Totally Shameless Promotion

In the name of getting free stuff...


But, in my defense, it is really good free stuff. Katie ("Sweet Tater") arranged for a give-away of a set of "unpaper towels." I have realized that we use a ridiculous amount of paper towels in our household when my wife made a special emergency trip to the store for a case of them the other day. Maybe a set of "unpaper towels" would help. Here's hoping I win...

Check out her blog and the giveaway here.

Fresh Prunes?

I'm still trying to figure out if this is worse than when they were marketing prunes as "dried plums" to avoid the prunes' stigma as a home remedy for constipation.

Anyhow, these were in the produce section of Costco, right down from the "fresh raisins."

OK, so according to the Wikipedia, there may be a distinction between certain fruits (specifically the freestone and clingstone varieties) where one is a "prune" and the other is a "plum." Thus, it is possible to have "fresh prunes." I am not buying it though. I suspect that Stellar Distributing merely changed the Wikipedia entry on prunes to suit their marketing goof...

Pond Cow

Tart

Closeup of a fruit tart I made the other day. The purpose was to use up a bunch of blueberries we had in the fridge, but my wife doesn't like blueberries, so I made her side with strawberry jam...



Oh yeah, and I used a new thing on the blueberries--roasted lemon peel. Idea courtesy of Chocolate and Zucchini.

Oprah

I realized in a conversation yesterday that I deeply distrust anything related to, or endorsed by Oprah. Is that wrong?

Them Belgians...

... really know what they are doing.

The Farm Market

Since my garden is a huge disappointment this year (thanks to Phil the groundhog who lives in our backyard), I have had to turn elsewhere for my produce. I feel sort of like Kramer in the episode where he gets banned from the fruit stand.

Anyhow, I have located a pretty cool "farm market" that is keeping me going for the season. I guess it is a farm market instead of a farmers market because none of the folks there are actually farmers. Mostly high school kids. But, most of the produce purports to be local and they have a great selection.

I picked these bad-boy up on a recent trip:




And turned them into this:



It was good.

We went out to my favorite restaurant tonight for my birthday, which is always a treat. While scanning the menu, I found myself shying away from usual favorites from the gulf like shrimp, oysters, and flounder thinking that they couldn't be as fresh or local as they have been in years past. Shame on me, and shame on BP for making it so. I'm so glad that the wells are (supposedly) capped now, but still so sad for the devastation.