The Food of the Future

               So lately I've been really interested in the expiration dates of food.
               See, in the book I've been writing for NaNoWriMo- 45,737 words! - I gave my characters a storeroom of military rations and canned food, still full five years after a zombie apocalypse. And because I'm a crazy person, I only want food in there that will have stayed "fresh" in five years' time. So if you look up what I've been googling, along with other strange queries for the sake of my story, you'd mostly find "How long does canned corn last?" and "Expiration date for spam."
               But today, I got a Little Debbie cupcake out of the back of my pantry. And out of my newly formed habit, I checked the expiration date on the wrapper.
               It said:
               DEC 05 00
               I got very excited, and felt an urge to go around and show the nearest person, because in my mind, there were only four possible explanations for this:
               Number One: There was a misprint. 
               But how boring would that be? Eliminated.
               Number Two: That cupcake had been in my cupboard for almost a decade. 
               As tasting proved this to be false, this was eliminated.
               Number Three: That cupcake was from the future, where its expiration date really was the fifth of December, year 3000. 
               But further exploration of my pantry, and several failed attempts at sending various snack cakes 900 years into the future, proved, sadly, that my cupboard is indeed not a functioning time machine. One could argue that it only sends things back in time, to precisely this year, but that would just be getting silly. Eliminated.


               So all that was left was my final theory.


               Number Four: December 5th, 3000, was the cupcake's real expiration date. 
               That cupcake would still be fresh and tasty in 900 years. As my scientific testing had proven all other possibilities false, then this shall be taken as the truth. I had the world's longest lasting cupcake in my hands!


               Unfortunately, I was hungry, and the magical cupcake was eaten, so this will never be truly proven correct.
               But neither will it be proven false! Ha ha!


               So what came of this? Well, I will forever be telling my grandchildren of the time their grandma found the world's most amazing snack cake.
               And it served as a worthy procrastination tool to delay the writing of my NaNoWriMo story, where, obviously, all of my main characters will now be eating Little Debbie's. Because I want my book to stay true to the facts.


               I really need to get back to writing.

Madapple by Christina Meldrum

               Aslaug Hellig is a mystery. Is she the Messiah- the Chosen Child, Daughter of God? Is she a witch? A product of incest? A murderer? A bad seed- a seed from which only mad things grow?
               Or is she simply a girl faced with a unique situation?
               Reading Madapple tore me up. Sometimes a good book has to do that- some have to make you fall in love, some scare you within an inch of your life- and some portray such an overwhelming story in such a way that it is at once unbelievably horrifying and remarkably beautiful. While introducing so many theories as to Aslaug's origin, covering the scientific, the religious, the supernatural, and the modern law's perspective- the author manages to leave questions unanswered in just the right way. This book keeps you guessing even after it's ended, even after the truth is revealed.
               Bad things seem to follow Aslaug wherever she goes. Raised in virtual isolation by her mother, a Danish immigrant women, who some have called brilliant, and some have called insane, Aslaug holds an unusual grasp on reality and an insight into the world. She possesses her mother's love for science, nature, and myth, and can boast to a great deal of intelligence, but her social skills are limited to what her mother has taught her. After her mother's death early on in the book, Aslaug seeks out the family she has never known, secrets her mother kept hidden from her, and finds instead more questions and family scandal where she looks. Every other chapter is a piece of the transcript from Aslaug's trial- taking place four years from the time we meet her in the beginning. We learn that in four years, Aslaug's situation will change so drastically that she is being accused of murdering characters that we are simultaneously meeting for the first time. Sprinkled throughout this book are lessons in botany, paganism, English literature- and anything else that our odd heroine seems to think about- dispersed in a way that reminded me of Scott Westerfield's Peeps, with its long anecdotes on intriguing viruses and plagues and animals.
               Every time you think she has found peace, the carefully built up world of Madapple begins to chip away- revealing a harsh and frightening ugliness underneath. The transcripts prove most of what Aslaug's first-person account to be wrong so thoroughly that you begin to question her self-assured innocence. There is both a mingling sense of sweetness and leftover horror even now, as I sit here, having finished this book. Madapple is an exceptionally well-written novel, and though I while reading in public I was constantly having to explain why the girl on the cover was about to eat a butterfly, I think this will be one that I treasure.