Why Are Cage-Free Eggs So Expensive?

What's the deal with cage-free eggs being twice as much as regular eggs? They haven't got the extra overhead of the cages. Is it just because it takes so much more time to chase the chickens all over the farm?

And brown eggs. It seems like they'd be the same as white. It's reverse discrimination.

The Pizza Cheese I Ate

I went out and had a pizza at a place -- not a pizza place, but a regular restaurant where pizza is also served but you don't typically see it there. It's so rare I hadn't actually ever seen a pizza there even though I've been there 30-40 times. I take that back, I did see on in a box one time but never the actual pizza. I wanted to say that just for the sake of accuracy and because I know my readers hold me to the highest standards of truthfulness, as well they should.

One time I tried to order a pizza there and they warned me off it, saying it would take a half hour, because of the length of time it takes them to roll out the dough. It's apparently a very slow process. With that warning I was afraid to order one in the future, even though I had my eye on this particular menu item numerous times. I'd go in and see in the menu, start fantasizing about what they might look like, and I'd find myself salivating uncontrollably to the point that it was embarrassing, not to mention messy to any tie I might've had on.

But tonight I gave a painful birth to a brainchild, that I would phone them up well in advance, like close to 20 minutes before my arrival, giving the slow pizza roller guy enough time to psych himself up to do the job. He can't really have that much practice, because remember, I'd never seen an actual pizza there, even though I've been there 30-40 times (except for the one in the box, which I never actually saw.)

It was actually funny -- the time I saw the pizza in the box. We went there and stood around waiting for a table. I looked over at the bar and saw a pizza box on the edge. We got a table, a table coincidentally right next to the pizza box. It was within seven feet of me. I sat there. And nobody touched it. I asked the bartender about it (I think I did), and he may have said something like it was takeout, but the people weren't there to get it yet. I don't really remember, but I know I was dying to ask someone about it, and I may have.

I was trying to make a witty remark to the waitress, such as "That pizza's going to be very cold," but it was kind of noisy in there, plus she'd just turned to go, and someone else caught her attention, and she missed what I said, with my words falling unheard to the floor, unceremoniously. Which was for the best, because it seemed like I was sticking my nose in where it didn't belong. What business was it of mine whether the pizza was picked up or not?

Still, going to a place where they have pizza on the menu -- 30 to 40 times (a conservative estimate) and never actually seeing a pizza -- how could anyone not wish to comment on it? The chances of that aren't good. It rubs me the wrong way. If it's not something someone ever orders, then it's no big surprise it takes so long to get one!

Anyway, tonight I ordered one on the phone. A waiter answered and he didn't know what to do with my request. So he passed me to one of the main ladies who's always there. She seemed caught off guard, that someone would be ordering a pizza. Like it was a prank call. But I gave my actual name and that calmed her down. She took the order and told me it'd take 20 minutes. I'm thinking, "20 minutes?" I thought it took a half hour just to roll it out. But I didn't say anything about it.

We got there and they said they'd just put it in the oven, so the rolling process had been accomplished successfully. It was between 10-15 minutes later, and out they came with a decent pizza. Not especially worth writing home about, if you know what I mean. But it was edible and nothing to be ashamed of.

The cheese was heavy on it. They used a lot of cheese. Which made me think of other cheesy pizzas I've had. I used to go to a place where I jokingly said, "The cheese was as thick as your wrist." That was meant as a compliment. Then you can think of the cheese you get on a pizza and when you take it out of the refrigerator the next day it looks weird. That's when you hate to see cheese, when it's refrigerator hard.

I've Got Chili Belly

We had chili this noon, which was so delicious I had a big bowl and a half.

It's simple to make and about as good as anything there is. It goes down easily.

The big problem with chili is later on, when Chili Belly kicks in, the bloating, the churning, the digestive process.

So it's a nasty feeling as the day drags on.

Enjoyed Some Mexican Leftovers

I don't bring many leftovers home from going out to eat. Mostly because I manage to eat everything when I'm there.

But today I got full faster when we were out at the Mexican restaurant. So I got a box and brought home the leftovers. I meant to have it this evening.

Then it was late when I remembered I had the leftovers. But still it saved me having to go out and spend more money, which I was considering, till I remembered these.

I heated up the enchilada and rice, then I had some of the free chips they give you. It's all been in the fridge since 1 p.m., and the chips were a little flexible. But when they set on my plate for a while they seemed to stiffen up. They still tasted the same even if they didn't have that chippy crunch you like.

So that was all good, microwaved, then eaten while sitting here at the computer. And it wasn't so much (I hope) that it's going to disturb my night. If anything disturbs me it'll probably be the glass of water.

The Time Of Cutting Chickens

We're sharing at a meal tomorrow, chicken. So the time of cutting chickens has come again.

The great mystery of cutting chickens continues to fascinate me. I would love to know precisely the right way to do it. The last time I did it by myself and didn't do too bad a job. This time I watched on one chicken, somebody else do it, but about had a nervous breakdown when I saw the knife going toward the hand. That can't be right.

There are joints where you can hit it precisely. Wiggle it here, wiggle it in the other place, then bring the knife through confidently, like a monk.

Someday I will know how. This is my vow!

Same Old Story

I had the great idea today of going out for a picnic for dinner.

So all things were arranged, the getting of the appropriate food, the plans, everything packed up.

Then when we got there, the park, it was the same old story that picnickers for generations having been telling, the bugs!

It seems like it's been colder recently, and I heard a guy say he and his wife went for a picnic yesterday and there weren't any bugs.

But there were for us. Some kind of little black bug that I can't identify. They seem to like to land right on your plate and stay there. They don't move when you swat at them or pick them up with a wet finger. So they're not into defense.

Plus some were landing on my shirt, my hair, my arm. Anywhere.

After a while of that, we packed up our stuff and left for home. After that I enjoyed the fruit -- cantaloupe and grapes mixed -- in the comfort of our home. No bugs.

Some Weird Food For Sunday

At the store I had a weird craving for some things, including chocolate milk, bagels, sorghum, and popcorn.

Sorghum? Yes, I like it once in a while. I already had half a jar on hand but it's been setting in the cupboard for years. I don't know if it goes bad. So I bought a different one.

Then the popcorn. I was making it and reading the sorghum label and it said it was used for popcorn balls. So I dipped a few pieces of popcorn in sorghum and it tasted pretty good, like a popcorn ball taste!

One of these days I'll have to learn to make popcorn balls.

So for dinner, long after I had the popcorn, I had a bagel, some chocolate milk, some grapes we already had, and a radish. We already had a bag of radishes.

Microwave Popcorn

Microwave popcorn. What'll they think of next?

I'm loving this. The popcorn's in a paper bag. You take the plastic wrap off. You put it in the microwave. You wait a few minutes. And voila! It makes popcorn.

As far as I can tell, it's about the same as regular popcorn. Comes out hot. Tastes good. Not much difference. But talk about convenient!

We live in exciting times.

Maybe next time I go to the movies I can sneak my microwave in and save money. Movie popcorn seems fairly expensive.

We're Out Of Iced Tea

Hey, hey, how's this for a daisy chain of blogging? I just wrote a blog post at Dada Boheme explaining my blog posts at Grandma Slump. And now I'd like to comment on one of the true elements in the Dada Boheme post. About the iced tea.

We really were out to eat at a fancy restaurant -- fancy by local standards. And we really were having iced tea, which was pretty good too. Not like the crappy iced tea you get at Burger King, which tastes like some kind of powder three or four generations from any DNA connection to actual tea. This was good tea.

I was scrunching the lemon down with my straw, poking at it, terrorizing it, trying to extract all the juice I could, then swirling it so that lemon pulp was clouding my glass. That's beautiful, and incidentally, a pretty nice description of what I was doing. Then I was taking sips, so much so, in fact, that after a time of drinking it -- I wasn't rushing -- the glass became progressively emptier, and I'm an optimist about half-empty, half-full glasses ... but no amount of optimism could deny that this glass was finally ... empty.

The waiter, who seemed pleasant enough, saw me flagging him like he was a cab. He saw what I wanted and indicated to me these terrible words, "We're out of iced tea." OK. I might've looked disappointed but not overly so. He listed off the brands of soda pop I could get but I settled on water, which he brought.

Pretty soon there were a few individuals in the process of moving from one table to another and they came by us with a waiter accompanying them. So we could hear them clearly make their drink order, which was "Iced Tea." We looked at each other and chuckled, "They're going to be disappointed."

Maybe five, eight minutes went by. And coincidentally our own waiter was coming to our table. I said to him, chuckling, "How is it you run out of iced tea?" He's starting to explain, "We brew it in the morning and----" He doesn't have a chance to explain further, because we and he can see those folks' waiter approaching their table with a tray that has four full glasses of iced tea on it!

[Insert that it was an uncomfortable moment for someone, our waiter. It was also uncomfortable for me, because I hated to see him in that situation.] He excused himself, saying something like he would go check on the tea situation, but I didn't catch the exact words because I felt embarrassed. I'm a compassionate person, which is no secret.

He brought the new glasses of iced tea, didn't say "Sorry about that" or anything, which was just as well, because I preferred to overlook the whole thing.

Anyway, I wasn't really even in the mood for another whole glass, having already drunk the water too.

Leftover Spaghetti

Leftover spaghetti is better than you might assume.

I remember we used to like it when I was a kid. At some point though it turned disgusting, because it was never quite as juicy or loose as that first time. It gets mushy if prepared in a certain way, the way we always prepared it. And that is with the sauce all mixed in with the pasta.

The key to making decent leftovers is to keep the sauce away from the pasta. As soon as it's cooked and you've used what you want, put the rest in sealed containers. And don't let them mix. Then when the parts are reheated, as I do, it tastes very close to fresh.

I normally hate leftovers. But these are actually good. And it saves money not tossing the leftover spaghetti. I could've gone out and spent several bucks on dinner tonight, but no, I remembered I had the leftover spaghetti from a couple days ago. That's another thing, you don't want to keep it too long.

Popsicles

Today is a day for popsicles, watermelon, and ice cream!

(It was when I sat down to write this originally, before someone from my family called, chewed me out, then hung up on me. Then messaged me with more nasty. It's amazing how a call from the blue can be a mood killer.)

The Fog Of After-Meal Lethargy

I wrote yesterday about profound rib lethargy after eating too many ribs. A big overload. But I didn't eat any dinner last night, then no breakfast today. (I could've eaten breakfast but was busy at the time.)

Now I've had lunch, some ham and beans, and am suffering the fog of this lethargy again, a completely unwelcome feeling. I always seem to forget it's going to happen till it does. Not that I wouldn't have eaten, but maybe I didn't need to clean my plate.

I have a few things that need to be done today ... so I don't have the option of going to sleep for a prolonged time. Maybe I'll try 25 minutes.

[25 minutes later] OK, that worked. I dozed off very fast, and now I'm up for everything.

Suffering Rib Overload Lethargy

I'm getting somewhat better. But let's say close to an hour ago, I was feeling extremely tired.

I usually get that way right after a big meal. I think it's some kind of natural reaction where your belly says it needs all the enzymes your body can spare, so your brain goes wanting and gets tired. Couple that with the fact that I had a challenging intellectual task to perform which was absolutely necessary. That makes me tired too.

Now that task is done, and time is stretching farther out from when I ate, I feel like I'm getting my second wind. But I could still take a serious nap, and just might. Now that I think of it, I got to bed an hour late last night, so I only got seven hours sleep, and I need eight.

Today I grilled racks of baby back ribs. I'm usually such a cheapskate when I go to the grocery store. But yesterday I saw some of these being grilled at a grocery story and knew I would eventually need some. "Eventually" came less than 24 hours later. I went to the meat counter and got a couple of them, one for me and one for the other resident of this house. I believe this is the first time I've ever done this.

Then I thought, surely this big full rack is big enough to stretch out over two meals, since ribs is one of the few foods that is good as leftovers. But when it got right down to it, that plan went out the window because I just kept eating till I had devoured the entire rack. I'm almost ashamed to say it because it sounds extremely wanton. I had my mouth all smeared with KC Masterpiece sauce plus the natural juices of the ribs, accompanied by some Bush's baked beans [If Jay Bush's dog Duke would like to call me with the recipe, I won't sell or give it to anyone else.]

Oh, so I felt a mixture of extremely good and extremely overloaded. The lethargy arose in me like a mighty force. And I was looking to get my challenging intellectual task done but really felt no energy to do so ... until it was about half over. Then the pieces started falling into place, giving me the renewed energy to still be sitting here writing about it all these minutes later. Who knows what else I could accomplish?

Me, me, me, it's all about me. And my two enormous plates of ribs.

KFC Follies

Had another bad experience at KFC. LOL.

How long have they been a restaurant chain? 50 years? You'd think they would've perfected everything by now. But there's always these troubles there. Instead they have a worse system of taking your order than Subway, which of course is terribly bad.

Maybe it's just the help, but she didn't seem to have options, like someone else coming over to help customers. The guy ahead of us -- and there was only one -- took well over five minutes to decide precisely what he wanted. No exaggeration. What comes with the xxxxx meal? All kinds of questions. Then when he finally got it figured out, and it seemed that the clerk knew what he wanted, she had to rush around back there with the others to make his order. Finally they have it in sacks and are handing it to him and thanking him. When, wouldn't you know it, he had ordered some other things too that they either didn't hear or missed.

I was standing there trying not to seem perturbed, because I don't want the guy looking at me funny. But I was with someone else so I asked her to order for me and went and sat down. I really didn't want to cause any kind of eye-rolling scene or let my griping be manifest. So I'm sitting over there by the wall, and they're charging the guy for the missed food and rushing around to get it. By now there's been a lady behind us for a while and two other parties have come in the door. They can't even shut the door. There's getting to be a slight build up.

We ordered something very basic, very easy. And the clerk asked a couple times about the details. It was very easy, since it was exactly what was on the picture. But it's better to be right than wrong, so that was OK.

The food was OK. The grilled chicken, nothing to get excited about. The potatoes and the cole slaw, excellent. The chicken wing I had looked like it came off a little banty hen. So I don't know if they haven't been feeding their chickens, or maybe the chickens put their order in and never get their grain. They're still backed up at the barn door when the butcher shows up.

KFC never ceases to amaze me. I was looking at the buffet stuff, and they've had the same pattern all these years. Like they're afraid someone's going to eat their food and cost them money. Now they have grilled chicken. But the sign on the glass says you can have it "by request." They did the same thing a few years ago with rotisserie chicken. As soon as they have something new it bothers them to think someone will eat it if they put it within reach. So it was amusing to see nothing really has changed.

I've always had a theory over the years -- seriously -- that as stingy as they are at KFC, it's like they have a subliminal tape playing while you're eating that says, "You're full, you're very full." Then when you get to the door it switches over and says, "Come again soon. Come again soon." It's a very funny way of doing business, and I've never noticed another restaurant that does it like they do.

Would the Colonel himself put up with this? I doubt it. Of course he stayed home and made his own chicken!

KFC

It's weird. I have a craving for KFC chicken. I don't usually eat there. I have various things against the place when I eat there. But I might get some to go.

The thing is, I went to a wedding yesterday. I was there for the ceremony, the bride and groom dancing, the time of visitation afterwards. But I had to leave before they got to the cake and anything else they might do. Then right before I left, someone opened the door and came in with six or seven (maybe more) buckets of KFC chicken.

I didn't actually see the chicken inside, but the sight of all those buckets made me feel hungry for some. So I hope it's good!

Bad Days For Peanuts

The big peanut butter recall and scare of 2009 is upon us. I thought it was just a few things, like a few peanut butter crackers that were the problem. But it looks like it's a lot more widespread than that, beyond belief really.

I saw this diary at Daily Kos early this morning. Then I was at the grocery store in the peanut aisle and it came back to me, that all this stuff is tainted or potentially tainted. It has to be bad.

The diary at DK lists (I didn't count them) what looks like hundreds of things, including, brownies, cake, candy, cookies, crackers, donuts, fruits and vegetables, ice cream, peanuts, peanut butter, pet food, pre-packaged meals, snack bars, and snack mix.

Pet food?

Here's the pet food items on the diary's list:

Carolina Prime 2 Pack Hooves Peanut Butter Hooves
Carolina Prime 4" Rawhide Bone Peanut Rawhide
Carolina Prime 6" Beef Shank Peanut Butter Dog Bone
Carolina Prime 6" Rawhide Bone Peanut Butter Rawhide
Carolina Prime Pet 2pk Hooves Peanut Butter
Carolina Prime Pet 4" Rawhide Bone Peanut Butter
Carolina Prime Pet 6" Beef Shank Peanut Butter
Carolina Prime Pet 6" Rawhide Bone Peanut Butter
Carolina Prime Pet 6" Healthy Hide Beef Shank Peanut Butter
Grreat Choice Extra Large Assorted
Grreat Choice Large Assorted
Grreat Choice Peanut Butter
Grreat Choice Small Assorted
Grreat Choice Small/Medium Assorted
Happy Tails Multi-flavored Dog Biscuits
Healthy-hide Deli-wrap Peanut Butter-Filled Rawhide dog treats
Salix Healthy-Hide-Deli Wrap 5" Peanut Butter Filled Rawhide
Shoppers Valu Multi-Flavored Dog Biscuits

Peanut Butter Is The New Spinach

How come it seems like when it comes to recalls it's always one thing at a time? I wouldn't say you never hear of two things at once, but it seems like it. It's like nature attacks; it's either sharks or killer bees, never both.

Now we have killer peanut butter, or whatever, maybe peanut butter that makes people break out in a rash. Of course there's always a problem with peanuts, which I think started with Jimmy Carter, since I never heard of it before. You see it on labels that the ingredients in this package were processed in a plant that also processes peanuts. So beware or you might die.

And I love peanut butter. Not love love in the sense that I have it a lot. But when I eat it I love it. Like in oatmeal or on a sandwich occasionally. What can go wrong with peanut butter? Probably overheated or the oil sat on a shelf and spoiled.

Food companies, get it right! This is ridiculous.