Menu Fabulousness

Yesterday on the epic walk we passed a restaurant that specialized in tofu. Big banner in front boldly proclaiming: TOFU! And the menu was one of the most pleasing examples of the cross-linguistic foodies' craft I have ever seen:

Cold Tofu: made directory in a cup. This is a plot type of silken tofu." Go elsewhere for characterization tofu.
And then:

We now serve three styles of HOME MADE TOFU, each one has a vary delicate texture, and you cannot compare to anything about its consistency.

The whole menu was like that. I'm not a tofu fan, but I really wanted to go in and swipe a menu.

What's a Mother to Do?

Apparently the latest threat to our young is the shopping cart. The nation's pediatricians warn that they are hazardous to your child's health, and urge alternatives. The alternatives they suggest are:

* have another adult watch your child at the store or at home.
* put children in stroller, wagon or front pack
* ask older children to walk next to the cart and praise them for behaving and staying near you.
* shop online

It's tempting to invent some new alternatives: put baby in dog's crate and take dog to the Safeway; leave toddler in car; have toddler panhandle outside store to offset price of groceries; don't eat until children age out of shopping cart...

Sometimes there is no other adult who can watch your child at the store or at home. I'd venture a guess that this is often the case. And anyone who has ever tried to steer a stroller or wagon through the store while simultaneously bringing along a shopping basket or cart knows that the human body, due to a tragic early design flaw, has too few hands to manage it gracefully. Getting your kid to walk next to the cart is a fine thing--we had a household policy of banishing the stroller as soon as possible and (being then New Yorkers) we walked everywhere, so walking beside the cart was no problem. On the other hand, it only takes a moment of reading a label for allergens for Little Verbena Sue to knock over an old lady in a walker. There are no ideal solutions.

I don't disagree with the Academy of Pediatrics' contention that there is some risk to putting your kid in a cart--according to the article some 24,000 kids were hurt in shopping cart accidents last year. But I'd love to know how many of the people who formulated that helpful list of alternatives are parents--specifically parents who have had to take toddlers to the supermarket.

When the going gets tough

the tough make sorbet. Specifically, peach-chili sorbet.

klages came over tonight for dinner. She made an exquisite salad of asparagus, corn, tiny heirloom tomatoes and tiny pearls of mozzerella; we had beautiful lamb chops that set the grill on fire (no, the grill caught fire on its own get go, the chops were merely the pretext. Anyway, no one died and the chops were perfectly cooked, but, as Ellen notes, the effect on the grill was like something out of Backdraft) and, for desert, the sorbet, with fresh figs.

I may die happy. The dog may die of envy. So it goes.