Puppy Chow

Puppy Chow

Dorcas Annette Walker

Want to fool your family this April Fool’s Day and raise some eyebrows? Serve them Puppy Chow. I am intrigued by names people give food as I travel around like: Dirt Pudding, Mississippi Mud Cake, Pigs Piggin Cake, Better Than Sex Cake, Cow Plop Cookies, Turtle Cake, Wackie Cake, Rabbit Salad, and Monkey Bread to name a few. April Fool’s Day is a perfect time to serve an unusual recipe to your family.

April 1st is a day when jokes, pranks, and tricks are played on family, friends, and coworkers throughout the world. The most accepted theory where April Fool’s Day originated from dates in 1582 when France adopted the Gregorain Calendar shifting the observance of New Year’s day from the end of March to the beginning of January. Since communication traveled slowly some folks out of ignorance or stubbornness continued to celebrate New Year’s Day on the first of April and were made the butt of pranks and considered foolish and thus April 1st turned into April Fool’s Day.

Some past April Fool pranks:
- In 1957 the BBC television programmed a hoax showing Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees. A large number of folk contacted BBC wanting to know how to grow spaghetti trees.
- In 1976 a British astronomer told listeners of BBC Radio 2 that due to a unique alignment of two planets an upward gravitational pull would make people lighter at precisely 7:47 a.m. that day. He invited his audience to jump and experience a strange floating sensation. Dozens of listeners phoned in to say that the experiment worked.
- In 1993 a San Diego radio station announced that the space shuttle had been diverted from Edwards Air Force Base and was about make an emergency landing at a small local airport.
- 1996 Taco Bell put out a full page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to help reduce the national debt and renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell. When asked about the sale, White House press secretary replied that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would henceforth be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
- In 1998 Burger King ran and ad in USA Today saying that people could purchase a left-handed Whooper. Not only did customers order new burgers, but some specifically requested “old” right-handed burgers.
- In 2003 a radio station WAAF 107.3 in Boston announced a free concert by Pearl Jam giving a fictitious city in New Hampshire. A gas station in New Hampshire reported streams of cars drivers stopping to ask directions to the fictional town.
- Also in 2003 Chinese and South Korean websites claimed that CNN had reported the assassination of Bill Gates resulting in a 1.5% drop in the Korean stock market.
- In 2005 a news story was posted on the official NASA website purporting to have pictures of water on Mars. The picture was a glass of water sitting on a Mars Candy Bar.
- In 2006 a Cheyenne radio station reported that a Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 “Big Boy” steam locomotive weighing more than 550 tons was stolen from Holliday Park even though there were no tracks connecting it to any railroad. The road that overlooks the park was jammed for hours as people came to investigate.

My Puppy Chow isn’t guaranteed to make any major national news headlines, but it will be a hit with your family. The Puppy Chow has a crunchy texture with a chocolate peanut buttery taste. You can mix-match any Chex cereal. Nuts, dried fruits, or plain popcorn can be added/substituted to make your own original Puppy Chow. My Puppy Chow takes only ten minutes to prepare and this recipe makes thirteen cups.

Puppy Chow

Melt in the microwave:
½ stick of margarine
1 c creamy or crunchy peanut butter
1 (12 oz) pkg semi sweet chocolate chips

Pour over:
1 (14 oz) box of Corn Chex in a large bowl. Stir until well coated.

Put 2 c powdered sugar in a paper sack and dump the coated cereal into the bag. Shake thoroughly until coated with powdered sugar. Store the Puppy Chow in an air-tight container! (*Do not feed Puppy Chow to your dog as chocolate is poisonious to them!)

Weekly tip: To maintain a clean-free microwave cover any food that is being heated or melted and keep a paper plate on the round turn-table changing as needed for liquid spills!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcaswalker@twlakes.net. For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.com