Fourth Of July Fun! by Eleanor

I am back again, again! I have read "Bo At Ballard Creek" for the second time. It was very fun. 

My favourite chapter is called "The Fourth Of July." The main character in the book is Bo. her family isn't a family like your regular old family, she has two Daddys who she calls Papa and Papa. They're not a gay family, Jack and Arvid are work partners who work together and decided to raise Bo together. Bo's mommy walked away, kind of like a turtle who walks away from her turtle babies or turtle eggs.

The book is set in Alaska after the gold rush, in the late 1920's. They always have bannock and donuts on the Fourth of July, because the 4th of July is America's birthday. Yay, America! The whole town used to make the celebration happen. There was no committee or anything that would bring the food, everybody brought their share. They brought their share, they got their share! Bo's Papa Jack was great cook and he used to make 400 donuts and bring them in a wheel barrow!

We made donuts and bannock with my Dad. it was great fun, but my Dad accidentally deleted all the pictures. Just imagine the pictures of me and my Mum and Dad and Sophia and Amy cooking bannock over a campfire. We made bannock like the picture above here. This is how you make bannock, first you make the dough and if you want to put in different flavours you add things. we made berry bannock, fancy cheese and rosemary bannock and regular bannock. The reason they had bannock is because there was a large Inuit community in Ballard Creek. 

We twisted it into ropes, and wrapped it around sticks like the picture above, and we cooked it over a fire.  I loved it! Then we also made donuts and it was really fun, but our house STANK from the smell of the hot fat (or lard) we cooked them in.

We made little circles with cups out of dough and poked our fingers through to make holes and then our Daddy plopped them in the hot lard. You had to get the oil at just the right temperature, so the outside didn't burn but the inside was still cooked. The first few donuts weren't perfect but they were edible, and delicious.  The amazing scientific thing that happened was that the dough was so flat at first, and all of a sudden, POOF! it was nice and thick. The donuts would also start to float when they were ready to turn over. After they were cooked we let them dry for a while and then we put them in a paper bag of powdered sugar and shook them up so they were covered in powdered sugar. (I honestly liked them better without the sugar.)

Thank you for listening, I suggest making donuts and bannock yourself, and reading this book. They are very good! Bye!