MAC ATTACK #19 – BALLPARK SNACKS!

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME

Take me out to the ball game,

Take me out with the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,

I don't care if I never get back,

Let me root, root, root for the home team,

If they don't win it's a shame.

For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,

At the old ball game.

Jack Norworth, 1908

Spring arrives awash in sunshine and summer is tagging along closely behind and it is ball season! Kick off, coin toss, first service or opening day, we are all checking schedules, counting days down to this World Cup or that European League Event, this tournament or that match and our excitement mounts as the days get longer and the weather warmer. Take me out to the ball game, indeed, and as we settle in or settle down, pennant in hand, silly hat perched atop our noggin, jerseys on and team colors painted across our face, what else do we think of but…snacks!


Stand in line at the snack booth or dash back and forth to the kitchen, don’t we all crave something special, something that just screams summer ball game? Rugby or baseball, football, cricket or tennis, isn’t the whole experience better, more fun with just that perfect snack, one that reminds us of our childhood or our old college days? Popcorn, peanuts and crackerjacks or hot dogs, corn dogs and French fries, a brew, a soft drink or a good old fashioned lemonade, a ball game just isn’t a ball game without those traditional snacks! Am I right?

So whether your player is on center court, center field or on the pitch, whether you keep your eye on a small yellow ball or a large, oval pigskin, whether you root for your team from the sidelines, out under the sun, in a world class stadium or on your livingroom couch, go ahead a grab your favorite snack foods in the form of a, yup, macaron!

Put aside all of those elegant flavors, the sophistication and beauty of those little French treats and think junk food! Transform your macs into the perfect ballpark (or couch potato) snack food! Give it the old ballpark twist, salty or sweet, creamy, crispy or ice cold and here’s a Hip Hip Hooray for the old ball game….snack!

And like any good ballgame, we all have to follow the rules... or be sidelined!

1. Once you have posted your Mac Attack macarons on your blog, make sure that you mention the Mactweets Mac Attack challenge in your post and link back to the Mactweets blog. Please make sure that your Mac Attack #19 macarons are inspired by the theme!

2. Please link back to this challenge on your post.

3. Feel free to promote the Mactweets blog by proudly displaying the Mactweets badge in your Mac Attack post as well as in your sidebar! It isn't mandatory but is a nice way to get the word out!

4. Have your Ballpark Snack Macs posted on your own blog by May 25, 2011. And being just a little bit late never hurt anybody...

5. Once your post is up, simply leave the link to the post as a comment to this Mac Attack Challenge post!

The round up will be posted on or about June 1, 2011! Just in time for the Opening Game!

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@lifesafeast and @vindee

MacTell Me a Story! Mac Attack 7

“You'll put down the old brown tea set. But you can open the little yellow crock of cherry preserves. It's time it was being used anyhow--I believe it's beginning to work. And you can cut some fruit cake and have some of the cookies and snaps…. The sitting room will do for you and your company. But there's a bottle half full of raspberry cordial that was left over from the church social the other night. It's on the second shelf of the sitting-room closet and you and Diana can have it if you like."

Marilla in Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

We all grew up reading. A favorite book in one hand, a cookie or sandwich in the other, curled up on the sofa or nestled in the branches of a tree, a good story transported us to another time, another world. We became someone else, traveled to exotic lands, breathed in strange odors, intriguing perfumes, heard the rattles and voices and music from world’s beyond and dreamed of unusual flavors. Whether fairy tales, adventure stories of pirates or cowboys, princesses or detectives, whether rolling on ocean waves or crawling through caves or waltzing at royal balls, who didn’t love to escape inside the pages of a great story?

And still children at heart, we must have all dug out our childhood favorites from the attic or pulled them off old bedroom shelves or searched them out in bookstores the world over in order to read those same books to our own children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews. We read them aloud excitedly, flipping through page after page to find favorite lines or the best illustrations, and how we were thrilled to be able to share this part of our own childhood with another generation!

MACTELL ME A STORY! STORYBOOK MACARONS

Now, run over to that bookshelf, dig through the boxes you have stored away and find a favorite book from your childhood. Any book. But a tale that inspires. Our May Mac Attack challenge sends you forth to create a macaron inspired by a beloved childhood book, an extract, a character, something from any book from your childhood. Be creative (as we know you are): it doesn’t necessarily have to be inspired by a food or a flavor, but let us know how your macaron flavors, your macaron theme was inspired by a certain book, character, etc.

Now, go forth and create!

“You want to be careful with those (Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Bean),’ Ron warned Harry. ‘When they say every flavour, they mean every flavour – you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a bogey-flavoured one once.’ Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully and bit into a corner.‘Bleaaargh – see? Sprouts.”

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Please have your Mac Attack post up no later than May 10 '10.

Here are the rules of the game:

1. Once you have posted your Mac Attack macarons on your blog,  make sure that you mention the Mactweets Mac Attack challenge in your post and link back to the Mactweets blog.
2. Please link back to this challenge on your post.
3. Feel free to promote the Mactweets blog by proudly displaying the Mactweets badge in your Mac Attack post as well as in your sidebar! It isn't mandatory but is a nice way to get the word out!

Round up will be on May 15, 2010.

Follow us and all the Mac Attack Buzz on Twitter

@lifesafeast and @vindee