Every few weeks, we gath­er the finest of Kansan and Kansas relat­ed blog­gery. This week, a series of recipes.

Mod­ern sci­ence: Drop an apple on Isaac New­ton, wait until he real­izes that the laws of nature apply to the whole uni­verse. Use those laws to fly mis­sions around the Moon, as described by Paul Decelles, and to pro­duce cov­er art for one of rock­’s great­est albums.

Brus­sels Cock­aigne: Wash and cut in half a dozen of hon­orary Kansan Bill Far­rel­l’s brus­sels sprouts. In a skil­let, brown a cou­ple cloves of gar­lic in a cou­ple table­spoons of but­ter and an equal amount of olive oil. Remove the gar­lic, and place the cut sides of the sprouts in the oil. Cov­er and cook over low heat for 15 min­utes. When ten­der, remove them and enjoy. 

A black, hairy tongue: Take one nor­mal tongue, like Emaw’s, add cer­tain bac­te­ria or yeast. Wait while they deposit por­phyrins in the tongue’s papil­lae. Seek med­ical attention.

An ener­gy bud­get: Begin by set­ting aside some sav­ings for emer­gen­cies, like The Prince of Thrift sug­gests. Then con­sid­er sign­ing up for lev­el pay­ments, rather than month­ly pay­ments. Also, con­sid­er wear­ing a sweater and low­er­ing your ther­mo­stat, espe­cial­ly when no one is home. Ther­mostats with timers that auto­mat­i­cal­ly raise the tem­per­a­ture before you get home and after you are warm under the cov­ers are cheap, too. Mod­ern fur­naces are also much more effi­cient than those made 10 years ago. Con­sid­er upgrading.

Para­noid secu­ri­ty the­ater: Place one box next to the road. Let the Unholy Moses chron­i­cle the hijinx.

Dis­as­ter: Place one flip-flop­ping author­i­tar­i­an “Cro­Mag­Con” in charge of the Kansas Repub­li­can Par­ty.

Alter­nate recipe for dis­as­ter: Name polit­i­cal hack to be Dis­trict Attor­ney. Let him go to court to defend fir­ing exist­ing staff for replace­ment with polit­i­cal cronies.

Sec­ond alter­nate: Elect flip-flop­ping author­i­tar­i­an Sam Brown­back for Pres­i­dent.

End­ing a dis­as­ter: Put coura­geous cit­i­zens, like those described at Hope and Pol­i­tics, in pow­er.

A Good Son: Aside from the fas­ci­nat­ing biol­o­gy involved in pro­duc­ing a male child, you have to mix back surgery and Blog Merid­i­an’s will­ing­ness to come home and lift “any­thing heav­ier than a six-pack.”

Ener­go-Fas­cism a la Tom Hull: Com­bine a lim­it­ed ener­gy source with an entrenched polit­i­cal elite. Beat until fluffy. Con­tin­ue beat­ing until stiff peaks form. Beat again until the mix­ture collapses.

An under­stand­ing of string the­o­ry: Take one physi­cist and one edu­ca­tor, kneed and bake until a tooth­pick comes out clean. Sur­round with an audi­ence of edu­cat­ed adults, includ­ing Red State Rab­ble. Lis­ten carefully.

Antipa­thy to homo­phobes: Take a mod­er­ate church, remove min­is­ter and replace with Fred Phelps. Allow him to abuse his chil­dren and use the church as a tax shel­ter. Watch him protest at funer­als for mur­dered chil­dren and sol­diers. Make a film like that described at Evolv­ing in Kansas and dis­trib­ute wide­ly.

Con­tro­ver­sy: Begin with pris­tine native prairie, like Peg’s Smoky Hills. Add high ener­gy costs and high, reli­able wind speeds over that prairie. 

Alter­nate recipe: Com­bine politi­cians, agri­cul­tur­al sub­si­dies, high ener­gy costs and grow­ing demand for change. Join Prairie Weath­er in watch­ing politi­cians try to solve ener­gy prob­lems by con­vert­ing more corn than we could pos­si­bly grow into ethanol, when ener­gy effi­cient tech­nol­o­gy already exists.

Mis­un­der­stand­ing: Com­bine over­heat­ed rhetoric about reli­gion with the com­plex real­i­ties of reli­gious mod­er­ates, as described by Bruce. Whip into a frenzy.

Cer­vi­cal can­cer: Begin with young girls. Refuse to make HPV vac­cines manda­to­ry, as I sug­gest­ed. Accuse any­one who gets HPV of being “irre­spon­si­ble” and of not com­ing from “good homes.” While wait­ing sev­er­al decades, build coffins.