I've hit some high highs and low lows in the battle to love summer these past few days. Highs: I've
stubbornly successfully worked out for twelve days in a row now, I sat on a porch swing and actually enjoyed the warm breeze and the singing wind chimes, I discovered that I might not feel
unqualified disgust towards one of my avoided-foods. Lows: I'm definitely getting fatter and possibly even weaker somehow, I made a cake featuring a can of frozen pink lemonade concentrate, I feel perpetually covered in sweat, bug bites, and sand EVERYWHERE uuuuuuughhh my disgust towards sand remains staunchly unqualified. Also, every time I approach a playground I feel nothing but seething jealously for the people I pass who are already leaving the playground, so that doesn't bode well. ("PLEASE TAKE ME BACK INTO THE AIR CONDITIONING WITH YOU" is hardly an appropriate battle-cry for summer. Get it together, me!)
Okay, let's get down to business. BA#11:
fresh chorizo tacos. Not surprised that this one was a big winner. Did you know that it's very easy to make chorizo? And it's a salty, spicy treat? This is definitely a point for Bon Appetit, and I wish I could somehow credit summer as being "taco season," but come on, tacos are appropriate any time of year.
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| Or time of day. |
BA#12:
Creole-spiced shrimp. First of all, Dan felt the need to document my handling of raw shrimp for possibly the first time ever as proof of my tireless dedication to this project.
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| Of course, with no context, you don't really know that those are my hands. I could have hired a stunt food-prepper. You know what, I'm going to look into that. |
So "tireless dedication" may have been overselling it a little, as I deviously made this (one of SEVERAL shrimp recipes) to take to my book club meeting, where I could pawn it off on other people.
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| I remain proud of this plan. This was probably my cleverness high point for the week. |
But then, lo and behold! I tried one of the shrimp so that I could accurately report back to you, dear readers (SCIENCE), and I didn't even dislike it at all! I willingly ate two more of them! Maybe it's time to throw a whole stick of butter on a pile of mushrooms and see if I can't come to terms with all of my food enemies. (I felt like this is a lesson I must have already learned at some point, so I put "butter" into the search field for this blog HAHAHA just a couple of results, there.)
Anna, honey, Mommy had a food breakthrough and you were right there in the kitchen, helping to make it happen!
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| So gratifying. |
Of course, when I needed to make a birthday cake this weekend, BA was WORTHLESS because all it has is four pages of various things to do with ice cream, so I had to look elsewhere. I decided on a
pink lemonade pound cake, which in reality was neither pink nor a pound cake. It's just a bundt cake. If there's no POUND OF BUTTER, it's NOT A POUND CAKE.
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| Sorry, some issues are very close to my heart. |
This morning while Anna was eating breakfast, I made the mistake of telling her that she looked very nice today, which obviously caused her to begin whining and pulling off her clothes.
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| What am I, new here? |
It's okay, she didn't really look like herself anyway. Summer usually brings out the extra-crazy, which is actually a point I'm putting in the "pro" column.
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| That's more like it. |
