Surreal Cereal: A milk mystery

It was like Frosty the Snowman. One minute I was just making my breakfast, the next, my cereal was alive and smiling at me. This was the result of that "soak time" that is necessary when you choose grape nuts for breakfast (though, as a side note, my dad doesn't wait before crunching into his--you could hear his grape-nut-chewing sounds from the neighbor's basement).

I have already been accused of creating this photo-op, but I assure you, I wouldn't even know how to begin doing that. It was just a natural mysterious occurrence. A "happy" coincidence, if you will.

Mystery Dinner

Mmmm! Doesn't this look colorfully delicious? This is the dinner that was brought to my family last night by a very kind friend who thought I might not want to be doing a lot of cooking with just 6 days left till the move. She was right. This is a black bean quinoa dish with fresh vegetable salsa on top. It was even tastier than it looks. What's the mystery, you ask?

Well. The mystery is why my kids ate it without ANY fuss whatsoever. No sideways glance of suspicion as they approached their plates. No tentative queries into its unique components. Daniel simply asked, "What is this?" I told him what it was and that my friend had brought it for us, and he replied, "It looks yummy!" and dug right in and ate the entire portion on his plate. This is, indeed, a mystery! Did he do this because it was brought by someone else, not made by me? Was it the smell? All the beautiful colors? I guess I should ask him because if I could crack this mystery, we could have success at every meal. Nathan and Stephanie ate theirs with no trouble as well (though Nathan is typically a very adventurous eater anyway).

Eric was the only one who seemed to think twice about it. After I told him what it was called, he said, "What is quinoa anyway?" I told him it was a kind of grain. He froze mid-bite and asked, "Brain?"

(Note: I have since learned that it is not a true grain, but a kind of seed. But hey, that's better than brains.)

Pizza Incognito

Wearing a disguise is not usually a good idea if you're a food item. Camouflage in the food world is generally used only to conceal something undesirable. If you were, say, a slice of pizza, being mistaken for cardboard would be a sign that something had gone terribly wrong in the process of your creation. The makers of Domino's pizza have apparently only just now discovered this. In their new ad campaign, they have gone with honesty as the best policy and announced to the nation that their pizza is nasty. Excuse me, was nasty. If you haven't heard about this yet (or even if you have) you might enjoy watching a brief and entertaining video clip. Follow this clue:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2010/01/25/moos.our.pizza.stunk.cnn?hpt=C2
(I especially loved the part with the dog. You'll see what I mean. Oh--and the flock of New Yorkers.) If the link doesn't work, it's probably because I'm new at this, but you can also go to the CNN website and search for "pizza."

One of their top people stated that the only thing that stayed the same from the old pizza to the new was the round shape. Maybe they should have changed only the shape and renamed their product to something other than pizza. Someone in the video wondered why they hadn't fired their head chef, given all the criticism. Perhaps the same should now be said concerning the advertising exec. Time will tell whether the new campaign is a success and whether their product is simply masquerading as pizza or is actually the real thing. Should we ask the Italians?

Encoding My Love

I am one of those terrible mothers who feed their children white bread on a regular basis. We also have dessert every night, and there's almost always a bowl of candy somewhere within arm's reach. Sugar cereal? You name it: Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Puffs, Apple Jacks, Cookie Crisp, need I go on? Now I know that part of a mother's job is to make sure her children are fed a diet rich in nutrients and overflowing with life-extending whole grains, which is why I must lay the blame for my dietary shortcomings at the feet of my own mother.

When I was a child, we were frequently allowed to select breakfast items such as: cake (yes, with frosting), waffles with ice cream, leftover pie, or cookies. In fact, once, when my mother saw me eating Oreos first thing in the morning, her response was: "Oreos for breakfast?! When there are homemade cookies?" It was a happy childhood.

While I am blaming her, I am also thanking her. I knew she loved me. I knew it because she told me, and because she made sacrifices for me, but I also knew it because, in addition to giving me the nutrition I needed for growth, she gave me a healthy dose of sweet things. So, one day when I am gone, my children will look back on their childhood and think I must have loved them very much if I was willing to put up with all kinds of criticsm from other mothers and still give them sweet things to eat. I have received plenty of condescending looks and remarks on the importance of feeding children a well-balanced diet. So let me just say, if you could watch my children eat their vegetables, you would probably swallow that judgmental comment on the tip of your tongue. Again, you name it: they eat green beans, carrots, asparagus (no, really), salad, zucchini, and more. But they also get their sugar. All things in moderation, right? Even wheat.

I have to stop writing now so I can go monitor how much whipped cream my kids are putting on their chocolate-chip pancakes. I really do love them.