Honey at Cub in Bear

Mmm. Honey. Honeeeeeyyyyy. 

Practically its own food group at our house. The only food that never spoils. What you're looking at here are two lovely samples given to me by a friendly bee-keeper at my local Cub Foods grocery store. He was stocking the shelves personally with his product, and after finding out we were honey lovers, offered us a sample of his regular and whipped honey. 

This image is my way of thanking him for his tasty gift. He was so excited to have his product at the store. It was a really nice moment of local farmer in the large chain grocery store. Buying local doesn't always require a trip to the farmers market, eh?

Week 112—Husband shops. Wife zones out.

Mon – Chicken tortilla soup (Best-Loved Crock Pot Recipes)

Tues – Dirty rice (box mix)

Weds – Chicken nuggets (Deceptively Delicious)
Thurs – Batman and Robin Soup and buttermilk biscuits ("ChopChop" magazine)
Fri – Rigatoni Isabella

Alts – chip plate; pancakes

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Have no idea what I was doing at the time, but my husband got groceries this week. Before he left, I explained some potentially confusing shorthand on the list. He called me once from the store for a point of clarity about onions.

When he got home, we concurred that it is vastly more difficult to follow a grocery list someone else has made. You have your own structure, handwriting, shorthand, and organizational methods. And you're familiar with the recipes you have in mind, so you know when it's ok to substitute or fly off the list if the store doesn't have exactly what you need.

So, with drumroll and a rolling-pin salute, we co-present this week's menu plan. Happy cooking.

Teaching them to eat ugly

This is a photo of a deliciously crisp and juicy apple given to me by a friend (thanks, Amelia, these were FABULOUS!) who first offered this: It's organic, from a friend's farm, and although it doesn't look that great it tastes really good. 

True, nature isn't always picture-perfect.

My husband and I visited Costa Rica several years ago. A local told us that in times of heavy rain, plastic bags that were put over each of the thousands of banana bunches growing on the banana plantations would fall from the trees and litter the landscape, ultimately washing into the ocean. We half expected to see plastic bags where we were diving. Either there hadn't been heavy rains recently, or the problem wasn't so bad. Not sure, but I've thought about the use of those bags a lot since then.

Other than a few items, I'm not typically too concerned about whether my food is organic or not. However, it always gives me pause when I see perfect and unblemished bananas in the produce aisle. According to our Costa-contact, the plastic bags they put over the banana bunches makes them sell better in the US market because they're unblemished. It doesn't impact the quality of the fruit for better or worse.

So I try to encourage my kids to be open to eating "ugly food." It's not what it looks like, it's what it tastes like that counts! The apple you see here was sheer perfection.

Category: That was weird, exclamation point

I completed a survey to win $100 toward groceries on a whim last night. Here is the response I got (and I really had few complaints, and in fact, many positive comments about staff):
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Hello Nicole, Thank you for taking the time and fill our customer service survey! We appreciate your comments and we Thank you for your feedback! My name is Jordan and I am the assistant store manager at Cub Midway! We are excited to have you as our regular customer, we value your opinion as this helping us to improve in our mission to provide the best customer service experience ever! All that you mentioned is going to be addressed! please let us know if there is anything we can do for you on your next shopping trip to CUB! We are here to ensure the best customer service so if there is anything we can help you with please let us know! We wish you a wonderful day and Thank you for shopping at CUB! 
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I guess that was nice. Or maybe just weird. Yeah, pretty much just weird. Wish I knew if I was in the running for the 100 bucks...