5 Nut peanut! 5 Nut peanut!

in the world of roasted peanuts, there are many 2 and 3 nut peanuts. the vast majority have 2 or 3 nuts inside.

then there are way too many 1 nut peanuts. so much work for so little reward.

very rarely will i find a good 4 nut peanut. i am always grateful when i do.

i have heard of the mystical 5 nut peanut, but until last night never really believed they existed. kevin swore he had one a couple months ago, but then squirrelled the nuts into his mouth too fast before i could do a proper accounting.

but last night it all came together and i reached in the bowl and pulled out a real live 5 NUT PEANUT!

5 NUT PEANUT! 5 NUT PEANUT!

i feel like meryl streep in adaptation hunting the white ghost orchid. or ahab in moby dick hunting humps like snowhills.

it's a great feeling!


*****


EDIT: just checked wikipedia ("peanut") and now i believe this peanut really was a wonder of nature! they don't even acknowledge the fact that 5 seed pods EXIST!

The fruits have wrinkled shells that are constricted between pairs of the one to four (usually two) seeds per pod.

cocoa dregs

coffee + cocoa powder + honey = something almost worth getting out of bed for

i need a lot sleep. at least 9 hours. NEED it. always have. i could sleep 12 hours a night no problem.

i am at my meanest and nastiest if i feel like i am being woken up too early for no good reason. i was always the last one to get up at slumber parties. kids would be running around at sunrise and i'd put my pillow over my head and silently curse them all. luckily i am a very heavy sleeper.

i am not hungry in the morning and don't care about missing breakfast.

now that it's dark so early, i feel like going to bed at 7PM, and i am so grateful that i can do that sometimes.

maybe i'm just a chronically depressed brat, but really i feel a million times better when i've slept half the day.

happy national peanut butter month!

gonna have to face it - you're addicted to peanut butter

what would cause your carpal tunnel?

i do not have carpal tunnel. and for that i am grateful. my MOM had tendinitis in her thumbs that required surgery from playing so much bridge and shuffling cards. if i did develop carpal tunnel, it would most likely come from opening roasted peanuts. i can't get enough of these things- it must be part of my squirrel heritage.

another possible cause of my nonexistent carpal tunnel would be the game minesweeper. i have gone through phases where i played that game 8 hours a day. usually while procrastinating from studying. 

farmers market car trunk nap with dalmation puppychild

shrimp & grits

we had a dinner party last night & it was very much fun.

it started with 5 pounds of frozen panama bay shrimp from our good friend bob at shrimppeople.com.

kevin shrimp pierred them up.

i made jalapeno cheese grits.

audra brought fabulously fresh white hydrangeas.


lindsay and josh brought farm and sparrow seeded bread - i've never had better tasting bread.

michelle brought an amazing homecooked handpicked fall fruit crisp.


joey and paige brought the funk.


everybody brought their dogs.

got a text message this morning - "Sorry about the panties in your yard."


success!

you dropped your poptart

looks like frosted wild berry.

why pistachios were dyed red

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistachio

"The shell of the pistachio is naturally a beige color, but it is sometimes dyed red or green in commercial pistachios. Originally dye was applied by importers to hide stains on the shells caused when the nuts were picked by hand. Most pistachios are now picked by machine and the shells remain unstained, making dyeing unnecessary except to meet ingrained consumer expectations."

coffee

after probably 6 years without any caffeine, i'm on a coffee kick again. it started about a month ago with an ounce in the AM, black with some honey, and now it's probably 4 ounces. it makes me feel like this guy ^^^ is implanted in my abdomen for a couple hours. much easier to focus on words and to walk up hills.

baby william

went to ny for basically one day this weekend to meet my new nephew william. he is almost 3 months old and smiley and sweet and chubby and eats a lot and doesn't cry and doesn't stop moving. he's always fist pumping and ninja kicking, even in his sleep. he is lucky to be surrounded by awesome parents & grandparents and furry uncle henry.

we sneaked 50 lbs of frozen shrimp and scallops and lobster tails through the security at laguardia without any problems. i put the insulated bag on the conveyor belt and a guy asked "is this food?" and i said "yup." as it was x-rayed, the girl stopped the belt and said "oh...my...god" and the guy went over and said "it's okay, it's just food." and that was it!

best fries i've ever had

at the asheville tourists minor league baseball game. they were 1 minute fresh out of the fryer. perfectly crispy, hot and so salty.

homemade brand ice cream liars

the united dairy farmers homemade brand black raspberry chip carton states the following:

we use only dairy-fresh cream, real vanilla, and the finest fruits and nuts.

so is fd&c red #40 classified as the finest nut or the finest fruit?

rapids

may be going tubing this weekend. may be going on the la zoom purple bus tour. may be filling the kiddie pool with ice cubes and snorkeling in it. may be eating genuine alaskan moose burgers. will be fun.

kibble shoots

the highlight of nacho's day is when eli gets fed and nacho gets a dozen of eli's kibbles thrown into his face.

the highlight of my day during the first 8 years of my life was when i would go to bed and then get 'shoots' which involved one of my parents bringing in a dixie cup of water for me to drink and then they threw the leftover drops in my face.

marco's pizza spinach slice

this pizza rules.
http://marcos-pizzeria.com/index.shtml
the crust is not too thick and not too thin, and perfectly salty and crunchy and soft and fresh out the oven. the sauce is tangy and not too sweet and full of chunks of tomatoes.
the service is great.
they have good specials too - wednesdays and saturdays are half price bottle of wine day. tuesday is 3$ pint day.
highly recommend!

honeydew y square circle

savory crepes

now for a positive local food review.

every saturday morning from april to october there is a farmer's market in a shady parking lot at UNCA.

the first tent sells the most amazing savory crepes, which they make while you wait. they are usually backed up, so you order and then browse the market (read: push through a sea of strollers and puppies) for 15 minutes and by the time you're back your crepe is piping hot and ready.

she pours buckwheat crepe batter on the hot plate and adds eggs, goat cheese, pesto, spinach, onions, and potatoes. these form a gooey filling to a hot, semi-sweet, crispy buckwheat wrap.

it is more than enough food for two people and super delicious, and a highly reasonable $8.

porked

i feel very lucky that there are dozens of excellent, worthy restaurants in asheville that i am thrilled to patronize.

for instance, i love 9 mile, salsa's, the early girl, laughing seed, limones, marco's pizza, sunny point, and 12 bones. i would recommend any of these restaurants at any time to anybody.

i can not say the same about havana, the bright pastel cuban place downtown. we went off a recommendation from a friend, and it looked interesting from the outside, but we were sadly disappointed.

this is going against thumper's rule if you can't say something nice don't say nothing at all, but it was too bad and too expensive to let it go.

it would be one thing if the prices were low, or even reasonable, but for $14 a plate, at a place that clearly did not spend money on decor, i expect a heaping plate of good food.

we started off with weak mojitos in small glasses full of ice. ($7)

i ordered arroz con pollo ($14). first came out a 'dinner salad' which consisted of shredded iceberg lettuce with shredded carrot sticks swimming in canola oil and salt and pepper. it was...not good....

then the waitress came out and said the arroz con pollo wouldn't be ready for a few hours so could i order something else? i ordered the garlic calamari appetizer for my dinner. it was billed as 'lightly fried and tossed in a special mix.' what came out was a plate of thick rings only, wet with dark grease, seemingly from a bag in the freezer. ($9)

my friend ordered the first thing on the menu - columbia lechon - and the waitress recommended it saying "he is known for his pork." the pork was good - tender and spicy and fresh. the mango on top of it was tangy and a good complement. the rest of the plate was extremely blah. black beans from a can, clumpy white rice, dry yucca fries, and soggy plantains. ($14).

we spent $60 and left hungry and sad. maybe we misordered, or went at a bad time, but with all the great restaurants downtown i'm not sure how this place will stay afloat.

shrimp people

went down to spartanburg yesterday to see neil young solo. i'd never seen him live and was struck by how he made his instruments sound like 2 or 3 people were playing at once.

the tailgate before the show was the best tailgate i've ever been to. my dad gave us a box of frozen shrimp to carry on to the plane back in march and kevin made shrimp pierre and they were completely scrumptious and completely gone by the end of the night.

thank you shrimppeople.com!

shrimp pierre recipe:

breakfast burrito chorizo cheese grits

also from sunny point, cheese grits and a breakfast burrito involving eggs and peppers and other manner of deliciousness including chorizo which is tasty sausage crumbled up like ground beef and not in a casing or any weiner form.