Bear Essentials: Apples ( + Pork and Apple Pie with Cheddar-Sage Crust )

Remember how I told you that I'm completely unimpressed by crust?

There's an exception to every rule.

Bear Essentials: Apples( + Apple-Cheddar Latkes )

In the year or so that I've been writing this blog, I've completely conquered my fear of frying.

I Judge(+ Monte Cristo Pockets)

Confession time, guys: I'm not the nicest person in the world.  I'm not even sixth or seventh.
    
Back in my hippie youth, I thought all people had value.  I thought that all opinions were worthwhile and valid, and that people should be respected for their differences.

But then I met people who stiff waitresses, and people who abandoned their children to become (terrible) poets, and people who watch Hillbilly Handfishing.  And now I'm old and cranky, and I'm pretty sure that most people are really just wrong.  And the remaining people are me.

Mommy Kibble(+ Sharp Cheddar Cheese Crackers)

Okay.  I want to show you something, but I don't want you to freak out.  Control yourself.  No gasping.  No squealing.  Definitely no screaming.  Okay, fine, go ahead and scream.  But not if the baby's sleeping.  Or you're in a crowded elevator.  Or you're in the passenger seat, and the driver's of the nervous persuasion, and he's apt to swerve and nearly roll the truck all because you screamed just the eensiest little bit while he happened to be merging onto the freeway.  Please don't ask how I know about that. 

Anyway, here goes. 

I'd like you to meet Hugo.

I KNOW, RIGHT???

Taking Candy from Babies, Part II:An October Public Service Announcement( + Fresh Mozzarella, Prosciutto, and Fig Jam Panini )

Earlier this week, I announced the Bearfrau's foolproof plan for reclaiming your lost youth.  I don't want to bore you with the high-tech details, but mostly it involves eating the Halloween candy you bought for the neighborhood kids.  Of course I'm not actually advocating taking candy from babies.  What am I, a monster?  I'm advocating taking it from grown children.  And not even really taking it - just creating a series of obstacles to it.  If the child decides the challenge isn't worth the reward, well, that's just a commentary on the decline of tenacity and drive in the youth of America today.  It's no fault of yours.

Taking Candy from Babies, Part I:An October Public Service Announcement( + Tuna Panini )

Imagine it's 1987.  An elementary-school cafeteria, the day after Halloween.  A swarming madhouse of glucose-addled children, gearing up for recess after a healthy meal of half a bologna sandwich and as many fun-sized Butterfingers as it takes to fill a Thundercats lunch box.  Gods and heroes are being made today.  Ryan Finnegan is telling the Homeric epic of how he grabbed an entire bowl of Sweet-Tarts off an unattended porch and ran.  Vanessa Simmons brought so many Chuckles that she can't finish them all - the entire 3rd-grade class is singing Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now" to compete for her leftovers.  Are you enjoying the nostalgia?  Good.  One of us should.

I myself have trouble enjoying Halloween because it always reminds me of the bleak hellscape of misery and despair that was my low-sugar childhood.  No Pop Rocks.  No Pop-Tarts.  No Ring Pops.  And definitely no pop.  It was a dark time, filled with lies and misdirection.  For years, my brother and I labored under the false impression that sliced dried pineapple was a "treat."  I didn't have my first Dorito until the age of 16.  And I still wake up sweating in the night with the taste of carob in my mouth.

Mozzarella Done Killt My Pa (+ Raspberry-Chipotle BBQ Chicken Pizza)

Mozzarella Cheese and I are just starting to come to terms with one another again.  This is one of those epic feuds, like the Hatfields and the McCoys.  But with cheese.

Mozzarella cost me a tooth.  An important one, not one of those wisdom teeth they’ll yank anyway.  Side note:  has it ever occurred to you how messed up it is that we call the teeth we’re going to toss “Wisdom” while keeping the ones called “Canines?”  Seems like human nature writ small, methinks.  Anyway, Mozzarella cost me a tooth – and, more importantly, taught me that things fall apart – and that sometimes, those things are you.   And no one should have to live with that kind of knowledge.

Once upon a time, I managed a movie theater: a job which offered no mobility, pay or dignity, but did offer all the free popcorn and fountain beverages you could carry.  At the time it seemed like a good idea.  Which is how I came to spend a full year with a Dixie cup of Cherry Coke in my hand.  Because if you can turn down a free Cherry Coke, you’re a better human than I.  Well, let’s face it, you’re probably already a better human than I.  But now you can point to a specific reason.

Up until that point, I’d been awesome in the tooth department.  Only one small cavity ever.  Dentist?  Drill away, my good man.  Doesn’t bother me at all.  That is, until a year after I started at the theater, when an ongoing toothache drove me to the dentist.  There I was informed that I needed two root canals and twelve smaller cavities filled.  Seriously.  Twelve.

The Best Apologies Come with Bacon (+ Quiche Lorraine)

Mr. Bear is basically a saint.  Especially in bed.

Wait, wait.  Don’t go.  This isn’t about to get inappropriate or weird.  Well, inappropriate anyway.  It’s pretty weird.  But just quirky-weird.  Not “I want to curl up like an armadillo and un-know all that stuff about your toe fetish” weird.  This isn’t about our attempt to act out 50 Shades of Grey with lunchmeat hand puppets, or anything.*  It’s about how I’m wired wrong.  I panic at bedtime.

The night always starts off perfectly normally: some halfhearted debate over what time to go to bed, then teethbrushing.  Jammers.  Pills taken.  Face washed - because, let’s face it, the days when I could expect to sleep in my makeup without waking up looking more or less like a moray eel are over.  Thermostat adjusted.  Doors and windows checked.  Decorative bed pillows banished.  I swear there was a time when I just went to bed when I was tired.  Now it seems like preparation for some Olympic sport.  Which is probably an apt comparison, because what's about to happen is like a triathlon of crazy.

*If someone were to do this and put it up on YouTube, I’m pretty sure we’d all become famous.  Just something to think about.

How My Husband Definitely Did Not Get Carjacked (+ Sausage, Cheese and Basil Lasagna)

Mr. Bear totally got carjacked, guys.

Well, except he didn’t.  But you can see how I could get those things confused.

It starts with the neighbors.  In the grand scheme of things, they’re not particularly awful.  I don’t think they’re cooking meth, and I’ve never had to ask them to turn down their stereo.  But they do have a dog.  And I like dogs, so put down your torches and pitchforks and hear me out.  The problem is not that this is a dog.  The problem is that this is a “When the family leaves me alone in the house, I bark without pause for three hours” dog. 

Because our apartment complex has a 20-pound pet weight limit, we’re used to barking.  The kind of dogs that meet that requirement are 60% hair and 40% yap.  But Downstairs Dog has clearly been bred for the purpose of destroying other dogs on the field of battle.  He’s easily three times the weight limit, and his barks have a resonance unlike anything I’ve ever heard.  When Downstairs Dog barks, birds fall out of the sky and plants wither.

Three Compelling Reasons I am Unfit to Breed (+ Italian Ricotta Fritters)

Let us be clear that there are far more than 3 reasons.  Entire volumes could probably be written.  But at any given time, there are three that top my list.  For your entertainment, and also as a dire warning for those of you who are encouraging me to breed, here are this week’s winners: 

1.   This Morning I Severely Chastised a Shoe

It definitely had it coming.  Don’t feel tempted to pity.  It had been a crap morning.  I’d had very little sleep, and my run had gone miserably, and all I needed was to get to the post office before 10.   But, as usual, I was running about 3 minutes late.  And that’s when the shoe decided to give me a hard time.  I wanted to slip it on without having to undo the elaborate double knot that is inexplicably necessary to keep a shoe on my foot.  But no; although it had come off just fine without untying the night before, it had miraculously shrunk in the night.  Of course, I could have just untied it, but at that point I had already invested so much time in the slip-on option that it seemed like that would be wasteful.  Plus, I wasn’t about to let myself be defeated by a shoe.  It was at this moment that I heard myself hissing in that mom-tone that pours out super-fast and all in one word:

“AreYouSeriouslyDoingThisToMeRightNow?  IDoNotHaveTimeForThis!  I just got you new laces, you INGRATE!” 

I almost never lose my temper.  The shaky mental state which led to this breakdown was a fluke.  But the point is, given the right set of circumstances, I will scream at a shoe for marring my daily timetable.  An inanimate object, incapable of rational thought or action.  Now imagine what I’d do with a child, who theoretically has some amount of critical thinking skills and empathy.  More than a shoe does, anyway.  I shudder to think.

Slightly less important, but nonetheless noteworthy, was the fact that I attempted to imply to my pseudo-child that she owed me good behavior as the result of a gift.  Not only is that clearly bad parenting, but it’s not even effective parenting.  If I ever reach the day when I give up on my moral compass and bribe my child for good behavior, shoelaces aren’t exactly going to cut it.  They weren’t even glittery or fluorescent.  See?  I even suck at bad parenting.