Browse Category: Food

How Does My Garden Grow?

Thanks for asking.

Briefly:

  • Kale and lettuce are growing well.
  • Rose bushes are looking good.
  • Tomatoes and peppers have been planted.
  • Some beast (see “Reclaiming the Land” from May 5, 2018) wrecked one of the pepper plants. It didn’t eat it. It just tore it apart. I can understand if a creature is hungry. In that case, eat. But don’t just be a jerk by ripping up a plant and leaving it.
  • Basil and marigolds have been planted.
  • 15 morning glories are thriving.
The kale and lettuce patch.
The rose bush on the left.
The rose bush on the right. (No need to worry about whether this guy was going to grow or not now.)
Tomatoes and peppers.
Don’t be a jerk.
Two types of basil. We already used some to make chicken parm. Yum!
Morning glories.

Trying to Come Up With a Title for This Was a Real Noosance

There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but sometimes you end up with a free dessert after lunch. This was GOOD!

A young fellow was handing these out on the corner near my office in Philadelphia. I was happy to take one off his hands.

Some Mornings

Some mornings are just like that…

Some mornings, I get up and the sun is shining and the birds are singing, and the William Tell Overture is floating softly through the hills.

Like in this video:

But some mornings things go awry right from the get-go.

Like this morning when I heard the baby waking up and I promptly went to the kitchen to prepare a delicious wholesome bottle for the child. I would let the bottle warm while I went to his room to greet him, William Tell emanating from the very earth around us. I would change his diaper and freshen his bottom before he had a chance to fret. He would smile at his daddy. I would smile back. He would smile again.

I pulled the bottle out of the fridge and in one swift motion the damn thing slipped from my grasp and propelled itself toward the floor like a Grade-A-Vitamin-D-Added-Homogenized Kamikaze!

“Oh, fffffffffffudge!!!!!!”

“Only I didn’t say fudge. I said THE word. The big one. The queen mother of dirty words. The F-dash-dash-dash word.”

Like this:

I threw up my hands in defeat. Then I threw in the towel. Literally. Hell, I threw in multiple towels.

The baby? Oh, he went back to sleep for another hour.

I don’t blame him.

This situation reminds me of “Super Moist Fat Tuesday.” Incidentally, I have a migraine as I did that day too. Spilling copious amounts of liquids must be a migraine symptom. I’m good at it, apparently.

To Paleo or Not to Paleo?

To my imagination, the first thing a hunter-gatherer gathered was fresh coffee beans. Then he hunted down a woolly mammoth bovine with pleasantly plump utters to cream his savory brew.

I really need to lose weight. I’m tired of hauling around this baggage. I am literally 225 pounds of TIRED. I need to feel better.

Tonight I was preparing dinner using this recipe for the Perfect Eye Round Roast. Somewhere on the page I noticed a reference to “the Paleo Lifestyle.” I’ve referred to this recipe multiple times over the past few years and just now noticed “Paleo Lifestyle.” I excuse my previous lack of observation on a Just-Give-Me-The-Recipe-I-Gotta-Make-Dinner laser-like focus. “My wife will be home and I gotta get this roast done right!” I didn’t have time for your Paleo Lifestyle. Where is Paleo anyway? In the Mediterranean?

So I googled Paleo Lifestyle and found that it can be summed up in a nutshell as: “If a caveman didn’t eat it, neither should you.” See, I was right. Mediterranean. Cavemen were early humans and human life most likely originated in the Mediterranean vicinity, generally speaking. The logic is right.

The proposition appeals to me. Don’t eat anything that was not available to the hunter-gatherers. That’s not so bad. It would take some getting used to. I just have to ask myself: Does this food grow on a tree or run through a savanna? If yes, eat it. If no, stay away. For example, does chocolate cake grow on a tree? No. Don’t eat it.

No cake? I might have to give up before I even try.

Then again, maybe all the cake is killing me.

I feel that I am in dire need of a detox. I am so desirous of a pure diet right now that my mouth waters at the thought of a fresh carrot. It’s time for a change.

But my first question is: Is coffee allowed in a Paleo diet? Cavemen must have gathered coffee beans. I vaguely remember an episode of the Flintstones in which Fred and Barney met up at Starbucks and discussed slate quarry union business over mugs of fresh hot Sumatra roast. No biscotti, of course.

My second question: Is cream allowed? I need cream in my Joe. I suppose I could get used to black coffee for the sake of my health. But coffee with cream goes much better with cake… from my cake tree… imported from Germany… the Black Forest. German Black Forest cake. (The logic is flawless.)

I shall investigate this Paleo Lifestyle further.