Pink Prickly Pear

So I bought new running shoes.  Yawn.  Not news.  But running shoes made in the USA?  That's some news.  Some good news.  I took them out for an inaugural run this morning and my feet are very, very happy indeed.  And no, they weren't outrageously expensive or hideous or anything like that.  Thank you, New Balance. 

Last night I watched enough of The Future of Food to thoroughly freak myself out a bit regarding genetic engineering.  I fell asleep at about the halfway point, so I'll try and finish it tonight, but I somehow doubt I missed the happy ending.  And then this morning, while D'anjou napped, Mini-Pear and I watched King Corn about High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Having watched the stuff about genetically modified foods made the information about the pervasiveness of HFCS even more alarming.

Afterwards, I guiltily ransacked our kitchen cabinets.  HFCS is in everything, isn't it?  Well, maybe it is in a ton of stuff, but happily, I didn't find any at our house.  MSG made a surprise appearance in a package of Planters peanuts (we also had a bag of peanuts from Trader Joes with three ingredients - peanuts, peanut oil and salt), but no HFCS!  I even checked things that seemed like the perfect candidates for a little hidden sweetener - bread, barbeque sauce, a box of crackers...nada.  It's reassuring to see that we weren't going to have to make any big changes to our diets or shopping habits.  I mean, I wasn't a total rube...we're former vegans at our house, but I've certainly become a lot more relaxed about our food and I had suspicions that my new (over the past couple of years) mantra of "everything in moderation" might have let some unsavory ingredients in the back door. 

I do think I will exercise a little more moderation in the meals I eat outside of the house though. 

Confession:  I quite enjoy reality television.  Well, not Survivor or shows like that...it's the shows about people with more money than sense (Hulu, please stream more of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, New Jersey, Orange County, etc...) that suck me in.

However, after watching two My Super Sweet Sixteens in a row last night, I think my appetite for shows about spoiled teenage girls is quelled.  I think that show I watched last week about NYC prep school kids pushed me to the outer limits and last night, it all just spilled over.  From my pinned in position on the bed, sleep'n'spin D'anjou on one side, laptop balancing Mr. Pear on the other, I just about managed to squeak out a "Make it stop..."

For what it's worth, I did attempt a little politics of food last night, but I just cannot get into The Omnivore's Dilemma.  I'm not getting enough sleep lately, and the place I'm noticing it the most is my brain's capacity to absorb all but the fluffiest information.  Hey!  I think yours would too if first and foremost it was continually scanning all surfaces for choking hazards and scalable eights, not to mention the ever present "Where's the boy?" alarm.

But I've got to get into The Omnivore's Dilemma, if only because it's what my in-laws (they of the Splenda and the South Beach Diet) were reading on their visit.  Amusingly, they seemed quite horrified by my consumption of organic instant oatmeal for breakfast.  Not that pulverized grains in a little paper sack is my first choice, but after the boy's sucked me dry all night long, I am famished and instant organic oatmeal fills me up...and fast. 

There's a special place somewhere for Craigslist no-shows on gorgeous Sunday afternoons. 

Whatev.  We enjoyed ourselves anyway, so I suppose it's neither here nor there.

Last week, Mandy sent us home from what can only be described as a canning party* with a pile of peaches.  I was determined to make a pie, and I was going to have to be quick about it, because those delicious peaches were going fast.  I also had to be realistic.  D'anjou was not going to wait in the wings while I messed about with pastry, so I settled on a crumble (with a quick and dirty topping of flour, sugar, butter, oatmeal and almonds).  Once all my peaches were prepped, it was obvious we'd eaten too many peaches, so I added blueberries.  The end result?  A whole lot of yum.  There was not a lot left over.  We like sweet treats.  We like to eat them at 11:30 in the morning on a Sunday.

Sunday in pictures?

My babies sharing a quiet moment together.

Catching up to the rest of the family on the way to the park.  I love stepping out our door and seeing the ocean.

Smiley boy.

I love this picture of my thoughtful girl.

What do you do with the red wax that comes on your baby bella cheese?  We make gum.

D'anjou gets his first shiner.  Explora-boy meets table leg.

^{* As always, she has posted some excellent photos of the event over on her blog, so pop on over for a look-see!}

Road food?

I need ideas for our road trip.

Anyone who suggests street pizza can get stuffed.

Mini-Pear and I rode our bikes over to a friend's house this afternoon.  Mini-Pear is going to be cat sitting for them.  I suggested we just ride over.  She seemed a bit dubious, "Isn't there a big hill?"  There is, and I think she was more nervous about riding down it.  I was impressed that she actually rode all the way up it on our way back home.

I've missed my bike.  I don't think I realized just how much until this afternoon's jaunt through the neighborhood.  When I first moved to DC, I didn't need a car.  I used my bike pretty much everyday.  I rode from my little studio apartment with the red brick floor in Adams Morgan up to work.  There was one summer where I found myself doing a lot of night riding (spare me the David Hasselhoff jokes), sometimes with friends, sometimes just on my own.  Most of the time I didn't even have a particular destination - there was just something about pedaling along under the yellow street lights, generating my own cool breeze in the hot DC summer night.

*

Have you tried an aprium yet?  I am generally skeptical of cross-bred fruits and vegetables, but I am tired of the ever available local strawberries and if I eat too many mangos my mouth gets all itchy (because mango, wouldn't you know, is apparently related to poison ivy) so I thought I'd give them a go.  They're good.  I'm having a hard time restraining myself from eating all of them.

*

Mr. Pear is supposed to come downstairs and watch Weeds with me, but I think he's fallen asleep.  I don't know how he fell asleep.  Our asshole neighbors are having a loud party.  Why are they assholes?  Well, they park in my driveway for one, and for two?  They have their million dollar deck wired for sound.  And what do they play on this surely expensive system?  The radio.  That's sort of worse than playing bad music, because at least bad music just means you have your personal taste and I have mine, but listening to the radio tells me you have no ear whatsoever...

How many times can you say whoo-hoo?

Speaking of music, I can't believe how many of you had never heard the song I linked to in my last post.  Mr. Pear actually thought it was a song I'd made up...like I actually sat down and composed my own original lyrics about flatulence.

The grocery store where I do most of my food shopping has reconfigured its interior, with fancy new fixtures arranged in a different layout.  I'm sure we'll all get the hang of it sooner or later, but shopping there yesterday was a total bear.  Gridlock in the produce section!   Bewildered yogis bleating about the elusiveness of the tortillas.

The wine section's up front now.  Squee!  I'll never forget to pop a bottle of local in the cart again! AA thanks you in advance for my support.

I think they are running a bit scared about the new Whole Foods (currently a huge hole in the ground a few short blocks from my front door), hence all the wood and burnished metal.  Despite the suburban nature of my old house, I could actually walk to that particular grocery store, albeit along a rather busy roadway.  I can walk to everything else in the new neighborhood, but for groceries I have to get in the old Saturn, unless I want to go and get depressed at the dilapidated Vons a few blocks away.  It's totally walkable, but so Soviet it's not even funny.  Where do they get all that brown fruit?  It smells like roach traps.

"It's the cars that won't fit in the parking lot!"

I can't get this unauthorized Trader Joe's jingle out of my head.

And, while we're on the subject, I had the occasion to visit a brand new Trader Joe's in a neighboring town recently.  It's located in one of those insta-town-centers in the middle of what was agricultural country.  Lots of...space.  And yet, the parking lot was as tight and ridiculously small as any urban Trader Joe's I've ever visited!  What gives?  Must be a thing.

Let's talk about food.

We recently got a little thingy to hold the utensils as they dry.  This has evolved into us not actually putting the utensils away very often.  I have noticed we use a lot of little spoons around here.

I keep buying red cabbage and all I ever do is chop it up into salads.  What I really want is some soft, hot red cabbage (doesn't that sound a bit obscene?).  I think it usually has some apples in it.  Or maybe it's just served in the proximity of apples or something.

Not sure if the food philistines hereabouts will go for that though.

It turned into "Make Your Own Pizza" night here. Mr.Pear was not so sympathetic as I scrounged the fridge, looking for something to make mine pizza-like.  I have a bangin' vegan pizza recipe but it requires tofu.  Of which I have none. 

Ha!  So now Mr. Pear has gone up to the shop in search of some meat for his pizza - pepperoni, I suppose.  I ran out to the car, "Why don't you get me the tiniest little bit of goat cheese?"

I heard that maybe babies who have the problem with the milk proteins are okay with goat milk.  I'm not sure I'm so into goat milk ( I don't drink milk by the glass, but do like it in my tea - no gamey tea, thx!) , but goat cheese I can eat by the cartload.

We don't have much going on tomorrow, so may as well give it a go tonight (the trying of the cheese).  I'll let you know if I get vomited on all night long.  Yeah.  You bet you're going to hear about it.

Since he's going to the shop, I suppose I could have said, Why don't you get me some tofu, so I can make that bangin' vegan pizza?  but I didn't.  I miss the cheese muchly.  I know that's not a word, don't email me.

Lately, I've been craving one-vegetable meals.

What's a one-vegetable meal?  What it sounds like, mostly.  What really satisfies my craving is taking an entire head of cauliflower, tossing it in a little olive oil and curry powder and roasting it.  Then I eat the whole thing.  That's a good lunch.

It works with smaller vegetables too, but of course the one in one-vegetable refers to one variety of as opposed to a one single vegetable.  Little baby sweet potatoes require no dressing - I roast or steam them and eat them whole, in their skins.  A whole plate of steamed brussel sprouts sprinkled with salt and pepper goes down just dandy.  The rest of the family thinks I'm a bit weird, but I'll reserve weird to describe those pregnant ladies who eat chalk or coffee grounds and for the little dog down the block who eats poop.

I can't roast anything anymore though, because the oven doesn't work.  Frustrating, especially as I only discovered this after prepping a ton of food for baking and roasting (I read How to Cook a Wolf recently by M.F.K Fisher and have started cooking in batches in the interests of saving energy/being a greener home chef) and then had to come up with alternate means of cooking everything.  D'anjou was not amused by my extended kitchen shenanigans.

I thought it was just the pilot light, but after a thorough investigation realized that my oven uses something called hot surface ignition.  I love the internet.  Without it, I'm not sure I would know that what the oven needs is a new carborundum coil.  I also know I could replace it myself, but think this is beyond my responsibility as a renter.  Besides, I've got boxes to pack.

Nipples the size of dinner plates!

Oh wait, that is a dinner plate!  Okay, technically, a breakfast plate.  D'anjou is all about the food these days.  This morning we were sure Mr. Pear's bagel was about to get swiped.  I don't remember Mini-Pear being even remotely interested in real food when she was his age. 

Hey, looky-looky!  Is that breakfast in bed?  On a week day?  Do I get a prize for good fellow or what?

And as if fetching breakfast in bed for my man wasn't enough of a good wifey maneuver (I must want something), this afternoon we delivered a steaming hot cheese steak with onions and sweet peppers from Philly Frank's.  We were up in that neck of the woods, getting d'anjou's birth certificate from the county clerk's office and I thought, "Isn't there that authentic philly cheese steak joint around here somewhere?"

Actually, that's a total lie.  We'd heard rumors of authentic Philly cheese steaks in San Marcos and decided to give it a go last weekend.  Rumors confirmed - OMFG - that's some good cheese steak!  I immediately wanted another.  All week I schemed how I might finagle another one without looking like a greedy little piggums.  Finally, I hit on the perfect excuse.  Wasn't the county clerk's office in San Marcos?  Why not go pick up d'anjou's birth certificate?  If we left right after the chiropractor's appointment in the morning, we'd be finished at the clerk's office right around lunch time...

I so crafty when it comes to the food.