With the long 4^th of July weekend quickly approaching it’s time to plan our holiday barbeques and picnics! After my fiasco of an Independence Day barbeque last year, where everyone showed up with a bag of chips and my grill lost a leg, I admit to dreading this year’s July 4th. Last year I winged it. This year, I had planned on staying in and sulking (just a little) until I recently discovered a foolproof (or me-proof) answer to last year’s holiday disaster: Celebrate! by Sheila Lukins.

With knockout recipes in line with Lukins’ Silver Palate Cookbook, Celebrate! offers 46 menus for entertaining on special occasions, be it a Kentucky Derby-inspired buffet or a Labor Day picnic. As an added bonus, Lukins suggests extra touches to make an event even more special, including music selections, wine recommendations, and decoration tips.

This year, I’m ready to conquer this holiday armed with Lukins’ “Bang-Up Fourth of July” menu, which includes recipes for Glorious Gazpacho, Dazzling Grilled Veal Chops, Outrageous Lobster Salad Rolls, A Decorative Cucumber Salad, Garden Squash Salad, Fresh Peach Cobbler, and Buttermilk Ice Cream.

I’m especially excited about the Garden Squash Salad below, since there is an amazing farmer’s market close to my apartment!

Garden Squash Salad

Summer squash, both zucchini and yellow, are crisp and delicious when served raw and very thinly sliced in a salad. Dressed with plenty of lemon juice and Parmesan cheese (look for the finest Parmigiano-Reggiano), it matches up well with peppery arugula and some fine ripe tomatoes.

4 small zucchini, ends trimmed

4 small yellow squash, ends trimmed

½ cup fresh lemon juice

¼ cup extra-virgin live oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

8 ounces Parmesan cheese, shaved or cut into thin slivers

2 large bunches arugula (12 ounces total), stems trimmed, leaves washed and patted dry

2 large ripe tomatoes, cored

¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1. Cut the zucchini and squash into very thin slices on the diagonal and place them in a bowl.
2. Whisk the lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper together in a small and toss with the squash. Let the squash rest for 10 to 15 minutes. Then add the cheese.
3. Place the arugula in a salad bowl. Cut the tomatoes in half lengthwise, and then into very thin wedges, and scatter them over the greens.
4. Just before serving, spoon the squash and dressing over the arugula and tomatoes. Sprinkle with parsley and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately, tossing the salad at the table.

For the full menu, including this Garden Squash Salad from Sheila Lukins’ “Bang-Up Fourth of July” menu, see the excerpt below, via Scribd:

Celebrate Pp132 137

Okay, it’s officially summer, and the livin’ is easy: We’re spending our first weekends at the beach, lazy afternoons in the park, maybe the sprinkler’s on in the backyard–and ooh–playtime! I grew up with lots of siblings who like to play games and have been fortunate to continue to grow up around lots of little ones who also like to play. Here are three no-fail outdoor games for every age from Bobbi Conner’s Unplugged Play: No batteries. No plugs. Pure fun.

Toddlers (age 1-2):

Water Painter (page 72 , in case you happen to be following along in your books) is an activity that’s simple to set up and even easier to clean up. Gather together some small plastic buckets (and a paint tray if you have one), fill them about 2 inches with water, and gather up paint brushes and rollers. Bathing suits optional!

Toddlers love to “paint” the deck, sidewalk, patio, railings, or deck furniture. And they’re very persistent–even when the designs evaporate quickly in the sun. The no-fail element is that this one works wherever there’s a relatively smooth outdoor surface to paint on–whether they’re painting the paved suburban sidewalk or the steps of a city brownstone.

Preschoolers (age 3-5):

Bucket-Head (page 195) requires a little bit of setup, but it’s worth it. Once you have the “bucket head,” the game is pretty irresistible, even for the adults with a silly side (yes, I’ve been known to not only play, but excel at Bucket-Head from time to time). For each bucket head, you need a plastic headband, some sticky Velcro tabs, and a clean 8-oz plastic container (like a Cool Whip tub). Remove the lid from the container and attach a few Velcro tabs in a line on the outside bottom. Then stick the corresponding tabs along the top of the headband. Attach the container to the headband, put on the headband–congratulations, you’re a bucket head! Gather up some small sponge or Nerf balls, or ping-pong balls, and start playing. To avoid getting hit in the face, the bucket head can turn with his or her back to the tosser, but the idea is to get the ball into the bucket. Fair warning: once the bucket heads are on, there’s no telling what new game might be invented. Can you scoop the ball off the grass with your bucket head? Can you toss the ball from your bucket head? No-fail because who doesn’t love a Bucket-Head?!

Gradeschoolers (6-10):

Beanbag Target Toss (page 271) is a combination of two classics: Beanbag Toss and Darts. Grab some sidewalk chalk and draw a circular target split into pie pieces with a bull’s eye in the middle. Assign each section a number of points and draw a “pitching line” several feet away. If there’s a group, simply take turns to see who can score 50 points first. Or, if your kid wants to go solo, add a timer–see if he or she can reach a score of 50 before the buzzer sounds! No-fail because it’s competitive and they get to add (see, you can still brush up on your math skillz even when school’s out for summer!).

—

And lest we leave anyone out, here’s a suggestion for the older set (kids at heart and all that–or those who want to mix some cocktails with their play)–check out The Games Bible by Leigh Anderson (I’m especially partial to “Get Down, Mr. President!” on page 310). No-fail element: the tackle. Need I say more?

When plans to escape the city fell through on a sunny Saturday, my friends and I did what any backyard-deficient New Yorker would do and headed to Central Park. Packed in our bags were the essential staples of a summer afternoon—a frisbee; a baseball and gloves; salads of the egg, fruit, and potato variety—and the bible of the season, Suzanne Brown’s Summer: A User’s Guide, a book packed with tips for making the most of a warm afternoon.

Like Ms. Brown, I am madly in love with summer—the smell of Coppertone is enough to get my heart racing—so in honor of the first day of the season, I bring you one of her tips for living life to the fullest in the upcoming months:

How to Play Beach Volleyball

Scout out a quiet place away from the water and sunbathers, then draw lines in the sand that measure approximately 30 feet wide by 60 feet long.

The serving player must hit the ball over the net and inside the court lines within three attempts. If the server fails to successfully place the ball within three serves, the opposing team gains control.

Players rotate positions clockwise whenever their team gains control of the ball (Thus, each team has a new server at that time.)

Once the ball is hit over the net to the opposing team, a player cannot contact the   ball twice in a row unless the first touch is off a block at the net. A player cannot grab the ball, allow it to come to rest in his hand, or touch the net. If he does so, he forfeits the ball to the opposing team.

A point is earned when the serving team wins a rally, or an ace is served.

The first team to reach 15 points wins. A match is played in sets of three or five games.

* * *

This summer (which officially starts TODAY!), before you head off to your beach bungalow, pack a picnic for the park, or spend a day in the shade, pick up Summer: A User’s Guide and make the best of this short and sweet season.

Welcome to another installment of Inside the Author’s Studio, where we give you a peek into the minds and studios of your favorite Workman authors.

Today, to celebrate the release of his new book–and just in time for two events notorious for inspiring sucky video (graduations and weddings)–we venture into the studio of Steve Stockman, author of How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck. Let’s hope he can save us all.

Recent book you loved/learned from

Loved City of Lost Girls by Declan Hughes/learned from The Information by James Gleick/always recommend  The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

Favorite bookstore

I’m glad you asked.  I’m having a contest to figure that out right now.  It all revolves around shelf display for my new book…. But while that contest is underway, I’ll give a shout out to our great local book store Village Books in Pacific Palisades, CA.

Hidden talent

Would you call forgery a talent or a craft?  Hmmmm.  I’m also a pretty good cook.

Bookmark, dog-ear, or virtuality?

Dog-ear if it’s mine and my wife is unlikely to read it, else bookmark.

Book you are most ashamed never to have read

I took a course in college called “Proust, Joyce and Faulkner.”  Read all the Faulkner.  Skipped all but one of the Proust with no regrets whatsoever.  Still sorry I never read past page 20 of Ulysses.  And still have an incomplete in the course.  I think the professor retired this year.

Most frequent form of writerly procrastination

My real job.

Favorite childhood book

Follow My Leader by James Garfield

Alternate ambition (i.e. If you weren’t a writer, you’d be…)

I’m a director, but what I’ve always really wanted to do is act.

Your perfect meal

A giant loaf of hot Greek-Italian bread from the Columbus Bakery in Syracuse, NY, and some awesome cheese.

Big dream

A line of “….That Doesn’t Suck” books.   That I don’t have to write, but that I still get checks for.  Not sure if this is a “dream” or a “fantasy.”

Super power of choice

Immortality probably has its downsides, but I don’t think I’d notice them for the first few hundred years.

What viral video do you wish you had shot?

I’m very fond of “Where the Hell is Matt?”  I like its spirit.  I talked about it in the book (page 114) and did a blog post about it here:  What in the Hell is Unity?

For those of us hitting the air conditioning hard this summer, what are your recommendations for the top 5 films to line up in the ol’ Netflix queue?

I got to do my top 100 or so titles in the back of the book, which was a blast.  So from that list, here are 5 good summer flicks from that list that you may never have seen, or forgotten and need to see again:

-Animal House (1978) School’s out.  Really out. The father of raunchy R-rated pics like The Hangover.  

-Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) For the 4th of July: A fast-moving catchy musical that time travels you back to America’s 20th century war efforts.

-The Empire Strikes Back (1980) The best, by far, of the six Star Wars movies. If you haven’t seen it lately or shown it to your kids, do it! 

-The Sixth Sense (1999) An intelligent horror movie that will scare the hell out of you and make you cry? Yep. A must-see even if you know the surprise ending already. 

-Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) Tarantino again. Why aren’t there more female action heroes? This should be a trend. I count this as one film. 

What Workman book would you like to receive as compensation for your involvement?

I still haven’t got around to reading Water for Elephants.  And I promise it won’t be like Ulysses.

—

Steve Stockman is a writer and director of commercials, short films, music videos, and TV shows–and the author of How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck.

Spring is in the air, and with it come some of the best celebrations of the year: Weddings! Graduations! Sweet sixteens/other coming-of-age ceremonies! (I guess those last two could happen at any time of year, but don’t you feel like they’re always in the spring? No? Just me?)

But nothing taints a great memory like a bad party video. We’ve all seen it: The wedding footage that barely features the bride, and then only from the opposite end of the church. The graduation video with such poor audio that the commencement address sounds like a lecture by Charlie Brown’s teacher. The bat mitzvah video that showcases a few too many rambling uncles and a few too few boogying tweens.

How to prevent such unfortunate home video gaffes? Enter Steve Stockman, film guru and non-sucky-video-maker extraordinaire. Use the below excerpt from his new book How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck—which, by the way, promises to teach you just that—as a reference and you’re guaranteed to create a great memento of that special day. Then be sure to check out Steve’s website for lots more video tips, including his guide to shooting graduations in particular.

In April, earth-consciousness is in the air all month long. And here at Workman, we’ve got a slew of books to help everyone, from kids to adults, be a little kinder to the world we live in. With so many pages full of great advice, you might say that every day is Earth Day within these (appropriately) bright green walls. Just check out these adorable solutions to very real environmental problems in Suzy Becker’s inspirational book-and-journal for kids, Kids Make It Better.

Problem: There is a hole in the ozone, the layer of gas that protects Earth. What can we do to repair it?
Solution (by Sara, age 8 ): “Get some dirt and seeds and plant flowers over the hole to make it look pretty for the aliens!”

Problem: What would you do to help the animals who don’t have a place to live?
Solution (by Craig, age 7): “I would build a big place where dogs can live and eat food.”
(YES, KIDS CAN! Janine Licare Andrews and Aislin Livingstone, age 9: Janine and Aislin were worried about the animals who lose their homes when rain forests are cut down. They got their friends together and started raising money to save the trees. The money is also used to build bridges that keep the animals safe from cars and electrical wires.)

Problem: Help! Humans make so much garbage, we’re running out of places to put it. What can we do?
Solution (by Kristin, age 10): “Have a law that says every person who litters has to pick it up and eat it.”

Problem: There is not enough clean water for all the living things on our planet. How can we fix that?
Solution (by Jackie, age 9): “Have scientists make fish that love to eat tons of pollution.”
(THIS REALLY WORKS! A silver carp can eat twice its body weight [up to 60 pounds] of blue-green algae. So China used tens of millions of silver and grass carp to clean up Taihu Lake, its third-largest freshwater lake and the source of drinking water for 17 million people.)

For more kid-spiration, or to get your future Nobel Laureate off on the right foot, check out Kids Make It Better.

We all know that once upon a time, Humpty Dumpty suffered from a great and unfortunate fall, but did you know it happened when he was attempting a grand-plié-triple-pirouette-arabesque-jump? Or was it the Electric Slide? Or maybe it was the Humpty Dance. (As you can see, my sources are fuzzy).

From puppeteer Noel MacNeal, author of 10-Minute Puppets, here’s a brand new 10-Minute Puppet just in time for Easter that will definitely put make your eggy more leggy! (Just steer clear of tap-dancing across–or sitting on–any walls.)

Materials:

-The Dancing Easter Egg template

-2 colorful, square Post-it notes

-markers or crayons

-lightweight cardboard (file folders work well)

-glue stick

-scissors

Make it:

1. Cut out the foot template and line up the straight edge of the template with the sticky edge of one of the Post-it notes. Trace it and repeat with the second note. Cut out the feet and set them aside.

2. Color in the egg and glue it onto a piece of lightweight cardboard.

3. Carefully cut out the egg (don’t forget the holes!).

4. Insert your first and second fingers through the holes in the egg to be the egg’s legs. Press the tips of your fingers onto the sticky part of the Post-it feet.

5. Now let’s see a high kick…crack!…is that an emerging chick?

The Dancing Easter Egg is a brand-new puppet by professional puppeteer, Noel MacNeal, based on his book 10-Minute Puppets. Catch him in a segment with Shelley Goldberg on NY1 (and corresponding markets) this weekend, where he’ll be appearing with one of his many puppet alter-egos, Lionel, from Between the Lions!
UPDATE: Watch the segment here!

When I was a freshman in college I got the idea for what I thought would be the best April Fool’s Day prank ever. I was daydreaming somewhere (in class…?) when it occurred me that I could effectively trap someone in his or her dorm room, using nothing more than a roll of duct tape. I could just attach a bunch of strips of tape across the door frame, and then when the victim inside opened the door he or she would see nothing but a sticky gray wall. Comedy gold!

I’m not sure what it says about me that entrapment is my idea of a joke, but I was in good company because my friends agreed that the idea was a funny one. It didn’t take long to decide that our friend Annie would be the perfect target: Her reaction would be priceless, and she had burned us all so many times with her own pranks that we were eager for some revenge. In the wee hours of the morning of April 1, my accomplices and I gathered outside of Annie’s room with our supplies—i.e. one roll of duct tape. But here’s the thing about college freshmen: They often don’t have much foresight. So although we were good about keeping our voices down (I hiss-whispered every directive), we didn’t anticipate the ear-splitting SCREEEEE of the tape as we peeled it off the roll. It only took a few duct tape screeches for Annie to be roused from her slumber and open the door. What she saw was not, as I had hoped, a frustrating yet hilarious sticky gray wall, but a few lame strips of tape across her door and us, her bleary-eyed friends, huddled in the hallway in our pajamas.

So yeah, we were definitely the fools in this situation. But you don’t have to be! Courtesy of Sam Bartlett, hysterically funny author of The Best of Stuntology, here is a list of much better, much more satisfying pranks to help you pull off an April Fool’s Day that will live in infamy.

• Pre-sliced Banana: I unpeeled a banana once and watched it fall to the floor in four distinct cylindrical pieces. I was a victim of the mysterious pre-sliced banana stunt. To do this maneuver you need only a banana and a large pin. You insert the pin at various points along the banana and at each spot, wiggle it back and forth in one plane. This process separates the banana into sections while leaving the peel essentially intact. It is important to have a victim for your banana soon after you make your incisions, because the banana will fuse back together before long. The beauty of this stunt is that when someone opens a banana and it tumbles in pieces to the floor, they do not suspect foul play. Why would anyone tamper with a banana? How would anyone tamper with a banana? So they stare at the banana and just don’t know what to make of it.

• Fun with Funnels: You’ll need a quarter, a funnel, and a pitcher of water (which you’ll keep hidden until the right moment). You tell someone, who looks like they wouldn’t mind getting a little wet, that you have a coordination stunt. Have them put the funnel into their pants, with the wide opening sticking out the top. Then have them tilt back their head and put a quarter on their forehead. The object is to count to three and then try to get the quarter from their forehead into the funnel. Let them try this a few times before you empty the pitcher of water into their pants.

• Medicine Cabinet Stunt: You’re having a big party. Take down the medicine cabinet you have on your bathroom wall. Remove all the medicine. Fill the entire cabinet with marbles. Latch it shut. Put it back on the wall. Everyone at your party will hear the explosion of marbles when the nosy punk is caught trespassing in your private pharmacological turf.

• Foam Surprise: Wait for someone to go to the bathroom. Once they are in place and the door is locked, fill a medium-size padded envelope with shaving foam (as much as you can get into the envelope). Slide the open mouth of the envelope under the door. Place a flat board on top of the envelope. Stand back, then jump on it. Result: A huge, fast-moving cloud of foam will cover the subject, leaving—if you are lucky—a clearly defined outline of said subject on the wall.

• Doctor’s Office Stunt: Go in for a check-up with a tennis ball hidden somewhere on your person. When the doctor goes to take a pulse on your wrist, have the tennis ball in your armpit. Squeeze the ball and the pressure will cut off the blood flow in that big artery that goes down your arm. Your pulse will stop, and the doctor will be confused. (On a cautionary note, you’ll want to be able to show the tennis ball to the doctor before he injects some drug directly into your heart, or brings out those zapper things and starts yelling “Clear!” at the top of his lungs.)

—Avery, whose favorite holiday is April Fool’s Day.

It’s like Elf Yourself, but with puppets. And a leprechaun. And it’s easy-peasy!

1. Download the “Puppet Called You” template from 10-Minute Puppets by Noel MacNeal.

2. Color in the body. Glue the template to a piece of lightweight cardboard (a file folder or empty cereal box work well) and cut around the edges.

3. Print out a photo of yourself (I chose 10-Minute Puppets author Noel MacNeal), with the face about 2 .5″ to 3″ wide. Cut out only the head and glue it onto the body.

4. Tape a chopstick or straw along the back of one leg to use as a handle.

5. Now run along and find your pot o’ gold!

Author Noel MacNeal, as leprechaun:

Fun fact: The author of this post once leprechauned herself in real life for the photoshoot for The Halloween Handbook, proving that leprechauns come in all sizes.

Welcome to Inside the Author’s Studio, where we give you a peek into the minds of your favorite Workman authors.

This weekend SXSW, the music-film-interactive festival, kicks off in Austin, TX, and to celebrate we visit the studio of music maven Jessica Hopper, author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking and freelance music and culture critic whose work appears in Chicago Reader, LA Weekly, SPIN, ANP, and Chicago Tribune–and here and here. Oh, and she’s also the music consultant for the public radio show, This American Life! Here, we ask her a few questions, speed round style.

Recent book you loved/learned from

The Impressionists. I was hungry for each new chapter and wowed as the story unfolded. And/or Anthony Bourdain’s Medium Raw, for the Top Chef gossip.

Favorite bookstore

Myopic Books, a sprawling 4 floors of affordable used to get lost in, here in Chicago. I park on the couch between gardening, essays and cookbooks–the intersection of my interests.

Hidden talent:
I can draw.

Bookmark, dog-ear, or virtuality?

Dog-ear.

Book you are most ashamed never to have read

The bible. Started, never finished.

Most frequent form of writerly procrastination

Oh, there is finer point I can put on it beyond “puttering”.

Favorite childhood book

Harriet The Spy.

Alternate ambition (i.e. If you weren’t a writer, you’d be…)

A farmer.

Your perfect meal (on tour or at home)

Flamkuchen pizza and a beet salad.

Big dream

Have three more kids, write three more books, have a house in a quiet place with a giant garden and a big dumb Burmese Mountain dog big enough for my children to ride, a la the Clifford books.

Super power of choice
A peace laser that I can shoot from my hand, that makes peace.

Book tour or band tour?

Book tour with a band. You can have it both ways.

Favorite name for future chart-topping girl band

Peace Laser.

What Workman book would you like to receive as compensation for your involvement?

Birthday Monsters, it’s the only Boynton book we do not have!

—

See Jessica’s studio above, but to get a sense of what really goes on behind the scenes, we’ve been told that this is a pretty accurate representation of general day-to-day operations:

The Girls’ Guide to Rocking // Adventure from Alan Del Rio Ortiz on Vimeo.

Jessica Hopper is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking.