Good Stuff!

Most of the time when you go to hole-in-the-wall restaurant, it’s a hole-in-the-wall.

But sometimes you strike gold.

And my youngest daughter and I struck big-time gold last week two miles east of Morgan, Utah, in the canyon between Morgan and Henefer off of exit 108. I’ve driven that stretch many times and never knew anything was off that exit. Literally, if you blink, you’ll think nothing is there.

But if you do, you will miss out on Taggart’s Grill.

It’s nestled in some trees up against the northern slope. The first thing that strikes you when you get out of the car is the delicious aroma. Then you notice the peacocks running about. And then you enter the diner and see a display case of tantalizing, large desserts such as cheesecake, carrot cake, and huge pink-frosted cookies.

The diner itself has a wonderful airy feeling with a high ceiling and lots of windows that offer views of the grove and garden surrounding the diner. There are seats outside in an area with a small waterfall. But we sat inside with the walls of log-cabin wood and the stained glass panels hanging in the windows.

They serve a variety of dishes from sandwiches and soups to pizza, burgers, and fancy plates of salmon or tenderloin. And while the views and setting is awesome, the food is where they really shine.

The beef stew was thick and amazing. The battered fries perfect. The sandwiches were wrapped in thick and soft flat bread that was delicious. And speaking of bread, they asked if I wanted a roll with the stew. I said yes. They didn’t bring out a roll–they brought out a small loaf of what appeared to be freshly baked bread. We of course had to try one of the desserts and opted for the
carrot cake. It was lovely with a hint of almond in the cream cheese frosting.

The portions were huge and so we took enough home for another meal for three.

We’re going back.

I want to try one of their burgers, the halibut, and the BLT.

If you like great food at a great price and are anywhere near Morgan, don’t blink at exit 108. Just pull off and enjoy an awesome meal.

*

Parents of Rich Middle School students, what if I told you that researchers have uncovered a secret activity that teens enjoy that has the side benefit of actually raising their grades in all of their classes.

But that’s not all. This one secret thing will help them get better jobs years in the future.

It will help them make more money.

And they won’t even know that it’s doing this for them. They won’t care. Because they won’t be doing it for the grades or money. They’ll be doing it for the enjoyment it brings. They’ll be doing it just because they like to do it.

One little surprising thing.

And it’s backed up by lots and lots of research.

Do you want to know what this activity is?

Do you want to open up opportunities for your child?

If you do, come to the meeting Mrs. Brown is having at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 12 at the Rich Middle School.

We will reveal all there.

Writers who want to deal with publishers need this book: The Nine Worse Provisions in Your Publishing Contract by David P. Vandagriff. And it’s currently free!

Vandagriff is a lawyer whose business involves high-stakes intellectual property litigation. He has negotiated major contracts with a wide range of opposing parties, some of which include Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Intel, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Fidelity Investments, AOL, Disney, Hallmark, plus other large publishers, agents and etailers.

He’s also publishes The Passive Voice, a news blog on the publishing business that includes many posts from his lawyer perspective.

Don’t fall for contract terms that turn you into a slave.

Did you know that there is one thing that kids can do outside of school that’s been proven, over and over, to lead to them doing significantly better in all other subjects?

And I mean all subjects. Math, history, science, criminology, psychology—you name it.

There’s one thing, and numerous research studies have proven it, that kids do that leads to them getting better jobs later in life.

This one thing, proven by research, leads them to grow up to make more money.

And it doesn’t matter if they start in a rich or poor family. This one thing leads them to greater opportunity. Over and over again.

It’s a thing that kids actually can learn to love. For some it becomes as delicious as eating ice cream.

The kids are back in school. Parents want them to do well. They want them to succeed. How wonderful that there’s one thing that parents can focus on that will so dramatically change their child’s life.

And it doesn’t take long. Even just twenty minutes per day of this activity can change everything.

Twenty minutes.

Is there a parent anywhere that can’t find twenty minutes?

So what is this one thing?

Reading for pleasure.

Notice I didn’t say reading for academic purposes. I didn’t say reading to finish homework. I said reading for pleasure. For the enjoyment it brings.

And it doesn’t matter what the subject matter is. It can be fiction—fantasy, love stories, horror, action. It can be non-fiction—like material on bugs, robots, horses, motocross. It can be fairy stories or funny anecdotes. It can be short or long. The key is that they’re reading for pleasure.

I know some of you might be saying, “But John, my kid doesn’t like to read.”

That’s okay. You can change that.

If you want to find out how to help your child learn to enjoy reading, let me recommend Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do by Daniel T. Willingham, a professor at the University of Virginia whose research has focused on the brain and learning. In the book, Willingham debunks the myths about literary instruction and provides practical, engaging, research-based tips for sharing the joy of reading with kids of all ages.

You can get a used copy for $13 bucks on Amazon.

While you’re waiting for the book to come, here are some things you can do start doing right now to help your child read for pleasure.

First, start reading something fun or interesting with or to them every day. For little kids, this can be picture books. For older kids, this can be anything–an article from a magazine, funny stories online, or books large and small. If you want to start with a joke book, that’s okay. If you want to start by listening to a book on tape, that’s great too.

Wait a minute? A book on tape? Isn’t that cheating?

No.

There are four keys to helping your child read for pleasure. They need to learn to:

1. Decode the sounds letters make.
2. Comprehend what’s meant, which is driven by their general knowledge of the subject they’re reading about.
3. Enjoy reading.
4. Identify themselves as a person who likes to read books

When you listen to a book on tape, you’re doing numbers 2-4.

Remember: the goal is not to improve the child. It’s not to get them a better job ten years from now. It’s not to make them wealthy. It’s to simply help them enjoy reading. Because once they enjoy reading, once reading for pleasure is something they see as one of the things they do, they will begin to read more and more. And as they read, they become better at reading, which leads to more enjoyment, which leads to more reading. Which leads to all of those other awesome benefits. It’s a virtuous cycle.

So the first thing you need to do is simply start having a good time reading with them. You can read to them at bedtime, after dinner, on weekends. You can have them read articles to you while you’re making dinner or washing the dishes. You can have them read to your or themselves while you’re on the road driving somewhere.

You can make a rule that they have to read with you for twenty minutes before they go play with friends or watch TV or play video games.

And above all, you need to let your child’s interests drive most of the topics you read about. If they want to read about spiders and dinosaurs, then read about spiders and dinosaurs. If they want to read horror stories, then read horror. If they’re into skiing or horses or guns, then help them find interesting stuff on the topics they’re already interested in. And if they don’t like a book, teach them they can abandon it and go find another.

And if you yourself are not someone who reads for pleasure, well, now’s the time to start. You can make reading for pleasure something your family does, just like families make enjoying boating or hunting or riding horses or eating Mexican food part of what they do.

It’s never too late to start.

And seeing that this is the one thing that has such an impact on your child’s success, is there really anything else that would be a better use of those twenty minutes per day?

Reading for pleasure—who knew that having a great time could have so many wonderful effects? Start today. Don’t wait.

It might take a little work. You and your child might run into a few unpleasant spots. But that’s true of anything. How many times do kids fall when learning to water ski or snow ski? How many times do they experience something unpleasant when practicing football or basketball or volleyball?

So start right now. Figure out a time with your child. And begin learning to read for pleasure.

I’ve solved the banana bane.

The banana bane is this. You buy bananas, and the next day they’ve got freckles. Nobody likes freckled bananas, so everyone leaves them on the counter, thinking that someone else in the family must be a freckled banana fan. But nobody is a freckled banana fan, which means a few days after that, they’re brown. Then black. Then you toss them into the garbage and go to the store and start it all over.

I’m going to tell you how to stop the madness. I’m going to tell you what you do with brown bananas. The Brown family discovered this last week. (Yes, the Brown family discovered the solution to brown bananas, strange, isn’t it…)

I know some of you are thinking, oh, banana bread.

Are you kidding? Banana bread is cake in bread form. It’s nice once in a while. But who wants to make four loaves of cake every week and gain five million pounds?

I’m not talking about a sumo weight-gain program that involves cake.

And I’m not talking about taking them over to Joan and Cardon Willis’s place and feeding them to their pigs. They have a very nice sow who, Joan reports, loves bananas. The sow’s little piglets do whatever she does. She scratches her bum on a post; they scratch their bums. She grunts; they grunt. So I assume since mumma loves bananas, the little piggies love bananas too. But I’m not talking about turning your bananas into someone else’s bacon.

No.

I’m talking about extending their useful life by days.

I’m talking about consuming them yourself.

I’m talking about making something delicious, sweet, and healthy with them.

What is this magnificent discovery?

Smoothies.

With brown bananas.

What?

Yes. Look, we were out of fruit. We had milk, freckled bananas sliding towards completely toasty tan, and a little bit of chocolate powder. We were desperate.

Desperate people try desperate things. Some do not work out. Like the one time I tried asparagus in eggs. Think green sticks for breakfast. But sometimes they do.

Case in point: John’s Chocolate Banana Whip.

• 1 brown or freckled banana
• 1 cup of milk (use almond milk if you don’t like the cow variety)
• 1 tablespoon Nesquick (no, you don’t need the 3 tablespoons they recommend)

Throw it all in the blender and frappe until smooth.

It’s heaven. Especially good after a nice hike-jog in the middle of the day.

BTW, frappe is one of those words that makes you think I know what I’m talking about. Can you feel my chef aura radiating off the page?

But Nesquick, John. That’s so white-trash unhealthy.

Fine, you don’t want the added sugar? No problem. Try this one.

Ellianna’s Strawberry Surprise

• 1 brown or freckled banana
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 cup frozen strawberries

Frappe until you’re happy.

You can do this with frozen blueberries. You can add Greek yogurt–and let me tell you the Great Value plain Greek yogurt made with whole milk is delicious. You can add more fruit. Less fruit. Add ice. Whatever you like.

The bottom line is that brown bananas are delicious in smoothies. And they should be—bananas are at their sweetest when they’re brown.

It’s summer. It’s hot. Time for smoothies with sweet brown bananas.

*****

I like a clean van. But I live in the country, and I don’t have a pickup. This means the minivan has to haul stuff. It’s hauled hay, plants, dirt, kids—you name it.

We vacuum, but there are things a vacuum can’t touch. And if we want our van carpet and upholstery shampooed, we have to drive an hour to Logan, then leave the car at the shop for a full day.

A full day.

They want you to drop it off in the morning, pick it up in the afternoon. So what am I  going to do all day? Bring my bicycle and ride around with Brent, the happy dude with horns and flags on his bike that pedals up and down main street, waving to everyone?

Needless to say, shampooing was infrequent.

But then one day a few weeks ago I was talking to Patrick Floyd in Laketown. I was actually talking to him in Suzanne Siddoway’s basement.

What were two men doing in her basement?

We were doing what many men do in her basement…

We were sitting around waiting for her to cut our hair. What else would men be doing in her basement? (You know, it’s Quin’s basement too.)

And Patrick said that he’d started a new business called Peerless Detailing. He was trained and had the equipment to detail boats, cars, vehicles of all kinds.

I said, “Do you do just a shampoo?”

“Whatever you need,” he said.

I said, “Duuuude!”

You have to read that with kind of a hope, like a thirsty man seeing an ice cream truck in the middle of the Serengeti.

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Man.”

He said, “Yup.”

I said, “Alright.”

After that scintillating conversation, I took my van over. Patrick of Peerless did verily clean that carpet and upholstery. And he did it for less money than it would have cost me in Logan! And in less time!

I got back a new van. It smelled great. Looked great. I felt like rolling around on the carpet in joy, but refrained. Instead, I drove home, and everyone in the house rejoiced. We drove around a little, just to celebrate.

A week later, we had to haul more crap. I took the seats out. I put them in the garage. This was a dumb thing to do. I’d learned long ago to put them in the house. See, we leave our garage door cracked so our mouse control service can get in and out, the mouse control consisting of five cats.

Sometimes, other cats figure they can help themselves to whatever’s in the garage. Some of those cats are stray toms. And because I don’t mark my territory with my own scent, which I’m sure would put the fear of whatever cat god is out there into them, they think they can muscle in. Feel like they can claim the place for their own.

And so they spray.

I’ve been meaning to get a gun. A paintball gun, if nothing else. I figure a few stings with a paintball ought to learn the dogs and cats and deer. It’s my theory, and I’m going to test it one of these days. So if you one day see various animals walking around with polka dots, you know what’s going on. Anyway, I don’t have a gun, and I’m not going to go around and mark the perimeter of my yard. You know how much water I’d have to drink!

So this cat came in and sprayed.

He sprayed one of my newly cleaned captain chairs!

(Anyone who wants to practice their marksmanship on live targets, just let me know.)

So what do you do? Well, I’ll tell you this: we didn’t have to set the seat on fire. No. We just called Patrick.

Patrick did his magic and removed the offending blankity-blank cat spray. And the seat was as good as new.

Can I tell you how happy I am we now have someone doing this in Laketown?

I’m ecstatic. I plan to take my vehicles in once or twice a year. Why not?

If you need your boat or car or van detailed, I think you’ll be pleased with Peerless. You can call Patrick at (435) 535-1493 and set up an appointment. I think he’s mobile to boot and can to it at your residence.

*****

Okay, movie time. I have four daughters. They all wanted to see Cinderella.

Except, what new thing can you do with Cinderella?

I mean, how many different ways can you see her leave a glass slipper behind and still reel in shock at the story turn?

Well, how many Bond movies do we see that follow the same darned plot? And we still love them. It’s very often the details that make the difference. And this new Disney version of Cinderella with live actors included a number of wonderful details.

Like how Cinderella got in this fix in the first place. And how her position in the household devolves.

And what’s motivating the stepmother, who is played wonderfully by Cate Blanchette.

And the relationship between the king and prince, and Cinderella and her father.

And a little bit of wisdom.

I enjoyed this film. I think the key thing that lifts this above many remakes is the insight it gives into the key characters and relationships. And the many small surprises along the way.

If you have daughters, this is a no-brainer for a date. If you liked the original Cinderella, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by this version. If you like romances, this is a classic. Furthermore, you’ll go away with a little something to think and talk about. I gave it a try; I was glad I did.

Sometimes a remake of a song is better than the original. Or if not better, different and equally as good. I have three that I think fit that bill.

First is a mix of “The House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals and “Amazing Grace.” It was sung by Jerry Lawson and the Talk of the Town on NBC’s The Sing-Off, which used to be one of the best music competitions on TV. It was all voice, all a’capella, and the things some of the groups did were simply amazing. But then NBC decided to shorten it all into a one-night competition and basically ruined it by removing the multi-week build of the competition and, more importantly, letting us get to know the groups and hearing a range of songs. Oh, well. At least we got this. Turn up your speakers and let it fill you.

You can get the single here on Amazon.

The next is a remake of “Go Down, Moses” by The Lower Lights, who have taken this old choral and infused it with a new folk, soul, revival-style groove that makes me think this is probably how the song was originally sung.

Every time I hear it, it goes down into my bones and calls forth this desire to sing. You can get it here on Amazon.

The last is a remake of “Glorious” by Stephanie Mabey. This one was part of Meet the Mormons and sung by David Archuleta.

You can get the exclusive free download of the single here.