veggies veggies veggies

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Turkey Interruption + An X Person

I had a whole post all planned out for today, but then I got a call from someone at Whole Foods.

“Hello, I’m from the Whole Foods holiday table,” he said.

“Hello,” I said, trying to keep any suspicion or panic out of my greeting.

“We understand you ordered a turkey from Whole Foods,” he said, his voice already tinged with apology. 

“Yes…” I said. “I did order a turkey.” In my mind, I was chanting, “Don’t say there are no turkeys, don’t say there are no turkeys.”

“And you’re supposed to pick it up today?”

“Yes, I am picking it up today.” (Notice my very positive and definitive phrasing.)

Don’t say there are no turkeys. Don’t say there are no turkeys.

“Well, due to forces beyond our control, including an avian flu…” he began.

Don’t say there are no turkeys! Don’t say there are no turkeys!

“Some of our farmers have been unable to meet the demand for turkeys around this time of year…”

Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

“And we weren’t able to get a turkey in the size you ordered.”

PHEW.

“Okay, what’s the biggest size you have available? I’ll take that.”

“All right, I’ll put you down for that one. Thank you for understanding.”

PHEW.

I am very glad that we will be getting A Turkey, even if it is not the (admittedly enormous) size that I’d ordered after consultation with my mother. But really, what can you do? (Perhaps I would not be so magnanimous if there were an issue with the potatoes.) After all, I am more than happy to allocate my share of turkey to someone who needs it more. But the slightly smaller turkey will be FINE and I will live to panic again another day.

* * * 

Carla and I were watching an episode of The Dog Whisperer the other day. One of the subjects of the show we were watching is a beagle fanatic. She wears clothing that features images of beagles. She has stuffed beagles. Beagle figurines. Beagle-patterned blankets. Beagle dishes. And, of course, a real live pet beagle. 

This beagle mania (not to be confused with Beatle Mania) stirred a vague memory of something I read or watched, or maybe even experienced in person… Someone in possession of a similar large collection whose explanation behind it was, “I said I liked X, and suddenly every time someone saw a thing with X on it, they bought it for me.” Was it my mother-in-law, who at one time had many things featuring cows? I can’t remember. I do think of her every time I see something with a cow pattern on it, though.

I like both the idea that a person can be so in love with a thing that they want to surround themselves with that thing… and the idea that a person can unwittingly – nay, unwantingly – become the owner of a massive collection simply by expressing interest in a thing, or owning one example of a thing. The fact that one’s house – one’s life! – can be overtaken by a specific theme, purposefully or by accident, and that the theme itself can become emblematic of that person… well, I really like that as a concept. (In practice, it could be… tiresome, I admit.)

When I look around my house, I don’t really see anything that would make something think, “Oh! She’s an X person!” and then become reminded of me every time they see X in the wild. I mean, books, perhaps. (And I would be delighted to get a book for every present, from now until the end of time!) 

Once, a friend gave me a very odd present. It is a… figurine, I suppose is the best word for it. It looks like a potato, but it has the features and appendages of a pig. Why did she give it to me? Did I strike her as the kind of person who needed a potato pig figurine in my life? (I am that person, but I didn’t know it at the time.) 

The other day, I was admiring my very modest fall décor, and my eyes fell on one of my favorite things. It’s… also a figurine, I guess. It’s shaped like a gourd. But it has eyes and the beak of a bird. Maybe it is a squash swan, although that is exceedingly difficult to say. I apparently saw this gourd bird at some point and thought that I had to have it. And, indeed, I do.

Am I a person who likes vegetables that are also animals??? Is this My Thing? 

I do not know. When my cupboards are filled with vegetable-animal mugs and my drawers are stuffed with vegetable-animal pajamas, I’ll let you know.

Are you An X Person? If so, what is your thing? Do you like being An X Person or have you grown weary of always being synonymous with X?

It seems as though I am doing NaBloPoMo this month, which is 30 blog posts in 30 days. (Will I make it??? Only time will tell.) Details at San’s blog here.

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Dinners This Week

The school year is about to begin, so, after a very long and yet somehow not refreshing at all hiatus, I am giving this whole “meal planning” thing another go. 

One thing I am going to actively try to do – for however long it lasts, which may well be the time it takes to go to the grocery store – is to pack our meals with MORE vegetables. The combination of my general meal-planning malaise and our subsequent over-reliance on takeout this summer has resulted in a bad pattern of not enough veggies. We need MORE VEG, people. It seems easy enough to accomplish… yet putting this plan into action is surprisingly difficult??? Have I ever cooked a vegetable before? What vegetables are edible? It’s like I have no idea how any of this works. 

Which is why I am prevailing upon you today for your favorite veggie-heavy sides. Yes, I know, I go weeks without posting and now I am ASKING FOR HELP. I am very needy. Please help me reintegrate vegetables into my life, Internet.

We avoid tomatoes and eggplant around these parts (although I will of course add tomatoes to salads and things, for the benefit of my child and husband), but otherwise I am open to ideas. 

Here’s what I’m planning for this week. Wish me well, Internet friends. 

Dinners for the Week of August 16-August 22

  • Chicken Shawarma Salad Bowls: This is a new-to-me recipe, but my husband and I both like shawarma and the salad bowl aspect of the meal means I don’t have to think about a separate vegetable.
  • Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup: I need a slow cooker meal and this is one of my favorites. Maybe I will whip up a little side salad to go with it? My side salad spirit is usually pre-crushed by my husband’s disdain for easy salads… but perhaps I don’t care?
  • Tacos: It is the last week of summer and Carla has requested tacos, so I shall acquiesce. 
  • Mahi Mahi with Mango Salsa and Roasted Green Beans: I don’t know how I will prepare the fish yet – grill? bake? – but a mango salsa is easy to make and we somehow haven’t had green beans in literal months, so that will make a nice veggie accent.
  • Follow Up: I put blackening seasoning on the fish and roasted it. It was cooked just fine, and I thought it was FINE, but my husband did not care for this that much.
  • Charred Shrimp, Pesto, & Quinoa Bowls: This is something I have never made before but it sounds new and different and worth trying. I hope. 
  • Follow Up: This was okay. Obviously, the overriding flavor was pesto and that was… too much pesto for me. It’s main selling point was its novelty. Maybe once every year or two.
  • Chicken or Salmon plus Zucchini or Brown Rice with Peas and Onions: I have chicken and salmon in the freezer. I will buy zucchini because it is one of my favorite veggies and because it will survive an extra week if we don’t get to it. We have plenty of peas in the freezer. These will be my backup, little-planning-required meals, for if I can avoid the siren song of takeout.
  • Follow Up: I used leftover quinoa instead of brown rice, and it tastes so good with peas and onions. It’s such a simple side dish but I really enjoy it. And I roasted a pork tenderloin instead of chicken or salmon. The marinade was quite yummy.

We also have a new neighbor who is moving in this week. So Carla and I will make her some chocolate snickerdoodles (Carla’s choice) to welcome her to the neighborhood.

That’s it for this week, Internet. Please don’t forget to tell me your favorite veggie sides and/or let me know what you’re making for dinners this week. 

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Dinners This Week

My grocery store seems, on the surface, to be back to pre-pandemic normal – as much yeast and 409 as anyone can ask for – and yet, several items that I have had on my list for weeks remain elusive. My favorite brand of pickles (Clausen; you can get spears but I don’t want spears). The jars of Old El Paso taco seasoning (they do have the packets, but I want the jars. And yes, I know it’s probably better to make my own, and I can and I have, but I just LIKE this specific seasoning and it makes life easier). Eggo frozen pancakes (there were NO frozen pancakes at all this week; nor were there any French toast sticks – just a big yawning gap in the freezer section). Rose’s lime juice is completely out of stock.

I don’t like it. Yes, I acknowledge that these are very specific/specific-to-my-family items, and probably have nothing to do with the pandemic. And yet I haven’t been able to find them in at least two weeks. In fact, it’s probably been longer than that; it’s only once I can’t find something multiple weeks in a row that I really start noticing its absence. 

Perhaps I am feeling a bit anxious given that we are now a year from when the pandemic began. Last March, we had very few cases in my state… but the virus was blowing up in New York and California and Washington and Europe. Friends were cancelling their spring break plans. I had already begun strategically bulking up our stores of emergency supplies. We were preparing to maybe not return to in-person school after spring break. Paper towels were already becoming scarce on the shelves. The echo of those memories is stronger right now, even as spring peeks her cheery head above the winter gloom and news of increasing numbers of vaccinations and new guidelines for gathering together make everything feel full of hope and promise. Hopefully, with time and distance and rising vaccination rates, those echoes will grow fainter still.

But as far as grocery shopping goes, this is how it will be forever, I think: some perfectly ordinary shortage makes me feel disproportionate alarm, triggering a must-hoard-things response. It requires work to squelch this reaction, and sometimes we will be unable to resist the siren song of readily available staples. Today, I was successful. I did not even buy any flour or yeast, even though they were abundant. What I would really like applause for is walking out of the store without olive oil. It was on a HUGE sale – basically, buy one get one half off – and yet I left without even a single bottle. I have FOUR FULL BOTTLES in my cupboard already. I did not need more. I did not buy more.

The only other thing I really wanted that wasn’t available was white asparagus. But there was lots of fresh baby green asparagus in stock, so I bought that instead. Not quite the same thing, but we make do with what we have.

Dinners for the Week of March 9-15

  • Spargelsuppe with Rosemary Garlic Focaccia: I have been nostalgic for spargelsuppe ever since my husband and I ate it a million times during our anniversary trip to Germany and Austria… so I am going to try to make some this week. How can it possibly live up to authentic Bavarian spargelsuppe, or frankly, to my memory? Especially if I have only GREEN asparagus to work with? (Side note: I re-read my post about our trip and now am PINING for travel. Any travel! To any place!) (Will I ever feel comfortable on a plane again? Will I ever want to visit public spaces with other people? Will I ever again experience the joy/pain of walking many miles a day through a European city?)

Follow Up: The asparagus soup was fine. Good, even. But it was not authentic Bavarian spargelsuppe. Well. If I can ever find white asparagus, I will try again; the white asparagus (which makes me think of Bunnicula) is supposedly milder. The focaccia WHICH I DID FINALLY MAKE was a huge disappointment, largely due to user error. This user erred by not reading the recipe in advance, so I had neither the correct flours nor the right size pan. I powered through, though, and the result was edible. But it was much denser than focaccia is supposed to be. I want big pockets of air, and soft, fluffy bread. My version had neither. I also messed up the application of the roasted garlic. I think maybe because my dough was not right? Or maybe I needed to really poke it down into the dough? It all either burned or fell off the top of the focaccia. It is unlikely that I will buy either whole wheat flour or the correct sized pan at any point, so I need to find a new recipe.

  • Lemon Roasted Salmon with Sweet Potatoes and Broccoli: This one-pan recipe just smacks of nutrients, doesn’t it? I fear that means it will be first to be jettisoned from the list if one night I don’t feel like cooking. I discovered some time ago that broccolini is not – for me – worth the price. Too much stringy stalk for the cost, I say. So I will swap out broccoli.
  • Skillet Enchiladas: I saw this on Instagram (I follow three categories of accounts on Instagram: books, workouts, and FOOD) and I immediately bookmarked it. YUM. Of course, I do not own a skillet. So I will be making these the old fashioned way, in a 9 x 13 pan in the oven. 
  • Szechuan Stir Fry: We haven’t had this in awhile and I am in the mood for stir fry.

This is a bit more ambitious than my recent dinner posts… but if I am in the MOOD to cook, then why not DO SO? (Because being in the mood NOW does not guarantee being in the mood later, Self. Have you learned nothing from your years of making dinner?)

What are you eating this week?