Asha Anujeeva

Today I decided to try my hand at baking some banana bread.  We had three over-ripe bananas that no one wanted to eat.  They were pretty black!  Well, I hate to throw away food, so I looked up a banana bread recipe and decided to give it a try.  Most of the recipes I found only called for two bananas, but after some digging I found one that called for three.  It was a lot easier to make than I thought it would be!  It sure smelled heavenly baking in the oven!  It was hard to believe I had to let it bake for a whole hour!

Well, it was worth the wait – it came out perfect.  I let it cool for a few minutes and then sliced off a hunk, slathered on some butter (yes, real butter) and gave it a try!  A big thumbs up, but I think I would have enjoyed it better if I had thrown in some nuts!

I see many people who eat something (for example yogurt) because they say they are trying to lose weight.  I look at the caloric value of the yogurt and it is about 200 calories for the container.  Then I look at the caloric value of a Little Debbie Nutty bar – a wonderful chocolate covered wafer with peanut butter filling (yum!) and find that it has the same caloric count!  So if I’m hungry for a sweet snack and have a choice between yogurt and a Nutty Bar, it is going to take a lot of will power to get me to chose the yogurt!  I much prefer a sweet flavor and a crunch!

Lately I keep hearing people talking about a turducken.  The say it is a turkey stuffed with a duck that’s been stuffed with a chicken.  I guess maybe the chicken is a cornish hen?  I just can’t imagine that.  I mean, what is the point?  It’s not like you can just slice all the way through – there are way too many bones!  So other than the novelty of playing with the poor dead birds like they are russian nesting dolls, what really is the point here?  I”ve heard that they are really expensive, too.  Seems to me that there are better ways to spend money than to waste it on something that silly.

With the economy as bad as it is, I have cut way back on luxuries like eating out. But I have been invited to join some friends (at their expense) at the local Red Lobster for dinner tonight. They are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary and want me to join them in a small dinner party. So, I was MORE THAN happy to say YES YES YES to the invitation! I haven’t eaten at Red Lobster for about seven years, I really LIKE it a lot, there just isn’t one that is really close by where I live, and my budget is tight, so I don’t go often. Our friends are picking me up and taking me there, so I am thrilled with the arrangement!

I LOVE lobster AND shrimp, I plan to order a meal that has BOTH!

Growing up in my parent’s house, when presented at the dinner table with a new or unfamiliar food, the household rule was that you are expected to (at the very least) try one bite. If you don’t like it, you force yourself to swallow it without a lot of drama or facial contortions and politely say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t care for that.” You were (and still are) to always respect the fact that our mother made a huge effort to shop for, prepare, cook and serve a variety of wholesome and tasty foods, day after day after day just for our benefit and enjoyment. And our mother respected that fact that trying to please the tastebuds of seven people every night was a daunting task, especially when little sister announced out of the blue that from here forward she would be a vegetarian and refused to eat meat, poultry or fish. But I do appreciate the fact that my parents exposed us to a variety of foods at the family dinner table and it not only enriched our lives but taught us to appreciate and respect each other, as well.