I Weighed Today's Food Purchase

I was so overwhelmed by what I bought, I weighed it. (Geek.)

Item	By Weight	By Quantity	Total Price
Cucumbers	2 lbs. 6 oz.	4	$1.67
Tomatoes	4 lbs. 4 oz.	9	$1.67
Onions (red, large)	1 lb. 8.2 oz.	2	$1
Potatoes (white, large)	6 lbs. 5 oz.	13	$3.33
Carrots	2 lbs. 10 oz.	17	$1.67
Beets (red, roots only)	5 lbs. 14 oz.	10	$1.67
Squash (winter; type=mystery)	? (>5 lbs.)	1	$1
Shallots (bunching)	12.8 oz.		$1
Parsley (flat)	9.3 oz.		$1
Sage	6.9 oz.		$1
Methi	7.9 oz.		$1
Rice (basmati)	4 lbs.		$6
Oil (sesame)	5.5 oz.		$3

Food Purchase Thoughts

Two thoughts:

1. Oh ****.
   
   (I brought home a lot of high-processing-needs vegetables. And the kitchen and hosue aren't even clean. And I want to have brownies and soup done by what time??!!)


2. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the farmers who were still at the marketplace at 3 in the afternoon. I can't believe how much I bought. (And bonus, thanks for helping me shop by figuring out what I was trying to make and offering me things you'd already loaded into the truck that would help.) I mean, wow. I'm sorry I've forgotten your names to thank you by name, but thank you all the same. I can't believe I did this at 3PM. And I couldn't have done it without you.

Elbow Macaroni Dish

The meal on the front of the box of Creamette brand elbow macaroni looks terribly unappetizing.

And at the same time, it looks like a freaking delicacy in my culture.

I'm sure Mom would've made it a lot like that--especially if she'd had time to shred things up that finely.

Blog Posts Reacting To Pres. Obama's Health Care Speech

My two favorite takes on President Obama's health care speech the other night:

1. Obama’s Health Care Reform Pitch : Why Reform isn’t the Same as Change by La Mamita Mala
and
2. Healthy Profits: Corporate Money Moves Tell the True Tale of Obama's "Reforms" by Chris Floyd

Both are outstandingly good blog posts.

Germany Bombed 70 People Trying To Get Gas In Afghanistan

"There are no words to describe these monsters. To blow innocent poor to bits, merely for the crime of taking gas to stay alive, is a crime against all humanity, and nobody cares. Nobody is screaming in the streets to put an end to this pointless barbarism and savagery."

From the comments over at Chris-Floyd.com

Off The Deep End (On Food)

I have gone off the deep end with respect to food.

I just bought fresh grape leaves, that I talked the provider into bringing this week, even though ready-to-roll prepackaged ones are available w/o any inconvenience.

And then I took out a pocket knife and stole the tops of some amaranth from a street-landscaping garden. I'm thinking I'll throw it in a bag, take it w/ me to the thing I have to go to for work today, and separate seeds from chaff while I sit around on standby the way some people knit.



*sigh* It's not exactly like people on the provision side of the food world haven't noticed that I'm freaking weird! Perhaps this guy was prescient?

:-)

-Katie


P.S. Glad I found this while looking for pictures. Maybe, if I want to do it efficiently, amaranth seeding will have to wait till I get back home.

Jenny wrote:
Chaff flew everywhere and I realized that (a) people had been getting grains out of dead plant since the dawn of agriculture and (b) I really ought to be outside.

WIC & Produce

What?! $6?
I was going to send "Needy mothers, kids get a new menu from WIC: They'll find healthier options added to federal food program" to Ethicurean.com after I saw the headline.

But reading the article:

A new "produce voucher" covers up to $6 in produce per month per person, or $8 for pregnant women.

What?! Is that all of one's WIC money a person can use on produce?*

It better not be...I really hoped they made it so all the money can be used on produce if you so choose. Produce is so freaking important, and so freaking expensive.

I mean, I've been getting stellar deals on produce this summer...but I can't imagine that it costs me any less than $10 a week to buy what I'm coming to consider healthy quanitites of it.

And they're giving pregnant women only $8 a month??? And that money's only good where the produce is even more expensive than it is where I buy it?!
(Only good at brick-and-mortar stores.)

WTF.

*(If anyone can tell whether the 7 "packages" now all include produce, in addition to there being that "produce voucher," please let me know.)

More Cookies

Then again, hey, at least I'm not crazy--I really am working from a background of indecent behavior towards a future of decent behavior.

I'll still try to stop wanting that "cookie" for common decency, but...yeah.

Racism At Home

Holy crap, can home be a cesspit of racist statements.

I have GOT to remember boundary-setting at the BEGINNING of when ANY sociopolitical comments are made AT ALL, not when I'm stewing after an argument.

(Thanks, folks. It's so helpful for you to set my political-solution-opinions straight by stating for me that the people your preferred political solutions punish are evil. I hadn't thought of that--*headsmack*--yes, make 'em all leave any territory ever occupied by a majority white population! Geez Louise.)


(Quote of the night--I kid you not, is, "I think Saudi Arabia has problems because it has Muslims living in it.")
(Context: I'd said that my family member running into lots of brown women in hijab in London 1) didn't mean there were no white people left in England--immigrants are an urban thing, and you'd see white people in the British countryside same as you'd see Muslim Arabs in the Saudi Arabian countryside but Filipinos in Riyadh, and 2) "Tell me, is Saudi Arabia going to become a horrible place to live because of a high number of Filipinos? If not, how on earth is England going to become a horrible place to live because of a high number of Muslims?")

"Whatchu Want, A Cookie?!"

A weakness I struggle to be better about, as a person:

Sometimes, I get really disappointed thinking that I won't "get a cookie" for stuff I'm supposedta do (to paraphrase Chris Rock).

Like when I thought, after reading this VivirLatino post, "I'm going to make sure I remember what people's lives are like when they're in my life--make sure I remember how much people could use time for their own chores, etc." And then I thought, "Hmm. Maybe I can live so people will really feel respected." But...ummmm...no. I'd probably just, in an employment context for example, be someone who's "fine."

And that's all.

Because, well, honestly, you're SUPPOSEDTA respect other people. Yeah, it should make people "feel" respected--but...ummm....that's SUPPOSEDTA be normal. Not wowie-zowie.

And then I thought, "Crap."

Sometimes, I really want a cookie for things you're just supposedta do. Maybe I can get over that, too, at the same time as or after I'm working on doing more respectful acts.