A Sure Sign Of Summer: Kettle Corn For Breakfast

June 9, 2016January 28, 2021 / Ally Bean / 60 Comments

Tiny blue vase, handmade, purchased from potter at festival, filled with a daisy + rosemary from our garden, sitting on the kitchen counter… and taking up much less space than the bag of kettle corn, also purchased at festival.

I know for sure that it’s summertime because I’m eating kettle corn for breakfast.

[Don’t judge.]

Last weekend we went to the first festival of the season where we purchased a bag of kettle corn.

Said bag, which is too large to fit on the pantry shelf, is now sitting on the kitchen counter near the new vase featured in the photo.

[We bought the “small” bag of kettle corn, btw.]

From what I can tell, all festivals around here are required by law to have at least one kettle corn booth wherein they make the stuff fresh before your very eyes.

Then the kettle corn makers are required to give you a free sample of it right when you’re tired from walking around the festival, but not hungry because you just ate something filling at the previous food booth.

[I’m a sucker for a pulled pork sandwich with a speciality BBQ sauce.]

So, you decide to buy a bag of the kettle corn to take home with you because you know you like it. And because this is a festival that helps some small town OR civic organization OR large church make money that they use to help the needy.

[The cynic in me says the festival might be helping itself first before the needy, but whatevs.]

And that, my gentle readers, is how I know it is summer. I’ve got popcorn kernel residue stuck in my teeth before 8:00 a.m. and I’ve helped the needy. 😉

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HOW DO YOU KNOW FOR SURE THAT IT’S SUMMERTIME WHERE YOU LIVE?

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My Reflections On The 2016 A To Z Challenge: The Outtakes

May 3, 2016August 29, 2024 / Ally Bean / 69 Comments

• Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, I finished the 2016 A To Z Challenge. I know a few of you wondered about my ability to do this challenge, if I’d flake, and I have to say bless your little pea-pickin’ hearts for being worried about me.

But you see, my gentle readers, this challenge did not, in the end, upset the apple cart for me. I finished this challenge because I used my noodle to make sure that I didn’t end up in a pickle while doing it.

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• Sure, some days the constraints of the challenge griped my grits; but even though my writing process is slower than molasses, I did not allow that hard cheese to stop me from publishing each post.

I’ll admit that some of the things I wrote were about as sharp as a wet cornflake, which might have made me appear to be a few fries short of a happy meal.

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• However, throughout the challenge, even though I didn’t consider it easy as pie, I remained cool as a cucumber and didn’t stumble ass over teakettle in the process.

While I’d never say that I was a huckleberry above a persimmon, I did finish the challenge, and came to the same conclusion that Snoopy, my spirit animal, observed years ago: “It’s amazing how many friends you have after your waffle iron gets fixed.”

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THESE LAST 15 FOOD SAYINGS, THAT DIDN’T MAKE THE CHALLENGE CUT, ARE DEFINED IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.

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Z Is For Zwieback, A Good Way To End

April 30, 2016May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 50 Comments

“You can’t dunk your zwieback in your Bosco.”

~ Radar O’Reilly, M*A*S*H

This quote, which is from an episode of M*A*S*H, refers to the uncomfortable feeling you have around someone who is more uptight + judgmental than you are.

Radar said it to Hawkeye in a literal way, referring to Colonel Potter, but over time this quote has come to be an idiom meaning that you’re not relaxed and confident around someone else because you’re afraid that you’ll do something wrong.

And get in trouble or be judged for it.

I’ve heard people in real life say this quote. It’s clever, and it does show you how language + meaning evolve in the most unpredictable ways.

Which, now that I think about it, might the subtext of my FOOD: Talking The Talk theme. That is, all the words I’ve picked here have morphed, for reasons varied, into meaning something more than their literal definitions, which for me, a wordsmith + foodie, is worthy of note.

And it is a perfect thought on which to end this 2016 A To Z Challenge.

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Thanks everyone for stopping by to read and comment. I appreciate you taking the time to be here as I did something I wasn’t sure that I could do. I guess, after all my doubts, my challenge turned out to be better, rather than worse.

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PLEASE NOTE: next week I’ll reflect upon this blogging adventure, using the sayings that didn’t make the cut. You’re going to like it. 😉

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Y Is For Yolk, You Gotta Wonder

April 29, 2016May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 51 Comments

The yolk’s on you

… is a saying that means the joke is on you, you’ve been taken advantage of, perhaps in a kind way, perhaps not.

It is a play on the similar pronunciation of the English words: “yolk” [the inside of an egg] and “joke” [a trick played on someone].

This is funny. I guess. In context, maybe.

WHATEVER.

This saying sums up the way I feel about make-up. It’s all a ~~yolk~~ joke.

Allow me to explain.

I’m not a shopper so once I find a make-up product that works, and does not irritate my skin, I keep on buying it because it saves me the stress of shopping for, and experimenting with, something new.

Plus, genetics are amazing. Meaning that through no fault of my own my complexion is what it is, and I need the make-up colors that I need, because I am who I am.

Obviously, right?

Getting to my point here, since the beginning of the year THREE of my favorite color-perfect make-up products have been discontinued. They would be a Nars lipliner [Tonga], a Maybelline eyebrow pencil [Light Blonde], and a Revlon powder blush [Rose].

These colors? Natural. Basic. Pale.

Colors that flatter a middle-aged, rosacea-challenged, graying-blonde woman.

Sure, the companies still exist, but they’ve replaced my perfect colors with something else. And the new something else colors are too bold or too shiny for me.

The customer.

Who thought she had this whole make-up nonsense problem solved, but finds that the yolk is on her… which, it turns out, is not a good color for me! 😉