You Are What You Phrase

 

 Everything says something about you.

You know that old saying "you are what yo eat?" Well, you certainly are also what you say, and what you do. What you read says something about you, what you listen to, who you listen to, and what you write.

 

Here's a new thought, one that dawned on me while playing Phrazle a while ago. You are what you phrase.

 

Before I go on, let me just explain a few things. First, and I won't go into great detail since I wrote a whole blog post about this in March, called Wordle, Nerdle, Curdle, but I play and share a lot of word games, as well as posting one of my own daily (Monday through Friday), on my Baking In A Tornado FB page for others to play. If you haven't before, click on over via that link and read about it.

Second, is a brief rundown of how to play Phrazle, since that's what I'm sharing today. Phrazle, as opposed to a word guessing game, is a phrase guessing game. The puzzle shows you how many words are in the well known phrase, and how many letters are in each word. That's your blank slate. For each of your 6 guesses, you choose words for the phrase, press enter, and are rewarded with clues. Each letter of each word in the phrase will be a color:

grey: this letter is not in the phrase at all

purple: this letter is in the phrase, but in a different word from the one you used it in

yellow: this letter is in the word you used it in, but not in the spot you chose

green: this letter is in the correct spot

Wait. Don't go!

Even if you're confused at this point, it's just background, read on.

 

Do back to everything saying something about you. I was playing Phrazle a while ago and, probably for the first time, not only looked at the results, relieved to have guessed them, but looked at my process. And wondered what exactly these guesses say about me.

 

For instance, have I been dreaming about pigs? 

That growl? It's what happens when you realize you're flat broke.

 

 

Is this a sneak peek into where to go to pray for an end to that whole flat broke thing? The fancy pews?

Well, I know what these two say about me.

Bad butter?

 

Cold fried?

 

Good grief, I'm hungry. 

No problem, I got this:

Strawberry Banana Cake

 

 

 

On this day I was clearly just thinking about the game I was about to play. Although, the way I go about it, it's more word salad (but salad doesn't have 8 letters).

 

 

I actually can satire, don't you think?

One thing's clear, if I was robbed, I wasn't bold enough.

 

Man in the hole? That's a long fall from the top of the hill.

 

In the dim house? What was I thinking? Probably that I need more coffee.

 

I'm willing to bet when I started this puzzle, the next thing on my to do list must have been to write my poetry post. I do adore those puns.

 

OK, I'm going to argue for credit for having solved this one in two. After all, I could make a case for a strumpet wife actually being a dumpster fire.

 

 

 

After that last comment, maybe we better forget the smog and the crib, I may need that get out of jail free card. 

Strawberry Banana Cake

                                               ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1 box (15.25 oz) strawberry cake mix

1 box (3 - 3.4 oz), divided

1 medium ripe banana

1 cup milk

1 tsp strawberry extract

3 eggs

4 strawberries, cored and chopped

1 can (16 oz) strawberry frosting

1 TBSP milk

3 strawberries, cored and sliced

1 banana

1/2 cup orange juice

 

Directions:
*Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

*Mash one of the bananas. Measure out 3 TBSP of the pudding mix and seat aside for the frosting.

*Beat, for 2 minutes, the mashed bananas, remaining pudding mix, cake mix, 1 cup of milk, strawberry extract, and the eggs.

*Pour evenly into the prepared baking pans. Sprinkle the chopped strawberries over the top, and bake for 20 - 30 minutes, until the center springs back to the touch.

*Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edges and remove to cool completely. Trim the tops so the layers are flat.

*Slice the second banana. Place in a bowl with the orange juice. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap down onto the fruit. Refrigerate.

*Vigorously whisk the frosting, remaining milk, and the remaining pudding mix. Put about 1/4 cup into a plastic bag or piping bag for decoration.

*Place one cake layer on a serving plate. Spread about 1/3 of the remaining frosting on this layer and top with the second layer. Frost the sides and top of the cake.

*Pipe the reserved frosting onto the cake. Remove the bananas from the juice, decorate the top of the cake with banana and strawberry slices.

 

Wordle, Nerdle, Curdle: Use Your Words

 

 

 

 

Today’s post is a monthly writing challenge. If you’re new here, this is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once. All of the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s  participating knows who got their words and in what direction the recipient will take them. Until now.

At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.
I'm using:  deported ~ joker ~ soluble ~ Wordle ~ out of line ~ controversy
They were submitted by Tamara of Part-time Working Hockey Mom.

                           

Yes, I play Wordle. I've played every one of the original games, as a matter of fact. The game is the kind I like to play, thoughtful games in which you challenge yourself. Like the daily Sudoku I play. 

When the boys were little, we used to play Master Mind. It's what Wordle seems to be based on, but instead of letters, Master Mind is played with colored pegs. It's a great game for kids, I loved how it engaged their minds, encouraged them to come up with a strategy, then learn to make adjustments based on the clues they got along the way.

What I think is out of line are the people who made fun Wordle when it was first "discovered" in the social media world, posted memes mocking people who play, then all of a sudden started posting their own scores. I mean, I get that people don't want to seem like sheeple, joining a fad just because others are. It's a bit of a "wag the dog," if you ask me, trying to create a controversy where there is none. Seriously, not only is ridicule never necessary, imagine actually trying something before you make fun of it? Turns out, others aren't so much focused on doing the cool thing, they just gave it a shot and found out they liked it.

 

 

There are others, of course, offshoots. Once the original creators sold Wordle, they started Wordle2. Six letters instead of 5 and 2 new puzzles every day. I play those too. And then, of course, there are the jokers who take it a step over to the dark side. Heard of Lewdle? I think you can guess what it is. Those words don't bother me at all, but I tried and I couldn't play, turns out I don't know enough of those words. Maybe they'll use that as my epitaph: "In her later years, she actually deported herself with a level of dignity."

I've now taken to posting my results on the Baking In A Tornado FB page. There's a core group of people there who read and support my blog, and interact regularly with the content on that page. I started posting my Wordle results there daily, and many others added theirs to the thread. It was in one of those threads that a regular reader challenged me to play Nerdle. Nerdle, if you don't know, is Wordle using math instead of words and it is hard. HARD. My second try it took me an hour to figure it out. But now that I've got the hang of it, I average 3 - 4 tries and just like Wordle, I'm addicted. 

The Nerdle daily puzzle doesn't post until 7pm Eastern time, which is perfect. Once my day has started to wind down, I can sit down with a piece of cake and attack that Nerdle challenge.

 

Cookie Butter Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

And then there's Quordle. Another reader challenged me to that one. That's when I realized that Nerdle isn't so hard at all. Four words, 9 total tries to come up with all of them. I scored 6, 7, 4, 5 the first time, swore I would never darken the door of that game again for fear of over exercising my brain (don't want to strain something), then scored 5, 6, 8, 7 the next day {{sigh}}.

At one point I wanted to create my own game. It would be food related, and I even had a fun name, Curdle (get it, lol??). I even talked to PurDude (and Tamara) about it. PurDude could do all the back end coding for me, but I would need a dictionary API, and a data collection system, both of which could be monetarily prohibitive, as they charge per use, the scope of which is (in)soluble up front. 

 

Although I didn't end up starting my own site, I do now create a daily food based Wordle. And guess what? People are playing. Regularly. They tell me it's fun, but I'm willing to bet it's nowhere near the enjoyment I get from seeing their results.

So, I now post 3 Wordle based FB posts a day. The first is a link to my original Baking In A Tornado game of the day (today is our 20th game), the second is my results of the Wordle, Quordel, and first Wordle2 of the day, and then in the evening I share my Nerdle and second Wordle2 results. Phew!

 

What adds to the excitement is when everyone posts their results in the threads of all of 3 of those daily posts. Some of us are competitive, some just relieved to have solved the puzzles, and some just curious as to how others do. And you know what? No controversy here. It's just plain fun.

 

Here are links to all the other Use Your Words posts:

On the Border 

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver 

Climaxed

Part-time Working Hockey Mom

Cookie Butter Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup crushed Biscoff cookies

1 TBSP brown sugar

4 TBSP melted butter

2 1/2 bars (20 oz total) cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup cookie butter (speculoos)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup heavy cream, room temperature

1/4 cup sour cream, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs, room temperature

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips, divided 

4 Biscoff cookies

2 TBSP cinnamon baking chips

Directions:
*Lightly grease a springform pan and wrap the bottom with tin foil. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

*Mix the graham cracker crumbs and Biscoff crumbs with 1 TBSP brown sugar. Add the melted butter and stir. Press into the bottom and partially up the sides of the prepared pan.

*Beat together the cream cheese, cookie butter, sugar, and the remaining brown sugar. Once incorporated, beat in the heavy cream, sour cream, and vanilla, then finally, the eggs, one at a time. Mix in 1/2 cup of the mini chocolate chips.

*Place the cookies and cinnamon baking chips in a food processor and crush completely. Sprinkle over the top of the cheesecake.

*Pour into the prepared crust and bake for 70 - 85 minutes, until the center is just set. Allow to cool to room temperature. Refrigerate for at least one hour before sprinkling the edges with the remaining mini chocolate chips and releasing from the pan.

*Store, covered, in the refrigerator.