1. My daughter and I listened to Jeff and Jerry every morning for years on our drive to the private school that she attended and where I happened to work. Their show was interesting, family-friendly, and made us laugh.
2. Many San Diegans consider the Showgram to be a San Diego institution. Similarly, many consider private schools to be institutions. (See how it’s all coming together?) While their show isn’t on the radio anymore, they do have a web-based show called Live From Jerry’s Garage (LFJG) that is recorded in Jerry’s garage. Really! You can even watch episodes on their website. As Jeff says,
   

   This isn’t a really good morning show. It’s in a guy’s garage. But it’s the only one left in town!

3. One morning on the Showgram, Laura – who is also on the show along with Little Tommy and Randy – mentioned her search for a private school in San Diego for her child. (Another tie to private schools!)
4. The goal of the Friday Finds is to “… highlight a blog, website, Twitter feed, or Facebook fan page that we think is interesting and relevant to people who are interested in private school education in San Diego.” I’m guessing that a lot of people who are interested in private school education in San Diego are also interested in Jeff and Jerry.
5. Finally, if there’s one thing I admire and can relate to it’s being motivated to make virtual lemonade out of really tart lemons.

So hurray for Jeff & Jer and the rest of the Showgram family! Congratulations on being selected as this week’s Friday Find. We’ll listen to you – and watch you – anywhere you’re broadcasting.

There are rumors circulating that today, Friday, January 15, there will be a big announcement concerning the future of the Jeff & Jer Showgram. Our fingers are crossed that they’ll be announcing a return to the radio airwaves, but whatever happens, you’ve gotta love their gumption.

Learn more

On the web
http://jeffandjer.com/

Twitter
http://twitter.com/jeffandjer

Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffandjer

YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/jeffandjershowgram

In this second category, the books regale with stories and events that might be ever-so-slightly based in fact, but mostly are fictitious and just plain fun. (I must admit, however, that a couple of times I have been surprised at how closely some of the more outlandish stories and events seem to resemble real life!)

If you are interested in reading funny, fictitious, and far-fetched stories about life in private schools, here are five you might consider. Just remember – they’re novels. Fiction. Not true. Enjoy!

	Academy X: A Novel by Andrew Trees Welcome to Academy X, an ethical wonderland in which up is down, right is wrong, and parents and students will stop at nothing (including lying, plagiarizing, and even seduction to name a few) in order to get into the Ivy League. Caught in the middle is John Spencer, a bumbling but lovable English teacher struggling through the final weeks of his spring semester. But keeping focused on a Jane Austen seminar proves problematic when his crush on the school librarian as well as a pending promotion threaten to divert his attention. Things become even more complicated when the college counselor asks John to lie (or at least exaggerate) in a recommendation letter for the very student who he’s just discovered is a plagiarizer. Things only get worse for John, who discovers that no price is too high to achieve a coveted admission to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton—even if that includes his own disgrace.
	Admissions by Nancy Lieberman This sharply observed and bitingly funny novel exposes the over-the-top absurdity of New York City`s elite private school admissions circus. For Manhattan’s most affluent parents, the Tuesday after Labor Day marks the beginning of the city’s most competitive and vicious blood sport: the start of the private school admissions process. But for Helen Drager, mother of Zoe, it shouldn’t be such an ordeal. After all, Helen’s best friend Sara is an admissions officer at Zoe’s current K-8. But Sara’s position becomes precarious, and Helen soon finds herself drawn ever deeper into the mounting lunacy generated by the fierce competition.
	The Ivy Chronicles by Karen Quinn This is an amusing story of what happens when a New Yorker loses her job, her husband, and her ritzy Park Avenue pad and is forced to carve out a new niche for herself and her two private school-educated daughters. After transferring the girls to public school and renting a shabby-chic (at best) flat upstairs from a knicherie, Ivy Ames takes her billionaire friend Faith’s advice and starts a consulting business to help privileged pre-schoolers get into the city’s premier kindergartens. Light on substance yet heavy on laughs.
	Private Lives of Private School Moms: A Novel by Julie Heath Is it possible to raise grounded, well-adjusted children in an exclusive private school world where scandals and the outrageous acts of other parents surpass the imagination? That’s the challenge faced by four immensely appealing women, diverse in cultural backgrounds and personalities, yet strong in character, who’ve bonded together over this common goal. Follow the hilarious complications of some of the misguided parents chronologically through the Kindergarten school year at the prestigious Archimedes School, an institution built on the banks of Spa Creek in scenic Annapolis, Maryland.
	Schooled by Anisha Lakhani Here’s Anna, a newbie teacher with Ivy credentials whose passion for the low-paying teaching profession is cause for celebration at the upper-crust Langdon school, where as the exotic-looking newcomer, she is mistakenly identified as a coveted minority hire. With low pay and even lower expectations from teachers and parents, Anna realizes there’s no way she can survive—until she learns about lucrative after-school tutoring gigs. And just like that, Anna’s ideals go out the window. In a hilarious out-of-control spiral into obsession with all-things designer, expensive and showy, Anna transforms into someone who believes money can buy everything and everyone. There is redemption, of course, in the form of a teacher who bucks the system, and Anna discovers some of her students are pretty wonderful.

Pecan Pie Cake

• 3 cups finely chopped pecans, toasted and divided
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 2 cups sugar
• 5 large eggs, separated
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 3/4 cup dark corn syrup
• 1 recipe Pecan Pie Filling
• 1 recipe Pastry Garnish (optional)

1. Generously butter three (3) 9-inch round cake pans. Sprinkle 2 cups pecans evenly into the pans and shake to coat bottoms and sides of pans.
2. Cream 1/2 cup butter, shortening and sugar, beating well with electric mixer until fluffy. Add egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
3. Combine flour, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour. Beat at low speed until blended after each addition. Stir in remaining 1 cup finely chopped pecans.
4. In separate bowl, beat egg whites with mixer until stiff peaks form. Gently stir one-third of egg whites into batter. Fold in remaining egg whites. (Be careful to not overmix!) Pour batter into prepared pans, evenly dividing among three pans.
5. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until done. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Invert layers onto parchment paper-lined wire racks. Brush tops and sides of layers with corn syrup, and cool completely.
6. Place one cake layer on serving platter, pecan side up and then spread half of Pecan Pie Filling on the layer. Place second layer, pecan side up, on filling; spread with remaining filling. Top with last layer, pecan side up.
7. Arrange Pastry Garnish on and around cake.

Pecan Pie Filling

• 1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup dark corn syrup
• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 1/2 cups half-and-half
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Whisk together first 6 ingredients in a heavy 3-quart saucepan until smooth.
2. Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly; boil 1 minute or until thickened. Remove from heat; whisk in butter and vanilla extract.
3. Place a sheet of parchment paper directly on surface of mixture to prevent a film from forming and then chill 4 hours.

Pastry Garnish

• 1  (15-ounce) package refrigerated piecrusts
• 1  large egg
• 1  tablespoon  water
• 24  pecan halves

1. Unfold piecrusts, and press out fold lines. Cut 8 to 10 leaves from each piecrust with a 3-inch leaf-shaped cutter or cut freehand with sharp knife. Mark leaf veins using tip of a knife. Reserve pastry trimmings.
2. Whisk together egg and 1 tablespoon water, and brush on pastry leaves.
3. Crumple 10 to 12 small aluminum foil pieces into 1/2-inch balls. Coat with vegetable cooking spray, and place on a lightly greased baking sheet.
4. Drape a pastry leaf over each foil ball. Place remaining pastry leaves on baking sheet.
5. Bake at 425° for 6 to 8 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack 10 minutes. Gently remove foil from leaves.
6. Pinch 12 pea-size pieces from pastry trimmings. Place between pecan halves, forming sandwiches.
7. Cut remaining pastry into 2-inch pieces; wrap around pecan sandwiches, leaving jagged edges to resemble half-shelled pecans. Brush with egg mixture. Place on baking sheet.
8. Bake pecans at 350° for 10 minutes or until golden. Cool on wire rack.
9. Use leaves and pecans for decoration on and around Pecan Pie Cake.