Sweet.

Today, I heard a story on NPR that sugar will kill you. Literally. Well, that's what I got out of it, anyway. 

However, in the evening, I always like to have a taste of something sweet in my mouth. Just after dinner. It doesn't have to be much. Well, anyway, whilst we are watching television:

Me: (sitting bolt upright) Did I already eat something sweet? [urgently]

The historian: I don't think so. But you squeezed something sweet.

[Parenthetical note: Right after dinner, I lightly seized the almost empty box of inferior chocolates that we somehow hung onto after polishing off the boxes of superior chocolates (hi Mom!), looked inside, and saw three chocolates that were shaped like creams and not like caramels. So in short order, I quickly squeezed them--one two three chocolates--to discover (a) that I had indeed correctly inferred their fillings from their shapes, and (b) I am now apparently the kind of person who squeezes chocolates to ascertain their fillings. WOW.]

[back to my sweet-hounding:] Me: hahahahahahahahaha [Also: WOW. I am a chocolate squeezer. I will henceforth and forever be known as a chocolate squeezer! God help me, my character is shot.]

Moral of the story: inferior chocolate brings out the worst in a person.

Second moral of the story: either we have to get better chocolate or maybe I don't need something sweet in my mouth after dinner. Or maybe we need better chocolate, I'm sticking with that.

The Megastore recommends.

from Random Access

1. The weekend. Sometimes, it's good to pause and acknowledge universal truths: spring is beautiful. The moon is beautiful. Weekends are not only beautiful, they are fitting, they are just, and--I think we need to all admit this up front--weekends save lives. Take this weekend, for example. We ate Vietnamese food, saw Damsels in Distress, watched a grandchild's soccer game, took that same grandchild to lunch and bought him a birthday present, admired his awesome prowess in the bounce house, ate Mexican food, and looked at the giant, brilliant moon. Just a few days ago, I was filled with anxiety about whether I would get everything done that needs to be done. Anxiety, the people: synonymous with stress, as I think we can all agree. Stress is a killer. After the weekend, I feel relaxed, confident that I will accomplish all that is necessary, and maybe I also don't really care all that much? Who can say?/same diff. But in either case, thank God for the weekend. Who knows what might have happened to me otherwise.

dijon mustard,
prerequisite to a
sassy vinaigrette.

2. Cooking with what's in the house. Running son has a friend. They have been hanging out a lot. Did I say this friend is female? Today when they were exiting the house to go to church, I asked them if they wanted to have dinner with us after church. Sure, they said. So they left and I promptly took a nap, which ended when they returned. What? I said. Luckily, I was able to pull my wits together and make green curry cauliflower with rice, roasted brussels sprouts, salad with a sassy vinaigrette, and cut fresh fruit with mint sugar. And even though, in point of fact, I really didn't have quite enough rice, and the fruit was possibly a little on the worse-for-wear side of the fresh fruit spectrum, it all came off quite beautifully and deliciously. This abundance of surprise provisions, by the way, is a consequence of my being a terrible over-shopper for food. Sometimes this results in tears (over having way too many greens, for instance), but sometimes it results in a delicious dinner. And yay for that.

this is sugar.

this is mint.

3. Mint sugar. Mint sugar is the bomb. You put it on fruit, in judicious amounts, and it makes the fruit both slightly sweeter and quite a bit more refreshing. Here's how it works: you take some fresh mint, stems and leaves. Some people would tell you to remove the leaves from the stems, but I will tell you: not necessary. Because you're going to chop that mint, stems and leaves, until it is fine and finer. I usually take a couple of tablespoons of sugar and put it on the counter with the mint and chop away, because that way the sugar takes in the mint oil in the chopping process. When the sugar basically looks like it is flecked with infinitessimal fragments of green, it is ready to mix with whatever fruit you have cut up. It is brilliant with pineapple. It is piquant with strawberries. Today, I mixed it with cut-up black grapes, blood oranges, and blackberries (previously frozen). And it was--as always--lovely.