"Hard-Boiled Egg Drink" for April Fool's Day

I love food that looks like one thing but is actually something else. Remember the "bowl of cereal" I made for April Fool's Day a few years ago? Just like that, this "hard-boiled egg drink" is meant to fool the eye, but delight the palate. Can you guess what's in it?

Before I reveal the answer, it is worth mentioning that at least one cocktail made with hard-boiled eggs exists. I haven't tried it, but I suppose I'd be willing to. I'm far less interested in trying any of the hard-boiled egg smoothie recipes out there. 

Hard-boiled egg sliders, on the other hand.... sooo good!

Just split hard-boiled eggs in half, then add bacon, cheddar cheese, and mashed avocado. Use a toothpick to hold them together, then sprinkle salt and pepper on top. They make a fantastic appetizer; in fact, I served them recently when we had a friend over for dinner. 

I made two other egg-inspired dishes for that meal. For the entree, I cooked meatballs in mariana sauce with zucchini, then cracked eggs into the sauce and baked them in the oven. So yummy and a really easy one-pot meal!

I also made some spoonbread. I tried a recipe I'd pinned (as part of my creative resolutions for the year). It was fine, but not amazing. 

I served my "hard-boiled egg drink" for dessert. Have you guessed what's in it yet? Three things: vanilla ice cream, milk, and mango ice cream. (Fun fact: You can buy mango ice cream on Amazon (affiliate link here and below), but I don't recommend doing so unless you have significant money to burn.) 

I put vanilla ice cream and milk in the blender to make milkshakes and poured them into glasses. Then I used a small cookie scoop to make balls of mango ice cream and added them to the milkshakes. Obviously, you could make your own ice creams, but I went the easy route this time and used store-bought. 

 

It was delicious and such a fun treat. It would make a great addition to a meal on April Fool's Day!

Clay Rose Wreath for Valentine's Day

I made this rose wreath using air-dry clay and acrylic paint, with Valentine's Day in mind. Now that I'm seeing it on the screen, I'm wondering if I could have used bread dough to make an edible version. I may have to try that! Affiliate links below. 

Clay Rose Wreath for Valentine's Day

Materials:

• Model Magic
• rolling pin
• acrylic paint (tan, pink, green)
• ink (brown, pink, green)
• tacky glue

Steps: 

I used four 1-ounce packets of Model Magic for my project. You can obviously use more or less clay to make a larger or smaller wreath. I used a blend of colors of Model Magic because that's what I had on hand; painting would have been easier if I'd started with colors closer to what I wanted the finished wreath to be. 

Knead the clay to condition it, then divide it into fourths. Set one portion aside; you'll use it for roses and leaves. Roll the other pieces into long ropes. They should be approximately the same size and thickness. Press them together at one end.

Braid the ropes. When you reach the end, form the braid into a circle and gently press the ends together to make a wreath. Set it aside to dry. 

Divide the remaining clay into four equal pieces. Three will become roses and one will be leaves. For each rose, you'll have four petals. Divide the clay into four balls and roll each flat. Pick up one petal, then roll it up to form the inside of the rose. Pick up the next petal and roll it around the center of the rose. Do the same with the next two petals. If you don't like your rose, smoosh it and start over! 

To make the petals, roll the clay into tiny balls. Smoosh them with your thumb, then gently drag your thumb. This will curl the edges and make a point. 

 

Let the finished shapes sit overnight. Turn them upside down and let them side until they are completely dry.

Paint the wreath brown, the roses pink, and the leaves green. When the paint is dry, ink the edges of each piece. It's a small touch, but it makes a big difference. Finally, glue the roses and leaves to the wreath. 

The Most Connected Locations in the US, Part 2

Yesterday, I tried to answer the question of what metro area in the United States is most connected to the rest of the US. Specifically, I'm looking at how many states a traveler can reach via a nonstop flight. So far, we have this: 

With three major airports in the metro area (JFK, LGA, EWR), New York is a strong candidate to upset our current leader, Chicago. I started by checking JFK, which is the busiest of the three. From JFK, you cannot fly direct to Idaho, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, or New Hampshire. That's 33, far lower than I expected. 

Let's add LaGuardia. 

Again, far fewer than I expected. It does add a few states that JFK missed, including Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. That brings New York to 40 between JFK and LGA. 

Can Newark get us to the 10 remaining states? At first glance, I see a lot more flights into the plains and mountain states. 

Newark has flights to Wyoming and New Hampshire, but nothing to the remaining eight states. That means New York gets a 42, putting it in fifth place behind Minneapolis. 

Let's switch coasts and head back to California. The Los Angeles area has five airports, including Los Angeles (LAX), Burbank (BUR), Long Beach (LGB), Ontario (ONT), and Orange County (SNA). I'm not sure it's fair to include all five airports as one metro area, but when I mapped them, they are all within around 50 miles of each other. On the other hand, the drive time between them is huge due to traffic. For purposes of this post, I'm going to remove Ontario (which is more Inland Empire than LA) and just look at LAX and its three closest airports, Burbank, Long Beach, and Orange County. 

First, LAX. According to their website, "Los Angeles International Airport is a major international airport, eastern gateway to the United States and one of the few airports with scheduled srvices to all the inhabited continents." 

Thought 1: eastern? 

Thought 2: srvices? 

Thought 3: Now I want to know what other airports fly to every continent. (A future post, perhaps.)

According to FlightsFrom, LAX does not fly to North Dakota, Wisconsin, Mississippi, South Carolina, West Virginia, Delaware, Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine. Time to check the others. 

Burbank and Long Beach both have handy maps, but neither flies nonstop to any of LAX's missing states.  

Orange County doesn't have a convenient map, nor does it add any states. So I'm calling it official: LA is 41, currently in sixth place. 

While we're on the west coast, let's check Seattle. I don't expect it to be among the top few, but I'm guessing it's similar to San Francisco. 

Slightly better than SFO, actually. There are 12 states you can't reach nonstop from Seattle. 

I have four more metro areas I think are contenders. First is Orlando. 

I did not expect this! Not only can you get to more states nonstop from Orlando than from the three airports in New York, but it's the first I've found with a flight to Delaware! Orlando is tied with Minneapolis. 

Miami flies nonstop to 76 cities in the US. 

What states are missing? Alaska and Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Mississippi, West Virginia, Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. So Miami has 35. 

Let's look at Atlanta. Before I get to a destination count, I have to say that whoever is in charge of the website deserves a dishonorable mention. Not only is there no map or list of destinations, but this is what the home page looks like on my desktop: 

Not very inviting to be greeted with big red X's. Speaking of which, I have no idea what I'm supposed not be doing on the airplane or in the terminal based on these photos. Don't look at my phone? Why is that a problem? Why is the guy in the background of the terminal on the floor? Is he charging his phone? Is that a problem? The graphic is cut off by the blue bar, so I'm not sure what I'm not supposed to be doing at baggage claim, nor do I know what the single green checkmark is about.

Rant over. According to FlightsFrom, Atlanta does not have nonstop flights to North Dakota, Delaware, or New Hampshire. At 47, it ties with Dallas! 

There's one final metro area I want to explore: Washington, DC. Considering that Senators and Representatives from all 50 states work there, it seems like there might be nonstop flights to all of the states. There are three airports in the DC area (none of which are technically in DC): Reagan (DCA) and Dulles (IAD) are in Virginia and Marshall (BWI) is in Maryland. The largest of the three is Dulles, so let's start there:

There are no nonstop fights to Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Maryland, Delaware, or New Hampshire. Does Reagan fly nonstop to any of those? Yes: Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire. 

So now we're at 42. Let's see if Baltimore can help out the DC area and raise that number. 

Yes! People in the DC area can also fly nonstop to New Mexico. 43 means they're tied with Minneapolis and Orlando. 

Time to update the map!

Chicago wins! You can fly nonstop to 48 of the 50 states from O'Hare and Midway. I feel confident saying that Chicago is the most connected location in the United States for airline travel. I don't think there are any other cities that are likely to beat out the winner, but if you want me to check on any in particular, let me know in the comments. 

The Most Connected Locations in the US

In a post called The Most Difficult States to Visit, I looked at which states were the most challenging for us to reach via car, plane, or cruise ship from our home in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the process, I learned that we can fly nonstop to 33 of the 50 states from one or more of the three international airports located 45 miles from home (SFO, OAK, SMF). They've either added a route or I missed it before, as SFO now shows a nonstop flight to Wyoming, bringing our total to 34. In several of those states, we can fly nonstop to multiple cities. We're lucky that we are so well-connected where we live.

Contrast this with Fargo, North Dakota. It's an international airport, but one of the smallest I've been in. (And the only one I've ever seen where security shuts down between flights.) You can fly nonstop to only 8 states, one of which is seasonal. (Oddly, this map has California and Georgia colored in, despite not flying nonstop to either one.) 

I don't know if Fargo is the least connected international airport in the US; that's a topic for a future post. Today's question is: What airports in the US are the most connected?   

A quick Google search indicates the answer is DFW. When that article was written in 2022, Dallas had 239 nonstop destinations, seven more than Chicago O'Hare (ORD). Atlanta (ATL) and Denver (DEN) were tied at 208. In a 2023 article by Simple Flying, ORD takes the top position and DFW is second. FlightsFrom shows that Dallas has 256 destinations and ORD has 246 as of January 2024. 

I'm not surprised that Dallas and Chicago are well-connected. They are major metropolitan areas located in the middle of the country, with (relatively) easy access to less populated states that don't have major airports. There is second airport serving each of those metro areas as well - Love Field in Dallas (DAL) and Midway in Chicago (MDW). Locals have a lot of options. 

So DFW and ORD have the most nonstop flights, but that includes international destinations and multiple cities in some states. And it doesn't take into account their secondary airports. For the purposes of this post, I want to find out how many states each metro area services nonstop. 

First up: the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area. Unfortunately, DFW does not have a handy map of nonstop destinations on their website like others do. (Yea Fargo!) Instead, I looked at the interactive map from FlightsFrom for DFW. I learned that you can fly nonstop from Dallas to 46 states: all except West Virginia, Delaware, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. 

Love Field has nonstop flights to Providence, so there are only three states you can't reach nonstop from Dallas. And, of course, in each case those states are an easy drive from a location that does have nonstop service. 

Let's look at Chicagoland next. Thanks for the handy map, O'Hare!

From O'Hare, you won't be flying nonstop to Mississippi, Delaware, or New Hampshire. You won't be flying into anything between the western border of Wyoming (Jackson Hole) or the eastern border of Iowa (Sioux City) either, but technically you can fly to those states, so I'm ignoring that giant gap in the northern plains. 

Let's see if Midway gets us to one of the three missing states. They don't have a map, but there's a list of nonstop destinations. Mississippi, no. Delaware, no. New Hampshire, yes!

Chicago moves into the lead! You can fly to 48 of the 50 states from Chicagoland and 47 states from the Dallas area. Thinking that perhaps another big metro area in the center of our country would match or beat these two, I looked at nonstop flights from Denver. Impressive, coming in at 45 states (no direct flights to Delaware, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, or West Virginia), but Denver doesn't beat Chicago or Dallas. 

Let's look at another midwest powerhouse. Minneapolis-St. Paul is very well connected, but does it beat the previous three?

Nope. You can't fly to Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine from Minneapolis. That puts MSP with nonstop flights to 43 states, in fourth place so far.

Let's go back to what got this all started: San Francisco. Previously I said that 34 states are accessible from the three closest airports to our home halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento. That's true, but there are two problems since I'm trying to compare metro areas across the US. First, San Francisco and Sacramento are not the same metro area. They may each be approximately 45 miles from me, but they are just over 100 miles from each other. But as it turns out, when I remove Sacramento from the SFO / OAK statistics... nothing changes. 

The second issue is that I didn't account for the fact that the Bay Area has yet another major airport: San Jose. They have nonstop flights to a decent number of places, but San Jose does not get us to any of the states that SFO and OAK don't. So San Francisco comes in with 34 states, a distant fifth so far. 

But I'm not ready to officially call it yet. Tomorrow I'll look into how many states you can reach nonstop from several other major metropolitan areas. 

Chinese New Year: Welcoming the Year of the Dragon

It's time to start preparations for Chinese New Year. And by that, I mean crafts! On February 10, we say goodbye to the Year of the Rabbit and enter the Year of the Dragon. I've designed a fun dragon project that features the gorgeous Folk Art Treasure Gold. Affiliate link here and below. 

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Materials:

• cardstock (red, white)
• Folk Art Treasure Gold
• scissors
• black Sharpie
• tacky glue

Steps: 

Orient your paper so it is horizontal. Using Treasure Gold, paint a head just left of the center of the paper. Dragons aren't real, so you can't get it wrong! Add a long neck and horns. 

While the paint is drying, cut out features for your dragon. Again, dragons aren't real, so there is no right or wrong. I used red cardstock to cut out a pair of bushy eyebrows and spikes for the dragon's head and neck. I cut a pair of eyes and a mouth from white cardstock, then used the Sharpie to color in the black parts. 

When the paint is completely dry, use the Sharpie to outline the dragon. Add a nose and scales. 

Glue the cardstock features to the paper, add any extra details (like the whiskers), and then write your message on the right. 

If you're seeing this after 2024, you can still make this project. While you wouldn't see the other zodiac animals in every year's celebration, dragons are special. Just change the message to Happy New Year!