Kiss Gourmet Good-bye (and point me towards tomorrow)

daphne on December 5, 2009

If you are not a fan of Broadway smash hit A Chorus Line, forgive me the title.

chorus line

If you are a fan, why don’t you take a moment and let loose with song.  I know you know the lyrics, so go ahead. I’ll be here when you’re done.  But heed this warning; I may be singing when you get back.

And there is something about me belting out show tunes that makes those with ears want to turn a deaf one.  Go ahead and turn that blind eye too, because what with my legwarmers scrunched down around my ragged ballet shoes as I gracefully flounce over piles of laundry and plié to the gurgles of Mr. Coffee I am indeed a sight to behold.

Do you want to know why the melancholic show tunes have set up shop in my heart?

It’s because yet another one of my favorite things is leaving me.  Gourmet magazine is packing it in.

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I know, I know, I shouldn’t even admit to reading a print magazine. I should be more responsible to my leaf-bearing friends.   After all, I live with some of the greenest police on earth.   Even so, green feels blue as I bid farewell to my monthly fix of provocatively posed food and witty, wonderful wordsmiths.

Et tu Gourmet?

Why is it that when I decide something is good, it is in fact over?  Some people know immediately and intrinsically what’s hot. They jump on the latest trends; they wear the cool jeans.  They know when to stop wearing scrunchies.

There must be a word for the exact opposite of trendy…

Oh yes, its me.

I am habitually late to the trend party, and when I do arrive I come armed with the kiss of death.  Two thumbs up from me is the gesture equivalent of a horse-head on the pillow.  It’s a crazy power I wield.  Just ask Northern Exposure. Or Arrested Development.  Or leg warmers.

So yes, it is with a heavy heart that I kiss Gourmet good-bye.  Especially given my recent resounding success with sweet potato gnocchi.  It was a beautiful thing; a complex recipe with unexpected twists that resulted in fluffy pillows of goodness that melted on the tongues of my darling family.

No longer will my mailbox harbor pages laden with treats for my kitchen and my writer’s heart.  That river has dried up, and I need to look elsewhere.

Perhaps a more mundane source of happiness would serve me well.  Joy-bearing items with staying power.  Ones that won’t disappear from my life like The Hooters from my tenth grade soul.

I’m hearing good things about raindrops on roses.  And whiskers on kittens.

Spring, sprouting and flinging all over the place

daphne on March 15, 2009

Sometimes nature is cruel. Other times, while it’d be an exaggeration to call nature cruel, she’s not exactly helping things by subtly antagonizing the underlying issues of sibling rivalry.

Thanks, nature, for this.  One more reason to pit sister against sister in the eternal contest for who is best.

Allow me to settle the question equitably, in the interest of protecting their loving sisterly relationship.  IT’S ME! I’M THE BEST. LOOK WHAT I DID!

Yesiree–that’s a tulip. Or a daffodil.  Or something posing as a flower-to-be in exactly the same spot where I presciently dropped bulbs about a million years ago.

As I mentioned already, I was not all that excited about digging in the dirt as the first hints of winter swirled through the air.  It’s unreasonable to have to wait season upon season for something to rear it’s lovely head.  Like a pinata that you smack in the midst of a party and then wait and wait and wait and then finally as you are growing weary of all the waiting you are showered by a cascade of delicious snacks. Oh the joy.

Would you look at that?  Time, as they promised, has flown.

I was wrong to be smug about the waiting. It’s a delightful treat after all these months to get something as magical, as beautifully incredible and special as this:

Really. That’s two sprouts.  Try to contain your excitement.

I’m sorry, but did I hear a GET REAL?  Am I sensing a lack of bubbling enthusiasm over the little nubs that are popping from the earth in front of my house due solely, I remind you, to my brilliant foresight?  Fine.  I’m no dummy.  I know not everything can be chard crisps and amphibian sex.  You remember frog sex, don’t you?

I don’t mean to lead you on.  Springy though it may be, I am not going to delve back in to the birds and the bees.

But guess what boys and girls?  It is time again for the annual elementary school Spring Fling.  Seems like just yesterday that we boogie-oogie-oogied ’til we just couldn’t boogie no more.  This year it was time to spring back to the most totally boss, righteously bitchin’ decade of them all…the 80s!  Here are the two cutest valley girls of the year–

Give me a break before I gag you with a spoon. I know what you’re thinking, and no, I did not send Acadia to her school dance wearing a shirt that says Eat Flax.  I’m the real deal, baby.  All eighties, all the time. Her t-shirt, of course, reads Frankie says… RELAX as it flash-dancingly dips over one shoulder.

My family, much like spring itself, is so totally tubular.

Happy Bodacious Spring.