Century Plant Triplets--11th Week, Oh Solo Me Oh!

So goes Righty. Actually Righty does go, but Lefty stays for now, all by itself. Peewee departed the scene the previous week. On this beautiful blue-sky day, solo Lefty looks magnificent, a great century plant specimen in its prime with bloom clusters resembling cheerleader pom-poms. The pixstrip shows the century plants for May 6 and May 13. (Click for larger older/newer side-by-side image.)

I'm channeling Lefty, anthropomorphizing him in a short, chorus-part parody of O Sole Mio. You might also recognize the same tune for It's Now or Never.

Oh, solo me, oh.
Now by myself.
My buds ain't no mo',
Just Lefty's left.

How much time,
I've got to stay,
I don't know what's what,
I just don't know squat.

My thoughts of the pix for that day:

On Thursday, May 9, I drove by the corner to view the plants. Only one left. Thought about deliberately deviating from my Monday noonish pic shoot and taking pix Friday, but didn't. Crossed my fingers and hoped the property owners didn't have an order in for lopping the last one, as Friday, being a workday, might be a likely cutoff (g) day. Thought maybe I'd take pix Saturday. Nope. By the time Sunday rolled around, I figured I might as well shoot Monday.

Friday morning, I sent email to Portraits of Wildflowers blogger Steven Schwartzman that only one stalk remained. He wrote back shortly and replied that he noticed the previous day that only one century plant was left.

I took my usual diagonal-view pictures. For comparative pictures to newer angle ones that I took the previous week, I took some from across the street (1st pixstrip below) and from the right (2nd pixstrip).

The angle of the previous two weeks' rightside pix was about 45 degrees. For May 13, I stepped back farther so I could better frame Lefty in the background. That pic includes part of the tower, and the company's masonry sign is now right of the wooden pole, narrower than in the other two rightside pix.

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Century Plant Triplets--10th Week, Minus Peewee

Peewee's gone! The pixstrip shows the century plants for April 29 and May 6. (Click for larger older/newer side-by-side image.) Lefty and Righty are in full blooms.  Lefty and Righty look to be in full robustness. Alas, poor Peewee. I suspect caretakers cut it down rather than risk having Peewee fall over onto a vehicle stopped in traffic, or pose a road hazard with downed stalk and bloom clusters.

Over the last few years, I've spotted some singular century plants in the initial sprouting stage. A plant would sprout a stalk, spread bloom clusters, which later are surrounded by busy bees boisterously buzzing bulky blooms, ... (Say that last phrase fast multiple times, why dontcha?) One day, the plant would be gone, or cut near the base.

Apparently, cutting a century plant down comes with hazards. Dave's Garden has a webpage that includes posts about stalk removals, with or without blooms. Apparently, the sap can be very painful and dangerous to contact.

My thoughts of the pix for that day:

On Friday, May 3, I received email from Portraits of Wildflowers blogger Steven Schwartzman that he took pix of the "the two remaining century plants". That meant one [plant] is missing, most likely, cut down. On Monday, May 6, I took my pictures and confirmed it was the leaning Peewee that's gone. Thus, the one [pic] I have for Monday, April 29 was the last one I have in my possession with all three plants. I feel lucky that I decided to take the pic last Monday (April 29) while Peewee was still there.

The main pic is the one that I've been taking from the square at the gas station. The second one is the view from the bank across the street. (Tossed out several pictures because of bad timing with cars in the way.) The third one is the view from about 45 degrees from the right. The two remaining plants look like leaners. We'll see how much longer they fare [fare well before the farewell, that is].

In my thoughts for that day, I had intended to use the second and third pictures as individual ones. For this article, I decided to make comparative composites of April 29 and May 6 images for both front and right side views.

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Century Plant Triplets--9th Week Peewee's 2x Leaning Angle

Uh oh. Peewee's leaning angle looks like it's doubled from one week to the next. The pixstrip shows the agave triplets pics for those April 22and April 29. (Click for larger older/newer side-by-side image.) Except for Peewee's bigger leaning angle, the plants look nearly unchanged, seemingly finished with growth spurts and obvious bulking up.

Last week in article #8, I mentioned I'd have "more info about and by the knowledgeable someone … about multiple-stalk century plants". My curiosity about multiple-stalk century plants vs. the set of triplets I'd been writing about stemmed (grin) from the caption for Will and Mary Ross' picture (about 3/4 down the webpage) that indicated a single plant with three stalks— "he was so proud when it bloomed -- and three bloom stalks is rare".

From having read that when conditions were good, agaves grew their stalks and bloom clusters amazingly fast as their last gasp for reproduction. Seemed to me that all the energy could go into only one stalk. Anyway, Dave Moellendorf, at the Austin Cactus and Succulents Society plant sale on Saturday, August 31, 2013, explains how a single century plant can have multiple stalks. (Yes, I'd like you to visit my very first YouTube video production—1 minute and 15 seconds—for more information about Dave.)



My thoughts of the pix for that day:

Peewee is leaning quite lot more. Thinking it's only a matter of time before the property owners cut it, if not all three plants, for fear of hazard or damage to cars from falling over. One other century plant in that clump bloomed just about a year ago, but was cut down.

Today, I also took a pic from the bank across the street. Quite a different view, with Peewee not looking like a leaner. THOSE pix were hard to time for shooting because of numerous cars passing right in front of the plants or stopped, compared to POV from the gas station square. (From the square in front of the gas station, the plants look like they're inline and evenly spaced -> * * *. )

The three asterisks represent the plants' apparent alignment and spacing. The following across-the-street pic shows that Peewee is to the right side of the other two plants and all three plants lean somewhat. In the approach-from-right-side pic, which I did not mention in my blockquote, Peewee looks upright, and the other two plants lean to the left.

 

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Century Plant Triplets--8th Week Lopsided Peewee

Happy Labor Day weekend, statesiders! In the April 22 image, the triplets are very robust. They all grew a little taller, and gained a smidge more bulk at the branches and bloom clusters. However, Peewee is looking unbalanced, maybe a bad sort of top-heavy. I initially thought that "leaning" would be a reasonable adjective for Peewee, but "lopsided" seems even better. The pixstrip shows the agave triplets pics for those April 15 and April 22. (Click for larger older/newer side-by-side image.)

From TheFreeDictionary, a definition for "lopsided" that fits well is "leaning or inclined to one side". OTOH, "leaning" could be an appropriate adjective also.

departing or being caused to depart from the true vertical or horizontal; "the leaning tower of Pisa"; "the headstones were tilted"

Come to think of it, Peewee's angle is similar to that of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Recently, a friend wondered about weight for a stalk and blooms. I was not able to find much information. Wikipedia had a general mention:

Each agave plant will produce several pounds of edible flowers during its final season. The stalks, which are ready during the summer, before the blossom, weigh several pounds each.

A few weeks ago, I emailed a plant-knowledgeable neighbor and asked if he might know the weight of a stalk and bloom clusters. He didn't know, but gave a guess that the stalk would have lots of water in it and that each flower cluster would be a few pounds. He suggested using geometry for calculating the volume of the stalk, then multiplying the volume by the the weight of water for the same volume.

Yesterday, at the Austin Cactus & Succulent Society 2013 Fall Show & Sale (Zilker Botanical Garden), someone helping out a vendor friend thought a stalk and bloom clusters could weigh a few hundred pounds until the plant dried out. Next week, I'll have more info about and by the knowledgeable someone for article #9 about multiple-stalk century plants.

Note: The sale continues today. In case you miss the sale, the webpage lists the expected vendors and contact info.

My thoughts of the pic for that day:

Even bluer day for taking pix! Blossoms more noticeably robust, especially at the tops. But, uh-oh, Peewee in the middle is leaning rightward. If property caretakers fret over possible fallover, they might cut the entire stalk before the agave finishes its natural course.

Just about a year ago, a century plant at the same location started blooming, reaching skyward, about the same stage these plants are now. Suddenly, it was gone. I'll see how the plants progress next week, keeping my fingers crossed for their existence.

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Century Plant Triplets--7th Week Lookit the Tops!

April 15 (tax day!) was a beautiful blue-sky day, and the subjects' details crisper than on April 8. Amazingly, these century plants continued upward growth even while continuing to grow outward. And the bloom clusters grew bigger. The pixstrip shows the agave triplets pics for those two days. (Click for larger older/newer side-by-side image.)

Last week, although I talked about gauging heights, the image of a couple in front of their own century plant triplets piqued my interest more than just guestimating the stalks' heights. During the browsing, I landed on Ross Family Photographs, where the same picture had the accompanying text "Will and Mary Ross by century plant in their yard in Burnet, TX, about 1948; he was so proud when it bloomed -- and three bloom stalks is rare".

I noticed a link to Will and Mary's 50th anniversary, which occurred in 1952. I wrote the website owner, Doris Ross Johnston, to talk about the plant and the couple—that it is nice to have such an interesting plant and the couple for height reference, and info about the long marriage, particularly so long ago. Doris noted, "Grandma and Grandpa were rather unusual for that time to have a Golden wedding anniversary. I think it's more common now that people usually live longer."

I wanted revisit heights this week, with a slight bit of refinement. I used a copy of this week's picture to further refine use of the street sign's height (two feet) to indicate how tall the plants are. I started with the bottom edge of the first sign in line with the start of the street sign post. From there, I stacked multiple images. At the top of the plants, I pasted sign images horizontally, with some offset by half the heights (one foot).

Observations about the previous to newer week:

• All three look about a foot taller than the previous week.
• Lefty reaches halfway up the "hangman's noose", and is champeen at 24 feet. (I don't know what that wiry formation is or does.)
• Peewee reached the upper wire (18 1/2 feet).
• Righty's up to 22 feet.

My thoughts of the pic for that day:

Much clearer day for taking pix! A bit more blossomy development, more noticeable at the tops. Peewee in the middle's doing pretty good also!

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Century Plant Triplets--6th Week Subtle Continued Growth, Gauging Heights

The pixstrip shows the agave triplets pics from April 2 and April 8. At first glance, they don't seem to have changed much. (Click for larger older/newer side-by-side image.) The shot-put-ball-like blooms seem to show the biggest difference.

Gauging heights seeped into this article from curiosity over another set of century plant triplets.

During a Google search for "century plant bloom", I spotted the image, which also included a man and woman, good for providing relative height comparison. I estimated the century plants' height to be about 15 feet, based on approximately three times the height of the couple.

In my Century Plant Triplets--3rd Week Higher Up article, I'd mentioned using the nearby bike route street sign for a dimensional gauge. For my set of triplets, Righty's height looks to be about 20 feet here. (Click to see my image with 10 signs stacked near Righty.)

FWIW, a few weeks ago, when I went to measure the physical sign height to verify that sign's dimensions, I recalled I had to stretch my arm upward to reach the bottom of the sign. My height and arm totals seven feet, give or take an inch.

While I was playing with this pixstrip composition, I noticed that the distance between the two upper wires happened to be about the height of the street sign. Observations about the previous to newer week:

• Lefty looks to have peaked in vertical growth.
• Peewee grew about another half a foot.
• Righty grew about another foot.
• All three plants' bloom clusters at the end of their "arms" look a bit more robust.
• Peewee and Righty look to be fistbumping at one spot.

My thoughts of the pic for that day:

Barely sprinkly weather. Very similar to the pic from April 2, but branches spread out a little wider, bloomer clusters a bit bigger.

It's apparent that my thoughts on April 8 were nowhere in the neighborhood of heights like my thoughts today. Running across the century plant triplets that I found online nudged me to infer measurements and methodologies for the two sets of century plant triplets and distance between two wires.

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Century Plant Triplets--5th Week Closer Looks at Stalks and Branches

The pixstrip shows the agave triplets pics from March 25 and April 2. (Click for larger older/newer side-by-side image.) What a difference in sky contrast! Furthermore, the zoomed-in blue-sky one (more recent, left side) looks to be crisper than the zoomed-in overcast one (older, right side). (I just pulled up my original, unmodified snapshots and verified.) As an amateur photographer with no professional training whatsoever, the contrast differences surprised me.

For this pixstrip composition, I decided to zoom in more to the plants' stalks and branches. Observations about the previous to newer week:

• Lefty doesn't look much taller.
• Peewee reached past the middle wire.
• Righty extended past the top wire.
• Peewee and righty grew nearly another two feet.
• All three plants make me visualize aliens having multiple outstretched arms, holding up "blossom" clumps that resemble shot put balls.

I would have taken pix April 1 as my weekly schedule for Mondays, but I'd overlooked charging my camera batteries and didn't have enough juice to shoot. So I returned Tuesday. For the rest of my series of the weekly century plant pix, I shot only on Mondays.

My thoughts of the pic for that day:

Maybe not as pretty as it could have been because of cloudiness.

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Century Plant Triplets--4th Week Higher and Branching Out

The pixstrip shows the agave triplets pic from March 18 and March 25. The newer pic shows the stalks starting to grow branches. Instead of resembling giant, continuous asparagus spears, the upper parts parts of the stalks now look like crosses between Christmas trees and candelabras.

These stalks grew up some more, about half the sign's height for the first plant and another full sign's height for the 2nd and 3rd plant. BTW, during the week, I took a metal tape measure and measured the sign's height and width. Yep, 24 inches each direction. So, another week of the plants growing another two feet—well, ok, the two plants to the right.

My thoughts of the plants for that day:

All three stalks gained just a little more height. The middle one did not reach the wires. All three started sprouting branches.

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Century Plant Triplets--3rd Week Higher Up

The pixstrip shows the agave triplets pic from March 11 and March 18. Do a visual comparison of heights of the plants between the picture on the left and the one on the right. The increased height looks to be about the height of the sign on the right. For that matter, the increased height between March 4 and March 11 (pixstrip at July 21 article) looked to be about the height of the sign also.

What kind of street sign and what size is it, you might ask? It's a Bike Route sign with a route number at the bottom, which some future articles will include images of. I found a dimensional specification at the Manual of Traffic Signs site. The height of the bike route sign could be either 24 or 36 inches wide, but I'm guessing more likely 24. The height is 18, but excludes numbers below the bicycle image.

As the sign near the century plants is square, I've inferred the sign's height is 24 inches. So, if my hunch for the sign's height is correct, it means that the plants have grown about 24 inches each week, average of over three inches each day. Woohoo!

My thoughts of the plants for that day:

The closest stalk reached the lowest wires! Will be interesting to see that the other two clear them next week, and see where they reach.

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Century Plant Triplets--2nd Week

The pixstrip shows the agave triplets pic from March 4 and two from March 11. Do a visual comparison of heights of the two pictures on the left. Although the stalks initially don't look much taller, they might have picked up half of the street sign height. Maybe some day I'll return to the area and measure the sign so I can guestimate how much the stalks grew from March 4 to March 11.

The picture on the right shows the March 11 image with additional skyward background for height reference. As my series continues, pictures will show sprouting progress, more than looking like giant asparagus shoots.

The following is an excerpt of thoughts I'd sent email out that day:

Took a couple of other pix today. (I took last week's about 8 AM 3/4.) I cropped one of them to just under the wires for a relative size the one I sent last week. I then thought that it might be interesting to crop the same pic but include the wires for height relative view. I'm hoping to take weekly pix until the conclusion of the plants, or until they get cut down, whichever occurs first.

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Century Plant Triplets--Stalk Starts

Agave, noted for use in making tequila and agave syrup (aka nectar), can also have a spectacular end-of-life stage—
that of a century plant. When an agave starts growing a stalk, the stalk can grow several inches per day, reaching up to thirty feet or more. During the upward growth, the stalk also sprouts limbs outward so that it resembles a Christmas tree.

My picture shows a trio of agaves that started sprouting. I hadn't noticed growth until early March while leaving the grocery store shopping area that I frequent. Because I'd taken series of weekly pictures of other agaves in the past, I figured this trio would be amazing to chronicle. Have never seen THREE in such close proximity.

I returned the next day (Monday, March 4) to take pictures. I hadn't been sure where a vantage point might be. I initially parked at the bank parking lot directly across from the plants. The view didn't seem good from there, so I walked to the corner of the gas station that is diagonal from the plants. That locale turned out to be reasonable spot to try to avoid taking pix w/stuff nearby. Tried timing for avoiding having cars getting into the pix.

The following is an excerpt of thoughts I'd sent email out that day:

I'm guessing we'll be in for treat of stalks and blooms from those three plants for a month. Enjoy while they last! About a year ago, a century plant sprouted up there also. Someone cut it down when it had just started blooming, I think.

My next blog post will include a few thoughts and pictures of the agaves a week later. For upcoming articles, I might or might not combine some of the weeks' pictures and thoughts. Time will tell.

View a couple of Youtube explanations of century plants:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgUKmSUx37g
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcrHLt4Nwk8

Index to my agave posts, from the time I first spotted the set of triplets in early March to mid-June, about 3 1/2 months.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

2025 Slide-show version of the triplets saga-"Revisiting Century Plant Triplets, Weekly Shots Over 16 Weeks" (video | article)

Related: Agave articles search results

Diff Kinda Choco-chip Cake Mix Cookies

Last month, I published the PC cake mix cookies recipe—featuring pecans and coconut, and using French Vanilla cake mix as the dry ingredient base. This time, I thought about a familiar, yet different cooky recipe, using my standard cake mix recipe. One variation of chocolate chip cookies is using half white cake mix and half fudge or chocolate cake mix.

In the distant past, I used to buy Jiffy Cake Mix, one white and one chocolate, and mix them together. (Each Jiffy box holds 9 ounces of powder, about half the amount of regular cake mix.) The Jiffy website alludes to less availability of their products in stores than the company prefers, although it does have a webpage for online shopping.

Hmm, the cartoon carton reminds me of Justin Timberlake in the SNL Veganville skit, looking like a pink brick of tofu. Anyway, as my supermarket did not carry Jiffy cake mixes, I thought I might buy one of each full-size mixes, weigh, mix half and half, and save the other halves for something in the future.

I spotted Duncan Hines' marble cake mix and decided to buy that powder instead—one box of mix instead of two. The box contains one main sack of white cake mix and a small pouch of chocolate powder mixture.

My pixstrip shows the ingredients on the left (powder mixes, coconut, chocolate chips, eggs, oil), baked cookies in the middle, and cooled and stacked cookies on the right.

Implements

• cooky pan(s)
• pastry blender
• medium-large mixing bowl
• small mixing bowl or large cup or jar (for eggs and oil)
• measuring cup
• measuring spoons
• cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• cooling rack for done cookies

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 C cooking oil (I replaced 1 T with sesame oil.)
• 1 18ish oz. marble cake mix (I used Duncan HInes brand.)
• 1 C flaked coconut (I broke up the bigger, stuck clumps.)
• 1 C chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Pour the coconut into a medium-large mixing bowl, breaking up the lumps.
3. Pour the cake mix white cake and chocolate powders into the coconut, using the pastry blender to blend together.
4. In a bowl or large cup, combine the oil and eggs. For a more aromatic flavor, exchange 1 T of the oil with 1 T sesame oil.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger bowl and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips.
7. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough. Shape to rounded, level, or concave height.
8. Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet. Slightly press the lumps with the bottom of the measuring cup for flatter cookies. OK, be lazier and press down with palm or fingers together.
9. Bake for about 10 to 11 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
10. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack. These cookies don't actually require much coaxing to loosen them from the pan.

Shaping the dough slightly concave yielded 52 cookies, same number as the pecan coconut cookies. The calories amount is a bit more—78 for these, 82 for the PCs. However, 4 calories per cooky difference isn't a lot to fuss about.

The following table shows the effect of including or excluding chips, coconut, or both. Note that omitting both chips and coconut result in the grand calorie savings of 25 per cookie. Can you stop at one?

Ingredient, calories	Version
	A	B	C	D
cake mix powders, 2040	✔	✔	✔	✔
2 eggs, 140	✔	✔	✔	✔
1/3 C oil, 533	✔	✔	✔	✔
1 C coconut, 560	✔	✔	—	—
1 C chocolate chips, 800	✔	—	✔	—
batch (52), total calories	4073	3273	3513	2713
calories per cookie	~78	~62	~68	~52

One closing remark about this cooky recipe—the coconut didn't come through as prominently as I expected. A redo with adding coconut extract might enhance it more. Maybe fuggetabout coconut altogether.

Additional Past Cooky Recipes

• PC Cookies (pecans and coconut as featured add-ins)
• Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies
• Cake Mix Macaroon Cookies (similar recipe with more process details, using fewer dry ingredients and more wet ingredients
• A Convenient Triple-dose Pnutty Butter Cooky Batch
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch [Valentine]

Escaling and Coupons

Escaling/e-scaling is not electronic scaling, despite the implicitness of my term. Some of you who are familiar with typography would know about E scales, plastic rulers used for measuring printed letters (using capital E as standard), line spacings, and line thicknesses. I bought and used two when I took desktop publishing, um, way back. Looking at them recently provided a trip down memory lane for uses. Those of you who used E scale(s), what features did yours have?

A couple of weeks ago, I started my usual pre-grocery store ritual of reviewing print coupons to consider using. OK. Tossed out expired ones that I wasn't all that committed to using. Re-stuffed ones into my later-packet that I can wait another couple of weeks. I put the will-use coupons into will-use packet and scribbled the item onto the grocery list with a circumscribed C—"©".

Coupons inspired me think about typography in coupons in addition to usage for buying products and savings or not. Most of my comments pertain to printed grocery store and eatery coupons. The pixstrip includes scans of my Escales and some sample coupons that have characteristics I've listed.

If anyone is in marketing, it'd be great if you would pass this article to your group. If you or your group have anything to do with coupons, my article has the most to say about those incentives. (I'm excluding looking at Groupon here.)

Like for the following types of coupons, applicable mostly for eateries

• Bundling purchase of buying main item and getting side and beverage for free
• Bundling purchase of buying side and beverage and getting main item for free
• Buying one item and getting one free
• Deep discount, such as half off
• Bundling purchase of buying one meal and getting kid version for free

Like for practices by companies for the following features in grocery coupons

• Picture(s) of product
• Legible flavors and names of options, related to typography regarding font size and foreground/background
• Flexibility for sizes applied to and available (really good—applicable to any size)
• For meal-type coupons, adding the store area to seek the items, particularly TV dinners or pre=prepared that are room-temperature, refrigerated, or not obviously frozen-types
• For salad dressing coupons for refrigeration-required dressings, mentioning that they're in refrigerated areas. Same goes for salsas.
• Minimizing ALLCAPS for helping readability (mixed case for visual reading cues) saving physical space
• "Save [coupon value]" rather than "[coupon value]" off
• Savings value in eye-catching 24-point typeface size or larger

Like (preferences) for expiration information, tilted slightly more about coupons for groceries than eateries

• At least a month duration
• The last day of the month
• Sunday preference over Saturday
• At least 8-point font
• Black text on white background (red on yellow common and reasonable)
• Location at the top of the coupon

Forehead furrows—imho, questionable strategies in grocery coupons

• Tear-off coupons on products
  • Some customers might forget to tear them off while in the checkout line.
  • Some customers might tear them off the packages for use in the future.
• Lack of expiration dates

Thumbs down for various practices on coupons

• Requirement to buy more than one item for obtaining the savings, particularly if rolling out a new product
• Requirement to buy multiple different items for obtaining the savings, requiring navigation to different parts of the store
• Inverse colors (e.g., white text on black) for coupon expirations and flavor options
• Even worse, grays for either foreground, background, or both
• "$.nn¢"—indicates ignorance or inattention to detail
• Puny-value coupons—25 or 35¢, buy 2 and save ¢. Really? YMMV for what you consider puny.
• Oversize or overwide coupons that require folding for fitting into a coupon pouch, often obscuring info, requiring that I choose between image/conditions or expiration

Related irritation: Major drugstore chains with overpriced items even with half-off or buy one-get-one-free alleged savings, in addition to requiring loyalty cards for discounts

Other coupon shape considerations
Landscape orientation provides more room for wordwrap than portrait. Also, they're easier to file and pull up for viewing the info. Square or almost square coupons seem to not provide obviously visual sectioning between image, size/variety info, and grocer conditions.

Leftover comments about eatery ads and coupons

• Ads with the following items that can coax the consumer to visit
  • Address and map of eatery, unless the eatery is a well-known chain
  • Website
  • QR code icon
• Irritation about the following conditions that some coupons have:
  • One-week expirations, particularly time window for start/end
  • Time effectivity, such as usable only after 5pm

What features do you see in the images I've included that appeal to you, intrigue you, or bug you? What do you like or dislike about ads and coupons that you run across?

PC Cookies

Personal Computer? Politically Correct? Printed Circuit? Peanut Cluster? Nah! I wanted to think of a way to recall main ingredients for this cooky recipe. Sooo, using a recognizable pair of letters would help—pecan coconut.

Sure, "p" could also mean peanut, peach, praline, and "c" could also mean carrot, caramel, crunch.

In Googling "pc", the most popular hits that come up pertain to personal computers. As I progressed in entering characters of my article title, I saw that Google started autofilling a suggestion for "pc cookies", the topic being cookies on personal computers.

As in many of my other cooky recipes, I used boxed cake mix for convenience. My hyperlinked list at the bottom of the article has only one scratch recipe. I'm a big believer in few ingredients and easy preparation. I came up with this recipe came from wanting to bake cookies without chocolate that was likely to melt in summer weather—no chips, chunks, or ganache.

These cookies surprised me for being crunchy rather than soft and chewy. I think my recollection for soft and chewy is from cake mix cookies I had baked, um, a long time ago.

In the distant past, the standard cake mix cookies called for adding 2 eggs, 1/4 cup of oil, and 2 tablespoons of water to the powder. The cookies came out of the oven initially soft until cooled. They were crunchy like store-bought cookies for maybe an hour or so, then became soft and chewy. I think instructions said to store in an airtight container after they cooled to prevent them from becoming soft and chewy.

The standard recipe now calls for 2 eggs and 1/3 cup of oil. A few years ago, I did try the older recipe with the newer cake mix. The cookies tasted fine, but they were quite crunchy and never softened.

It seems that big-name cake mix companies, within months of each other, changed their recipe and touted the addition of pudding. To my recollection that move came on the heels of a Pillsbury Bakeoff winner having put pudding into a cake mix cake. I haven't been able to find a link to the history of addition of pudding to cake mix powder. Maybe some other baker who reads this article can enlighten.

Anyway, onward to the recipe! Implements

• cooky pan(s)
• pastry blender
• medium-large mixing bowl
• small mixing bowl or large cup or jar (for eggs and oil)
• measuring cup
• measuring spoons
• cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• cooling rack for done cookies

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 C cooking oil (I replaced 1 T with sesame oil.)
• 1 18ish oz. white cake mix (I used Duncan HInes French Vanilla.)
• 2 C flaked coconut (I broke up the bigger, stuck clumps.)
• 1/2 C chopped pecans (I used a 2 1/4 oz. pack of pieces, which I chopped into smaller pieces.)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Pour the coconut into a medium-large mixing bowl, breaking up the lumps.
3. Pour the cake mix powder and nuts into the coconut, using the pastry blender to blend together.
4. In a bowl or large cup, combine the oil and eggs. For a more aromatic flavor, exchange 1 T of the oil with 1 T sesame oil.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger bowl and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
6. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough. Shape to rounded, level, or concave height.
7. Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet. Slightly press the lumps with the bottom of the measuring cup for flatter cookies.
8. Bake for about 9 to 10 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
9. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

Shaping the dough slightly concave yielded 52 cookies, calculated to about 82 calories each. YMMV.

Additional Past Cooky Recipes

• Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies
• Cake Mix Macaroon Cookies (similar recipe with more process details, using fewer dry ingredients and more wet ingredients
• A Convenient Triple-dose Pnutty Butter Cooky Batch
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch [Valentine]

Word Trips

My word trips pertain to words that make me trip over spelling or meaning. I seldom have spelling problems with run-of-the-mill homophones. The more obscure terms tend to trip me up—as do words that have almost the same spelling, and words and names that have doubled consonants. A few other words that I pause over result from the schwa pronunciations. I've compiled a list of words and names, with hopefully helpful links for others who have run across similar issues.

• spatter vs splatter
• pane vs. panel
• example vs. sample
• bullion vs. bouillon
• astronomy vs. astrology
• Stonehenge, stonehedge
• meteorologist (Why not weatherologist?)
• conglomerate, conglomeration
• proctor, proctologist (Although they share the first five letters, the rest do matter.)
• phlebotomist, phlemotomist (made up)

Some proper names have stumped me for proper spelling. In compiling them, the next four have a nice pattern of two r's, then one r.

• Borrero
• Barrera
• Carrera
• Ferrari

With the schwa effect for the next set of proper nouns, most sound the same. And all four names exist. Just gotta look 'em up.

• Connor, Conner
• Johnson, Johnston
• Lesley, Leslie
• Lindsay, Lindsey
• Mc-, Mac-
• Peterson, Petersen

Commenter, commentor, and commentator cause me confusion because of

• similarity for pronunciation (schwa effect for commenter and commentor)
• similarity for function (commenter and commentator)

Three food items, besides making me think of eating, have dissimilar consonant duplications:

• broccoli, with two c's, then single consonant
• cannoli, with the first vowel as a sound hazard, two n's, then single consonant
  (It's a bit disturbing that my Dreamweaver spellcheck halted at "cannoli"—twice!)
• mozzarella, with two z's, one r, two l's

Alas, mozzarella has caused me a lot of grief with three potential doubled-up consonants. I think I have it now. Related: A non-food word that no longer gives me problems is accommodate. Double the first two consonants, and think of the final syllable as a date.
A pair of words that still trip me up are the noun forms of acknowledge and judge. From the looks of things, an "e" preceding "-ment" might come into increasing adoption with time passage.

• acknowledge, acknowledgment vs. acknowledgement
• judge, judgment vs. judgement

Copyright makes me pause because it sounds like copywrite. A thought trickle, rather than thought stream is as follows: copyright, copywriter (A copywriter writes copy, but does not copywrite.)

One conclusion I came up with in my exercise of lookups is that Google search is excellent for suggested spelling because of its autofill feature.

So, what words and names cause you to trip or pause?