The secret to 12-0

[twilight33]

.. is apparently being stuck at Costco for almost 2.5 hours while waiting for your tires to be rebalanced & rotated while pacing in the parking lot on a cellphone with a macchiato in hand. Completely missed the game, but was very pleased with the results. I love it when everything goes according to plan, including getting an A's jersey at the beginning of the season that fits Kieran perfectly now and his M's romper is too small. Guess which he'll be wearing to his first live baseball game on Sunday? :)

Kieran's first day of a full preschool session went pretty well. He remembered the place and did the usual 15 minute warmup to new surroundings with the outdoor play equipment. 22 adults & 20 kids was quite a bit and everyone started melting down around 10:40 (eventual goal is to last until 11:15), but all in all it was a fun time.

He is addicted to their fantastically smooth playdough; their homemade version uses alum and corn oil. Specifically corn oil, or it doesn't work at all (explain to me what chemical reaction that is, jakeaidan?). The teacher knows all the secrets about exactly what Kool Aid flavors produce the best color & smell combos for it too, woohoo! I also was way too excited about getting the first Scholastic book club order form. Remember them from elementary school? I used to live for those along with my sticker albums. Kieran already loves books so now we can get them en masse for cheap!

Comments

[jakeaidan.livejournal.com]

It's not a chemical reaction, it's a colloidal reaction. Which is to say, there isn't any chemical bonding going on, what is occuring is the oil polymers are being held by starch molecules.
So, oil is a series of long propogating carbon strings.
Since they are long and linear, they slide nicely with each other, like straws against one another. However, corn oil also has starch molecules in it, which act like a bunch of small rubber bands and thus creating a minor gluten-esque molecule with the alum. If you use a low starch or no starch oil, you'll need to produce the gluten some other way, which is why other play-doh recipes use bleached flour...that's gluten city.

Or was the question rhetorical :)

[twilight33]

Definitely not rhetorical, I was immediately curious about why only corn oil would work and not any other. Every other homemade playdough recipe I've encountered ended up being sticky/salty after a while, but I know they didn't have corn oil & alum in them. I like this stuff better than commercial play-doh :)