I bought this pasta because the tv told me to.*
Okay, who bothers to make processed food recs? Apparently me, that's who.**
I was in the grocery store the other day, and I happened to stop by the little Buitoni tortellini/ravioli kiosk. I buy these tortellinis sometimes. Most commonly when I am feeling homesick. My poor mom: all the foods that most make me think of home are foods that come in a box. I still remember how wounded she was when she called a couple of weeks before the Christmas break of my first year of college to ask me what foods I was homesick for - and, oh, I was dreadfully homesick - and I told her that what I missed most was her Kraft macaroni and cheese. We still ask for it whenever we come home to visit. My Mailman and I agree: we are incapable of making it taste like Mom's. No one we know can make it taste like Mom's! The woman is a virtuoso of powdered cheese(like substance)!
(She puts ham in it, too, but that's not what gives the cheese its unique perfection. It is, however, what allows us to sing choruses of 'Cheese with Mac and Ham' to the tune of the 'Tea with Jam and Bread' part of 'Do, a Deer...')
Anyway: food. Mac and cheese makes me think of Mom. And plastic boxes of tortellini make me think of Mom. This week, however, while standing in front of the tortellini kiosk I recalled a commercial for, um, some long Italian word I could not remember, stuffed with delicious mushrooms. Now, I love me some delicious mushrooms. (I suspect it is the hobbit dna). These were the Buitoni 'Wild Mushroom Agnolotti.' I still have no idea what makes something an agnolotti, but these were basically big stuffed oval-shaped ravioli. I bought them. And I ate them.
Boy, did I ever eat them! They were SO GOOD, you guys. Robust savory flavorful mushroomy goodness! Best... ravioli-like things... EVAR. I could eat these ever day - if I could afford to buy them, that is.
I had thought about buying pesto for them but was too cheap, in the end. I think that was a good decision, because the pesto would have been over-powering, anyway. I also knew I had a several-weeks-old jar of mushroom (did I mention I like mushrooms?) marinara in the fridge, which still looked and smelled okay, but in the end I decided not to chance ruining my magic mushroom pockets with bad sauce, so I had them with parmesan cheese and a little butter. That was all they needed. Dare I say... orgasmic?
It's a good thing I have resolved to live cheap. Because the mushroom budget alone could easily have gotten way out of hand...
In other news, the other day Alexandra (my friend whose five kids I babysit) and I were talking about whether or not she likes yellow, and she mentioned wanting to have her colors done. I'm not a big believer in the having of the colors done - though I do believe people look better in some colors than others, natch. (So I suppose having a dedicated expert examine you color by color could show you a lot in one go...) I just don't believe that people come in sets, y'know?
Case in point: me. I had a friend in college who was deeply devoted to her (vintage) copy of 'Color Me Beautiful' and tried really, really hard to successfully put me in a season. And when I say that, I mean we would get together primarily on weekends, and a whole week would come and go and she would show up still working on a new theory about what category I belonged in. (I say my skin looks cleanest in 'winter' colors and warmest in 'spring' colors, but my hair and eyes had it in mind that I'd turn out an 'autumn.' This means there are a lot of colors that only flatter one aspect of me at a time, but I prefer to think it opens up more options for me, in the long run. I mean: not looking half bad in nearly every color? I'll take it). The idea that someone might not belong to a 'season' at all was deeply troubling to my friend's worldview.
Today, to kill time after lunch before going back to work, I compulsively googled 'having your colors done,' to see what technological advances might be out there right now, coloring people up. I didn't find much. There's a site devoted to 'Color Me Beautiful' that sells makeup and jewelry by season and has a quiz to tell you what season that ought to be. (This least-sophisticated mechanism ever informs me conclusively that I am an Autumn, because my hair is dark and has a warm undertone. Badda-bing, badda-boom). I also found a site that promises a much more sophisticated and elaborate process - in exchange for money. They will give you a swatch of shopping samples - like paint chips - to keep with you always! The site had this to say:
'Each color on your palette creates a different impression when you wear it - you may appear more formal, more romantic, more exciting, more credible, more quiet and calm, or more "pulled together".'
I thought that was really, really funny at first. Then I realized I was confusing 'credible' with 'credulous.' LOL.
I don't know what color would make me look most credulous. Other than all the colors.
(I also don't know why I am sharing this google-jaunt with the public. The color-palette subculture just intrigues me, I guess.)
*This was before I promised not to buy anything ever again.
**Reminds me of a video my sister once put together when she was going through a video-putting-together phase. (It started with sad montages of Carter and Lucy getting stabbed by Bernard the Elf/hot curly-haired Numb3rs guy on ER). The video featured Han Solo demanding, 'Who's scruffy looking?', followed by the cook from Mary Poppins saying, 'Me, that's 'oo!' Hee hee. Totally ranks among her best work.
.
I was in the grocery store the other day, and I happened to stop by the little Buitoni tortellini/ravioli kiosk. I buy these tortellinis sometimes. Most commonly when I am feeling homesick. My poor mom: all the foods that most make me think of home are foods that come in a box. I still remember how wounded she was when she called a couple of weeks before the Christmas break of my first year of college to ask me what foods I was homesick for - and, oh, I was dreadfully homesick - and I told her that what I missed most was her Kraft macaroni and cheese. We still ask for it whenever we come home to visit. My Mailman and I agree: we are incapable of making it taste like Mom's. No one we know can make it taste like Mom's! The woman is a virtuoso of powdered cheese(like substance)!
(She puts ham in it, too, but that's not what gives the cheese its unique perfection. It is, however, what allows us to sing choruses of 'Cheese with Mac and Ham' to the tune of the 'Tea with Jam and Bread' part of 'Do, a Deer...')
Anyway: food. Mac and cheese makes me think of Mom. And plastic boxes of tortellini make me think of Mom. This week, however, while standing in front of the tortellini kiosk I recalled a commercial for, um, some long Italian word I could not remember, stuffed with delicious mushrooms. Now, I love me some delicious mushrooms. (I suspect it is the hobbit dna). These were the Buitoni 'Wild Mushroom Agnolotti.' I still have no idea what makes something an agnolotti, but these were basically big stuffed oval-shaped ravioli. I bought them. And I ate them.
Boy, did I ever eat them! They were SO GOOD, you guys. Robust savory flavorful mushroomy goodness! Best... ravioli-like things... EVAR. I could eat these ever day - if I could afford to buy them, that is.
I had thought about buying pesto for them but was too cheap, in the end. I think that was a good decision, because the pesto would have been over-powering, anyway. I also knew I had a several-weeks-old jar of mushroom (did I mention I like mushrooms?) marinara in the fridge, which still looked and smelled okay, but in the end I decided not to chance ruining my magic mushroom pockets with bad sauce, so I had them with parmesan cheese and a little butter. That was all they needed. Dare I say... orgasmic?
It's a good thing I have resolved to live cheap. Because the mushroom budget alone could easily have gotten way out of hand...
In other news, the other day Alexandra (my friend whose five kids I babysit) and I were talking about whether or not she likes yellow, and she mentioned wanting to have her colors done. I'm not a big believer in the having of the colors done - though I do believe people look better in some colors than others, natch. (So I suppose having a dedicated expert examine you color by color could show you a lot in one go...) I just don't believe that people come in sets, y'know?
Case in point: me. I had a friend in college who was deeply devoted to her (vintage) copy of 'Color Me Beautiful' and tried really, really hard to successfully put me in a season. And when I say that, I mean we would get together primarily on weekends, and a whole week would come and go and she would show up still working on a new theory about what category I belonged in. (I say my skin looks cleanest in 'winter' colors and warmest in 'spring' colors, but my hair and eyes had it in mind that I'd turn out an 'autumn.' This means there are a lot of colors that only flatter one aspect of me at a time, but I prefer to think it opens up more options for me, in the long run. I mean: not looking half bad in nearly every color? I'll take it). The idea that someone might not belong to a 'season' at all was deeply troubling to my friend's worldview.
Today, to kill time after lunch before going back to work, I compulsively googled 'having your colors done,' to see what technological advances might be out there right now, coloring people up. I didn't find much. There's a site devoted to 'Color Me Beautiful' that sells makeup and jewelry by season and has a quiz to tell you what season that ought to be. (This least-sophisticated mechanism ever informs me conclusively that I am an Autumn, because my hair is dark and has a warm undertone. Badda-bing, badda-boom). I also found a site that promises a much more sophisticated and elaborate process - in exchange for money. They will give you a swatch of shopping samples - like paint chips - to keep with you always! The site had this to say:
'Each color on your palette creates a different impression when you wear it - you may appear more formal, more romantic, more exciting, more credible, more quiet and calm, or more "pulled together".'
I thought that was really, really funny at first. Then I realized I was confusing 'credible' with 'credulous.' LOL.
I don't know what color would make me look most credulous. Other than all the colors.
(I also don't know why I am sharing this google-jaunt with the public. The color-palette subculture just intrigues me, I guess.)
*This was before I promised not to buy anything ever again.
**Reminds me of a video my sister once put together when she was going through a video-putting-together phase. (It started with sad montages of Carter and Lucy getting stabbed by Bernard the Elf/hot curly-haired Numb3rs guy on ER). The video featured Han Solo demanding, 'Who's scruffy looking?', followed by the cook from Mary Poppins saying, 'Me, that's 'oo!' Hee hee. Totally ranks among her best work.
.