It's All About Hot Dogs!

Some of us just don't care if we eat our greens, drink our juice, or grow up healthy and well-nourished.

So it was last night when Josh and I sat for Jack and Tom. Tom was asleep but Jack was wide awake, palms together, thinking about our Saturday pajama party - or I should say planning the food.

"We love hot dogs. It's our favorite thing" Jack spoke for his brother. "I want mustard, ketchup, and relish." I nodded. Jack is still thinking. "Chips, I think, and strawberries and cream."

"Get your pillow, now. Time to rest." A suggestion.

"But there is one more thing."

"What?"

" I can't say it out loud."

With that Jack jumped out of his bed, tiptoed to Tom's bunk where I was sitting, and took both my hands in his little ones. He put his mouth up close to my ear and whispered.

"What?"

"You know." Shy look.

"I can't hear you , it could be anything."

"Soda." Grinning now. "We want to sneak soda."

"Both of you?"

"All of us. Don't tell Pops."

When Jack was down, that perfect smile on his sleeping face, I told Josh, who is fourteen, about Saturday's menu. He said he thinks I am a great cook. I can't think what he has eaten at my house. Pasta? Roast beef and veggies? The famous Mac&Cheese? "Last time we were here," he explains. "Hot dogs! Love 'em!"

Where Shopping is a Pleasure

I make a lot of noise about CSA organic foods and growers' markets. That's because I'm trying to eat local fruits and veggies when they are in season. Local might be a hundred mile radius to some of you. To me it means as close as we can get in Florida and Georgia.

I was just at Publix which I rarely mention as a good source of produce. I picked through the sweet onions until I found some from south Georgia. Onions have to be "from" Vidalia to be labeled that way and, of course, none of these were. I'm sure they were grown close. It takes a certain soil. I took both of them with me. The rest of the sweet onions in the stack were from Peru and you could tell it. Long trip.

There was an article in the NY Times last week about a grower in Wimuama, Florida who is making a name for himself shipping Tasti-Lee (www.tasti-lee.com) tomatoes all over the country. The food reviewer gave them high marks. Winter tomatoes with the taste and smell of summer in them. I took a stroll around the bin of sickly fruit from somewhere else and, sure enough, there they were. Perfect little box of four. Just the size that a person can eat a whole one - slow-roasted or sliced raw. Publix, I quickly realized, has a new contract with Red Diamond Farms and I've got my winter tomatoes, thanks to them!

Then there is Pero Family Farms (www.perofamilyfarms) of Delray Beach. Peppers. Green and yellow. Orange and red. Quite large or in miniature. I've been eating them for several years. Squirrel and I go through a bag a week. Large or small to suit our immediate needs. I think they must be shipped all over the country. Sometimes I feel so lucky to be a Floridian. Just like someone from New Jersey, the produce capital of the northeast.

And, in winter, it's all about oranges. I was going to head up toward Thomasville to find a roadside stand. It's tangelo season. You do a lot better with citrus if you buy the orange of the moment instead of searching out the bags labeled juice orange or naval. There are so many varieties and they ripen at different times. I found a beautiful bag of fruit. Again, there were also California oranges on the shelf (most Florida oranges end up in juice) but Publix has contracts with many of the big groves to get some for the stores. At Fresh Market the citrus is imported. At Tomato Land it's the worst of the best.

The blueberries in the store were from Chili. It isn't blueberry season anyway. I got a quart of Plant City strawberries that smelled and looked like a strawberry should. It is strawberry season in Florida. Pickers worked around the clock on that one frozen night this winter to harvest them, save them from the cold. The rest of the winter has been mild. The strawberries are heading out!

What gets me is the avocado. Avocado is in season almost all year. In St. Petersburg, they are falling from the trees to the sidewalks. All the avocados I saw in the store today came from abroad or had been shipped in from California. Keep your eyes open. When the Florida Alligator Pears go into the produce department at Publix they're usually priced 3 for $5.00. I can remember when it was two for $1.00 and even less - but that was long ago.

Go shop. I just can't imagine that I am going to get an orange, an avacado, a strawberry or blueberry, in my CSA bag. I might see onions and peppers in there and I know there will be tomatoes. But that will be another day. Right now it's the dead of winter. Thank goodness for central and south Florida and for Publix where shopping is a pleasure.

For Easter...

(lamb photos from epicurious.com)

I've never cooked a leg of lamb
and hadn't planned to do it.
I wonder if there's any way
that I could flat-ass ruin it?

If you can give me little clues
Or have a recipe,
It seems like just the perfect year
With all this Rosemary.

The Morning After...

...the State of the Union. Random thinking.

The 1% is the backbone of America. I believe in democracy, capitalism, and free enterprise. I have what I worked for.

Someone on facebook this morning said he was tired of fellow Americans (and his fb friends specifically) painting a picture of our politics with a "socialist brush" as if socialism was a figment of our imagination.  I am old enough to remember the "Nazi brush" and the "communist brush." In the end they turned out to be very real indeed. Just visit Cuba today to see the results of ongoing communism. Go to the recovering Soviet Union. Read about genocide in Africa. Nazism? Close enough for me.  

I don't want to be "like" any other European country, as the friend of the friend suggested. I want my America to look at itself and realize what is happening in this unique age and change with the times to create good jobs.

The tax code needs revision, but the 1% don't need to be double taxed just because the amount they pay doesn't show on the personal tax form. Example: Every penny in my company savings account was "mine." I paid the taxes up front. Why would that money be taxed again at bonus time? 

If I ran for office, my records would say, "She pays almost no taxes." The people would clamor about it and I would lose the election. Good, honest men and women - leadership quality - will not get into politics and this is one real reason.  

I don't want to rant and rave about elections, candidates, and people who do not get involved in the workings of government in any way. I try to keep my opinions to myself on facebook. But twice, yesterday, I sounded off on strangers' comments. From here on out, I'll stay within my own confines and say very little there - a place to play and to socialize. But... 

...I didn't go to those sit-ins of the a 60's so we could have programs for the 99% and the government could take care of us. I went to give every man or woman in the nation (black or white, rich or poor, thick or thin) a right to work, become an entrepreneur, and save for the future.

I Can't Wait to See Jack and Tom!

Oh, it's true. I can't wait to see Jack and Tom. They've been learning about hibernation in school. The teacher passed out Teddy Bears to each child and the bears are now having their winter naps all around the schoolroom. Did you know that ALL those bears at school came from China? (Someone forgot to cut of the "made in" tags and a child asked....)

The bear above has been trying to sleep at my house since Wednesday night when he was positioned under a lamp table in the living room. First the vacuum woke him, then the cat. I finally put him in the boys' bed for his seasonal nap.

As you can see, he is resting better now!

This noon I went to the Megalites Luncheon at Holy Comforter. I wish Tom and Jack had been there too - if nothing else, to see the big bear-hide the speaker from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had on display. I thought that I knew a lot about the Florida Black Bear but it turns out I had a lot to learn. It was a wonderful hour and I can't wait to tell the boys what to do if they meet a black bear in the backyard (It could happen!) or they spot one down by the lake.

The bear above seemed a little tired this afternoon when I got home and made a trip to the bedroom to check on our hibernator. I told him to go to sleep too, if he wanted. I explained that the boys would wake him up well before spring. Yes, I was talking to a toy. It's not the most eccentric thing I do....And it worked, didn't it? Big Bear is asleep now, too.