Mary Todd's Todd-ally Nutty Bars!

In honor of Honest Abe's 204th birthday, Heather and I baked up an American classic: Mary Todd's Todd-ally Nutty Bars!

Ingredients
3/4 cups packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1 bag (14 oz.) caramels, unwrapped
1/3 cup half-and-half
1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks
1 cup coarsely chopped mixed nuts
1/4 cup broken pretzels
2 cups emancipation

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9-inch pan with cooking spray.

In large bowl, beat brown sugar, butter and egg with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Stir in flour and oats. Spread in pan. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until light golden brown.

Meanwhile, in 1-quart saucepan, heat caramels and half-and-half over low heat, stirring occasionally, until caramels are melted. Pour caramel mixture over crust. Sprinkle with chocolate chunks, nuts and pretzels.

Bake 5 to 8 minutes or until chocolate is softened. Cool about 1 hour or until chocolate is set. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 6 rows.

12 days...

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

Lincoln debuts today, the same opening night as Twilight. Coincidence? I think not. Give 'em hell, Abe!

I even wrote a little seasonal jingle to get everyone in the emancipatin' mood (sing to the tune of Frosty the Snowman):

Lincoln the POTUS, was a penny-pinching soul,
With a stove pipe hat and a chin-strap beard, and nasal labial mole.
Lincoln the POTUS, was a president, they say
He was honest, though, and the children know his wife Mary was cray cray.
There must have been some magic in that stove pipe hat he wore
For when he placed it on his head, he won the Civil War!
Oh, Lincoln the POTUS, he saved the USA,
And the children say that he freed the slaves,
And all the vampires he did slay!

30 days...

Tim Burton Sits Down with Ray Harryhausen

Over the weekend, I ran into this cool interview of Tim Burton with Ray Harryhausen. Burton's a real hero of mine, so it's funny to watch him geek-out over basically anything Harryhausen says. If you're interested in listening to the wisdom of one of the masters of the animated craft, follow the links below:

Part I: Inventing an Artform
Part II: The Pitiable Leviathon
Part III: Monster Music

Ray Harryhausen mentions that a major artistic influence on him was the work of Gustave Dore. This was a new name to me, so I thought I'd look him up. His work is fantastic! As a kid who grew up on flat-toned comics, dramatic lighting doesn't come very naturally to me. So to see this level of mastery is pretty inspiring!

Dore's imagery is truly cinematic. It's unfortunate that he died in 1883, a mere five years after Eadweard Muybridge's experiments in real-time photo-capture, and just before the development of the first motion picture camera. Like Harryhausen says, if Dore had been alive during the age of film, I'm sure he would have been one of it's most successful auteurs.