Grazing at Joe's

"I'm starving. Let's pick up an Italian sub from the deli on the way home."

"Okay, I'm hungry too, but I want to go to Trader Joe's first."

We were leaving the doctor's office, the favorite pastime of older folks, and I was hungry. I had been hoping Mark would let me take us straight home, but no. We had to go to Trader Joe's. Not that I don't like TJ's, but doctor offices make me sleepy and Mark's appointment had blown right through lunch time. So with my stomach churning I turned the car towards Evanston and Trader Joe's. I realized my mistake as soon as Mark started strollng through the place. We had broken rule number one of grocery shopping. Never, ever, go shopping on an empty stomach. Never, ever go shopping hungry. Mark was grabbing every shiny package he saw as we wound our way through there. Oatmeal cookies, sesame stix, meat lasagna, coconut shrimp, frozen tamales, frozen burritos, frozen Cuban bowl (whatever the hell that is) and many other things that sounded delicious. And what was making all those things sound delicious, was Mark's stomach whispering to his brain "Buy that, buy that, and that thing too." I've seen this happen before. We have a freezer full of things Mark bought on a whim because he went shopping hungry. Things we never think of eating. What I do is, once every year, I go through all that crap and check the expiration dates. Then I take all the stuff that is about to go past those dates, or maybe went past the date a month or two ago, and we have a crazy dinner of appetizers, frozen entrees, and Trader Joe oddities. Then as we sit there after dinner, feeling sick and bloated, we promise to never again go shopping on an empty stomach.

Fruit Poops, (A repeat from ten years ago in Florida.)

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

My mom and dad must have been frustrated farmers. Because when they bought their first home in Tinley Park, they filled the back yard with apple trees. I remember every fall the house was filled with the aroma of Mom making apple sauce, apple pie, apple jelly, apple butter, and apple slices (sort of apple pie, but squares with a heavy coating of frosting on top). It was usually our job as kids to harvest the hundreds of apples before they started rotting and falling to the ground. Of course if they did fall to the ground and were rotten enough, they became kid weapons. Nothing says fun like splattering a rotten apple against the back of your somebody's head.

Fall is here again, and all the fruit trees here in my neighborhood are starting to ripen. It's not at all like back home in Illinois. Here in Florida we have avocado trees, banana trees, mango trees, and the ever present citrus trees, all of which attract rats. This is the time of year when the mango trees start dropping over ripe fruit like so many piles of poop, and the avocados are just the right density for a hurricane to come along and blast them through windows. Fruit takes on entirely new characteristics when launched by hundred mile per hour winds.

So far two of my neighbors have presented me with some of their harvest. I've received a large bunch of bananas that I turned into banana waffles, and then there is Paul who gave me the first star fruit off his tree. Ahhh, yes autumn is here. Can the pitter patter of little rat feet in the attic be far behind?

My Urban Garden

In my dreams

Glorious weekend here in Chicago. We had two sunny days with the temperatures in the fifties. The dogs loved it, I loved it, and it got the juices running. Just like everybody else, thoughts of springtime and warmer weather filled my thoughts. "Ah ha!", shouted Mother Nature, "You fools." And then she stabbed us in the heart with an icicle. Today, in the mid thirties, and by the weekend below freezing again. However, we must look past the vagaries of Chicago weather and plan for the future. So last Friday I started my basement garden. Packets of seeds and potting soil were dragged in from the garage so that I could get a jump on my summer flower garden. No vegetables this year, they take up way too much room in the backyard. Most of them rot on the plant anyway because they all come to fruition at the same time. So it will be only flowers with maybe one tomato plant for the dogs. My dogs really love cherry tomatoes, so I will probably give them that. Of course, in my mind the garden is a carefully planned jungle of flowers and greenery. What will actually happen has more to do with my aching back, knees, and desire to pull out the weeds. Yes, there will be flowers. Yes, there will be greenery. Yes, there will be a tomato plant for the dogs. And yes, there will be strange plants growing that I can't identify until it's too late because weeds grow faster than I can move. Oh, and there will be dog poop... with tomato seeds in it.

Ready to go in about two months

Blurry Eyed

I was going through some of the old photos that I scanned and came across the photo above. Apparently, as I burst into puberty, I was the victim of some seriously dorky looks. The pimples, the bad haircuts, and pants pulled nearly up to my nipples, made for some horrible pictures. Sure, I was a cute kid before hitting that puberty wall. And after all those hormones got settled in I did start looking normal again. But oh, those years from twelve through fourteen years old, I was a mess. And it wasn't only my looks, my sexuality tried to do me in. Whereas all my friends seemed to be suddenly discovering females, I was discovering my friends. After a few disastrous episodes, I did manage to reign that beast in. At least until the year I graduated high school. Still, those photos that remind me of that time do exist and I'm kind of glad. They remind me of what life was like and just how much better it can be. That one photo above tells it all. Look at all my brothers and sisters. They all look happy and normal. Then there I am, tall with a buzz cut and blurry eyes. For some reason, when I was at that age, my eyes would start watering whenever I needed them to not do that. Like when that photo was taken. A very weird time for me.

At 13 with my older brother, Dave

Meee...OW!!

It was pitch black, I was laying in bed and this is what I heard.
Mark: "Get the hell off me kitty!"
Carlotta: "Meep?"
Chandler: "Snort!"
Carlotta: "Hssssss...."
Mark: "Goddamnit, that little bitch scratched me! I hate that cat!"
This was followed by the lights coming on, revealing the dog at the end of the bed, the cat skittering out the door, and Mark with a bloody little scratch on his arm. I have had Carlotta for seventeen years, and she has never hissed at me or scratched me. For some reason skinny little Carlotta, and skinny Mark just don't get along. She loves me, that's why she was curled up in the bed to begin with, but she and Mark barely tolerate each other.

It seems that when I raise a cat from a little kitten, they take on an obsessive personality about me. Before Carlotta, it was Nina. Nina didn't like anybody but me, and everyone who visited our home knew not to try and pet her because all they'd get is a loud hiss, and possibly some cat scratch fever. On the other hand, every full grown cat that I have adopted or rescued, is sweet as pecan pie. Fat Kitty is an all around lover, and the two girls outside will crawl all over you if you sit down out there. So is this a reflection on me? Am I an anti-social loser who projects his personality onto his kittens, who then grow up to be she-devils? I don't think so. I think it is because I am so sweet and lovable that Carlotta and Nina don't want to share me with anybody. And if you don't think I'm sweet and lovable, you can just go screw yourself.

Smoked Salmon

Let me state right here that I don't like to cook. However, over the last year I have become a relatively competent cook. More and more, if I want to eat and if Mark wants to eat, it is up to me to put meals together. So for Valentine's Day I got Mark a new cookbook from America's Test Kitchen. It's his favorite cooking show and he loves their books. Yesterday I tried out one of the recipes, it was for salmon. Oven roasted salmon, and I made a nice grapefruit and shallot relish to put on top of the salmon. One problem is the tiny print in books these days. For some reason the print in books keeps getting smaller and smaller, and this new cookbook was no different. Tiny little print. So I took the book and scanned it on my printer, then blew it up big enough for me to read. In fact you could now read it from across the street, so it was perfect. I followed the instructions and the relish turned out great. The salmon was another story. The book said to turn the oven up to five hundred degrees. Then put the salmon on an aluminum baking sheet, stick it in the oven, and turn the oven down to two hundred and seventy five degrees. At four hundred and fifty degrees smoke started to come from the oven. By the time the oven got up to five hundred degrees smoke was pouring out of the vent at the rear of the stove. As the kitchen filled with smoke and the smoke alarm began beeping, I fumbled with the salmon and dropped it upside down on the aluminum baking sheet. Much cursing ensued. I opened the kitchen window and the bathroom window for cross ventilation. This allowed my neighbors to enjoy my cursing and helped ventilate the smoke from the kitchen. After baking the fish for the prescribed amount of time, I pulled it out of the oven and stuck a thermometer in it. Eighty degrees internal temperature. Not good for oven roasted salmon, not good for sushi. So with more cursing and threats to throw it all into the garbage, Mark told me to just cook the salmon the way I always did. Three hundred and seventy five degrees, for nine minutes. It turned out perfect.

Demon Robot

Every morning I get up and head for the living room. I'm checking on the robot vacuum cleaner making sure that it is at its docking station. No surprise, it always does make it back and that is because Mark bought me a new robot last Christmas. It replaces the original robot that he bought two years ago. I retired that old one to dining room cleaning duty and turned the living room chores over to the new guy. Apparently they have put a much more powerful motor in the new model because I have found it trying to climb Mark's mid-century modern coffee table. It has taken the throw blanket Mark has on the sofa and dragged it across the living room. Just about every morning I find the hallway rug in a rumpled mess. Dog toys will be scattered about the living room, furniture moved, and electrical cords pulled from the sockets. The damn thing is relentless. It is going to clean that living room, hell or high water. And I believe it probably could handle high water too. Yet every morning, there it is at the docking station flashing the little light, telling me that it is recharging. Having done its job once again, it sits there flashing that light and mocking me as I go about picking up the dog toys and Mark's blanket. However, I have to admit, the floors are spotless.