The Color of Cooking

What color is cooking?

Huh? i can hear you thinking.  The mimi has lost her mind.

Not yet, at least not fully.  That's the question that popped into my head when i read about Gavyn Boscio and his sister.

Gavyn, much like my #2 Son, loves to cook.  Look on TV and you will see a myriad of role models for these young men who want to be good at what they do in the kitchen.  It can be hip and macho to know your way around the pots and pans.

Gavyn, being only 4, isn't quite ready for professional cooking school, but that might be in the cards someday.  Meanwhile, he wants an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas.  That sounds about right for a 4-year-old.

Remember your first Easy-Bake Oven (if you had one)?  It was tons of fun, wasn't it?  You got to really make the batter, and bake the cakes, and ice them, and eat them and serve them proudly to your family and friends.  It gave you a sense of accomplishment without you having to be pushed aside in the big kitchen because you might get hurt.

Well, why should that fun be reserved only for the girls?

What?  It shouldn't?  Well, tell that to the company that makes it, Hasbro.

That's what Gavyn's big sister, McKenna Pope, has decided to do.  When she shopped for the oven to give her little brother as her Christmas gift to him, she was dismayed to find it only comes in very girly colors, with only girls shown on the box, having fun baking.

So she started an online petition to Hasbro, asking for the oven to be made in more gender neutral colors, and marketed to all kids who love to cook or bake, not just girls.

This has gotten the attention even of Bobby Flay, who owned an Easy-Bake Oven as a kid.

Hasbro says that it has had boys on the box of the toy in past years, but that doesn't change the fru-fru coloring   So there is a petition up at Change.org, which has already gotten 37,000+ signatures.

What is the color of cooking?  It's whatever your favorite color is, if you love to cook.  And if your favorite isn't pink, then you shouldn't, if you are a boy, have to hide your pink Easy-Bake Oven from the other boys.


Today is:

Agonalia -- Ancient Roman Empire; also observed
     Festival for Diva Palatua -- guardian of Palatine Hill
     Septimonia -- to honor the Seven Hills of Rome

Feast of Sekhmet, Bast, and Ra -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (goddess of warfare, feline goddess, and sun god; date approximate)

Fourth Republic Day -- Madagascar

International Mountain Day -- UN

Jashan-e Sadeh / Adar-Jashen -- Zoroastrian/Parsi (a mid-winter fire ceremony for purification; date approximate)

National Day / Republic Day -- Burkina Faso

National Noodle Ring Day

Nose-Scrambling and Hair-Hiking Events -- Fairy Calendar

Pampanga Day -- Pampanga Province, Philippines

Remembrance Day of Llywelyn II -- Wales (death anniversary of Llywelyn the Last, the last native-born Prince of Wales, killed in battle in 1282)

St. Damasus' Day (Patron of archaeologists)

St. Pens' Day (Patron of Llanberis, Wales)

Tango Day -- Buenos Aires, Argentina (birth anniversary of Julio de Caro and Carlos Gardel)


Anniversaries Today:

Indiana becomes the 19th US State, 1816
Unicef Established, 1946


Birthdays Today:

Rider Strong, 1979
Jermaine Jackson, 1954
Teri Garr, 1949
Brenda Lee, 1944
John Kerry, 1943
Donna Mills, 1942
Rita Moreno, 1931
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1918
Carlo Ponti, 1913
Fiorello LaGuardia, 1882


Today in History:

Honoratus, the first known Prefect of the City of Constantinople, takes office, 359
Llywelyn the Last (born c. 1228) the last native Prince of Wales, is killed at Cimeri, 1282
The Aurora Borealis is seen from New England by English settlers for the first time, 1719
The first newspaper on Curacao is published, the Curacao Gazette & Commercial Advertiser, 1812
Nitrous oxide is used in dental work for the first time in Hartford, Connecticut, 1844
Boston's Bijou Theatre becomes the first American theater lit exclusively by electricity, premiering Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe" as its first performance, 1882
The New Zealand Parliament Buildings are almost completely destroyed by fire, 1907
Color moving pictures are demonstrated in Madison Square Garden, 1909
The Boll Weevil Monument is dedicated in Enterprise, Alabama, 1919
The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster 1931, establishing legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Dominion of Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa, 1931
Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, takes his last drink and enters treatment for the last time, 1934
Arthur Lucas, convicted of murder, is the last person to be executed in Canada, 1962
Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon, 1972
The Kyoto Protocol opens for signature, 1997
The People's Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization, 2001