The Answer

It's not chocolate! It's my new iPass! They mailed it to me like this! Weird. So, so weird. Right?

Aluminum Foil Quiz

I received this foil packet in the mail. What is it?
The answer will be revealed tomorrow!

All About Prison

Important information from a seven year-old:

"If you set off the alarm, the fireman will put you in jail. When you get to jail, you can NEVER EVER pick out your own food. I don't think they give you any food at all. If they did, the food would be really bad. And the beds are so hard with no sheets."

The Ketchup Chronicles

When you ask a group of 6 through 10 year-olds to tell you
Things About Ketchup, here is what they say:

tomato-based
aaaaah! blood!
ketchup? You'd better catch up!
it's so good on cheeseburgers
you can dip ketchup in potato chips
you can put it on Wheaties if you have to
it's a food
it's red
I don't like it
it has a lot of sugar in it
it has a lot of high fructose corn syrup in it
it's a liquid food
it's good for french fries
it's made out of tomato sauce
eat it with chicken nuggets or other foods
I like it

It's Not Blood

 

Let's just say it's 1,000 degrees on a Monday evening in July, and you decide that the butter on the counter got so melty during the day that you might as well make cookies with it. So you make the dough and you think, hey, this isn't so bad, this whole cooking thing, and then you remember you haven't turned the oven on yet, so you turn it on and immediately the kitchen is sweltering. And, then, well, you're hot, and baking sounds like the worst idea ever, and and even though you're pretty tired, you think a nice icy cocktail would make you feel better. So you mix yourself a nice Manhattan, complete with brandied cherries from the brand new batch you just made a few weeks ago, give it all a stir, then put the cherries back in the fridge. Except. Except, wait. Instead of putting the cherries on the actual shelf, your brain decides it would be a good plan to put them on the invisible shelf. And the cherries decide its good to be mobile, and the next thing you know the entire jar is on the floor, gigantic glass shards are everywhere, and it certainly looks a bit like a murder scene. Hmm. Interesting.

So, what's a girl to do? My advice: pivot around without moving from your location. Survey the glass damage. Confirm what just happened. Figure out the most important thing: are the cherries ruined? (Answer: yes.) Determine that glass is everywhere, remind yourself you have bare feet. Still standing in a semi-awkward position, reach for your Manhattan. Drink. Quickly. Review damage again. Think about how incredibly hot it is in the kitchen. Realize you're burning the cookies. Curse. Save the cookies, creeping stealthily through the shards. Wonder if the red syrup is staining the floor. Decide it's probably not, and if it is, it will be cool because it will look like a bloodstain. Classy! Gorgeous! Contemporary vampire culture is calling!

Eventually, you find yourself leaping over the mess to gather your camera, because what could be more important than documenting this catastrophe? It's worth it. Eventually, you're cleaning up the spill, using an entire roll of paper towels, finding glass bits in the oddest places, and you're on your hands and knees, and you're very close to the oven, which is really hot, and you're sweating, and the jar of cherries has to go in the trash, and you make a new grocery list that says: cherries, brandy, paper towels. And the floor is still really, really sticky, and you're sitting on it, thinking you hope you aren't sitting on glass, and you think, these ridiculous moments are the most important moments of my life. And it's gloriously absurd, really, and, well, you can always make more cherries, and you can always get a new jar, and the floor can get un-sticky again, and, well, it's summer and this is all actually quite funny, and, well, everything is okay when you have a cocktail and when you're happy in your heart (which likely looks quite a lot like that mess on the floor).

Better-In-A-Drink-Than-On-The-Floor Brandied Cherries

Start with 12 oz frozen dark sweet cherries, thawed with juice reserved. You should end up with about 10T juice. Add water to equal 1 1/2 cups. Add 1/2 cup sugar, cherries, and bring to a boil. Simmer 1 minute, remove from heat. Remove cherries with a slotted spoon and place in a jar. Add 1/2 C brandy or cognac, cover, and set aside. Bring cherry syrup to a boil, then continue until reduced to 1 cup. Pour over cherries, refrigerate. Do not balance precariously on edge of refrigerator shelf.

To make the best summery Manhattan-ish drink: add 2 or 3 T of the cherry juice to whiskey or bourbon in a nice, tall glass. Add bitters (I am quite smitten with rhubarb bitters for this drink). Add ice and seltzer and stir vigorously to make the top frothy. Add some of your cherries, but leave the glass shards out.

A Real Dialogue

(as overheard in the strawberry field of Thompson Strawberry Farm in Bristol, Wisconsin)

Kid: (about 8 years old, shifting his weight around in a bored kind of way, and half-moaning, half-whining) Ughhhh. Can't we just go to Harvest Land (grocery store) and get fruit there?

Mom: (in the most irked, matter-of-fact, deadpan, sarcastic, way possible)
No. We can't. (now jerking the berries off their stems rather violently and glaring at him) And I'll tell you why. It's. Because. We. Like. This. Better. 

Let's Talk Cheese

Remember how you were just saying yesterday that you wished you had a nice piece of cheese?

And remember how you wished you had a special place where you could get that cheese?

A place you could go and feel both medieval and modern, all at the same time?

A place where you could find a cheese store that is inside the house of the person the shop is named after? And whose name is also on the mailbox?

A place where cheese is king, and queen, and the doted-upon darling of the Midwest?

Well, look no further!
Get thee to Kenosha, Wisconsin immediately, where you can complete the cheese story of your very own life. (Please also note: an incredible u-pick strawberry farm is just down the road.)


Get out your cheese boards, people. You have been beckoned.

Under Summer

Summer attacks the kitchen,
strawberry stains are her blood on the cutting board, proof that she's alive.
Misguided peas resting patiently, shriveled to fit sweetly
in the slats of the floor boards, and the onion tops wilting away in the sink,
sending their scent, hot and earnest.

The oven, cool from days without labor, doesn't click or sigh.
Zucchini are no doubt plotting their baby-making in the refrigerator drawer,
and a sticky circle from yesterday's cocktail shines on the tabletop,
asking remember when we danced last night?
and grips everything that crosses its path.

The circle of pollen around the wildflowers, a meditation for their lives,
the coffee cooling, the grocery list with only two words on it.
I ponder the cherries, first of the season, staining my fingertips,
pits in my palm, endearingly bitter on my tongue.

The fan flips up the stacks of newspapers, unearthing the mail
I had hidden there on purpose, and the air pushes me thinking,
down to the floor, where it's one degree cooler,
where I inspect my surroundings from half my height,
and I think about dogs and babies,
who would know just what to do down here.

Inspecting the coffee bean in the corner, the tiny asparagus coin that missed the pan,
the grains of beach sand, carried in from my fast,
scattered walks of the week.
The recipes gather dust, the whiskey does not.
Ice is a prize, fire our curse.

The table receives my arguments, my on-and-on thoughts,
thinking nothing of it, the condensation falls to a puddle
around the pitcher of tea.
I stand to look out the window, to see waves crashing in
and the skins of precious humans,
like hot shimmering specks, like chipped-off pieces of the sun.

I remember winter, with its mashing hug, and I lift out my heart,
letting the summer prove her technique, letting her languid arms invisibly,
dashingly curl around me, her sultry breath pulling my consciousness away,
bringing myself to me, pushing her hot, sweet light into my anxiousness,
circling and curing my still-thawing heart.