Back of Book

BEAT THE HEAT

No humidity, no sun, no better way to enjoy summer

My favorite activity of the summer does not involve the outdoors or the sun at all. It involves sitting in the dark with glorious air-conditioning and delicious buttery popcorn. The summer movie season is generally rife with big-budget blockbusters. This summer did not disappoint as it saw its fair share of superhero, sci-fi and animated fare (basically the three genres of movies I get excited to watch). While I didn’t go see a ton of movies, here is a quick rundown of the few I did.

The summer movie season seems to start earlier and earlier every year. It got off to a trememndous start with Avengers Infinity War which went on to gross over $1 billion worldwide. On top of that, it was damn good. A very nice cap to the 10 years of the Marvel Studios.

That was followed in May by Deadpool 2 (which was a great second chapter) and Solo (so-so box office put a damper on what I thought was a really fun entry into the Star Wars universe).

The last movie of the summer I watched was The Incredibles 2. The boys and I loved it. It was well worth the 14-year wait. Bob goes through a great character arc as he deals with Helen’s resurgence as a hero while he has to embrace the roll of stay at home dad. Jack-Jack and Edna are both hilarious in their scenes together. A great continuation to the universe Brad Bird built. All are now available to own at home.

—LV

MORE ABOUT FOOD

I thought Pringles LOUD sounded so bad, I had to take a picture.

Kal made a drippy tuna salad over canned baby corn

I began to rely on roll out doughs as a quick way to make meals for dinner

We played with the donut maker, adding jelly and chocolate powder

SCIENCE OF GUM

A clearance item at Target seemed like fun

Boom loves chewing gum. What could go wrong with picking up a science kit on clearance? The Geek & Co. Chewing Gum Lab sounded fancy with its promise of learning about polymers. After we made and tasted the gum, no one was all that interested in conducting experiments. We don’t have a kitchen scale and I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to get anyone to play with the pieces. Boom still eats it, though.

Time Trials

BOOM WITH CHERRY

2:34 P.M. - START CHEWING

2:36 P.M. - ATE IT

KAL WITH GRAPE

2:35 P.M. - START CHEWING

2:38 P.M. - SPAT IN GARBAGE

BOOM WITH GRApE

9:34 A.M. - START CHEWING

9:36 A.M. - GARBAGE

I OFFERED SOME TO LUIS AND STARTED A STOPWATCH.

1 MIN 24 SEC - “CHALKY”

1 MIN 46 SEC - “NO FLAVOR”

3 MIN 30 SEC - “FUCKING DISGUSTING”

LIKE A PRO The kit included precut wax paper and stickers to wrap each of piece of gum, plus a tin to store the pieces. The book’s example used “Madeline.” Boom’s Transformer Twinferno helped.

ICKY STICKY pellets of flavorless gum need to be melted before adding powdered sugar and flavor packets. I might have had to recylce the bowls we used.