While pictures of Samantha are all well and good, I think today we will have some educational enrichment.

As many of you know, I enjoy weird things. Also as many of you know, Walnut enjoys her squeaky toys to the point that she regularly punctures the squeakers in them and we have to get her new ones. Well, some time ago, Lennie brought home a squeaky chicken for Walnut, and I couldn't help but notice it had the word SCHMALTZ written on the side.

Here's the chicken hanging out with Bobblehead Mr. T on my desk:



So naturally I wondered "What is SCHMALTZ?" Enjoy this picture of Walnut mangling her chicken while your anticipation percolates:



Anyway, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmaltz:

Schmaltz or schmalz is rendered chicken or goose fat used for frying or as a spread on bread, in German and Jewish cuisine. Schmaltz rendered from a kosher-slaughtered chicken or goose is popular in Jewish cuisine; it was used by Northwestern and Eastern European Jews who were forbidden by dietary laws to fry their meats in butter or lard, the common forms of cooking fat in Europe, and who could not obtain the kinds of cooking oils, such as olive oil and sesame oil, that they had used in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean (as in Spain and Italy).

So there you go! Learn something new every day! We now refer to this toy as "Walnut's Jewish Chicken."

And since I know you won't be happy otherwise, here's a picture of Samantha playing with Hannah: