Feeding the Bears

Bears in Yosemite can be dangerous, not just because they are wild animals, but also because they have been fed by humans and see humans as a food source. Normal bears avoid human contact, making a confrontation unlikely. Yosemite bears not only do not avoid human contact, but some actively seek it. They are begging for food, and if we had never fed them, they would have mostly left us alone. This is similar to my friend R. If I had never fed him, he would have wondered away by now. Just like the early Yosemite tourists, I fed the bears, and now I can't get rid of him.

Today we made shortbread cookies. They're very simple. I used a recipe from Miriam Peskowizt's book The Daring Book for Girls (an excellent book btw). There are three ingredients: butter, flour, and sugar. Our dough turned out a little crumbly, probably because we lack any kind of electronic mixing device so creaming the butter and sugar is difficult, but it did eventually get rolled out into a sheet ready to be cut with cookie cutters. I got out a glass to cut circles with. Shortbread cookies are supposed to be round. I cut one out, sptula'd it onto the cookie sheet and glanced up at my engineer. He was using a dinasaur cookie cutter. "Look!" he ecxlaimed proadly, "Shortbread dinosaurs!" I tried to explain why this was a bad idea. The thin points at tail and neck would cook faster than the rest, posibly turning a dark burnt brown before the centers were done, but all that resulted in was him reaching for the tin foil to protect some parts from overbaking. I was not about to let him start in building something, so I told him it would be fine and popped them in the oven. When they came out, the dinosaurs were indeed a dark unapetizing brown, but he happily munched away, eating heads first, and mumbling about the dinosaur shape effecting his perception of the cookie which makes it taste better. I let him have all the non-round cookies since no one else wanted them. There I go again, feeding the bears.