Thursday, December 27, 2007

They Do It Different in Maine

On Sunday night, my family ordered takeout from the new Italian joint a few miles from my folks’ house. My parents aren’t vegetarians like us, but my mother doesn’t eat any red meat and my father only eats it occasionally since it doesn’t make any sense for him to cook two separate meals. So when my brother-in-law comes to town, my father has a carnivorous cohort and they typically find some meat products to eat together. It’s a good bonding experience I would imagine.

The order from the takeout place was fairly ordinary- cheese pizza, French fries, salads, pasta and then, something new; a cheeseburger pizza for the meat-eating men.

Now, there are all sorts of things one might imagine on a cheeseburger pizza I suppose, but the conscientious around here was that a cheeseburger pizza would be hamburger and extra cheese.

Here's is the actual list of ingredients:
Hamburger
Onions (a dreaded substance to my sister’s husband)
Pickles
American Cheese food- none of that fancy mozzarella here

And the crowning glory – no pizza sauce, simply ketchup baked onto the crust.

Um...

Does this seem weird to anyone else? Maybe it's just me, but I think if you were going to create such an unusual pizza, with such, ah, creative, ingredients, don't you think that it would merit a line of explanation on the menu?

My brother-in-law likes a lot of food, but he has drawn the line at a cheeseburger pizza.

If, however, this sounds appetizing to you, let me know and I’ll give you their phone number. I’m sure they’d deliver.

Monday, December 3, 2007

The Reset Button

There's been a lot of sickness as of late around our house. I've had an ear infection, the Pickle spent all of Sunday throwing up, the Land Baron is worn out from lots of late, long hours at the hospital and Pepper is plagued by some unaccounted for malaise. Everyone seems to be heading towards health again, except the Pepper. She has spent the last several days just sort of moan-y, a little feverish, cranky and weepy at the drop of a hat. Today was a particularly bad day for her. The final straw was apparently when I chose the wrong color socks to put on her little chilly toes. She wept from the depths of her heart as if I truly had broken it by suggesting the contrasting color of cotton.

So we needed to reset. Cut to: small children piled into the car, wind whipping around us, pulling out of the driveway under cover of darkness (at 5p.m. - but it seemed much later). Fifteen minutes later, pulling through the parking lot of our friend Wendy, nary a tear or a moan. It was, instead, replaced by the sound of contented children munching on the deliciously decadent french fries and Mr. Pibb for dinner. Add to that a few extra minutes on the road driving through neighborhoods looking at holiday lights and suddenly the world seemed a little more bearable for a two year old overwhelmed with the prospect of getting through even one more minute with her sanity in tact.

We returned and were able to manage bath and the bedtime routine without a single meltdown. Sometimes Christmas miracles really do happen in real life.