Sesame the Opossum - Starry\'s Blog

sharing A few Ways to Help

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 17:51:46 GMT

1) Stream this video—Views for a Vision—to donate via YouTube ad revenue:

2) Join with, support, and champion Black Lives Matter. https://blacklivesmatter.com/
3) Add your name to the 12 million + signatures on the change.org petition “Justice for George Floyd“. https://bit.ly/2XTEeSr.
4) Donate directly to Bail Funds and Legal Help Resources using the links provided in the crowdsourced Google Doc. https://bit.ly/3gOkgBq.
5) Support Campaign Zero, Black Visions Collective, Unicorn Riot, and other organizations that have put a ton of work into dismantling current systems of oppression and lifting black voices.
6) If you’re white, honor your responsibility to hold other white people accountable and encourage education, empathy, and accountability.
7) Attend protests if possible and stay engaged — take the best care of your physical health you can manage, and do the same for your mental health. Check in with others and openly offer or ask for support.

Please also visit www.itsnicethat.com to find a list of both educational and actionable resources, including books, videos, and more links:
https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/resources-supporting-black-lives-matter-movement-creative-industry-010620.

Baking at Home With Starry

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 19:27:40 GMT

New phone background to bring smiles — Baby Opossums and Bananas

Sat, 14 Mar 2020 23:54:34 GMT

Hi friends, it's Starry! I've been reading a lot about Bananas lately. Did you know all the commercially available bananas available in most supermarkets are clones of each other? They don't contain seeds. In contrast to this monoculture in modern grocers, there are around 1,000 known types of bananas throughout the world, "including dozens of wild varieties, many no bigger than your pinky and filled with tooth-shattering seeds" (According a book all about Bananas). While there are many varieties of bananas, it is the Cavendish variety that has become the quintessential and ubiquitous "banana". BUT, the Cavendish banana has only been the default commercial variety since the early 1960s! Prior to that, it was the Gros Michel type that filled store shelves and home kitchens. Check out this excerpt from an article in Atlas Obscura that puts the mid-century switcheroo into perspective:

"When America fell in love with the banana, [the Gros Michel] is the fruit that captured its heart. The alchemist who first produced the banana split used a Gros Michel; the chemist who produced artificial banana flavor allegedly had it in mind as well. When Eddie Cantor sings “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” it is Big Mike [Gros Michel] he’s singing about."

The Gros Michel was wiped out by a fungus called Panama Disease. It was then that the Cavendish—similarly hardy enough for shipping—was selected by commercial producers and distributers as a replacement. it's widely reported that the Cavendish is inferior in taste and texture to the famed Gros Michel.

Dan Koeppel, who wrote the aforementioned book—"Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World"—relays that “Chiquita and Dole definitely worried that consumers would reject the Cavendish because it didn’t taste as good.” Welp, apparently consumers didn't really have a choice, and even so the change went relatively unchallenged according to various sources at the time and since. As the Atlas Obscura article puts it, "there was barely a peep from banana-munchers whose Gros Michels were entirely replaced by Cavendishes in the early 1960s".

Gros Michels are not completely extinct; you can buy starter a starter Gros Michel plant on Amazon for roughly $20 plus shipping. The plants take about a year to bear fruit, but the environment has to be right and the plants can grow up to 30 feet tall. So it's not really a practical move if you're simply interested in trying an "original" banana split (with vegan ice cream!). So, is it possible to still experience a Gros Michel banana? It is! But unless you live in Malaysia or other tropical climates (where you may find some at the local fruit market), it will cost a bunch (a banana bunch). You can buy a box of around 8-12lbs of Gros Michel bananas from Miami Fruit company for $97 plus shipping. Eight to 12 pounds is kind of a lot so maybe you could get a group together to split the cost and have a banana split party.

Whether you're eating the now-common Cavendish or the posh Gros Michel, did you know you can eat the peels? Banana peels have a lot of potassium, fiber, and even B12, a nutrient that many people think can't be derived naturally from a vegan diet (it can!). Check out this recipe on how to make an animal-friendly, cruelty-free vegan pulled-bbq sandwich out of peels!

We hope you've enjoyed this mini-essay on bananas, and also that you love our new design of Baby Opossum Seedlings and Cavendish Bunches! Download this blessed image straight to your phone by pressing on the image to save to your phone camera roll, or get the file below.

seedlings_and_bananas_pattern.jpg
File Size:	5508 kb
File Type:	jpg

Download File

A complete history of marsupials

Thu, 06 Feb 2020 04:52:33 GMT

PBS Eons just uploaded a wonderful history of marsupials to YouTube! Did you know all these facts?

Beignets!! Vegan and delish

Fri, 24 Jan 2020 18:33:17 GMT

Fried dough and sugar is the greatest combination since Daffodil and Cornelia (and better since Daffie & Corn fight sometimes). We love beignets so much that our Official Sesame & Cocoally 2020 Mardi Gras poster (see below) celebrates both beignets and sugar babies! Sugar babies are the small Australian gliding opossums that we hold dear as their populations and habitats struggle to recover from the Australia Fires.

We (Starry & Daff & Corn) tried out this recipe (reprinted below) from The Sweetest Vegan! The moment we bit into the crispy, doughy, chewy, hot, sugary, doughnut doughballs, we were IN LOVE! They came out perfectly, and that's saying something for three opossums who really are not skilled in the kitchen.

Be sure to watch The Sweetest Vegan's video and try out the recipe! You'll feel like you're sitting outside at Café du Monde in the French Quarter, while also knowing no animals were harmed in the making of your beautiful doughy doughballs. If you've never had a beignet, we think they're just like a funnel cake, but shaped like a pillow, which allows for a chewy, bouncy, air-bubbly interior cased in a crispy fried outside.

Now that we've written enough paragraphs and almost told our life story, we can get on to the recipe! If you make them, please let us know and invite us over. Love you xoxo

The Sweetest Vegan—Vegan Beignets Recipe
New Orleans Doughnut Café Du Monde Style

Ingredients
3/4 + 1 tbsp cup warm water
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 envelope dry active yeast (about 1 teaspoon)
1/8 applesauce
3/4 tsp ener g egg replacer
1/2 cup almond milk
3 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (can use refined coconut oil)

Preparation
Whisk water, yeast, and sugar together and let stand for 10 minutes (yeast will froth). Pour in non dairy milk, applesauce, energ egg replacer mixture. Whisk together. Add in half of the flour and mix. Mix in vegetable shortening, then add the rest of your flour. Knead the dough into a ball and transfer into an oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and leave for two hours in a warm place. Once the dough has doubled in size, roll it out, and cut into squares. Fry about 3- 4 at a time at 350-400 degrees (F) depending on your fryer. Dry on a paper towel and immediately powder with powdered sugar. Enjoy your Beignets!

And if you'd like some beignet artwork for your home, check out our Sugar Baby Beignets art prints! We also think it's cute that "beignet" means "bump" in French.

Sugar Baby Beignets!

$25.00 - $500.00

Do you love Sugar Babies and Beignets but require a demure piece of home decor, a print or canvas with a subtle Mardi Gras vibe, but without all the beads and bling? This artwork is for you!

Sugar Gliders, also known as Sugar Babies, are gliding possums native to Australia and surrounding areas. They are marsupials just like us (Virginia Opossums), and they love to glide from tree to tree at night, eating anything they can find (they are omnivores)! Sugar Babies found popularity in the exotic pet trade, though this type of breeding and transportation can be tragically stressful and cruel to them. If you love Sugar Babies, consider supporting Australian wildlife rescue organizations working to rehabilitate native wildlife and habitats. Australian rescues will need help rebuilding for years to come, and now is the perfect time to symbolically adopt injured or orphaned gliders. You can also check with your local animal shelter—we know for a fact that some shelters regularly take in exotic pets that owners can no longer care for. You can be a hero to animals like Sugar Babies, Bearded Dragons, Tarantulas, and countless others by learning their specific needs and adopting them from rescues instead of buying from breeders.

Some of our favorite Australian Rescue friends and ways to support them:

Wildcare Australia, Inc. — Donate Button

Aussie Ark — Koala Ark — GoFundMe

Goongerah Wombat Orphange — GoFundMe

Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary & Hospital — Symbolic Adoptions

Adelaide & Hills Koala Rescue (1300Koalaz) — Donate Button at Bottom of Site

Archival Paper Print: Made of bright archival inks on acid-free paper. Locally printed with love on standard frame sizes, each Print is signed and sent with protective wrapping and backing.

-OR-

Giclée Canvas Print: Museum quality reproductions proudly made in the USA. Printed with solvent-free latex inks onto white canvas; add Magical Glitter Embellishment to make it sparkle! Signed and professionally gallery wrapped onto .75" thick spruce wood, our canvases are lightweight and ready to hang.

*Glitter embellishment details are up to the discretion of the artist*

*Canvases larger than 8"x12" (Big Canvases, Large Canvases, XL Canvases, etc.) will take a few weeks to ship.*

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Sugar Baby Beignets Mardi Gras 2020!