FOOD ON THE FOOD

Asparagus: Too Cool for School Lunches?

Here's this week's post up at BlogHer.  It's a long one.  I know it's the weekend and you just want to relax, but, if you read it, I promise there will be a special surprise at the end.  Something along the same theme. 

You're just going to scroll right down to the end, aren't you? 

Bastards.

***

When it comes to the health of our children, people can usually put aside their differences for the common good. Except maybe not when it comes to the issue of school lunches. An op-ed co-written by Alice Waters in the New York Times has sparked an interesting debate, and highlighted some differences of opinion when it comes to the best way to revamp public school cafeteria offerings.

Waters uses the schools in her own backyard as her model:

“Schools here in Berkeley, for example, continue to use U.S.D.A. commodities, but cook food from scratch and have added organic fruits and vegetables from area farms. They have cut costs by adopting more efficient accounting software and smart-bulk policies (like choosing milk dispensers over individual cartons), and by working with farmers to identify crops that they can grow in volume and sell for reasonable prices.”

That sounds really great and all, but do schools even have real kitchens these days? Or is it more like a giant bank of microwaves? In other words, do the cooks in Lunch Lady Land actually cook anymore?

They do in France. From Samantha at Growing Up Gourmet:

“Oh to be a kid in Paris. To play along the banks of the Sienne and wander in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. To ride the carousel at the Jardin du Luxembourg and play peek-a-boo in the narrow streets of the Marais. And to eat cauliflower gratin, braised lamb with rosemary, and stinky soft cheese. For lunch. At preschool. As reported Monday on NPR, this is precisely the kind of menu served at the 270 public day-care centers throughout the city. Along with homemade applesauce, local and organic produce, and even tomato garnishes in the shape of a rose.”

No shit. But I mean, that’s France. We do things a little differently around here. Instead of braised lamb, for example, we have sloppy joes. Hold the cauliflower, hold the gratin, pass the tater tots. The only garnish in sight: a packet of ketchup. We win!!!

But all elementary school nostalgia aside, we should do better. If $5 per lunch, Waters’ estimate of what a revamped meal would cost, sounds steep (and it does to many), consider the cost of a Happy Meal. As Ezra Klein of the Internet Food Association argues:

“Parks don’t save us money, but it’s good that we have them. There are things we should do because they should be done. We’re the richest nation in the world.”

One critic of Alice Waters’ crusade is Tom Lee, also of the Internet Food Association, whose debate with Klein was picked up by Mark Bittman’s NYT blog, where the spirited commenting continued. While Tom agrees that major changes need to be made, he complains that the mission has been hijacked by insufferable food snobs:

“I got a little irked when I saw Waters throwing around terms like “organic” and “locally produced” in her proposal. I enjoy foodie pretension as much as the next guy (ask me about my strongly-held opinions regarding shallots as a sandwich onion replacement!), but dicking around with that nonsense while middle schoolers are contracting diabetes is frankly inexcusable.”

Wooooooowwwww. What did the small family farmers ever do to you? Why can’t the farmers be part of the solution? Their kids go to school, too. And while they're dicking around trying to grow healthy vegetables for their communities without simultaneously polluting them, is it so unreasonable to expect that people would, oh, I don’t know, buy them? And then eat them? Perhaps, smile? Reestablishing connections within the community just may be the key that gets this whole thing to work. Just because something happens to be popular at the moment doesn’t automatically make it worthy of contempt.

Of course, there’s the issue of growing season length. Here in Massachusetts, you’ve got June through October to coax stuff out of the ground if you’re lucky. Throw out July and August for summer vacation, and that’s really only three months of fresh vegetables. On the other hand, hey, that’s three whole months of fresh vegetables!!! When the winter comes, it’ll have to be back to frozen again. Or maybe we could get the kids to spend their recess canning.

In the end, between the economy and the reality of overhauling such a broken system, I think it’s going to have to be a balance. Fresh, local, chemical-free fruits and vegetables in season are what we should be aiming for whenever possible. Probably, a lot of things will still need to be trucked in. The main goal, I think, is to get rid of the empty-calorie crap in the caf and get some vegetables into these kids somehow.

Aim high, Alice Waters. Aim high.

Sauerkraut Sadness

So, I let my sauerkraut sit just a little too long unattended and it rotted into a pile of brown, yeasty garbage.  It would seem that my strategy of putting the crock somewhere where we couldn’t smell it completely backfired.  Last year, the stench was my daily reminder to give it a little TLC.  At least peek in there.  Maybe rinse off the plate and the water jug weighing everything down.  Without the near-constant assault on my senses, though, benign neglect quickly turned into something decidedly more malignant. 

Sometime after the 20-day mark, all of the brine evaporated so that the cabbage was no longer submerged.  Remember Rule #1 of sauerkraut: the brine needs to completely cover the cabbage at all times to protect it from spoilage.  It must have been all the dry air.  Last year’s sauerkraut didn’t have this problem, but water content varies from cabbage to cabbage.  Had I been more consistent in my spot checks, I could have just added more salt water as needed.  Oh well.  You win some, you lose some.  I’m starting a new batch this week and, this time, I won’t fuck it up. 

And speaking of swearing, the Boston Globe reviewed my blog last week along with several others.  The Globe’s been very generous with their attention lately, so I really hope they’re planning on staying in business!

A Letter to KitchenAid

Dear KitchenAid:

I’m sad.  After only eight years of service, my beloved stand mixer is shot.

I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.  I got it as a wedding present.  It was one of those industrial-strength models with arms for extra stability, and it came with a note from one of my relatives that read, “Guaranteed to outlast your marriage!!!” or something heart-warming like that.  But guess what?  We’re still married.  And the mixer?  Kaput. 

This won’t do.  You see, I only got married for the KitchenAid.  That’s right, you heard me.  Do you think I could have afforded a luxury like that on an entry-level Spanish major’s salary?  No way.  Matrimony was my ticket to hands-free mixing for the rest of my life, ‘til death do us part.  Or so I thought.  The vows were a little unclear.  Now, I find out that KitchenAids don’t even outlast the average marriage.  In the U.S.  That ain’t good. 

Here’s how it all went down.  I was making bread.  I don’t usually use the mixer for bread dough because the motor, even at its lowest speed, always sounds like it’s going to have a heart attack.  Then I feel compelled to stand there and babysit it so it doesn’t waddle its way over to the counter’s edge and fling itself off in an act of euthanasia.  But I was on my third or fourth loaf of bread that month and my arthritis was starting to object to all the kneading, so I plugged in the dough hook, made the sign of the cross, and let the slappity-slapping begin.  After just a few seconds, the dough hook went dead.  The motor kept running, but the part where you plug in the attachments wouldn’t rotate even in an empty bowl.  In the weeks since then, I’d plug it back in periodically and turn it on to see if it was all just a bad dream, but no.  Finally, when I laid the defeated appliance on its back to copy down the serial number in order to write just such a letter as this, it hemorrhaged oil all over my counter. 

So, tell me, KitchenAid, what can be done?  I feel betrayed.  In these desperate economic times, can I count on you to stand behind the quality of your product and uphold the family values for which you have traditionally stood? Tell me the American dream still exists.  Tell me you will resurrect my fallen mixer at no charge to me.  And then tell me that, this time, it will outlast my marriage.  Because a girl needs something to cling to in her golden years.

Love,
Tammy Donroe

Crossing Party Lines for Citrus

Here’s an abbreviated version of this week’s column up at BlogHer:

As a predominantly local eater, I’ve seen my definition of what I consider to be local go through many permutations over the years. At my strictest, it was a 250-mile radius for just about everything save coffee and spices. At my most exhausted and lenient, it was more like whatever could be purchased with these here dollar bills found locally in my wallet.

Local is however you define it, and that’s kind of the point. You choose where your money goes, whom you give it to, and what you get in return. Dollars spent in your community stay in your community (at least for a little while). Same with jobs. The food, with less distance to travel from field to fork, pasture to knife, and dairy to glass, usually means better flavor and nutrition. It also means our landscape is less likely to resemble a scene out of WALL-E. I see the value in this.

But we’re in February right now here in New England and there ain’t much a-growing. Lately, I’ve been thinking that you can take this local thing a little too far. Like citrus. Local it is not, but how far is Florida, really? Sometimes, I could really go for a tangerine. Sure, I dutifully snub those colorful orbs of pithy goodness during the summer when we have ripe berries, juicy stone fruits, and crisp apples coming out of our ears, but in these dark, lean months when the local farmers are hibernating, is it really so wrong to migrate south a little?

Slowly, I’ve been letting citrus back into my life, especially in the winter when my body craves vitamins and some acidity to cut through our rib-sticking meals of meat and root vegetables. We drink orange juice for breakfast most mornings. A grapefruit is a special treat. A pint of kumquats mingled with red onion and mint might grace some local fish. And the truth is, I pretty much always have a few lemons and limes on hand year-round.

Florida isn’t really my definition of local, but I don’t want the citrus industry to go away. They provide a valuable service to us tart Bostonians in the coldest months, making our bleak winter days a little brighter. We all have to draw our own lines.

Sorghum and the Best Cocktail Ever

Usually, I don’t like my bourbon mixed with anything besides ice cubes.  However, I’m turning over a new leaf I like to call Learning to Embrace Inevitable Change, and it starts, I imagine, with baby steps like modifying your drink of choice. 

For example, I recently tried the Beurre Noisette cocktail over at Noir.  There, there, there, I said to myself after taking my first tentative sip, that wasn’t so bad, was it?  No, it wasn’t.  Apple cider, bourbon, Stoli Vanilla, BROWNED BUTTER?  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that equation.  I stood up on my chair and declared it to be my new favorite drink.  (For the record, no one seemed to care.)  But I was wrong.  Dead wrong.  The best cocktail ever is at Hungry Mother.  The #2: Maker’s Mark, amaretto, sorghum syrup, and two boiled peanuts.  Sounds gross, huh?  ‘Tis not.  I’m drunk and happy.  And now I have to sit on this post at least overnight so I don’t find out later that I blogged about something incriminating.

And speaking of sorghum, I don’t really know what it is, but the fried cornbread at Hungry Mother was absolutely slathered in it.  If I had to guess, I’d say it’s actually sweet liquid meth.  Why don’t we hear more about this sorghum?  I resolved to do some serious research, but, so far, it has consisted solely of the following conversation with my friend as we were exiting the restaurant after I had had perhaps one too many #2s:

Her: Isn’t sorghum like corn?

Me: I think it’s like corn, but not corn.

Her: Soy, then.  Maybe it’s more like soy?

Me: No, I think it’s its own thing.  Sorghum.  Like that.

Her: Oh.

Me: Is this an okay place to throw up?  (pointing to corner of restaurant)

Her: No, don’t...

Me: You’re right.  That would be a waste.

Turns out sorghum is awesome.  Can we grow it here in New England?  Please?

Mushroom Dreams

I’ve been trying to figure out how to make this whole shady yard, black thumb, shadow of death thing work for me in a gardening sense.  I feel compelled to plant things in the spring, but then equally compelled to neglect them come mid-summer.  Surely, there’s some kind of activity tailor-made for such a person.  And then it hit me.  Fungus!

Yes, that’s IT.  Why didn’t this occur to me before?  I have the perfect conditions: heavy shade, mossy dampness, complete lack of supervision.  The last time I tried to grow anything with this winning trifecta, I kept having to pick out all the mushrooms that were crowding out my poor, anemic sprouts.  Turns out, I should have eaten the sprouts and cultivated the toadstools instead. 

Now, before you start interrupting, I know that my explosive history with mushroom digestion doesn’t make me the most likely candidate for such an endeavor.  But not all edible mushrooms make me sick.  Only some of them.  And maybe now would be as good a time as any to nail down exactly which ones.  My running tally looks something like this:

Morels: Fine
Shiitakes: No problem
Porcinis: Bad
Portobellos: Veeerrrrry bad
Truffles: Call an ambulance

Everything else can go either way.  So, I could pick a mushroom that I know I can eat and even idiots can grow, if there exists such a specimen.  Surely it would beat the game of Russian roulette that would be me foraging for them in the wild.  I certainly suffer no shortage of adoration for them, and since when do I have to justify my irrational love to the likes of you people?  I say, if love is a battlefield, then let it be littered with mushroom caps.

One out of one husband agrees: “Now you can combine two of your favorite activities: gardening and vomiting, only one of which you’re actually good at.”  With an endorsement like that, I knew I’d better high-tail it to the library.  Unfortunately, the book I wanted, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, was out and had to be specially requested from another branch.  I was sure to whisper the word “Medicinal” to the guy behind the desk so he wouldn’t get suspicious.  He just winked, which was weird because I looked like shit.

Now I’m waiting impatiently for my book to arrive.  I hate waiting because then there’s ample time for reality to set in.  And the momentum required to cut down and inoculate logs with shiitake spawn is dissipating even as I type this.  And how will I control the field?  Even if I cover my budding bed of oyster mushrooms with a tarp or something, what’s to stop a lone poisonous spore from squatting in the compost?  Would I even notice?  Or care?  More importantly, will I even read this book?

As with all the important decisions in my life, I put it out to you.  Is this a stroke of brilliance or the worst idea ever?  I’m open to all viewpoints as long as they’re the ones I want to hear.  Does anyone have experience growing mushrooms?

Cubanos Are Local

There was a nice article in the Globe yesterday about CSAs and local eating, etc., etc., including a quote from yours truly in case you don’t know where I stand on the matter.  (Someday I’ll learn how to express myself.)  I must confess, though, that all I can think about now are Cuban sandwiches.  Was that the point of the article?  To go get a Cuban?

Serendipitous Cheesecake

So often, the very best things I come up with are not what I intended to make at all.  They’re usually offshoots of things that didn’t quite work, or I didn’t like, or were in some other way terribly misguided.  Kind of like my life.  This cheesecake evolved in much the same way.  I’ll spare you the backstory.  Suffice it to say that I had a lot of soft cheese that I needed to figure out something to do with. 

These little cheesecakes make use of two of my favorite local ingredients: goat cheese from Westfield Farm in Hubbardston and Bonnie’s Jams out of Cambridge.  They’re more reminiscent of thick, New York-style cheesecakes than creamy, custardy cheesepies.  Dense, sturdy, and rich, the same way I like my men.  Just kidding.  The tangy goat cheese gives them lots of character.  Don’t you just love the way the fruit spills over and stains the exposed walls?  (If you reject this one, Tastespotting, you’re dead to me.)

This is a good occasion to show off any of your own preserved berries you may have hiding away, preferably something on the tart side.  But, if you don’t know your gelatin from your pectin, fear not.  Bonnie’s fruit preserves are pretty much better than anything I could ever make.  I don’t really even understand how anything out of jar can taste that good, but I’m very glad it’s possible.  What you see up there are blackberry preserves, although the blueberry and lemon would also be nice.  I’ve always felt her jars were a little too pricey just to spread on toast.  They’re more like dessert fare.  In fact, if I do say so myself, this may be the perfect use for them.

Little Goat Cheesecakes with Blackberry Compote

I get the impression that cheesecake is considered passé, but I will never tire of it.  NEVER. 

1 cup graham cracker crumbs or 9 graham crackers, pulverized
5 Tbsp. butter, melted
2 8-oz. packages cream cheese
10 oz. goat cheese
½ cup sugar
2 Tbsp. honey
2 eggs
Blackberry preserves (or whatever else you fancy)

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Mix butter with graham cracker crumbs until well moistened.  Grease one of those mini-cheesecake pans and press crumb mixture into the bottoms only.  You could also use muffin tins.  Or, if you don’t have the former and you don’t feel like washing the latter, you could use a set of biscuit cutters of varying sizes set on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.  Your call.  Bake 10 minutes.  Let cool.

Cut cream cheese into chunks and nuke them until they soften (maybe 3-4 minutes on medium).  Crumble in goat cheese and add sugar, honey, and eggs.  Whip until smooth.  You can use a mixer or, if the cream cheese is warm enough, just do it with a whisk.  Spoon into forms and bake about 20 minutes or until centers are set and just starting to crack.  Let cool and refrigerate.  Carefully remove from forms and serve with Bonnie’s blackberry preserves.  Makes 9 to 12 depending on size.

Toast

This is my hard drive.  It might look like a piece of French toast, but it's not.  If you look really hard through the egg and the cinnamon, you might see some of my previous posts.  And a few future ones, too.  Maybe some other important stuff.  I'm not panicking.  Everything "should be" backed up.  This will be confirmed at a later, potentially much more panicky time.  Meanwhile, I hope the geniuses will know what to do and not automatically pull up a chair and some maple syrup.

Aren’t We Overreacting To Our Poisonous Food Supply?

Here’s this week’s column up at BlogHer:

I mean, really. Salmonella-roasted peanuts? Vegetables full of E. coli. Corn syrup leaking out of broken thermometers into our cereal? Or something? What’s the big deal? The fact is, you’re 42 times more likely to be hit by a car on your way to the supermarket than to be poisoned by your groceries. I mean 41 times. Aaaaand now make that 38.

I don’t mean to trivialize the situation. As of today, contaminated peanut products were responsible for 575 illnesses and eight deaths, leading to one of the largest food recalls of all time. I’m not insensitive. I’m just saying it’s all relative. It’s nothing compared to the 30,000 anaphylactic reactions and 200 estimated deaths per year from eating perfectly good nuts and shellfish. There’s no need to panic!

What’s that? Okay, somebody just chimed in that more than half of these illnesses happened to children. So scratch the peanut argument. It’s going nowhere. Let’s just put adult faces on the numbers from now on, shall we? Like last year’s salmonella-tainted tomatoes from Mexico that sickened 1,200 people. That’s a lot of people, but it’s not like anybody died. At least, nobody could prove it was from the tomatoes. People die everyday and sometimes it’s just their time.

If you reach way back in your memory to 2006, you may recall that spinach sullied by E. coli killed three people and hospitalized a whole bunch more. Everyone was all, “How could this happen? Didn’t you wash the spinach?” And we were all “No, the label said you didn’t have to. That’s why we bought it.” And they were all, “What? Don’t you know we just slap some words on the label in whatever order is going to sell the product? Where’s your common sense?” And we were all, “I…don’t…know...”

The point is, that was dumb. You can’t ever believe anything anybody tells you, especially if it’s printed on a label. My kids tell me they don’t need a bath, and do I believe them? No. I plunge those little bundles of E. coli into soapy water no matter what they say.

But enough about filthy humans. Let’s talk about downer cows. Last year, more than 143 million pounds of beef were recalled, not because any person got sick but because the cows themselves were sick. And not just because they were sick, but because someone snuck in with a video camera and taped the sick cows being forklifted over to the slaughtering area. It’s weird because, if that videotape hadn’t surfaced, we never even would have known about it. All that beef would have been in circulation. Beef from cows that may or may not have carried mad cow disease, 37 million pounds of which were headed for school lunch programs. It’s also strange how sick feedlot cows get even though they’re pumped full of antibiotics night and day. It’s almost as though there must be some kind of explanation.

But, who cares about the cows? If we gave a crap about the cows, we wouldn’t be feeding them our leftover manufacturing waste products. What we should really be upset about are the puppies and kittens. Sixteen animals died and 14,000 got sick in 2007 from pet food contaminated with melamine from China. In fact, if it weren’t for that, it’s entirely possible we wouldn’t be paying any attention to our food supply whatsoever. It’s a well-known fact that people treat their pets far better than the rest of their families. Other potential facts: China’s unscrupulousness and our own government’s seeming inability to safeguard our food pipeline.

And do you know what’s funny about that? Now, even China doesn’t want our peanuts.

The Mason Jar Argument

Ever wondered what it would be like to be a fly on the wall on a typical morning in our household?  Not that we have flies.  We don’t.  But if we did, that fly might be treated to some pretty interesting shit.  Like this:

Me: Why don’t you bring some borscht for lunch.

Husband: Okay.  (fumbling around for containers and coming up with only lids) Are there any containers left?

Me: We might be out.  Just use a Mason jar.

Him: I’m not bringing my lunch in a Mason jar.

Me: Why not?  What’s the difference? 

Him: It’s a Mason jar.  I might as well carry my books in a strap and roll a hoop all the way to work.  Lalalaaalalaaaaaa….

Me: It’s just a container. 

Him: I’m not bringing borscht in a jar.

Me: So you’re going to spend money to buy lunch we already have because you don’t want your coworkers to make fun of you?

Him: I’m already the laughing stock. 

Me: Well, you can hardly blame me for that.  Look, just pour it into a bowl when you get there.  You can do it in your office, all secret-like.

Him: Where are all these bowls you’re talking about?

Me: Surely, given the modern technology you claim to espouse, you have bowls at work.

Him: That’s right.  I walk through the door and suddenly I’m tripping over bowls, there are bowls coming at me from every direction.

Me: …

Him: Why don’t you buy 365 Mason jars and just freeze my lunches for the whole year.

Me: You’re an asshole.

Him: I hope you put this on your blog because the only one who’s going to look bad is you!

The End.

So.  Who’s right?

Constructing a Temple of Churros

Did you know that Churros y Chocolate was the name of my first Spanish textbook?  Are you surprised I remembered that?  Of course you’re not.  The prospect of deep-fried dough dipped in chocolate was a surefire way to get me interested in a foreign tongue if there ever was one.  Well done, textbook publishers.  You know your audience.

Thinking that, as a parent all these years later, I knew my audience just as well, I decided to make churros and hot chocolate for the kids on their snow day last week.  Just because I was pissed off that school got cancelled didn’t mean everyone else had to suffer.  (Although, if I have to pay for another day of Preschool that gets snowed out, Mother Nature and I will come to blows.  There are four days during the week with no Preschool.  Why can’t it snow then?) 

So, I proceeded to get the chocolate melting and the lard a-bubblin’.  I wasn’t worried.  I mean, what’s not to like?  Fried dough.  Chocolate.  Well, the children didn’t offer up any specifics, but the Kindergartener took one bite of his churro, calmly returned it to the tangled mass of remaining churros, and silently withdrew back into his imaginary Pokemon world.  The 3YO, in typical form, took his and smashed it on the floor in disgust.  If you ever want to push my buttons, Internet, this is a good way to start.  Disrespect something I just lovingly deep-fried for you and then walk away without a backwards glance.  That right there is a recipe for rage.  (Later on, when the neighbors came over, the 3YO ate about 20 churros once he saw his best friend/arch-nemesis eating some.  Chalk one up for peer pressure.)

We adults enjoyed the remaining 150 churros with rich, steaming cups of Taza Chocolate with a hint of cinnamon.  If you don’t know about this Somerville chocolate factory, you must educate yourself.  Quick, before the winter is up.  Start by converting their stone-ground disks of pure heaven into beverage form, and then you will understand why the Mayans built temples for chocolate.  Or whatever it was they built temples for.  Quiet, snowless days, perhaps?

Churros

This makes a giant plate full of them.  Invite snowbound neighbors over to help you eat them all because they truly suck the next day. 

10 Tbsp. butter
1 cup water
2/3 cup flour
3 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk
Grated rind of 1 orange
Lard (or oil) for frying
Confectioner’s sugar and cinnamon for dusting
Hot chocolate for dunking

Add butter and water to a medium saucepan, and heat until butter melts.  Bring to a rolling boil.  Meanwhile, sift the flour at least twice and, as soon as the water boils, add it to the pot.  Remove pot from heat and beat until the mixture forms a ball and leaves the sides of the pan clean.  Let it cool about 10 minutes before you add the eggs so they don’t scramble.  Then add the eggs, yolk, and orange rind.

Heat the lard or oil in a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan to a temperature between 350°-375°F (or until a cube of bread browns in 30 seconds).  Adjust the flame as needed to keep the temperature more or less in that range.  Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a medium or large star nozzle.  Pipe strands of dough into the hot oil, pressing the tip against the side of the pan to pinch off the dough.  Alternatively, if you can’t be bothered with a pastry bag, I don’t see why you couldn’t just spoon in the dough, beignet-style.  Fry until golden brown on each side, flipping once.  Remove with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. 

Mix together cinnamon and sugar, and sift gently over churros.  Serve warm with hot chocolate, dunking liberally.

Source: Adapted from Bite-Sized Spain by Sharyn Conlan and Anne Crane

My Dorito Revelation

Doritos are delicious.  Okay, that part I already knew.  But did you know that Doritos now come in additional flavors besides Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch?  Like hot wings and blue cheese?  AND.  And now they have these multi-compartment bags that have, get this, as many as two flavors inside?  See, this is why the Super Bowl is important to me.  I get to update my snacking knowledge.

Maybe you already knew this.  I’m sorry if I live in a hole, but I can’t have that shit in the house otherwise I’ll ignore all daily activities to devote myself full-time to emptying any brightly colored bags of their contents.  I won’t even walk down that aisle at the grocery store.  What’s that you say?  How is a bag of chips any different than butter, lard, and all the other fattening farm products I buy?  To you I say, SHUT UP!  Stop trying to confuse me with your petty logic. 

The difference is that I can’t work Doritos into a coherent meal the same way I can with butter and pork.  If I could make a savory tart crust out of Doritos, I totally would (writing note to myself as we speak).  Or Dorito-crusted “local” mahi-mahi (sounds good and not bad).  Maybe sprinkle them over a salad?  Or over my face?  It hardly matters.

So who won the Super Bowl?  I hope it was the Cardinals.  I love a team that can play two sports.