Monday, August 25, 2014

3 Problems

I've got 3 pressing matters that require your attention and hopefully advice you could spare. Read on, and help me out:

1. Cooking dinner can be so stressful sometimes. You know? I mean, it takes SO much thought and planning.  For instance, I had to microwave the sauce and the vegetables and the rice! Geez, i'll never get it all done if i have to microwave three things all at the same time. So hard!

So what do I do, get another microwave??   Actually, maybe i should. People have a double oven, why not a double microwave? If i stack one on top of the other, maybe their micro-waves will combine and create a 4th dinner item for me.

2. How do you get around the pit of a plum? That thing is stub-born! There's no cutting it out unless you want to have a messy juicy pulpsaster (like disaster--it's a stretch) literally in your hands. I try to twist it a la avocado and, same thing. I feel like Lenny and suddenly I'm horrified I've squelched what I love.

So what do YOU do? My solution thus far is pretty pathetic. These days I've sort of given up cutting it into slices and i just eat around the pit. I cut it in half, eat the no-pit half and then with the other, start taking a few bites, eating it down, and then shove the rest in and suck and gnaw on it until i'm left with the pit, like it's a giant cherry. But it's not pretty and basically guarantees plum juice chin dribble. ( -- potential name for something?) I'm out of ideas though. Someone out there tell me the wacko tip for eating a plum that no one knows about but is amazingly simple.

3. This week I'm off to fetch my husband and we are road trippin' it back, just the two of us. We don't have, like, days to spare but are there any hotspots we should hit between NY and UT? Any recommendations? A giant something or other? Man with the beard of bees? Right now all that's on my list is Lancaster County, PA because if you are able to visit Amish country and don't, a curse be upon you and your kin.    But yeah, so any tips? Thanks, pals!






3 comments:

)en said...

*crickets*

Fine, but when we stop by a landfill in Tennessee, and I eventually post pictures of it, don't blame me.

Valerie said...

I pretty much just don't make dinner. This worked out pretty well when people were bringing me dinner, but as that has dried up, it's gotten pretty grim. I just hate the cooking.

Secondly, I don't even eat plums. Though, all stone fruit (I love that phrase) is essentially the same beast. The good thing about nectarines is that if you get a good one, the fruit kind of helpfully pulls away from the pit. Consider a switch.

Thirdly, it's not great if you don't have a day to do it, but Gettysburg was a real treat. Like, in a "terrible and important things happened here" kind of way. Also in PA, and so, so beautiful, but, yeah, you need time. Other than that, Jen, I don't know much about "fly-over country*".

*I heard expression used by some NYU freshman at an all night McDonalds at 1 am to describe anything that wasn't NY or LA. I thought it was pretty funny, but James, from fly-over country, did not.

)en said...

Val, I used "fly-over state" many, MANY times on our trip. So thanks for that one.

I know, plums take a back seat to so many other fruits. But when they are in their prime, they just utterly shine. And I can't bring myself to dismiss them entirely. So it's a dilemma. I do almost feel like I have to pretend they don't exist because I don't know if I can have such a difficult fruit a common part of my life.

So since I live in zero take-out country, i have felt compelled to learn how to cook. I have a family cookbook and I thought i'd cook my way through it, and then blog about it--FALSE. But yeah, try to cook through it as sort of a "country experiment." Plus I have a decent kitchen now that has like, space and drawers and stuff. So we'll see. Can the country get me to like cooking? One way or another, it might. I took Seamless off my ipad the other day and almost cried.