Category Archives: Food

2026, Business, Food, Kids, Mysteries

Food Foolishness

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There’s never any warning.  Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer doesn’t have a set schedule – without any notice it shows up in my Inbox.  In the olden days (back when the dinosaurs roamed the planet) it would appear in the snail mail box.  It’s the same document these days but I have to admit that I enjoyed relaxing with a cup of coffee or tea and leafing through the hard copy.

But this is not a rant about the death of print.  I swear.  It’s more a rant about how YA and I are completely helpless in the face of this flyer.  It’s unbelievable; we are both completely drawn to the new (and probably never-to-be-seen-again) products that are featured.  A little bit like the seasonally colored items that I can’t stay away from.

The theme of the flyer and the seasonal items this time is “strawberry”.  While I love fresh strawberries and I practically live on my strawberry jam, I’m not otherwise a massive strawberry fan.  But YA is.  And there are certainly lots more items featured in addition to the strawberry-laden stuff.  We made a list and I headed out.  Managed to find everything on the list with the assistance of a customer service gentleman who went to the back and found two items that were out on the shelves.  Here is a partial list of what I came home with:

  • Pickle Potato Chips: these were primarily for YA – she’s also a fan of Pickle Pizza at the fair.
  • Parmesan Tapenade: I love all kinds of tapenade, so this looked promising. It made a great pizza topping on Tuesday.
  • Potato Cheese Stix: like it says.  Cubed potatoes, mixed with cheese, frozen on a stick.  YA says they’re pretty good.
  • Spicy Taco Sauce: This turned out to be a great sauce for the afore-mentioned potato-cheese stix.
  • Strawberry Gummy Bears. Completely for YA.  I never even liked jujubes when I was a kid, so no gummies for me now.
  • Turkish flatbread with cheeses, spinach and onion.  In the freezer section – can’t wait.
  • Spicy Spuds. Another freezer options – spicy roasted potatoes.
  • Oat Bites. There are two kids – PB&J and Raspberry. Bitty little muffins with filling.
  • Strawberry Snickerdoodles. I might try this although YA will probably eat most of them
  • Garlic Salted Mixed Nuts. They also have little garlic toasted chips in the can.  Quite nice.

There were several other things, including a six-pack of San Pellegrino; we splurge on this a couple of times a year.  None of these items were necessary and neither of us had a plan for any of it, although I did get a pizza dough while I was there, thinking about the tapenade.  I’m of two minds about this silliness.  One the one hand, it was a lot of money for nothing that we had a plan for.  On the other hand, it’s food; we have to eat regardless of the absurdity of the food items.

Tried anything new (food or otherwise) the past couple of weeks?

2026, Food, History, Kids, Mysteries

Condiments Muscle Memory

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Muscle memory is an amazing thing.  On Saturday, YA and I had our next-door neighbors over for lunch.  Just veggie burgers and corn on the grill.  At the last minute, we decided it was a little too chilly to eat outside, so I set the table inside.

I set out seven little bowls in the kitchen.  Onion slices, tomato slices, pickles and Boston lettuce to get started.  Just as I started to squirt ketchup into the fifth bowl, YA walked in and immediately said “what are you DOING?”  I told her I was putting the condiments in bowls and she pushed back with “WHY?”  It took me a few minutes of standing at the counter, looking at the bowls before I realized why I was about to put ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise in little bowls.

When I was growing up, condiments went into little bowls. Not just for when we had company, but all the time.  Even when we had dinner at my Nana and Pappy’s on Saturday nights, condiments went into little bowls.  In fact, if condiments ever went on the table in their bottles, it was called “pinkert style”.  It wasn’t until I was in high school that my mom told me why.  When she was growing up, they lived a few houses down from the Pinkerts.  Apparently the Pinkerts never put their condiments into little dishes… they always just set the bottles out willy nilly.  So it turns out that my grandparents calling that “pinkert style” was actually quite pejorative – I never knew.

While I almost automatically put out little bowls when company comes over, YA and I do not do this when it’s just the two of us.  Of course, YA and I eating a meal that requires condiments on the table is fairly rare.

On Saturday I put out the bottles; I really don’t need to be the third generation getting little bowls dirty in the name of shaming some family up the block from my grandparents!!

Any habits that have come down the generations in your family?

2026, Food, home, Uncategorized

All Is Revealed

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Our kitchen is very long and runs east and west. The living room is at the east end, and an open area where we keep the piano, media cabinet, and musical instruments is at the west end. There is a window on the far west wall. The photo below shows the west window by the media cabinet, and was shot ftom the livingroom.

Our kitchen cupboards are stained a dark walnut brown. They usually don’t show much dirt or spills. We try to keep things pretty neat and clean when we cook, but spills do happen and we wipe them up, of course.

I generally feel pretty good about the cleanliness of our kitchen, and a casual glance most times of day would support that assessment. However, when the sun shines through the far west window, it illuminates every spill, smudge, smear, and dust particle on the cupboard doors that makes it look as though we have been flinging food all over the place and leaving it to it drip down and dry. That is a lot of cupboard front to wash regularly, but the revealing afternoon sun keeps me on my alert. It is one of my least favorite cleaning chores. I suppose I could just shut the blinds to block the sun, but the Dutch in me couldn’t live with the knowledge that the cupboard fronts need cleaning.

What housecleaning tasks do you dislike the most? What do you like or dislike about your kitchen cupboards.

2026, Automotive, Business, Food, Mysteries, Travel

Backwards

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On the way home from St. Louis, YA were debating about what we should pick up for lunch and she told me that she had noticed a sign (when we were still in St. Louis) that Steak `n Shake was offering an Orange Dreamsicle Freeze.  I don’t know if I’ve whined about S`nS dumping their original Orange Freeze – but they let go of it at the same time they dropped the grilled cheese.  I haven’t been there since then – about 6 years.

But the new offering sounded good so we decided that fries and a freeze would be an ok lunch.  YA found the closest S`nS and we let GPS get us there.  As we were waiting in the drive-thru line, we noticed several posters in the windows of the eatery touting their all new beef-tallow.  These are their exact words “return to tallow is part of a broader trend to revive traditional cooking methods and highlight authentic flavors.”  Snort.  I asked the person taking the order if it were true that the fries were now being fried in beef tallow.  When he said yes, we cancelled the fries and just got the Freezes. 

When I became a vegetarian in the early 70s, it was the end of French fries for me as all the fast-food places used animal fats for frying.  Burger King was the first to switch over; for many years I got a whooper with no meat (yes, that’s just a glorified cheese sandwich) and fries.  Then Wendys switched, then S`nS, and eventually even McDonalds gave it up and moved to vegetable oils.  So this move back to beef tallow doesn’t make much sense to me.  I don’t know the science about the health benefits (although RFK touting beef tallow makes me wonder…) but from a planetary point of view, I don’t think we need more cows eating way more grains than it takes to feed humans.  My cynical side says S`nS is grasping at straws trying to deal with their currently financial struggles and think this might be a way to differentiate themselves from the pack.

Regardless, YA and I ended up at Subway for our lunch to go with our Orange Dreamsicle Freezes, which unfortunately weren’t all that great.  I can’t imagine I’ll ever go back to a Steak `n Shake again.

Fries?  Shoestring, curly, seasoned, sweet potato?  Or just pass the tater tots?

2026, animals, Food, gardening, Nature, pets

Bird Food Nemeses

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There are many down-sides to not having a dog.  No walking companion, no one to keep the kitchen floor “clean”, no big furry foot warmer on cold nights.

And then there are the squirrels.  They have absolutely figured out that there is no dog patrolling the territory any longer.  And they certainly don’t see me as a threat.  Yesterday I made a trip to get something from the car and the squirrel on the feeder and the squirrel sitting on the swing hardly even looked in my direction, much less fled in terror.

They’re also eating the hot seed cylinder that they’re not supposed to like.  I called Mr. Bird, the company in Texas who makes the cylinders to ask about the problem.  They said at this time of year, when squirrels are having their young, they are particularly ravenous and will deign to eat things that might not taste too good to them.  This phase will probably pass but in the meantime, they also make a hotter cylinder called “Disco Inferno” that I can try.  I looked it up and Gertens carries it.  Guess I’ll add that to the cart when we are there next week!

Hopefully there will be a dog to guard the sanctity of the yard some time this summer; until then we’ll just have to put up with the squirrels laughing at us!

Any critter activity at your place these days?

2026, Family, Food, home, Uncategorized

Fun!

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Our lives since moving to Minnesota have been pretty noneventful aside from our trip to Kansas City in March. We have spent our time getting to know the community and getting our home to our liking. Not much has been unpleasant, but nothing has been that exciting either. The weather hasn’t been very conducive for outdoor activities.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered three Savoy cabbages through Melissa’s Produce. We grew Savoys in our ND garden. They are lovely cabbage but not available in our local grocery stores.

The ones I ordered were very nice when they arrived, and we refrigerated them right away. This made for an interesting challenge, though, of using up three cabbages in short order.

We cook most everything from scratch as a rule, so cooking a lot of cabbage wasn’t that unusual. I noticed, though, that the recipes we had chosen were really fun to make. Not just pleasant, but fun. I made a huge pot of minestrone. I made a central European pasta dish with cabbage and bratwurst. I made a cabbage, potato, asparagus. and fennel bulb hash. Husband made cabbage and mushrooms, (as well as oatcake biscuits). I love to cook, but I recognized how much fun I was having putting these dishes together, even more fun than usual!

I don’t plan to buy any more Savoy cabbage in the near future. I am kind of cabbaged-out. It reinforced for me, though, the pleasure one can derive from even the most simple activities if you pay attention. Yesterday I made Cuban black beans. Later this week I am making Danish meatloaf (it is made from veal and pork and wrapped in bacon). I expect to have a fun week despite all the rain and staying home. A simple life can be a good life.

What fun activities have you done lately? What are the most fun and least fun things for you to cook? Thoughts about cabbage?

2026, Family, Fantasy, Food, home, Mysteries

A World Gone Mad

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Gravity, the 5-second rule, Murphys Law, chocolate is a food group, the toast will always land buttered-side down, oatmeal raisin cookies masquerading as chocolate chip cookies are sent by evil entities to usurp happiness.  These are givens.  In addition YA doesn’t like farm eggs and YA doesn’t like my recipe for deviled eggs.

Farm eggs.  I adore Ben’s farm eggs.  Rich, full flavor and then there are those deep golden yolks.  Bring them on!  Unfortunately YA isn’t always sure about “new” things and the farm eggs fall into this category.  She hasn’t said exactly but I think it’s the color of the yolks.

Deviled eggs.  While in theory YA likes deviled eggs, she doesn’t like my preferred recipe.  I’ve mentioned before that I am a Miracle Whip gal.  YA has grown up into a mayonnaise gal.  It I make the eggs with some Miracle Whip and some mayonnaise and give it a good dose of mustard, she will sometimes have one, but not always.

So after Ben delivered eggs on Sunday, I immediately boiled up a few and made deviled eggs.  When I asked YA if she was interested, she said no, so I made them my favorite way – Miracle Whip, mustard, pickle relish, salt, pepper.  And because they were farm eggs, they were stunning looking – more golden and orangish even than the header photo.  I ate some immediately, had some for breakfast on Monday (they were marvelous on toast with strawberry jam) and was looking forward to the last of the batch of breakfast yesterday.

Lo and behold – when I came downstairs, the container that had held the remaining four halves was empty and sitting in the sink.  SHE ATE MY DEVILED EGGS!  Even though I had made her least favorite version. 

So now what?  I feel like I need to re-write all my life expectations.  What’s next… will the toast fall butter side up?

Any universal truths that have let you down?

2026, Food, home, Technology, Uncategorized

Getting To Know You

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In the last 12 months I have cooked and baked on four different stoves/ovens. Each has been very different from the others, and the cooking experiences have been challenging.

In Dickinson we had a quite old GE electric oven with a glass stovetop. We decided we couldn’t in good conscience saddle new owners with it. The glass top was scratched and uncleanable. The oven baked really slow and we needed to increase the temperature to get things done. We replaced it with a Bosch electric stove/oven which worked very well. It definitely was a positive selling point for the house.

As soon as I had figured out all the niceties of the new stove we moved to our current home. It had a 15 year old Kenmore gas oven with gas top burners. The previous owners had no problem saddling us with it, even though the control panel shorted out everything we started a top burner when the oven was lit. I didn’t like baking in the gas oven since things singed on the sides of the pan closest to the burners. I struggled baking with it, trying to adjust rack levels and temperatures. This was quite a trick in November and December for Christmas baking.

We finally got a brand new, dual fuel LG oven/stove that I really like. The oven is electric. The stovetop is has gas burners. Saturday night I made a apple pie with a crumble topping and found the the oven must burn hot as the crumble topping and crust got too dark, and I probably have to lower the temperature about 10-15 degrees when I bake. Sigh! I suppose most appliances have their individual quirks, but I am pretty tired of trying to figure all this out.

What would you feel you had to in good conscience, replace in your current home before you sold it? What have been the easiest and most difficult appliances/machines to learn to use?

2026, Family, Food, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Garden Plans

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Yesterday we had 120 bags of organic raised bed soil delivered to our driveway. You can see them in the header photo. A retired guy who was the head of the city solid waste department picked them up from Bomgaars and brought them to the house. He has a forklift for just such loads. He knew my dad. The raised beds will ship this week. We have enlisted the help of a young man to move the bags of soil into the back yard. The gate on our fence is too narrow for a tractor, so he will move the bags with a big wheelbarrow. He is a cement worker for his day job and used to date one of the daughters of the former owner of our house. Everyone seems interconnected here!

Best friend is excited to plant chard, heirloom tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. The raised beds are 32 inches high and will be good for plants that need deeper roots. I am planting a late crop of spinach and lots of basil for pesto. We will have herbs in separate pots on the deck. We saw two large deer roaming our neighborhood a few nights ago and I am glad our yard is fenced.

I want to get some Canadian roses to plant around the house, as well as some hydrangeas. We thought about putting in a raspberry bed but it would be too complicated due to underground wires and such. We also have a Birch tree badly in need of pruning, but we will leave that for the fall, as well as planting spring bulbs.

How are your garden plans coming along? What are your experiences with raised beds?

2026, Business, Family, Food, Travel

Grasso Plaza

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Oft times I feel as if my world is fairly small.  494 to the south, Highway 100 to the west, 35W to the east and Franklin to the north.  Obviously I do travel outside of my “zone” but overwhelmingly, my life and errands are within.  So it isn’t odd to me that my mother also had a fairly constricted range.  It was brought home to me last week when YA and I were in St. Louis that Grasso Plaza is basically a catch-all for just about everything.

Grasso Plaza is about 5 minutes from my mom’s house, up on Gravois Road, which is a major thoroughfare in the southwestern suburbs.  It’s basically just two strip malls across Gravois from each other with five lanes of traffic in between.  (One of these lanes is what St. Louisans call the “suicide lane”, in which you can basically go either direction – insanity.)  The parking lots on both sides were clearly designed by an idiot who had been drinking heavily.  I can’t believe that the insurance companies haven’t banded together to force the Plaza to have them both re-done; I’ve witnessed two accidents myself in my visits to Nonny.

Anyway, here are all the places in Grasso Plaza that we went to in our three full days:

  • Schnucks.  This is one of the grocery store chains in St. Louis; I am not making this up.  We got a few snacks and some beverages to keep in the condo while we were there.
  • St. Louis Bread Company. SLBC was bought by AuBon Pain in 1993 and everywhere else except St. Louis, the name was changed to Panera.  I assume some lawsuit or contractual thing was involved.  On the outside the sign says St. Louis Bread Company, on the inside, everything says Panera, including how your receipt prints out.  We had two meals there.
  • Walgreens.  Of all the things that Nonny didn’t have in her condo was lotion!
  • Southern Bank. Nonny’s bank – we had to deposit a check of hers.
  • Post Office. We had to send the equipment back to MobileHelp (Nonny’s “help I’ve fallen and can’t get up” service).  Very very friendly and chatty clerks – good thing no one was waiting behind me.
  • Cotton’s Ace Hardware. I’ve been here many times over the years but this trip it was to drop off the last of Nonny’s canned goods/cereals.  Cotton’s has a collection barrel for the Affton Christian Food Pantry.
  • Dollar Tree. Just a quick stop for some plastic drinking cups for the condo since there were so many folks working on the cleaning out.
  • H&R Block. Stopped by to ask one tax question concerning Nonny’s taxes.  They weren’t helpful.  I should have just texted Linda.  Ended up getting better info from AARP.

These weren’t the only errands we ran, but it was most of them and I was happy to put Grasso Plaza behind us.  Even though it was handy, I don’t want to mess with those parking lots and that suicide lane ever again!

Do you have any favorite/usual shopping spots?