My family grocery shopping is rarely ever done all at the same store. It is also done more than once a week for the simple fact that our ‘fridge cannot hold all the veggies that are needed for four people for seven days. My employer’s building is not far from a Whole Foods and there are several “regular” groceries along the way on my way home.

The cashier where we normally buy the lion’s share of our produce has seen us enough times that we recognize each other now. While she was ringing up our items, curiosity finally got the best of her. She asked me what kind of pet we had. I told her a cat. She looked completely puzzled. After further discussion, it came out that she thought all the produce that we regularly buy was for some sort of an exotic vegetarian pet...oh, dear.

A few days later, when I was at a different store and the gal was ringing us up ‘n’ out she mentioned how delicious everything looked and asked what I had planned to make with the Jarlsberg specifically. After I told her, she asked what special occasion it was for. I asked her what she was talking about and she said all the food I was buying...especially the Jarlsberg. I told her no special occasion - that it was just our regular food. She was completely amazed that people really do still actually cook for non-special-occasions and the fact that it was on a weeknight too really threw her a curve. Yikes!

If this is what my dry goods and produce suppliers were thinking then I would hate to imagine what the place where I get our animal based proteins are thinking...

All of this implied “eat anything from a box - it’s fine” brought this next event to my mind. It happened awhile back when I was over at the mall. I was approached by a woman who wanted to give me a free sample of the “all natural weight loss aid” she was selling. Now, first of all, I do realize that I am obviously overly fat...but it just seems like it’s rather insulting to just walk up to people like that...let us come to them. You couldn’t miss the kiosk in the middle of the walkway.

There was no way I was interested in her product, but out of sheer curiosity, I asked her what was in it. She had no clue, but assured me that it was perfectly harmless because it was all 100% natural and went into her pitch. Then she tried to hand me my free sample again. I turned her down. She asked me why and got just flat out obnoxious about it this time. That did it. I told her that hemlock was 100% natural as well, but that didn’t mean that I wanted to drink any. She just looked at me mystified. I walked on.

All of this lovely weather has finally gotten to me. Yesterday, a strong urge to grill came upon me while I was peacefully eating my tuna panini at lunch. That solved what I was going to have later for supper. Yes, I know grilling = carcinogens from the smoke. Well, that’s one of the reasons I own a caste iron grill pan. The other reason is I live in the Pacific NW and it’s normally raining and you can’t use a standard grill even if you want to. That’s also why I have a grill plank for use in my oven, but that’s another meal entirely.

The meal finally shook out with: onion rings with aioli sauce (garlic-y mayo), grilled scallops alternated with thick half moon cuts of zucchini and yellow squash ‘kabobs on a small bed of onion rice pilaf with sides of steamed broccoli & cauliflower (no cauliflower for the O’s) and spelt pasta dressed with manchego & mozzarella, olive oil, Italian seasonings and garlic powder. It probably sounds like too much grain with the pilaf and the pasta, but the pilaf really wasn’t very much. It was a way to use up some leftovers and make the skewers look a little nicer than just sitting on their platter.

The sauvignon blanc was from New Zealand: Whitehaven’s Marlborough 2004. It’s very grapefruit-y. If you would like to try it, it’ll cost you about $12/bottle. Yes, it’s more than my $10/bottle maxium price range at the moment, but I’m currently drinking less than one glass a day so the same amount of overall cash that is coming out of the grocery funds is actually less. No, the O's didn't get any of it, white wine isn't a good idea for them.

The O’s had crabcakes instead of scallop ‘kabobs. The A preferred to make his own, which was a tofu item. Yes, folks, you read that correctly! My A preferred to make his own, which was a tofu item! WOW! I could type that a third time it was so amazing, but I won’t. I am so happy for this change in him. Desserts were spelt bread-pudding with hazelnut glaze for the O’s & A (yes, technically this meal was too much grain for the O’s, but they liked it anyway) and lemon cheesecake pour moi.

On the horizion: Next week (Wednesday) my hushand and I will celebrate our anniversary. We are planning on going out. I got our lamb roast ordered for Easter. It gets picked up on Good Friday so it can start marinating. I thought about doing a salmon and halibut braid this year, but since Easter is so early this year the salmon would have to be the frozen type. The flash frozen isn’t nearly as healthy (the polymines are upped from the flash freezing process) as waiting for the fresh sometime in April.