Something To Snack On

Most of you have probably seen this already. In case you haven't, or in case you need a reminder of why summer is amazing and why beaches are the best and why family time can sometimes be really, really rewarding -- I give you Jack Gardner's retirement plan.

This is Retirement. from McSwayze Film. on Vimeo.

We'll be back out there next week to check on how his commercial fishing license is treating him. Fish on!

Bringing a Community Together

Well, DC Central Kitchen just made me feel feelings. The opening shots will make you hungry. The rest will give you goosebumps.

Healthy Corners from DC Central Kitchen on Vimeo.

Food deserts. We hear about them often. We hardly ever see them. We certainly never think that they could be plunked down in the middle of some of the most metropolitan cities in America.

There are a few amazing things about this video: 1) It's gorgeous. 2) It highlights a community helping itself in a powerful, practical and simple way to profound effect. 3) Not nearly enough people have watched it. Please help me spread what DC Central Kitchen and Healthy Corners are doing like wildfire.

The Way Marcella Told You to Make It

I remember cotton candy. I remember one of my little hands in my mother's milk-soft hand and the other in my father's leathery baseball mitt hand. I remember white overalls with paint splotches on them. Wearing pig-tails that fell into ringlets. I remember running toward something, the zoo or State Fair, a spectacle larger than my brand new brain could understand. I remember being swung back and forth by my arms through the air, and my parents being really excited to show me something. But most of all, I remember cotton candy.

Seriously. These are your ingredients.

This is one of my first memories. And one of my favorites. I have no idea how old I was. Maybe three? It stuck with me. I totally abandon all culinary principles in favor of cotton candy every time. There is a picture of this moment somewhere. **(Update: Not just somewhere, after the jump! Thanks, mom!)** Even if it were lost, it's been permanently burned into my cortex.

For the One-Hundredth Time

Today marks 100 posts on Chronicles of a Stomach Grumble. If you are saying to yourself, "wow, you've had this for a long time and should really have more than 100 posts," you are right. But here we are.

A sign of nerdy things to come.

To commemorate, I wanted to share a tweet of my dad's I stumbled across from 2006 (yes, my dad was on twitter before I knew how it worked). My dad never got to read this blog, but he definitely knew where I was headed all along. And, just in case anyone is wondering, I have the ingredients to make the above-mentioned soup in my fridge as we speak.

On Our Patients, Our Remedies and Our Failures

"INVALID COOKERY - In preparing food for an invalid, one should bear in mind that it is of the utmost importance that the appetite of the patient be tempted. Large quantities of food should never be served to an invalid. The most attractive dishes procurable should be used, and the linen should be immaculate. A fresh flower adds color and daintiness to the tray. Hot dishes should be served very hot and cold dishes thoroughly chilled. Never ask a patient what he would like for a meal but find out from the doctor what he may have; then surprise the invalid by serving something unexpected, nourishing and dainty." - The Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery, 1948

Last July, I had the unfortunate task of rushing my Sidekick to the ER with extreme pain from a herniated disc. After six hours, a few morphine shots, and many neighbors in various states of duress, a kind-looking volunteer with an apologetic eye made his way to us.

EAT

If you can watch this and not:

a) get really hungry
b) kind of feel like we live during the most amazing time on the most amazing planet in the most amazing universe
c) really want to hug him when he gets surprised by the champagne

... then we probably don't hang out very often. If you feel a, b, c or some combination thereof and we also don't hang out very often, let's fix that and probably get something to eat.


EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Now go eat lunch! Quickly, before you die of jealousy.

The Rhythm of Lunch

I often find myself having the conversation about how hard it is to make adult friends. No one is ever totally sure why it feels creepy to ask someone out on a friend-date for the first time, but everyone is sure that it does. I have a few theories, the most sentient one so far being that as a kid and a teenager, you are unburdened by self-consciousness and only have to know that you like the same things as that person likes. There's no question of how your overture will be received or if the resulting friend-date will be awkward as hell. When you are kids, if someone doesn't want to be friends with you, they will probably either not talk to you in the first place or just throw rocks at you when you walk down the street. Our carefully cultivated ability to smile-and-nod, something we work on to set others at ease even when we are not, ultimately serves only to foster doubt about whether or not a potential new friend is genuinely interested in getting to know us.

via Flickr

Sometimes I'm afraid I'm the only one who thinks things like this. I suspect, however, that I am not alone. Luckily, we've found the salve: meals. And when the adult friends in question also happen to be co-workers, the salve, more specifically, is lunch.