Wasn't sure what to make today so I decided this morning's recipes would be for water and cotton candy.
Water is made by combining hydrogen and oxygen atoms in a 2 to 1 ratio. I don't know what utensils you need to make water but from what I read in the bright and shiny future we will all be using fuel cells. Daimler Chrysler has a fuel cell capable of powering an automobile. Honda and Toyota have delivered some fuel cell cars to universities for research.
You can think of a fuel cell as a battery if you want to have a picture in your mind. A fuel cell requires hydrogen and oxygen and produces water as a byproduct of a chemical reaction. The tailpipe of your fuel cell powered car will drip water instead of hydrocarbons.
There are a few hurdles to get over before we all jump into our hydrogen/oxygen powered cars though. We need a hydrogen distribution infrastructure. We need a way to create hydrogen that makes sense from a fuel efficiency standpoint. Right now hydrogen is produced using natural gas.....which begs the question from a non-expert why not just run your car on natural gas? The other nagging question is the safety of hydrogen tanks installed in cars. You thought the rear ended Pinto was impressive? There's an interesting argument that hydrogen really isn't that explosive/flammable as it appeared to be when the Hindenburg went up in flames. What really caused that fiery disaster was the coating on the dirigible's skin. As usual I think you need to consider the source when you read about the benefits/liabilities of hydrogen as a fuel.
My other recipe is for cotton candy. It's easier to make than water but still has some danger associated with it. When I was about 5 my Gram bought me a cotton candy machine. I started out with simple kool-aid stands and built up to kool-aid, popcorn machine and the cotton candy machine.
Making cotton candy requires you heat sugar until it melts (this is the dangerous part). Then you put the superheated sugar into a small concave metal disk which sits on a spinning rod in a bowl. Flip the switch and the hot sugar starts to spin off the disk and creates the cotton. Interesting that (1) a five year old could have such a machine and (2) that such a machine would even be sold to the general public.
It's amazing the changes we have gone through from 1960 until today when it comes to liability and our need to be safe or keep our kids safe.
Way back then you were liable for what happened to you....unless someone did something blatantly wrong in which case they were responsible and you considered yourself unlucky. Now we are not liable or responsible for anything that happens to us. If my kid is at the park and comes off the slide and breaks his arm I'll sue the city because the padding on the ground wasn't good enough. I spill a hot cup of coffee on myself...hey it's your fault for making it so hot ad infinitim ad nauseum or whatever they say.
We need to be safe now. The state will force us to wear seatbelts by fining us if we don't. You have to wear a helmet while riding a bike in many places or you will be fined. I think it would be good from a safety standpoint if we all strapped in at all times and wore helmets 24/7. On the other hand I'd like to have the freedom to decide if I want to wear a helmet or a seat belt or whatever risk I want to take as long as I am not infringing on the rights of others. I'd like the government to concentrate on building good roads, better schools and taking care of those unable to take care of themselves.
I don't think they had bike helmets when I was a kid. At least I never saw any. We didn't have seat belts, or if we did they weren't used. No car seats for kids. I remember riding to school once in a while with a neighbor friend. Their car had a door that would fly open when you went around a corner fast. Whoever was on that side had to hold it closed.
The school I went to had a big merry go round someone made by hand from iron bars and wooden planks. It was the type you could stand up on and had a bar around the top with the benches suspended from that bar with metal rods. Sort of like a big wagon wheel on top. The idea was you were supposed to sit on the wooden benches or at most stand up and hold onto a rod, but we would hold ourselves either high on the metal rods or the top bar while people pushed the merry go around until our bodies were horizontal and at some point your fingers couldn't hold anymore and you fly into space. At some point they installed a chain link fence near the merry go around and you could time your flight so you would hit the chain links which sort of broke your fall.
One of the best things from a danger/excitement standpoint was the winter time in Montana. The front of our old school had a 15 to 20 foot wide sidewalk that went down hill to the street where the busses stopped to pick up kids. Near the end of the sidewalk, and just before the busses, were two or three steps that brought you to the main sidewalk...which you crossed to the street and the busses.
That sidewalk would be coated with glare ice or we'd make it into ice by sliding on the snow. It was a generally accepted form of recreation that we would get a good run, start to slide down the sidewalk which had a good slope to it to help you build up speed, jump off the steps and try to stop before we ended up in the street, in front of or under a bus...
Now that was FUN. Take some risks today. Help someone out. Go someplace new. Try a new food...
Happy cooking
