Cooking Up a Story - Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Before X was even born, he had a small collection of books by Dr. Seuss on his prenatal bookshelf. The Dad bought a book with a baker's dozen of Seuss classics and would read to X while he was still in utero. Weird, I know, but we're those kind of people.

So with Dr. Seuss's birthday quickly approaching (it's March 2, in case you hadn't heard), I thought we'd dedicate this Friday's Cooking Up a Story to the good ole Dr. himself by reading and cooking up a recipe for one of X's favorites, Horton Hears a Who.

I think this is perhaps one of the best examples of the special concern Dr. Seuss showed for the kids in our society. Horton, the elephant, takes on as his mission to protect a small colony of Whos who are so small they can't be seen. He defends their right to exist by saying "A person's a person, no matter how small." I was reminded of this recently when I took X for his 2 1/2 year check up. The nurse all but ignored X, addressing all of her questions and directions to me. I wanted to take her by the shoulders and give her a good shake. "Look, lady!" I'd say, "He may be 3 feet tall but he's a person. He can talk and he can answer your questions." Of course, I didn't have to courage to tell her that (we always think of the right thing to say after the fact, right?) Not very Horton-like of me!

But the moral of the whole story of Horton and his Whos was that the smallest of all the Whos in Who-ville was responsible for saving them all. Young JoJo, with one loud "Yopp!" made the Whos be heard by all the beasts in the Jungle of Nool.

But enough of my Seuss Cliff's Notes - onto our recipe. This week, it's really more of a throw in a bit of this and dash of that kind of a thing - a Fruit of Nool Smoothie! Now, if the Kid weren't allergic to peanuts, I might have thrown in some peanut butter in this smoothie to make it Beezle-Nut Smoothie but for his I just mixed up some berries, bananas, a 1/4 cup of plain yogurt and a dash of 100% juice white grape juice.

Random House has made some big plans for Dr. Seuss's Birthday, including the "Read Across America" campaign. You can find out more about it here.

AND be sure to enter to win the Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook. You'll find details on our Giveaways page!