The American model and actor Justin Deeley said, “I always say whoever can figure out how to make ice cream healthy will be a gazillionaire.”  I have been trying to go vegan for awhile now for animal ethics reasons and had resigned myself to giving up ice cream.  Schlepping up and down the gluten free aisle my five year old started asking/begging/hollering for popsicles.  “Nope,” I said.  “But WHY?!” she wailed from the shopping cart.  And suddenly I became my mother.  “Because I said so.”  “Well that’s not FAIR!”  “Keep it up and I’ll take those crackers away,” I fibbed, because she had already eaten half the box.  Staring mulishly at me I turned away and contemplated having a glass of wine.  This grocery store is ingenious for allowing folks to do that.  One can also have beer if they’d prefer.  While I was in the process of praying inwardly for patience I discovered it.  The same brand of almond milk we love apparently makes ice cream!  CHA-CHING!!!  I leaned in closer to the refrigerated door and could hardly believe it:  cappuccino swirl; mint chocolate chip!  AND it’s gluten free!  Turns out you cannot tell the difference (but the poor cows will sure thank you) and your pants will, too!  My regular ice cream was THREE times as caloric!  Since it is made from almonds it is full of protein as well.  Oh happy day!  My incredulous little one quickly abandoned her popsicle quest in favor of the ice cream.  From the sweet cows, to my gluten intolerant child, to a woman just trying to lose weight — everyone’s a winner.

I am one of those people who can easily turn down a pie or muffins.  Nothing stands any kind of a chance though if it’s chocolate; resistance is futile.  The hubs has a HUGE sweet tooth but, as I have stated previously, he has the metabolism of a squirrel on crack.  When we first got married I registered for a cake dome because I wanted to have a freshly baked cake for us to enjoy every week.  I do not know how other people do it but we apparently lack even the most basic form of restraint.  I caught my beloved with black teeth gobbling down my cake by the light of the refrigerator in the middle of the night.  (He was foraging for milk to accompany it.)  The one type of chocolate I have always been able to happily resist has been the “fancy” ones.  I just do not like very dark chocolate and I find it a personal effrontery to mix fruit with it.  The ONE exception to that is chocolate covered cherries.  I ADORE them.  So for most of my life I have assumed my palette was not sophisticated enough to properly enjoy the expensive ones.  And then my step mother-in-law gave us these at Christmas.  I had never heard of Louis Sherry so I googled him.  I assumed he was French but he was born in Vermont to parents of French-Canadian descent.  In 1881 he introduced the French chocolate making tradition to New York and quickly established a reputation for excellence.  I love that the chocolates came in a replica of the original tin which is now more than 100 years old.  I was also thrilled to read they are using ethically sourced ingredients from Ecuador, Madagascar, and the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, according to their insert.  The three of us gathered round and broke the seal on it skeptically.  Nestled inside were twenty-four of the most exquisitely detailed chocolates I had ever seen in my life.  And they weren’t all dark!  Mercifully, it came with a guide letting you know what was filled with what.  My Marian child reached for the Fleur de Sel caramel, shaped like a beautiful clam shell.  I went next and had one filled with Jamaican rum.  Ya mon!  By now the hubs was so frothed up he said to just give him one.  The Mexican vanilla was great, the milk chocolate trefoil was divine, and I loved the coffee costa d’oro.  Proclaiming myself the keeper of our fine chocolates, I pronounced we all must stop and have some decorum.  Everybody started calling dibs on their favorites (I called the rum and the coffee, our little one said she wanted the sea shells and the heart shaped raspberry cremes, and the hubs declared he just wanted whatever we didn’t.)  I am quite proud we made it through Epiphany before they were all gone.  Now we just open the box and stare at the empty contents, hoping more will appear as if by magic.  The famous American cartoonist Charles M. Schulz once said, “All you need is love.  But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”  I am lucky enough to have gotten both.  J’aime le chocolat.

I don’t exactly remember Green Stamps but I do know my mother furnished my entire nursery with them.  So pretty much ever since I can remember I have appreciated the concept of acquiring something for, well, doing what would have been done anyway.  I have sandwich cards I get punched, we use our credit cards for travel rewards, and I seek out other perks whenever I can, like at the drugstore or the car wash (the fifth one’s free.)  So this year at the grocery store when they asked if I was collecting stamps I said yes without even knowing what was being offered.  Turns out they are pots and pans; one can always use a new skillet.  My husband lives for those stamps.  He puts them in with relish and announces how many more we have to go.  Now our little one wants in on it.  The excitement has mounted as we have nearly filled a whole sheet.  I can remember my folks getting an entire set of Corningware in the ’70’s right in time for Thanksgiving.  They had little blue flowers on them and I still see them in resale shops a lot.  We did not take out our good China that year and it was fun to have everything new.  If I were able to buy all new kitchen cookware I would look for dark blue Le Creuset.  Instead I have an all dark blue set from American cook Rachael Ray, who said:

“Good food and a warm kitchen are what makes a house a home.  I always tried to make my home like my mother’s, because Mom was magnificent at stretching a buck when it came to decorating and food.  Like a true Italian, she valued beautification in every area of her life, and I try to do the same.”

My mother made a great home for my daddy and me — full of music, love, food made from scratch, and imperfection.  I collected those stamps from her one by one, and now I have a whole book to show for them.  I know my daughter is learning from me now, and I hope I am imprinting her with the same stamp.

I have joked several times this food section is more of a drinking section.  But today I shall combine the two.  I have always liked spicy food.  Spicy, however, does not necessarily equate with hot.  “Spicy” is simply flavorful.  I do also like my food hot though.  I am not referring to temperature hot; rather spicy hot.  That sounds confusing I suppose, but you get the idea.  I love fresh jalapeños because they have so much more heat than the pickled ones.  The problem with eating out is I think they just get lazy and hack them into giant chunks.  I have always had a distinct preference for liking everything VERY thinly sliced.  When I ate meat I liked it paper thin, when I ate cheese no chunky cubes, and now with fruits and vegetables I slice them razor thin.  We were out for our traditional Tex-Mex New Year’s Eve at my favorite restaurant and my ears perked up when I heard the woman next to me ask for fresh jalapeños in her margarita.  I have had mojitos with chunks of jalapeños and some other drinks where they were blended in.  But this women, after my own heart, just threw them in like ice cubes.  Already having a margarita with sangria and my ever-present jalapeños by my side, I picked up a few and plopped them in.  AMBROSIA!!!  And WHY was I just now discovering it?!  I have a girlfriend from Louisiana who told me old cookbooks used to say, “Start with the Holy Trinity,” which is onions, bell peppers, and celery; a staple for Cajun cooking.  For this Texan it’s onions, garlic and jalapeños.  I pretty much put them in everything, from Italian to Indian, American to Tex-Mex, and also in some modified Asian and French dishes.  But this opens up a whole new world!  Infused jalapeños in drinks!  I have flavored my water with all kinds of fruit, turmeric, mint, and cucumbers (not all at once!) but now I have tried it with my beloved jalapeños.  I love it and I predict my water consumption will rise, which will be a good thing.  The American model Chrissy Teigen said:

“I know how I like my food.  I like it spicy, salty, sticky, crunchy, juicy, oozy – basically any dish you know and love, jacked up to a bordering-on-socially-unacceptable amount of flavor.”

I could not agree more!  Hallelujah for jalapeños!