Oct
31
acquiring new tastes
Filed Under food, holidays | 4 Comments
This being Halloween, I figured I should share something about candy.
I find it encouraging that I am still learning about new foods at my age. A few months ago, a co-worker of mine shared a portion of his Baby Ruth candy bar with me.
I never thought I liked them for some reason, but I was immediately won over. My only recollection of Baby Ruth candy bars growing up was the reference in the movie Goonies (a movie I loved). I don’t generally enjoy a lot of chocolate, especially when nouget gets added to the mix. However, the nut flavor is very strong, and for that I’m a sucker.
It’s too early to give it an exact ranking among my favorite bars, but I certainly put it in that group, along with Butterfinger, Twix (is that a candy bar, per se?), and Snickers.
As I polish off a mini-Baby Ruth tonight, I send out my thanks to Brian for pushing me to expand my food horizons.
Oct
28
rhubarb, pumpkins, and dreams
Filed Under food, mundane, seasons | 2 Comments
Here are a few random thoughts to round out the week.
Thought #1: I’ve often dreamed of owning a house and paying someone to do all the yard work. Life would be so carefree without having the lawn mowing hanging over your head all week. Well, I realized today I’ve achieved that dream, and it’s nothing like I anticipated. We still own our house in G.R. and get to pay someone to do all the yard work. The problem is we’re not there to enjoy it. Hmmm. Did I mention we’re trying to sell our house?
Thought #2: I’ve heard it said you know you have a good grasp of a foreign language when you start dreaming in that language. A year of German at Calvin was enough to convince me that something like that’s possible. I don’t always remember my dreams, but this morning I woke up remembering dreaming in Perl and PHP. I’m not sure what that means, other than the weekend came just in time.
Thought #3: Rachel and I both have a green thumb gene somewhere in our families (e.g., her Dekker grandparents, my Grandma Vugteveen). However, 
we’re fairly certain that gene skipped over us. We have a very difficult time keeping any plants alive, let alone anything one might consider a garden. Rhubarb seems to be something that grows in spite of us, and for that we’re thankful. We have some rhubarb we transplanted from my Grandma Vugteveen that has now moved with us three times, and it keeps on growing. I tell you all that only to share that Rachel was able to find enough time to bake a rhubarb pie this week. Delicious.
Thought #4: I enjoy the season of fall. I’m pleased that Virginia has this season, too. 
The trees (and there are a ton of them around here) have
been turning colors very gradually over the last several weeks. This is a picture in the neighborhood where we’re currently living. I also enjoy pumpkin-flavored things, such as a Pumpkin 
Spice Latte at Starbucks. Mmmm. Speaking of pumpkins, Lori (my sister-in-law) carved up this jack-o-lantern in about 2 minutes. (She’s good at art stuff.)
Oct
13
Southerners now?
Filed Under food | 5 Comments
Rachel, Micah, and I ate at our first Chick-fil-A a couple weeks ago. While living in MI, I frequently heard about this restaurant chain from those who had been in the South before. I figured we should make it a priority upon our arrival here. (It also helped that we were giving two coupons for free sandwiches. Thanks, FRC.)
While this certainly won’t be a food review worthy of ma’ona, I will say I
really enjoyed the experience. They had a huge vat of honey-mustard sauce where you could pour your own amount. I’m a sucker for honey-mustard. Rachel commented that she’s never seen such polite and helpful employees at a fast food restaurant. (”Yes, ma’am.” “It would be my pleasure.”)
I’ll certainly be going back for more. Does this mean we’re Southerners now? If so, that seems like a much less painful path than eating other foods.