Pack a Lunch For Work: Peanut Butter

Yeah, I did.

This is shelf-stable peanut butter, which is kind-of like actual peanut butter.

But it's full of semi-sweet chocolate chips and "white chocolate" chips. I am eating it with a spoon, and I have been nibbling at it all day long. That's breakfast, lunch, something, something, and maybe dinner, depending on whether or not I think I've already eaten dinner.

I packed other foods, but I'll save them for tomorrow, because my blood sugar level feels freakishly stable today and my hunger is pretty minimal. Like, what? ...Unh, what? ...Unh, what? I... Um... Okay, I think I was just poltergeisted by the Beastie Boys, but I don't remember... That song... It was probably "Long Burn the Fire?" I'm not going to actually check before posting this, though.


So, there you go.

Lemon Bars Replenish the Electrolytes Lost While Making Lemon Bars

Let's take a moment to really let this title sink in. To bask in the goodness and truthiness* of its claim:

Lemon Bars Replenish the Electrolytes Lost While Making Lemon Bars

Now, I know what you're thinking. "What the Hell is an electrolyte, and what does it have to do with me?!?" Well, here jackass, get some NIH science in you.

Can I guarantee that these lemon bars have electrolytes in them? Uh, yeah, probably, I think. I mean, I figure it's got baking soda, which is supposed to count. It's got, like, lemon juice. And it has two of the essential sugars--granulated AND powdered. It even has eggs, and those probably do something cool. Right? I mean, they're eggs. Nature's... Nature's Powerbar or nature's ovum or something. Dinosaurs and weasels eat them. Eggs are fucking good for you.

I made lemon bars today because it's summer and it's hot out and as an exercise buff I needed the electrolytes because I walked about a whopping 2 1/2 miles at a nice, leisurely pace today. I know, right?!? All the way to AND FROM the bus stop.

The recipe I used is a good one, too. It's the "Gabrielle's Lemon Squares" recipe from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, which I'm very glad to have in my kitchen.

In fact, I'm such a fan of pressuring people into buying books that I'm not going to provide the recipe in this post. Go to a bookstore and buy yourself the book. There's an app, but don't buy that until you've bought at least two copies of the actual book, in hard copy. Buy a few extra books while you're at it. I'm pretty sure that books are full of electrolytes. I mean, all that ink has to do SOMETHING if you chew it into a bolus and hold it under your tongue like a sublingual medication. Not that I endorse eating books. Unless you buy a second or third copy to read, in which case just knock yourself out, you fuckin' freak. Really. Just buy from a little local book shop if you can. One of the good ones. Vote with those fucking dollars.

Right.

Here's a picture of the lemon bars that I made about an hour ago. A friend once complimented me on how bold it is to take unflattering photos of food for this blog, and I've opted to believe that this really WAS a compliment. So please, enjoy the totally authentic shadow of my phone, as I took this phone photo of the dish of lemon bars. Aww yeah.

*The word "truthiness" was used here in homage to Stephen Colbert.

Pears Are Better Than Apples

That's right. I'm using phrasing which I vowed to the gods of impartial statistics that I would never use.

To state that something is better than something else, without providing some kind--any kind--of testable, measurable variables with which to quantify and explain the statement creates a terrible black hole in my head where I'd want the science to be. I once had a TERRIBLE fight with an AMAZING friend, over the semantics of the phrase "better than." Because I am an asshat. I have a bizarre little blood vendetta that links me, to the death, with the undefined phrase "better than."

Plenty of people have the cognitive sophistication to infer from context exactly which variables are being weighed when "better than" is being proclaimed. But I can't guarantee that I have that ability, at least not in every situation. And I certainly can't guarantee that I'm able to imply the specifics in my own speech, so effectively that other folks will be able to correctly infer what "better than" means to me, in whichever sentence the phrase is used in. It's troubling for me, at best.

Therefore!

I am right here, right now, making my stand. A fruit stand.

Here is WHY I feel entitled to claim that pears are better than apples, until such a time as I get sick of pears and decide that I like apples better. Or until I decide that they're both equally good. Or whatever.

1. I'm not sick of pears. My household has gone through a LOT of apples this winter, but we've only recently started to buy pears. Pears are novel right now, and I like that, right now.

2. Pears are easier to eat. I have eaten two pears today, and both took nearly zero effort to consume. Because they were appropriately ripe, I really just had to kind of hold them in front of my face, and wait for them to naturally absorb. Yeah, I ate them, but it took virtually no effort at all.

Apples, on the other hand... Don't get me started!!! Apples require actual biting. In fact, I have to pay attention to where I bite an apple, so that I'm left with other, conveniently-placed spots to bite next. I have to remember that I have teeth and gums. I may have to floss. And if I want to forego the strategic steps of selecting bites and just chop it into wedges... Well... That requires finding a knife and it requires using that knife, and that requires that I stay awake long enough to complete the task. Now, I'm open to being awake at work, no question. But on my own time?!? Schyeah RIGHT!!!!!

3. Pears are soft, cooling, and their automatically purée-like consistency is great for soothing a hot, sore throat.

Now, the Pacific Northwest is famous for lots of things. We have Sasquatch, scary trees, whales, guitarists, coffee, and people with fluffy beards. But most importantly, we have head colds. Everybody, every day of every year, has a head cold out here. Or, if we're "between head colds," we still have a sore throat, some sinus congestion, and probably stinging eyes and fatigue. Always. ALWAYS.

Always.

This is why it's important to have beverages! The Pacific Northwest is a beverage paradise. We're pro-beverage, out here. We have the coffee, we have the tea, we have the fancy-fancy local beer, we have the fancy-fancy local juices.

Pears are as close to a beverage as any non-citrus, non-melon fruit I've tried so far. They kick apples' ASS in this arena.

I mean, you can bake apples until they're soft, but they're traditionally served warm. You can make applesauce as a way to kind of engineer an artificial pear, but it's a lot of work to do, and also a lot of work to eat, because applesauce requires a greater familiarity with which direction gravity is pointing, at any given moment. And you can make apple juice, but drinking it requires even MORE gravity-awareness than applesauce does. Nice TRY, apple juice. (Fuck, I could really go for a glass of apple juice, now. That sounds delicious.)

Anyway.

Pears are like a glass of juice that you can hold sideways or upside-down, without the risk of spilling. It's like they transport you to a special zero-gravity dining room, but without the intense nausea associated with trying to eat in zero-g.

Sure, some apples are juicy, cooling, and sweet. Some are every bit as delicious as a ripe pear, and some are (rarely) legitimately MORE delicious than some pears are. But they require more actual EATING to eat, and that's just not good enough for me today.

4. Pears rhyme with bears. Yes, I'm afraid of bears. But the word sounds nice.

SO, IN CONCLUSION...

Pears require less effort to eat, they cool my throat, they have the right relationship with gravity, and I think they're great because I haven't had many of them, lately.

PEARS RULE!!!

Fashion Eggs!

Following one of the GRANDEST "What was I thinking?!?" moments, I present to you...

FASHION EGGS

No explanation is being provided.

Are Pills Food? Because This Pillbox is TASTY!!!

Even though vitamins are FULL of vitamins, it might be a little bit of a stretch to review a pillbox in a food blog. But this blog is flippant, I am flippant, and goddammit if I don't eat my medicinals like a health fiend. Because that's what adults do.

So!

If you're like me, then you love tidy little containers, and you hate trying to remember what you just did.

Fear not! This sweet little number has different compartments for the days of the week, and one extra compartment for whatever. Because it is a pill box! So, when using it, you just need to remember what day of the week it is, and once you have that sorted out, you can tell whether or not you have already eaten the contents of today's compartment. It's like an advent calendar, except... Well... Except for so many things, technically speaking, if we're really going to go there. Unless you stuff it with chocolate? But anyway.

This pill box is ALSO the customized product of an unspeakably cool Etsy shop, stellarcustomimages. I cannot endorse this shop enough:

1. I love supporting Etsy shops!!! And the proprietor/artisan's customer service was ultra-friendly, and impressively fast. I wish that every Etsy shop could be so pleasantly and professionally run.

2. I love practical items that don't break when I tote them around clumsily. I'm on my second pair of earbuds this season, and looking for a third, but this pillbox is still reliable and a pleasure to look at. Really, if I haven't broken it by now, then it has earned its place among the legends. (The original Gameboy being another legend of "stuff I didn't break." This thing is, like, GAMEBOY sturdy.)

3. The graphic itself is really ON THERE. I don't think that I could remove it if I wanted to. Not that I've intended to try, but things happen, and even some curious prodding did no damage. The graphic is also well-placed, and shows no signs of the asymmetry and "quirkily homemade" flaws that are often present in one-artist productions. This is a genuinely nicer product than the fancypants pillboxes that I see in pharmacies.

4. The picture on the lid is totally up to the customer to decide.

No, really. Really. No, really. Really! It really is. It really, really is. Just let that soak in. That's freedom, baby. The flavor of freedom. Tastes unfamiliar, doesn't it? Well, just take it slow, ease into it, so that you don't get a brain freeze. It's almost too much freedom, but if you keep a cautious mind and a bold heart, you'll be well on your way toward making the right decision.

For mine, I chose a gorgeously ethereal, cloudy, blue phone photograph that I took several months ago.

At the time of its creation, I was trying to take a photograph of my cat Leonard, when my phone's camera flash started to go off. Thinking only of the convenience of my darling little animal, I tucked the camera into my right armpit, to muffle the flash of light. But when I retrieved it, something magical had happened! My navy blue sweater and the camera flash had inadvertently birthed a lovely series of increasingly pale blue circles. (Sweaters are RAD, eh?)

After having a very, very serious laugh about this, I decided to use the image in a number of aesthetically-inclined settings. The picture really turned out inappropriately attractive, given its origins.

So, when the opportunity to make it the "cover" of a go-to pillbox presented itself, I simply couldn't resist.

This pillbox is one of my all-time favorite objects, and I dare you to get one of your own, with your own favorite picture on it.

Like, I extra, extra dare you, really.

...

...

Because I love this thing!!!!!!!!

Melting Cheddar Cheese on Baby Spinach

"I get it."

"I get it!"

"No, really, Lindsay. I get it."

"All you eat are found art objects, desserts, green vegetables to prevent total annihilation, and melted cheddar cheese. A typical day consists of a breakfast of candy and Ritalin, green beans and coffee for lunch, and a hot bowl of melted cheese and Oreos for supper. God, just stop... JUST STOP TALKING ABOUT IT!!! Please! There are CHILDREN on the internet, for cryin' out loud!"

"Stop making me look at your food! Just stop it! Please, please, PLEASE knock it off."

"I just... I... I give up. Let's just get this one over with."

Depicted in the photo below is tonight's main course for dinner:

A bowl of baby spinach, tossed with homemade raspberry vinegar from a wonderful aunt on my husband's side of the family, with Tillamook mild cheddar cheese melted on top to serve as the oil, salt, and protein of the dish.

It was lovely. This is the second night in a row that I've had this for dinner. I plan to eat the whole Costco tub of baby spinach before it wilts, because I have an antagonistic relationship with our compost bin, and don't want to give it any handouts. It is lazy and full of discarded things.

Why Always Eat the Food? Putting Cooking Oil In Your Hair & Almond Extract on Your Person

Now, I'm a big fan of eating food. Like, hands-down, in favor of it.

But sometimes, it can be useful to use traditionally food items in non-food ways! Like using eggs in place of snowballs, when there isn't any snow. Or mixing baking soda and lemon juice, and then putting the foaming mass of organic drain cleaner on my face. Because I did.

Today, I did two similar things, with mixed results:

#1. I put on almond extract like perfume

This should be a great idea, right? I get to smell like some non-human stuff, but I don't have to make anybody sneeze or complain. Seriously, if you even CLAIM that something in the world smells better than almond extract, then I will fight you. Or love you, if you introduce me to some game-changing new smell. I'm not really sure. (For example, my sister claims that there is a beautiful type of centipede that smells just like almond extract. So, if you have one, and we are close friends, please invite me over, so that I can smell it.)

So!

I dabbed a bit of almond extract behind my ears and on my wrists today, in the standard perfume ritual, and it smelled great. In fact, the smell was perfect. It was a perfect smell.

Maybe five seconds later, the smell vanished completely.

Sure, I've heard it said that a truly compatible perfume will mix with the wearer's own scent so subtly that it no longer becomes overtly noticeable. And I HOPE that this is the case. I would love to learn that I was simply made to wear almond extract. But my instincts tell me that it probably just evaporated into nothing.

#2. I mashed canola oil into the non-scalp part of my hair, knotting it up in a bun, and just letting it soak up the oil like a baseball mitt.

Luckily for me, I already KNOW that this one works, because I've done it before.

As a ginger, I have a handful of oddly specific vanity "issues."

One is that my eyebrows and eyelashes are as invisible as Tilda Swinton's, so if I want them to show up on my Cyndi-Lauper-round-not-Ziggie-Stardust-gaunt face, I'd better do my best to remember art school. Gotta draw within the lines, that kind of thing.

Another "issue" is that I don't get along with direct sunlight. I burn fast, and I hate the look of it. Did you know that Bram Stoker was a ginger? A ginger from Dublin, even! Are you surprised? Me neither. (I am not from Dublin, but when I was there I found the weather comparable to Seattle's, and I felt pretty comfortable.)

And ANOTHER thing is my hair.

Without the shiny mutant hair, I'd just have the coloring of a super-pale, eyeless fish from a sunless cave. But WITH the hair, complete strangers have an excuse to walk up to me and ask me if I use hair dye. Thanks for asking, strangers! I also have one more excuse to secretly pretend to be the Dark Phoenix from the 1970s X-Men comic books. And that's a good thing. ("Oh, X-Men, I must kick your asses severely, for no real reason, because I discovered some bad habits at the discotheque where we picked up The Dazzler last week. Also, I ate a solar system for the kicks.")

Sure, I might pretend to take my hair for granted. I've let it grow out in such a way that, when brushed fluffy and vigorously nodded to heavy metal music (we call this form of dance "headbanging") the appearance is oddly masculine, in an old-timely Metallica way. I can style it like Drew Barrymore's hair in that Charlie's Angels movie, but that requires art supplies and forethought, so I tend to just round it up to "pre-haircut James Hatfield with a sassy ponytail." It works out well enough.

But nonetheless, I secretly take intensely dedicated care of my hair, like it's a private little victory garden to tend in times of strife. It... Well, to quote some not-quite-metal, we could say that my hair reminds me of a warm, safe place, where as a child I'd hi-de-yide, and pray for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by. In fact, in middle school and early high school, I DID hide in my hair. But as a child, I hid in the fur of a collie that looked just like Lassie. The experience was roughly the same.

So!

Even as I type this, the non-scalp parts of my hair are carefully organized into a "super-cool," top-of-the-head ponytail, and that ponytail is THOROUGHLY saturated in canola oil. I seriously just mashed about 1/3rd of a cup of cooking oil in there, until it was ridiculously oily. Today was a sick day spent hanging around the house, so I've had the opportunity to just leave my hair like this for hours.

Because I've done this before, I know that once I've showered my hair into something clean, the previously dry ends of my hair will be much, much softer, and less frizzy. I've tried a wide assortment of different hair moisturizing masks, and cooking oil actually produces the best results. Yay for my wallet!!!

I know that many people have already done cooking oil hair masks for ages and ages, so while I can proclaim awesomeness, I can't claim discovery.

It's a trick that I'd originally picked up when reading about how to maintain gorgeous, curly, natural, African-style hair. (A girl can dream, eh? The grass being greener on the other side, and so on. I like to read about what I don't have.) The results in the how-to articles were always so lush-sounding that I wanted to try it on my own hair, just to see. And while my hair is a different texture, I can report that the results are still amazing. Huzzah!

Typically, I read about this being done with olive oil, but I use standard cooking oil instead, for a couple of reasons. One is that I don't want to smell like olive oil. I want to smell like almond extract!!! The other reason is that olive oil is CONSIDERABLY more expensive, and the results that I get with cheapo cooking oil are definitely good enough for me.

And that concludes today's report on using food in non-food ways! I hope you had fun, because I sure did.

See you later, everyone! Bye bye! Good night! Have a nice weekend! So long! Until we meet again! Take care, now! Say hello to your mother for me! Bon voyage! Godspeed! Let's do this again sometime! Well, look at the time. It sure is getting late. But drive safely, okay! Don't forget that you can always just call a taxi, and then get a ride back to your car in the morning. Alright, see you around, pardner! Goodbye!