Category: Food Page 2 of 3

Subway Heat

On September 15, 2010

My daughter and I got Subway sandwiches tonight. Both of us ordered every vegetable, including those blazing jalapeño peppers.

I love those things, but as soon as I eat one I start coughing violently. The peppers burn my throat so much I can’t even stop coughing long enough to drink cold water.

“Mom, you always do this,” my daughter said with disgust. “You always eat that hot stuff and gag for ten minutes.”

“But I love it so,” I said a few minutes later when I could gasp out an answer.

I ordered the entire assortment of vegetables, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, mustard, cheese – everything you could think of, and all I could taste were those jalapeños.

“I don’t know why I get all this stuff, all I can taste is the jalapeños,” I said. “And they’re burning my mouth so much it hurts.”

“Why do you do it?” she asked with the interest of a teenager bored with her mother’s foolish habits but trained to be polite.

“I love them,” I said, like some junkie justifying my habit.

The bad thing about getting ALL the vegetables is that there is no physical way they can fit between two buns. The guy finishes loading the sandwich and flips the top bun over and it just sticks straight up in the air – it makes an “L” shape. He has to bear down with both hands – hard – to get the top to go halfway over the sandwich. Then he wraps it really quickly and stuffs it into a plastic sleeve to further insure its stability.

At home, when I try to open the wrap, lettuce springs out like confetti from one of those little pop bottle things you aim at people on New Year’s Eve. Chunks of green pepper and onions cascade to my lap in a veggie waterfall. The liquid ooze of all that vinegar and oil and mustard and smushed tomatoes drips out the bottom. If I don’t put a plate under there, and I usually don’t because I’m sitting in front of the TV, my lap looks like somebody tossed a salad on it.

Another thing. Subway needs to quit carrying those salt and vinegar potato chips. Those things are too good. While the guy was making my sandwiches, I grabbed a bag and scarfed down all 230 calories before he was done. Jared would be so ashamed of me. Man oh man are those things addictive. My mouth was puckered from the salt and acid from the vinegar, but it was worth it.

I believe I had better hit the hay early because I’m probably going to have the WORST nightmares after consuming all of those things so late at night. My my my, the little culinary delights in life make the days bright and the nights a fright, but that’s all right. Ahhh, goodnight.

A Look at Brain Food

By Suzanne Olsen

On September 2, 2010

In Food

First, please share with me the celebration of my 300^th blog! Whoo-hoo! My goal was to write a post a day for one year, and I’m almost there. Break out the champagne!

This seems a good occasion to write about brain food. Why? Because without a brain I couldn’t think up 300 blogs, much less type them up. Granted, some people are able to do many, many things seemingly without a brain, but I’m not that gifted. Therefore I must take care of mine.

Let us first start out by discussing what brain food is. According to some astrophysicist surgeon on OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting), it’s “food that feeds the brain.”

One such food is walnuts. The major “brains” in the world say that this is a brain food because it LOOKS like a brain. You observe any average walnut and the first thing that comes to your mind is, “that thing looks just like a brain.” This is why it’s the number one brain food in my book.

Another stellar brain food is the blueberry. Why? Because blood is blue, and you need blue blood to go up to the brain and check things out, see how all the memories are holding together and so forth, then go back to the heart and tell all the valves to keep pumping, and then back to the brain. Busy, busy busy.

The reason blood is blue is because it doesn’t have any oxygen or something – some doctor tried to explain it to me and I couldn’t get it. I think he was pulling my leg. Which he was. I had a swollen ankle. He insisted that the blood is blue in the veins – which you can see for yourself, go ahead, look at a vein – I’ll wait. See, it’s blue. The doc claimed that the blood turns red the second it comes in contact with oxygen, that’s why it always looks red when we get a paper cut.

This is why blueberries are brain food – because they keep that blue blood blue as nature intended. This makes the brain happy.

Another brain food is coffee beans, in the form of espresso. You will notice that people who drink a lot of espresso are bouncing around, full of energy, and have to go to the bathroom frequently. Because of this, they get a lot of exercise. Exercise is very good for the brain. Nobody wants to be a “fat head.” Drinking caffeine helps prevent this condition. Actually, it’s not the caffeine that makes this a brain food, it’s the exercise. Or something like that – I didn’t finish reading because it got too technical with antioxidants and ribo-thing-a-ma-jigs, and I got bored.

There are many, many more foods that the brain likes – such as broccoli. It likes flowers and broccoli is made up of flowerettes, or maybe that’s cauflower. Either way, the brain is a sensitive organ that likes to be surrounded by lovely things, such as flowers, and since the brain has no eyes, it can’t tell that flowerettes, when it comes to broccoli, is just a green nub on a stalk.

I notice that I’ve used the words “brain food” a million times already, so this is a good time to end our discussion of these wonderful, natural additions to our diets that can help that area above our eyeballs function better (I’m trying not to say those words anymore).

Now if you’ll excuse me, the bubbles are escaping from my champagne!

I Scream for Chocolate

By Suzanne Olsen

On August 30, 2010

In Food

I took a notion for a chocolate dipped ice cream cone tonight, so I went by the Dairy Queen. I told the clerk I wanted just a little one. Last time I was there I think the clerk got distracted when she was filling the cone with soft ice cream. It came out looking like the leaning tower of Pisa. It was so tall, the top of it smeared the roof of my car.

When I ordered a little cone with not much ice cream, she didn’t understand. I could have explained to her that I really just wanted the chocolate shell around the ice cream, but it seemed more trouble than it was worth so I just repeated I only wanted a little cone.

“We have a child’s cone,” she said.

So I ordered that and when it got there, it was still too big. It was a normal adult sized, sensible cone. I forced myself to eat it all rather than litter up my car with sticky drippings.

Speaking of drippings, I love the way the ice cream melts under the chocolate shell and runs like little rivers out from underneath. On a hot day you’ll spend the whole time trying to dam up those flows with your tongue, turning the cone round and round to try and catch them all.

When I was a kid my brother talked the neighborhood kids into helping him distribute free samples of Palmolive liquid soap and a couple of other products by offering to treat us to anything we wanted at Dairy Queen. He got a whole bunch of us together, which ended up being me, my friend Christine, my friend Carol and her five brothers and sisters, plus his friend, Clark Reese.

The samples had to be stuffed into a bag, so he got us in assembly lines, each person stuffing one item and passing the bag to the next person. It was pretty ingenious. We loaded up boxes of these things, and then he drove us around delivering them. I grabbed a handful of bags and ran up one side of the street, and Clark covered the other side.

When it was all done, all the helpers walked down to the Dairy Queen and got anything we wanted. Of course most of us ordered banana splits because those were luxury, deluxe, expensive treats that none of us ever got. I don’t know how much my brother made on the deal, but we were all pretty happy with our pay.

I wish I knew how they made those chocolate dipped cones, though. McDonald’s makes them too, and once I asked the person there for only a little ice cream. She said, “What?” as if to say, “Are you crazy? You gonna pay full price and not get a full cone?” I told her I just wanted the chocolate.

“Then I’ll give you your money’s worth,” she said. She dipped the cone several times until it had a real thick coating on it. It was so thick it stayed warm and was creamy and smooth in my mouth. What a feast. Nobody else has ever done it like that for me since.

Makes me think of that rhyme,

I scream

You scream

We all scream

For ice cream

‘Specially when they dip

Chocolate coating all over it.

Sleepless Nights? Try Tater Tots and Beer

By Suzanne Olsen

On July 6, 2010

In Food, Writing

I went to the Willamette Writer’s meeting tonight after having dinner with four members of my writing group. We drank beer – a big mistake for me since it makes me very sleepy. I worry I’ll fall asleep and knock teeth out on the beer mug.

The speaker talked about writing mysteries. My group likes to sit in the front row, which meant that I was forced to keep my eyes open and not doze off. Unfortunately, I was not up to the challenge. I had also eaten a whole basket of tater tots, which are often used in primitive jungle cultures as a sleep aid. Fight as I might, my eyes were shut tight.

That’s right. Luckily others around me were taking notes so they couldn’t see my head bobbing, but I know the speaker saw me. She was not blind, after all. The sad thing is that she was quite interesting. Her name was April Henry, in case you want to get her books.

I think I missed out on quite a bit, but here’s the part I heard. If you want to make sure readers will stay glued to your mystery plot, you need to apply a special contact cement to the cover (available at fine publishing houses everywhere). That way they CAN’T put the book down.

If you’re not able to do this for moral or ethical reasons, then you’d better write an interesting story, which is easier than you think. All you have to do is pick out one of your characters and make him your protagonist (the good guy), and then make everyone else act suspicious, and then have an antagonist (bad guy) or two. The bad guys have to do mean things to the good guy in order for the story to be interesting. And one mean thing is not nearly enough – they have to spatter the good guy with so many mean things it would be like getting shot with a shotgun and every little shot would be a bad thing, if you know what I mean.

The presentation was very well done and progressed nicely. In fact, it whizzed by but that could have been due to the tots. Forty-five minutes later, the speaker asked if anyone had questions. This is the part I hate. The auditorium was full, which meant there were quite a few people who needed to demonstrate their writing acumen by asking questions they probably already knew the answer to, just to show off their writing jargon.

For example, one woman said, “In your genre, when do you decide who is going to be the antagonist? Is that during your opening scenes or do you wait until the dénouement?”

The WHAT? The speaker was pretty cool. She wasn’t about to be sucked into such foolishness. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Unfortunately, this was exactly what the woman wanted to hear, because she elaborated in such contrived babble that I took another ten-minute snooze. When I woke up, she was still spewing jargon like a shaken up Coke.

“I don’t approach my writing that way,” said the speaker, finally. “So I really don’t know how to answer your question. Anyone else have a question?”

I loved it! These long-winded misanthropes waste everyone’s time, and most speakers end up being too embarrassed or compassionate to cut them off. Although I’ll say one thing about them, their sophisticated mumbo jumbo is great background white noise for sleeping.

I have barely been able to keep my eyes open this whole evening. Tots and beer will do this to you, so the moral of this story is – shovel all the crap you can in front of your protagonist and sit back and take a nap while s/he figures out what to do about it. And if you want a best seller, be sure to weave tater tots into the plot. That could put the protagonist to sleep while the antagonist ties little knots in her hair. The possibilities are endless.

Too Much Spice in My Life

By Suzanne Olsen

On July 3, 2010

In Food, Relationships

I just went to put something away in the kitchen and noticed a whole mess of new spices on an already overcrowded shelf.

This would not worry a normal person, and it doesn’t worry me either, but it bugs the crap out of me on so many levels that they would overflow this post like a stopped up toilet.

Don’t even say the words, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” because I will fly right out of your computer screen and choke you to within an inch of your life.

There is already a full bottle of Cream of Tartar in the nicely alphabetized spice drawer. Who even uses it? I once had a jar of Cream of Tartar for over 20 years. It’s not in a lot of recipes, and when I needed it, the old stuff worked just fine – it was still as pearly white as the day I bought it. In fact, I only discarded it to make room for the new jar my husband bought a couple of months ago, and NOW THERE’S ANOTHER ONE!

You’re asking, “What’s her problem, so what if there’s an extra little jar of spice? What’s the big freaking deal?” I’m warning you, I am THIS CLOSE to reaching out and poking you in the eyes. It’s not just the one bottle. There are at least 15 duplicate spices in the cabinet, with fresh ones being added daily – and these in addition to the 50 that are in the spice drawer. That’s why I had to alphabetize them – there are so many I could never find the one I was looking for.

It is just baffling to me why my husband keeps buying spices we don’t need. Was there a spice commercial like this – “Did you ever go into your kitchen and whip up a batch of cinnamon cookies only to find that you are (Insert Stabbing Sounds from the Psycho Movie) OUT OF CINNAMON? (Actress with bad complexion and no makeup brings her hands to her face like she’s discovered a dead body). Then you need SPICE INSURANCE! We will send you every spice known to the free world – all for the low cost of $349. When you get ready to run out, just notify us in advance and we’ll replace your spice FREE OF CHARGE (Voluptuous blond actress holds package of arriving spice next to her overflowing cleavage). Don’t ever disappoint your loved ones again with a spiceless recipe (Sad children looking at empty plate). Order SPICE INSURANCE today! (Happy family beaming at their spices with a tray of fresh cookies in the background that you can smell right through the TV).

Ever wonder why I’m not making millions doing TV commercials? I’m a natural, aren’t I? I’d be happy to produce something for you if you’d send money in advance, along with a working video camera.

Here’s the problem. My husband likes to cook, and he likes to grocery shop. He does not like to be bothered with looking in the spice drawer to see what’s already in there. It’s easier for him just to buy a new bottle. He doesn’t care that it will sit on the shelf for the next eight years unopened. I understand that.

What I don’t understand is that we live at the virtual apex of at least 6 grocery stores – two are within a half-mile of our house. There’s a 24-hour Albertsons about a mile and a half away. Would there ever be a time that, if we ran out of a spice, we’d need a replacement faster than the ten minutes it would take to get to the store and back? Is this justification for twenty extra containers of spices taking up prime real estate space on my panty shelves?

If you say, “Yes,” even in a whisper, I will creep out of your computer late one night and pour cake batter in your favorite shoe. You’ll know it was me by the jar of Cream of Tartar I’ll leave as a calling card.

Drink Life Up Without Regrets

By Suzanne Olsen

On June 18, 2010

In Food

We had some Chinese food last night and ended up with leftovers. One box was this really good green bean stuff with little chunks of garlic that is out of this world. I scooped out all the green beans and put them on a plate to pop in the microwave with the other stuff. I got ready to toss the box in the garbage and noticed there was some juice in the bottom full of those little chunks of garlic.

I was starving and it looked so good, I started to tilt the box up and drink it like you would out of a milk carton. You know the Chinese take out boxes I’m talking about? They have those little fold tops. I needed to fold them completely down or that fabulous liquid would start toward my wide-open mouth and run out between the slits and I’d lose some of it.

I moved the top lids down so that my mouth could be very close to the box but it still didn’t make contact. I knew there was a risk that some of the liquid would miss my mouth. Should I pour it into a cup. Nope. I tilted that box up faster that lightning strikes, and all that liquid ran out between the slits and headed right down the front of my top. Not only did it go inside the low cut top, it went between the cleavage, out the bottom of my bra that doesn’t make total contact in that one and only spot – women know what I’m talking about – and ran down my stomach nearly to my belly button.

I must say I had no idea liquid could flow that fast. From a purely scientific standpoint, it was quite remarkable. And what are the odds that the liquid would find it’s way right down that cleavage? A little to the left or right and the damage would have been contained.

As it was, I was drenched all the way down the front of me by what appeared to be no more that a teaspoon or two of benign fluid at the bottom of a small cardboard box.

There are forces in nature we do not understand, but they plot and scheme to work against us so that, ultimately, we don’t get the impression that we are intelligent beings in control of our own lives. These forces cause us to get tripped up on feet so used to walking that some people can do it in their sleep. They make it so we can’t remember the debit card pin that we’ve been using daily for ten years when there is a line behind us as long as the equator. They make food leap off a fork as it travels to our mouth and land in the lap of a silk dress that is Dry Clean Only. The list is infinite, and I’m not the only person who has been dealt the cruel hand of fate. How many times have you heard people say, “I don’t know what’s wrong with this key, it always worked before?” or “Of all the luck…”

The heartbreaking thing about tonight’s Chinese food incident is that (a), I didn’t get to enjoy that glorious nectar, and (2) I knew it was going to happen. I was getting the vibe big time that it was going to spill on me, but I decided to gamble. I thought if I tried, I’d have a 50-50 chance that it wouldn’t spill, or worst case, it would spill but only a little. I knew I was taking a chance, and I could have poured the stuff in a cup. Why didn’t I? Because I thought that would be a stupid waste of a clean cup, and it would take a few seconds more and I wasn’t willing to wait.

What have we learned from this?

First, we’ve learned that I’m an idiot.

Second, we’ve learned that if something can go wrong it will, so only an idiot would gamble on getting a lucky break, even just this once.

Third, we’ve learned that we can console ourselves with a Costco cookie and some chocolate pudding, which, combined, turned out to be a nice consolation for the missed green bean juice.

And finally, we’ve learned that being cautious is probably a good way to go, but it’s not nearly as interesting, and living your life in fear of Chinese juice in your cleavage is just living a half life. I say, don’t be afraid to go for it all. Better to have tipped the box and gotten soaked than drink out of a cup like some little know-it-all sissy girl who wants to act superior all the time. That’s just not me, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Now excuse me while I go take a shower.

Your Blogist Is So Fat

By Suzanne Olsen

On May 22, 2010

In Food

I realize my last few posts make me appear to be a glutton. And I am. But I do work out quite a bit and have managed to stay in the same clothes for years. Yes, they are ragged and worn out, but that’s another blog.

I have to change my ways, though. I read that it’s unhealthy to overeat, even if you don’t get fat. All this talk about being fat makes me think of Yo Mama jokes, so I’ve gathered a few here for our entertainment.

Yo mama is so fat she looks at a menu and says, “Okay!”

Yo mama is so fat she had to go to Sea World to get baptized.

Yo mama is so fat you have to grease the doorway and hold a Twinkie on the other side just to get her through.

This last one is my favorite. I went online to get more and found this really awful. These are so bad I think someone from a non-English speaking country made them up because they aren’t funny and the person couldn’t spell. See for yourself – I copied these verbatim from the website:

Yo mama so fat she used a thin mashine to make her thin instead she became fatter.

so mama so fat her pansy size is is is ***** lose some weight.

I think some people set up websites just to make money from the millions of ads they have on there.

Here are a couple more I found on TIME Magazine’s website that are supposed to be the top 10 Yo Momma Jokes. These are really bad. TIME has no sense of humor:

Yo mama so fat she sat on a rainbow and Skittles popped out.

Yo mama so fat, she jumped up in the air and got stuck.

Does anyone even get this last one? If you do, please explain it to me, because I’m not seeing it.

Here’s a couple I like:

Yo mama is so fat, when she was diagnosed with a flesh-eating disease, the doctors gave her 14 years to live.

Yo mama is so fat, when she gets her shoes shined, she has to take the guy’s word for it.

Yo mama is so fat, she’s got shock absorbers on her toilet seat.

Someone once said, “Don’t criticize the way someone else does something if you’re not willing to do it yourself.” Actually, I just said that as a lead in to these Yo Mama jokes I just made up. They are no worse than some of the ones I’ve seen. Since I made them up, and since I’m complaining about being fat, I changed them to Yo blogist – get it – blog ist – someone who blogs. Do I always have to explain everything?!!!!!

Yo blogist is so fat they sound the tsunami warning every time she gets in the ocean.

Yo blogist is so fat her mobile home is a triple-wide.

Yo blogist is so fat her desk chair cowers when she comes into the office.

Yo blogist is so fat, when she jumps in bed her husband gets catapulted out the door.

Your blogist is so fat, when she sits at the kitchen table, half of her is still in the living room.

Pretty funny, huh? If I think of some more good ones, I’ll let you know. Hmmm. You know what? Buttered popcorn sounds pretty tasty right now. Or a carrot. Decisions, decisions.

The Dog Ate My Blog Post

By Suzanne Olsen

On May 22, 2010

In Food, Friends

I didn’t do my blog yesterday because my dog ate it.

Actually, it fell out of my notebook and got wet and the ink all ran and the paper fell apart and I didn’t have time to redo it.

What really happened is that my daughter stuffed it into her backpack because she thought it was her homework.

Actually, my husband wadded it up and used it with a bunch of newspaper as a pad under a hot casserole dish that he put in a cardboard box to take to a potluck because he didn’t want to burn the seat of his car.

Really what happened is I got a massage yesterday by Helga the Swiss dominatrix, a friend of a friend who came highly recommended and was giving a good deal – I’m too cheap to get a massage unless it’s nearly free or a gift.

Normal women should not have this much strength, especially if they have spears for elbows. She planted the point of her elbow at the beginning of each of my muscle groups and bore down with all she had until she was on the verge of skewering me, then very v..e..r..y slowly dragged the elbow across the entire muscle. Ligaments and tendons ducked for cover as she smashed them down like a steamroller until the elbow eventually reached the other side.

I took it like a man because I thought it was supposed to be “good” for me. But she was enthusiastically sadistic. I’d made the mistake of telling her that I had a knot in my neck – probably from blogging – and she gave that area extra special attention. She “stretched out” my neck by standing behind me why I lay on the torture rack and pushing my head forward until my chin was pressing down into my sternum. I thought at any second my head would snap off in her hands and she’d turn the severed head around and hold it at her eye level and say, “oops!” with a wicked grin.

When I left, I was at least 3 inches taller and throbbing so much from head to toe that, seriously, there was no way I could sit and write.

Besides, friends came over and we had appetizers and wine to tide us over for the fifteen-minute drive downtown to get dinner. I was pretty full by the time I left the house because eating distracted me from the pain, and the wine was the perfect medicinal vintage to dull the shooting pains spiking every few minutes.

The restaurant we wanted to try was Toro Bravo. If you’re ever in Portland, you HAVE to go there. But expect to wait an hour and a half to get a table if you go at the same time as everyone else because they don’t take reservations. We killed the time by going to Afrique Bistro – pronounced af– freek by us but who knows what it’s actually called. There we had more wine and appetizers which were really, really tasty (cucumber salad and cheese spinach). I was starting to wish for elastic-waist pants.

When we were done there, we decided to check out Russell Street Bar-B-Que (all of these are on NE Russell Street). There we had pints of IPA beer and two orders of hush puppies. These were the real deal – the hush puppy was about the size of a chopped-off finger and cooked through. They were delicious with butter, and each order had 12 hush puppies, so doing that math, that gave us a total of 24, which meant that, since there were 4 of us, I got 12 and everyone else got 4. We also nibbled two pralines there.

They called us from Toro Bravo to say our table was ready, and we waddled back there and ordered no fewer than 10 appetizers (or tapas) because we wanted to sample all the flavors. And another bottle of wine, which unfortunately had the unpleasant side effect of causing a pain in my forehead, although the rest of my body had long since ceased complaining. Except for my stomach. It was yelling and screaming, “Stop, you freaking idiot. DO NOT put that fork in your mouth again. DO NOT!!!!! You are the stupidest human being in the world. No one has ever continued eating like this when they are COMPLETELY FULL and not regretted it. You will have to run 10 miles tomorrow to burn all of this off. Please stop. I’m begging you. P..l..e..a..s..e.” My stomach’s voice continued like this as I stabbed another potato, pickled beet, and cheese bread slice. It had pretty much given up by the time Julie and I shared a lava cake with ice cream for dessert.

By the time we got home, it was very late, I was very miserable, and I had a headache. And that’s when the dog ate my blog.

ADDENDUM (for extra credit): Speaking of dogs, let me explain about hush puppies. I’m originally from the South so I know that, when people here in Portland make hush puppies big and round, it’s not right. True hush puppies are corn bread batter dropped into hot fat. They fry until they’re browned on the outside and cooked through – and each one of them is like a snowflake – no two are alike. The big round ones can have wet dough in the middle because the heat can’t get in there quick enough to cook the center without burning the outside. If you want a good batch of fried okra, go to Miss Delta (on NE Mississippi), but don’t order the hush puppies there. They are okay, but they’re round and they don’t taste like a real hush puppy and you dip them in gravy, which isn’t bad, but it’s not the real thing.

Vegetable Banter

By Suzanne Olsen

On May 7, 2010

In Food, Uncategorized

Today I went to the high school to volunteer tutor but I didn’t have any takers for awhile so I pondered the names of fruits and vegetables.

Eggplant. Where did that get its name? Sure, it looks like an egg in shape, but it’s purple. Maybe some purple dinosaur could have laid such an egg, but it seems an odd name. A cherry, on the other hand, is well named. It’s a happy fruit – a cheery fruit, if you will.

But who came up with the name for squash? It’s a word most often used to describe what you do to a bug. There’s a game called squash that’s played with racquets. I guess you could use the rackets to squash a bug, but it would probably crawl through the little holes. The point is, it’s neither a logical nor an appetizing name for a vegetable, and you just have to wonder how it got its name.

Some names don’t show any creativity at all. Green beans is one. You’ve got a bean and it’s green, so you go, “Duh, what will we call this thing. Uh, let me see, uh, I’ll think of something, uh, just give me another second here, it’s going to be a good one, uh, okay here’s what we’ll call it: GREEN BEAN! Star fruit is the same way. And I’ve never seen breadfruit – does it look like a loaf of bread?

If you want creative names, go to the melons. I love the name “casaba.” I’ve never eaten one but they sound exotic, like something you’d eat in your cabana on the beach. There’s also honeydew melons. Doesn’t that sound delicious? And cantaloupe, which sounds like some kind of sailboat – spinnaker sails catching the wind and good-looking guys in deck shoes and microbrews, slurping the juicy summery orange melon and tossing the rinds over the side. All of these are members of the muskmelon family, just so you know.

Also, here’s something interesting. If you scramble melons you get lemons. Did someone look at lemons and say, “These are the same shape as melons but we can’t call them the same thing or it will be way too confusing. I know! Lets rearrange the letters and come up with a whole new word!”

The Legume Family has some odd characters. The little guy is named a chickpea, which sounds sweet and cuddly, but it is also called the garbanzo bean, which sounds like a guy who smokes pot and surfs all day. My daughter was about four years old and had this little orange figurine that she called, “Orangie.” She was trying to be like her big brother, who gave everything nicknames, so she informed us that “his name is Orangie but you can call him “Tail.” We laughed so hard she started crying but we couldn’t help it – the thing didn’t even have a tail. It was two totally unrelated names that made no sense, just like chickpeas and garbanzo beans.

Here’s some names that do make sense: blackberry and blueberry. They at least let you know what kind of berry you’re getting. But what about strawberry? Is it the color of straw? Does it look like straw? Does it at least taste like straw? No. Then what genius came up with that name?

Here are names I like but they’re hard to spell – pistachios, avocado, cilantro, and rhubarb. In fact, my spell check says I’ve gotten two of the four wrong.

Finally, there’s the potato and tomato, so similar in so many ways. You can slice ‘em, dice ‘em and rhyme ‘em.

Here’s a sentence I made up that I think is particularly clever: This thyme lettuce squash and beet the boysenberry them before the news leeks to Rosemary.

Luckily for you, a student came into the library wanting my tutoring services, so my fruit and vegetable musings stopped here.

Eat Your Broccoli – Maybe

By Suzanne Olsen

On April 9, 2010

In Food

I got another really nice response from Geoff the Meteorite Man about the blog I wrote. I’m actually all a-twitter over your attention and positive comments. Glad you liked the terrier comment – that was my favorite too, and pretty apt, I’d say. Geoff, you’re a really nice guy and I have no qualms about shamelessly promoting your show on this blog and Facebook. WATCH METEORITE MEN ON THE SCIENCE CHANNEL!

Speaking of science, I like to use the latest scientific research to try and stay healthy. When they tell me to eat my broccoli, I’m all over it because it’s got some really good long words in it that scientists say are very healthy. Imagine my confusion today when I was reading Woman’s World – that half magazine, half newspaper hybrid at your local grocery store check stand. It’s a great little source of all kinds of information, and I bought a copy because it had a picture of Oprah on the front and she was looking pretty buff. I don’t watch a lot of afternoon TV, and the last time I saw her she was twice this size. The caption said something about losing weight on a bread diet. I said to myself, “Bread diet? Hmmm. That sounds like the perfect way to deflate my spare tire – if Oprah can do it and she was carrying a whole set, then so can I.”

I was picturing a nice warm loaf of bread with some butter and cherry preserves for breakfast. A loaf with olive oil and balsamic vinegar for lunch. And another loaf for dinner, open faced with a little gravy dribbled over it – not too much – no sense in overdoing the calories. Of course it wasn’t like that at all. You get a couple of thin slices of Danish rye bread that you have to bake yourself, and all the rest of the diet is the regular healthy stuff like 4 oz. of broiled fish and so forth. Not that it doesn’t look really appealing, but I felt a little let down about the whole bread thing. I was picturing little curls of steam rising off the top of a plump white loaf, some soft butter painting a light yellow coat over a thick, creamy slice, warm and yeasty and full of nostalgic flavors….

As I was saying about broccoli – I always thought you couldn’t go wrong with this particular cruciferous vegetable, but according to Woman’s Day, it is loaded with goitrogens. Yes, that’s right, those awful little rascals want nothing more in life than to slow down your thyroid function. The good news is that you can BUTTER your broccoli and it will keep those guys busy swimming around in so they don’t have the inclination to mess with your thyroid. I will eat butter on just about anything (which explains the spare tire) so this somewhat disturbing news has a silver lining.

There was good news about dark chocolate – it makes you a math whiz. It contains flavonols – the scientific word for lots of flavor – and they increase the blood to your brain so that you can be an Einstein when it comes to counting backwards from 999, something I will have to start doing a lot more often if it means I can have more chocolate.

Here’s another unexpected bit of health news. Just when I was starting to get good at texting because I was worried about using my cell phone (and also because my kids will actually respond to texts), I read that cell phones aren’t harmful because a new study says so, and they may even ward off Alzheimer’s. Imagine that. Not too long ago I was reading about the need to limit cell phone use and now I can use it all I want for medicinal purposes. This explains why, with all the texting, I’ve have been forgetting things lately. I’ll have to quit texting and go back to calling, which my kids won’t like but it’s all in the interest of good health and well-being, at least for the time being, until they come up with some new study.

And in conclusion, did I mention how much I LOVE the show Meteorite Men?