Ramblings

I watched a woman pay for her prepackaged Mexican Taco Dinner at a grocery store, along with a single tomato, some pre-shredded lettuce, and some ground beef and shredded cheese. It was most depressing when I saw her paying for it with food stamps. People in this country seem to not care about the quality of the food they eat. And they don't even like to prepare food well.

Jerry Seinfeld's wife is under fire for allegedly stealing ideas from a cookbook by Missy Chase Lapine. I don't care if she stole them or came upon them independently - they are bad ideas about lying to your children and hiding minuscule quantities of vegetables into terribly unhealthy, starchy foods. Mimi Sheraton has a good article in Slate about the whole thing. And I totally agree with her. But I'll take it one step further - if you suck at cooking, vegetables suck. But I've eaten plenty of really impressive vegetable dishes in my lifetime. So get off your lazy ass and learn how to cook properly. Instead of sneaking in 1/2 cup of pureed spinach into 12 brownies, how about incorporating spinach into dishes where the qualities of spinach actually complement the dish? Like plenty of good pasta dishes I've had. Spinach works well on pizza, too. Hell, watch an episode of Iron Chef where the theme ingredient is a vegetable. I'm sure they can make anything pretty delicious.

But seriously - don't lie to your kids. It's why a lot of my friends don't talk to their parents, ever. They remember more than you give them credit for, and they really resent a lot of that kind of stuff.