I love food. For me, eating is more than filling an empty space in my torso; it’s a transcendental event. A well-prepared and interesting dish can be a sensuous gastronomical experience. If accompanied by a mellow and buttery wine and topped with a decadent dessert, the effect can be orgasmic. The only thing that can eclipse a great meal is, well, great sex, maybe?
My husband refers to really good food as “teeth tingling.” He also hums and moans when he’s eating something delectably out of this world, but that’s another story all together.
I cook quite well, if I do say so myself. Since both of us love food, we tend to eat things that have been determined by one source or another as being “bad” for us. The sources can be medical or they can be pharmaceutical, but no matter where it came from, the news is always bad. My reasoning for bucking popular warnings is that if I were going to die anyway, I’d rather do it with a plate of osso buco instead of a Big Mac.
Earlier this week word came that part of the nation’s tomato crop is tainted. People are getting sick from salmonella-laden tomatoes. It’s not just regional; it’s all over the place. Rogue tomatoes are being pulled from store shelves by nervous green grocers.
The attack of the killer tomatoes has caused several restaurants to pull the condimental fruit from their menus. I guess it is okay for Burger King to try and kill us with trans fats and cholesterol clogging sauces - but not with wayward produce, whose only stain on society could most likely be eliminated by a careful washing.
I’m here to tell the world I am thumbing my nose at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the naysayers on the news. I’m going to continue to eat tomatoes! I love tomatoes too much to give them up, even temporarily. I can tell you I braved the onslaught of cantankerous, war-mongering spinach during last year’s spinach crisis and I lived to tell. Don’ worry; if given the opportunity for a Purple Heart, I shall respectfully decline.
The poisonous strawberry scare a few years back was mainly reserved for exported berries, but I would have thrown caution to the wind and consumed them as well. I’m bigger than fruits and vegetables no matter what kind of scary germs they may hide.
Call me crazy, call me a rebel, call me a fool with high-risk tendencies. My back yard garden is full of tomato plants, but it will be a full five weeks before anything ripens. In the meantime, I’m taking my chances. There’s no way I’m going give up my summertime favorite, Insalata Caprese, just because certain US tomato cells have turned terrorist on us.
We’re lucky. Here in southeastern Michigan, most of our store tomatoes come from Canadian greenhouses. God bless Canada; they are our clean and antiseptic ally. My suggestion for neutralizing any unidentified renegade tomatoes is to wash those babies down thoroughly before you slice them up and eat them!
Joanne Huspek @ June 28, 2008
GNN, Non-News, hard labor, internet, predictions, triumphant return, weather Comments (2)
Dateline: Royal Oak, Michigan
This non-correspondent wishes to report that she is back in the editorial saddle, after completing three weeks of hard, manual labor.
Tasks completed include planting a vegetable bed, re-filling a half dozen color bowls with new flowers and foliage, weeding, grass cutting and slinging rocks from one side of the yard to the other.
Some bystanders in the Peanut Gallery were taking side bets as to whether or not this non-news editor would collapse in a heap and be carted off to the nearest hospital for revival. Knowing in the back of my mind that leaving the other editor to his own devices was one of the things keeping me from an early demise.
While toiling under the sun (now fuelled by global warming), this non-reporter noticed many non-news items right under her feet. One, ferns are rather insidious plants. Left to their own defenses, they will spread into your green grassy area.
Two, a lawnmower readily takes care of more than just grass. It also takes care of errant ferns growing in the middle of the yard.
Three, stepping outside to determine the weather is far more accurate than relying on the dumb asses on the news, or the dumb asses on Yahoo! weather. You would think that after four years of secondary education, a meteorologist would get it right at least 50% of the time, but no. When I step outside, I can easily determine whether or not I need a jacket or sweater, or if I should bring my umbrella to work.
It is my fervent hope that the hard labor will soften into a semi-hard labor.
Back to you, Bongo.
Joanne Huspek @ May 29, 2008
Dateline Internet:
Times are changing. One could say they’re a changin’ but that would be old fashioned and this is the 21st century. It’s later than it’s ever been before. In the olden days of yore, people used to look things up in proofread edited books. Nowadays, they look things up on the net. At least this reporter does and my favorite site of all is Wikipedia. It has everything. Almost. That’s the problem. I just discovered it.
It seems completely implausible yet it’s true. Wikipedia is incomplete. Worse yet, it isn’t completely accurate. Even worse, it doesn’t go into full depth on anything. It’s almost as if it’s an encyclopedia produced by thousands of informally organized volunteers all with their own biases and flaws. Who knew? Well. Now you do because reporting here is always 100% accurate.
Dent, Stuart Dent @ May 6, 2008
