Saturday, March 19, 2011

Bugs in the Flour

Winona took this picture while I was baking cinnamon buns. She thinks I am a little eccentric when it comes to cooking... so she took this picture as proof for our posterity. Hey, when a recipe calls for me to divide a 12" inch roll of dough into 2" pieces, I take it very literally!


She also thought it was rather ironic that I would use a measuring tape to get things "just right", when I often make fun of how my dad used to measure wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, door frame to window, to make sure that when he hung a picture it was exactly the right height, perfectly centered with the objects in the room and placed in the exact spot so as to not throw the earth off its axis. Well, she was sure that he would be proud of me... his legacy lives on... it's hereditary!



I use the cinnamon buns as bribes to get students to class on time. Those who arrive early, get warm cinnamon buns before class.

Students who arrive late eat at the end of the class if there happens to be any left over. It worked very well... except that when I stopped making cinnamon buns, students stopped coming on time...

I also use the cinnamon buns as an object lesson to explain the creation. I show them the bag of flour, the cinnamon, the sugar, eggs, butter, salt and yeast.  The finished product looks nothing like the material it is made of. The students all agree that I am indeed the "creator" of the buns even though I didn't create them from nothing. I "created" the buns with the raw ingredients and formed them into a magnificent finished product. The parallels with the Creation of heaven and earth become very self-evident for them... God is indeed our Creator but he did not create the heavens and the earth from nothing.


My creation - with a small 'c'


Someone tries to throw me off by asking about the dinosaurs! Inspiration hits me -- not doctrinally verifiable, but a plausible explanation. I mention the bugs I found in the flour as I was preparing the dough...(not really, but it had the desired effect!)

Everyone stops eating and looks suspiciously at the bun they were enjoying.

"Has anyone ever seen a live dinosaur?" 
"Nope, all we have is bones, and fossils."
"So all we have is the skeletal remains of what used to be dinosaurs..."
"Right"
"Are you going to see any live bugs in your buns?"
"I hope not" is the general response as the chewing stops.
"So all we have is the skeletal remains of what used to be bugs in the flour..." ???

The lights begin to go on... (but they're still looking suspiciously at the bun in their hand)

Is it possible that dinosaurs were just "bugs in the flour" that was used to form the earth?

I can't teach that, but I DO like baking cinnamon buns!

3 comments:

  1. Ha, Dave does the same thing with the measuring. At least when hanging pictures, I'm not sure about cooking. But those cinnamon rolls like divine! Yum.

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  2. OH I have learned that bribes are illegal and immoral so I would consider the delicious cinnamon buns an incentive! BTW, I love to see multi-functioning tools! I would have never thought of a tape measure as a kitchen tool. Thanks for sharing!

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  3. It has now been 5 1/2 years since I initially posted this! That much closer to becoming another bug in the flour myself. :-( So fun to be read through this and re-live this awesome experience.

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