look no further than Sean Connolly’s The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science. It’s the best of both worlds—exciting experiments backed by real scientific principles. Using common items found around the house or outdoors, these experiments will encourage young minds….

With a long weekend right around the corner, why not give one of the projects a whirl. This one retraces Isaac Newton’s steps – just make sure it’s performed outside, it gets messy!

Newton’s Third Law of Motion: Experiment #14

This is a great way to see equal and opposite forces in action (and reaction). When you let go of the holes in the carton, the water goes shooting out. That is the first force. It also pushes back on the carton with equal force, just as the fuel burning out of the back propels a rocket forward. But because you are holding the carton in place from above, the linear (straight-line) force becomes converted into a rotational (spinning) force.

Materials:
Empty half-gallon beverage carton
Pencil
Scissors
String
Friend to help and observe
Water

1. Use a pencil to jab a hole in the bottom-left corner of each side of the carton.

2. Make a similar hole in the center of the top flap. (This might be a little too tough for the pencil, so you can use the scissors.)

3. Cut a 2-foot length of string and tie one end through the hole in the flap.

4. Hold each of the four bottom holes while your friend fills the carton with water and holds the free end of the string.

5. Get your friend to hold the string up and away from herself, and let go of the four holes.

6. Water should rush out of the holes and the carton should spin around until the water runs out.

Michelle Obama was rocking a pretty fabulous curly ‘do at this month’s state dinner (along with an electric blue gown and killer rhinestone belt–hello, Eighties-chic!).

You can't see the belt, but trust me, you want one.

I flipped through the First Ladies Fandex and discovered that Michelle is by no means the first Curly Girl to grace the White House with her presence.  Since I’m working on an update of our awesome book, Curly Girl, and have curls on the brain, I’ve decided that it is very important to create a list of these lovely Ladies for posterity.

First Curly Ladies of the United States of America,
organized by curl type :

Tight little cherub curls

• Hannah Van Buren
• Dorothea Madison
• Martha Jefferson
• Abigail Adams
• Martha Washington

Bouncy sausage curls

• Abigail Fillmore
• Jane Pierce
• Julia Grant

Curls that poof on top of her head

• Florence Harding
• Ellen Wilson
• Ida McKinley
• Caroline Harrison
• Frances Cleveland

Cute little spit curls

• Elizabeth Monroe

Short halo curls

• Barbara Bush
• Nancy Reagan

Man-made curls (we can’t all be natural Curly Girls!)

• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Elizabeth Truman
• Rachel Jackson
• Louisa Adams

Sometimes curly

• Michelle Obama

One day, history will thank me for making this Very Important List.

If you vigilantly tend your herb garden over the summer months, shouldn’t you be able to enjoy the fresh flavors year-round?  While drying or freezing herbs may be the most common method of preservation, why not try something different…say an infused honey or herbed butter? Charles W.G. Smith offers handy and easy-to-accomplish tips, ideas and recipes in his book The Beginner’s Guide to Edible Herbs—so start tasting summertime every month!  (Next February, you’ll be happy you tried.)

Preserving Herbs in Sugar:
You can preserve some of the sweeter herbs (lemon verbena and lavender work well) in sugar. The flavors blend and make lovely, subtle companions to use instead of regular sugar in any cold food. Pack fresh herb leaves in granulated white sugar in airtight containers. Stir every day to prevent clumping. After the sugar stays dry and loose, remove the leaves before they become crumbly and use the finished “herb sugar” in iced teas or desserts. (Note: The aromatic oils bake off, so they don’t work well in baked or cooked dishes.)

Herbal Honeys:
Honey makes herbal teas palatable, but it is also good medicine on its own—it is very soothing for sore throats and coughs. It is also an antibacterial and is said to strengthen the immune system.  To make an herbal honey, sterilize the jar by boiling it for 10 minutes or running it through the sterilizing cycle of your dishwasher. Pack it with the herb of your choice. Heat enough honey to fill the jar, bringing the honey to the point where it is steaming but not boiling. Pour over the herb, seal the jar, and let it sit in a sunny window for a few days. Strain out the used herb and put a sprig of fresh herb in the jar with the flavored honey.

Herb Butters:
Many herbs—cilantro and dill, for instance—make delicious herb butters. The simplest way is to soften unsalted butter and combine it with chopped herb and lemon juice. The proportions: 4 parts butter, 2 parts herb, 1/2 part lemon juice. This freezes quite nicely and will give you a touch of the herb flavor whenever you need it.

Author Sean Connolly delights the hosts of Fox & Friends by toasting grilled cheese sandwiches in a pizza box oven and demonstrates some “Science Friction” on the 10! show on NBC Philadelphia. The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science starts selling like crazy as he climbs on a plane back to England at the end of a long, hugely successful book tour. Thank you, Sean. And thank you Sir Isaac Newton.

Author Sean Connolly shares a few of the 50 experiments for young scientists he features in The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science on Studio 5 in Salt Lake City, UT.