Food & Drink

Guess Who Got Stopped In The U-Scan Lane, Again

/ Ally Bean / 11 Comments

While shopping in the grocery I noticed in the bakery section a box containing two giant chocolate brownies with caramel icing.  They looked delicious.  While not a healthy food choice, I had to have them.  No question about it.

When I went to check out of the store I used the U-Scan lane so, obviously, I ended up scanning these brownies across the machine.  I am a very good scanner.  Fast.  Efficient.  Attentive to the project at hand.

Which subsequently means that I’m also rather quick to bag the items that I scan.  I have a real competitive streak when it comes to this sort of thing.  Always trying to improve upon my personal best.  Planning ahead about where each item is going to go in the bag.

[Does anyone remember a My Name Is Earl episode in which Earl {Jason Lee} is helping some guy {Jon Heder} train for the grocery store baggers national competition?  And in the process of helping this guy both of them get hurt.  So, to have 2 functioning hands/arms they tied themselves together, and entered the competition as one contestant.  It was hilarious. But I digress…]

So I scanned the brownies, my last item, and wedged them into the bag.  It was perfect placement with everything nestled together just so.  I was happy, quietly congratulating myself on a job well done.  Until I realized that the man who maintained the U-Scan lane was walking toward me and shouting something at me.

Naturally, I said the first thing that came to mind which was: “huh?”  I’m sharp like that when I’m confused.

But the grocery store U-Scan man, un-phased by my eloquent retort, said to me:  “show me the brownies.”

Reluctantly, I disassembled my perfect bag to get to the brownies.  All the while I was wondering “why?” but figured that there was a reason, other than mental instability, that caused this grocery store U-Scan man to tell me to do this.  And there was.

Come to find out, the brownies had so much caramel icing on them that their weight had increased.  And the scanner, being a fussy little device that likes its UPC code and weight to match, wouldn’t register them as brownies.  Instead, the scanner said that I was trying to steal something.

Which, of course, I wasn’t.  But I had to prove this to the grocery store U-Scan man by showing him the brownies.  Which, of course, I did.

All of which brings me to the point of this post: any brownie that has so much caramel icing on it that it stops a scanner in its tracks is a very good thing to buy.  Worthy of many repeat purchases– wonky scanner be damned.

Trust me here, people.  These are words to live by.

[Click here to read about my previous encounter with the grocery store U-scan man.]

This & That

/ Ally Bean / 23 Comments

{april – monday – morning}

√  I told you something hinky was going on.  If you follow me on Twitter you might remember that last Thursday I tweeted: “There’s a sheriff’s helicopter circling the ravine behind our house & 2 police cars racing up/down the street. This is not normal.”  Over the weekend I found out what had happened right here… in the ravine behind our house… in the middle of the day.

A police officer noticed a car without license plates driving through town.  It was a stolen car.  So, the police chased the four men in the stolen car into a cul-de-sac in our subdivision where the driver of the car crashed the car into a tree.  The police immediately apprehended one man, but the other three men escaped on foot and headed into the ravine that runs throughout this subdivision.

That’s when the helicopter started circling our house.  Eventually, [about 10 minutes I’d estimate] thanks to the helicopter overhead the police caught the other three miscreants without any shots fired or destruction of personal property.  Good job, eh?

√  We planted the pots by our front door with coleus this year.  We chose Mosaic, Jazz Rose + Black Dragon with a spike in the middle for height.  The colors should coordinate nicely with the green pot itself and the surrounding red barberry bushes.  [For an abstract rendering of the colors we’re working with go here to this cool blog called Field Trips in Fiber.]

√  I tried a new recipe.  On Friday I found this recipe, Homemade Chocolate Pudding with Baileys, in a blog called My Baking Addiction.  I realized that I had almost the correct ingredients in our pantry, so I decided to make the pudding with what I had on hand.

Because I used fat-free half & half (instead of heavy cream) + 10 bite-size pieces of dark chocolate candy (instead of semi-sweet chocolate) what I made was more of a sauce than a pudding.  Which does not matter because this was the most delicious tasting almost-pudding I’ve ever had.  I’ll make this recipe again with [or without] the correct ingredients to eat as pudding– or to put on toasted pound cake + vanilla ice cream.

√  As some of you know, I collect Le Creuset coffee mugs.  I have one of each color.  This weekend I got a mug in the newest color, Marseille.  I’d describe it as robin egg blue-ish [peacock blue-ish?].  Alone it is a lovely shade, but in our house it truly goes with nothing.  Zilch.

All of our blues are cobalt, or denim, or rather grayed– and this new color with a touch of green in it looks very out-of-place.  Still, it makes my collection complete, so it can stay.  But nothing else of this color will be entering my house if I can help it.

This & That

/ Ally Bean / 18 Comments

{march – monday – morning}

√  How great is this unprecedented warm midwest winter weather?  It’s so great that I wore shorts, a long sleeve t-shirt and birks this weekend– and I was too warm.  I needed to stop for an icy cold bottle of water from the vending machine outside of Kroger before we did the shopping.  Never in my life here have I seen winter shift directly into summer– skipping over spring entirely.

Me likey this year’s revised winter.

√  Well, if it’s going to be summer then I’m thinking that it’s time for me to make some The Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Iced Coffee.  I tried her method last summer and enjoyed the results;  the effort was worth it.  I don’t have to have a pot of hot coffee each morning [did I really just say that?] when I can have a refreshing glass of pre-made iced coffee with a teaspoon of sweetened condensed milk instead.

Try it… you’ll like it!  🙂

√  We planted a few pots with some pansies that we bought at Lowe’s.  They had the prettiest/healthiest/cheapest selection anywhere, so I am happy.  Of course, I’m always happy when I see pansies.  Did you know that in the language of flowers pansies represent thinking?

And with those cute little smiling faces and those bright cheerful colors– what’s not to like?

√  I went to the doctor late Friday afternoon.  My stomach has not been right for months now, so I finally decided to go see what the doc had to say.  Bottom line: I’m middle-aged + probably nothing really wrong with me so no tests + take some OTC meds in the way he prescribes = feel better.  I like this guy’s down-to-earth approach to practicing medicine.

Having followed his advice for 2 days I like how much better I feel already.

√  A bit of self-awareness never hurt a soul, now did it?  I’ve been thinking about my use of the internet.  How often I go online, what I do, what I expect to happen when I’m online.  I realized that I’m spending less time surfing the web than I used to do, but more time connecting with people via comments or tweets or pins.  I realized that for me technology is a tool, and will never be a lifestyle.  I realized that while I adore the immediacy of the internet, I also take pride in the fact that I can walk away from it without any sense of anxiety when I so chose.

Yep, I like this newfangled thing called the world-wide web— as long as I use it on my terms.  😉

Later, kids.  The out-of-doors beckons to me.

Weekend This & That

/ Ally Bean / 14 Comments

{january – monday – early morning}

√  I’ve been making small tweaks here on my blog since the beginning of the year.  Have you noticed?  Over the weekend I think that I finally got each of my posts entered into the proper category where each post belongs.  Now instead of Monthly Archives I have a list of 7 Categories where you can find all of my past posts.  By category.  Obviously.

√  We started putting together our traditional winter project, a jigsaw puzzle!  Years ago after seeing an episode of Northern Exposure where a married couple had a fun time putting together a puzzle, we decided to give it a try– and found that doing a puzzle was a harmless distraction from the winter gloom.  So now every winter we do ONE puzzle.  Yes, I know– not the most high-tech, cutting edge thing to admit to doing.  But it’s fun.  

√  I tried a new recipe for cupcakes that uses Blue Moon beer.  The cupcakes were good, not at all beer-y– but not orange-y enough to make them interesting.  I made some notes on the recipe and will try it again later this winter.  I think some clove and more coriander are in order.  Maybe a drop of orange extract?  If I ever perfect the recipe, I’ll post it here.  If.

√  We did a test on the stair railing to see how difficult it would be to strip the old stain and varnish off of the railing and posts.  Our conclusion: not difficult at all.  But because of the fumes and mess involved with this project we decided to postpone it until late spring when we can open the windows for ventilation.  Plus they’ll be more daylight then– which can only help us see what we’re doing.  Always important.