Teh blahs, I haz dem.

So, I really suck at this whole blogging deal. And really, most everything right now.
I punked out on the strawberry cook-off. I didn't feel my recipes were quite where I wanted them to be, so I didn't enter.
This month has been busy. May is always busy. Mother's Day, four birthdays in the family, including daughter-the-elder, and at the end of the month she has end of grade testing. So much all at once. When June rolls around I can finally take a breath again.
Until then, blog posts will be hit or miss, so bear with me. ;-)

It's festival time!

Years and years ago, there was an annual strawberry festival held in the town where we currently live.  I can't find information about when the first festival was, but I know it was being held as far back as the 1930's and ended sometime around 1971 or 1972.
It really was a big deal here, and in 1937 was even attended by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt! She wrote about it in her "My Day" newspaper column. June 12, 1937 and June 14, 1937
This year is the third for the resurrected Strawberry Festival here in Wallace.  The first two years I participated along with the local art guild and had craft items for sale. This year, since I have been busy with the kids and working on the house, I am entering the cooking contest instead.
I have decided to enter the Salads/Entrees/Appetizers category with a traditional strawberry spinach salad. I have devised (what I think to be) a rather agreeable strawberry balsamic vinaigrette dressing - and I don't even like vinaigrette.
I am also entering the dessert category. For that I have decided to do a peanut butter and jelly bar cookie with homemade strawberry jam. I did my first test run today, and while I found the flavor good, I think the texture leaves something to be desired. On the whole, it wants to fall apart. The jam did not thicken sufficiently, and left the whole bar too moist.
Still, it tastes really good and would kick butt with some vanilla ice cream.

If all goes well with the Strawberry cook-off, I think I am going to enter the one in the Blueberry festival as well. It's in June, in the next town over.
I will post recipes once I have worked out the kinks. Stay tuned...

Z-day... not so much

My husband works at a nuclear power plant. Yes, he is Homer Simpson, stfu. We were just discussing nuclear reactors and both realized that their very existence causes the whole "Zombie Apocalypse" scenario to fall apart. Think about it. For whatever reason most of the population has been wiped out or zombified. The handful of survivors that remain are too busy surviving to be like "Hey, the power is out pretty much everywhere. Perhaps I had better get my ass to the nearest nuclear power plant and monitor the reactor so it doesn't go critical."
So really, about a week after the world turns into a zombie smorgasbord, it won't even matter, because the whole planet is going to go kablooey anyway.
Problem solved.

Makin' Groceries

Confession time: I... am a bag hag. I am not talking about designer purses either. Reusable shopping bags - cheap, available everywhere, and oh so easy to accumulate.
I haven't counted my bag collection lately, but I do know I literally have more bags than I can use in a single grocery trip. We once took every bag I could lay my hands on when we did the shopping. We  filled TWO full size grocery carts, used my bags for everything we purchased, and I still had at least a dozen bags left over.
If I am out shopping and I see a sign that says "buy product X and get a FREE shopping bag!!" I will buy product X. Whether I need it or not. Seriously, I have a problem.
My issue with using my bags is that no one seems to know how to load the damned things. "Oh, let me take the biggest bag you have and load it so that the Incredible Hulk couldn't even lift it." Without fail. Every. Time.
On today's trip, a single bag was loaded with two cans of beans, ALL of my produce, and the seven pound ham I bought for Easter Sunday. WTF dude, really? If my avocado gets squished, I am coming for your ass.
I know that grocery retailers train their checkers and baggers on the proper loading of the standard plastic bags. "No more than X canned goods. Ice cream and frozen items go in these. Double bag raw meat products." Would it really be so difficult to stick up a note at the register regarding cloth bags?
"REMEMBER: If you can't lift it, your customer probably can't either." DUH.

Don't call it a comeback

After 4 weeks with bronchitis, I am finally back in the land of the living.
Now that I can breathe again I am attempting to get back on my weekly cleaning/productivity schedule. Hopefully that will include lots of fun and interesting things to blog about, right now the only thing I have been doing is coughing up lung monsters and no one wants to read about THAT.

Hummingbird Cake

Since I am beginning to feel human again, I decided today would be a good day for my next installment of Cooking the Books. I decided that this time I was going to make a Southern classic - Hummingbird cake.
This cake was mentioned in The Caster Chronicles, and The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen. Allen is, like me, from North Carolina and sets all of her books here. They are fun, quick reads, and all figure food prominently. She has all of the recipes from her books available on her website. I had planned to use her cake recipe, but since I am still feeling puny, I went with the Cake Mix Doctor's recipe instead.
Most of the recipes I looked at called for pecans, this one did not, so I added them to the cream cheese frosting. It made it a little hard to get on the cake, but the texture is great, so I don't care that it got a little ugly.
Overall, it is a good cake, and I might make it again, next time I have a potluck to go to.

I'm only 39 dammit!!!

I nearly forgot about this, but I dragged myself out of bed to share it.
Last month I saw an orthopedist about my tennis elbow. I was basically told "It's wear and tear. You're almost 40, it comes with age."
Then, last week, I had an eye exam and was told "You're going to need bifocals within 5 years. It's probably going to be closer to three."
As if that wasn't bad enough, today at the doctor's office, the nurse who took my vitals asked "Period?" and I said "I just had it last week." She then replied "Oh, so you still have it then?"
I am THIRTY NINE. I have not been through the fucking change!!!
The next person who calls me old is going to get punched in the throat.