Tag Archives: seasons

Only Tuesday – again

days on end, in the kitchen, Wee Bairn Leave a comment

I found a stick of butter I didn’t know I had hiding in the very back of the freezer, and as I held its frozen self in my hand I realized that everything was going to be ok. It wasn’t the end of the world after all – it was only Tuesday. I laughed a little to myself, then burst into tears and when I was done crying I couldn’t remember what I needed the butter for in the first place.

Welcome to cooking with a woman entering her 30th hormonal week of pregnancy. I am growing and slowing and laughing and crying all at the same time. It is taking me longer to get up our stairs and I am completely winded when I finally reach the top. My appetite is enormous and while the rest of the world seems to be enjoying their spring greens, I am plotting how to inconspicuously add potatoes to the menu.

Comfort food – that’s what I want. I imagine it must sound insane to those of you not in the throws of prenatal life, but I just want pasta for dinner. Pasta and sausage – preferably with a side of potatoes and bread and butter, please. I would drink heavy cream if I thought for one minute that I could get away with it and pour gravy on my oatmeal. Maybe it’s because I spent the first few months not being able to stomach anything but grapefruit slices and sour candy. Who knows!  The problem to be solved is how to cook hearty, but healthy. How to mix Spring green with my cravings for Winter heaviness, in short – how to eat potatoes more often and yet not gain several hundred pounds in the process.

I think I may have found at least one solution, one of my family’s favorite meals that we lovingly called “Poverty Dinner”. There really is nothing ‘poor’ about it other than being inexpensive and easy to make. It’s a tasty, filling sort of one dish meal that worked perfectly with the first greens that braved the uncertain glory of Spring.

 

Poverty Dinner

4 potatoes, washed and cubed

1/2 lb lean ground beef

1/2 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

several good handfuls of washed greens; spinach, baby kale, swiss chard, etc.

2-3 Tablespoons of oil or butter for cooking

salt and pepper

 

Potatoes and ground beef, comfort food at its finest, mixed with vitamin-packed greens fresh from the garden or market, making a simple meal that can be cooked up after a day in an office or in the field.

I like to use my big cast iron skillet for this. Heat the frying pan over medium heat and then add the oil and the potatoes then cover. Let the potatoes cook for a little while before adding the garlic and onions so that they don’t get too overdone by the time the potatoes are tender. Once the potatoes are feeling a little giving, break up the ground beef into the pan and stir well. Keep an eye on it to make sure that the ground beef gets cooked thoroughly. Another way to do this, although it changes the ‘one-dish’ nature of the meal, is to let the potatoes cook all the way and then remove them to cook the beef. Either way, you may need to add a little bit of water to the pan to keep the beef moist while it’s frying. If you’ve kept everything together, return the cover and let the potatoes finish cooking. Otherwise, return everything to the pan and reheat.

Now – here’s the super healthy part you’ve been so patiently waiting for. Once your potatoes, onions and beef are completely cooked, heap the greens on top. There will be a little bit of water clinging to them from washing which will help steam them. Cover and reduce the heat to low. In a few minutes the greens will have wilted and steamed and completed your meal. Season with salt and pepper as you desire and you’re ready to go!

Enjoy!

the first man whose heart I won and the cookies that did the job

in the kitchen, passionate life, Will Cook For Food Leave a comment

Roger lived up the road from the tiny homestead we lived on when I was a teenager. “Up the road” is common enough to hear out there, even though all the roads are flat as can be. To this day, my brothers and I have to say the words in our best ‘German Midwest bachelor farmer’ accent, followed by a deep sigh and then, “Poor Bob….” It’s become a tradition, and you’ll have to ask me about it another time.

But – back to Roger. I believe he parked his old truck on our front lawn the first day of fair weather the year we moved there, introduced himself and told us in great detail about having died after a heart attack and how the miraculous physicians at the Toledo hospital had resurrected him. My brothers and I stood amazed and slightly terrified on the stone driveway, but we very quickly came to realize that Roger had a talent and deep passion for telling amazing and terrifying stories, and sometimes they were even true.

He was sixty-five and retired from a life of doing anything and everything that was dangerous and just barely decent. When he was young, brave and insanely good-looking he shipped himself off to the jungles of who-knows-where to fight some smokey war and when he came home he married a fiery Quaker girl and kept right on fighting. He was a widower now with not much adventure left in his hard-used heart, so he took up with our farming ventures and was always deeply interested in whatever it was we had going on. He would park his truck on the side of the road and lean against our fence and talk for hours if we’d let him. He never came in the fence, never stepped foot inside the house, he was just as happy as could be standing on the side of the road telling stories and doling out advice.

One day I baked him cookies and he ate them right there.

“Annie – I swear you’re gonna make some poor shmuck a good wife someday! Mark my words. Why, if I were a hundred years younger, your mama would have me to deal with!”

I blushed deeply and didn’t know what to say. I was fifteen and still reeling from the dizzying heights of my most awkward phase.  ”You know, you remind me something of my Marty – she was quiet and all domestic and ornery as heck! ” I tucked his words inside and kept them there as protection against the spinsterhood I saw rapidly approaching (at fifteen!!)

He would spoil us with warm, juicy Indiana melons in the summer – a luxury we could never really afford, and we baked for him. One spring he presented me with the loveliest yellow rose bush that fragranced my entire garden. He watched us ‘grow out our pinfeathers’ as it were, and go from a bunch of ambitious kids to a handful of dreamy-eyed young adults bent on moving far from home and finding adventure of our own.

 

Roger’s Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter or shortening

1 cup each brown and white sugars

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon each baking soda and salt

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats

1 cup raisins

I admit, this recipe doesn’t seem to hit the mark health-wise but it certainly reminds me of good times and the sweet man who lived up the road and made a very awkward, frizzy-haired teenager feel pretty with his blatant praise. In my old recipe notebook I’ve scribbled out the proportions for tripling the recipe, which goes to show you how well-loved these cookies were, simple though they be!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together the fat and sugars then beat in the eggs until the mix is ‘fluffy’. Add the vanilla and stir again, then add your dry ingredients. Stir to combine well then drop the cookies with a cookie scoop onto a lightly greased baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Share with a neighbor, served with icy milk on a warm Spring day.

 

Eggnog French Toast (in other words, the holidays are over)

in the kitchen 2 Comments

The Holidays are over.

And the whole world lets out a sigh. Half of us have already moved on, leaving the glitter of the holiday season for the more reasonable, rational business of Getting Back To Real Life. Others of us still can’t remember what year it is. I am the befuddled resident of this latter category.

Am I the only one who feels utterly confused after all the twinkling lights and sugar-laden foods? I always seem to stumble into January by accident and then can’t find my way around, I can’t remember what day it is or what I am supposed to be doing; for months my mind has been settled on Christmas and now it’s all gone. Sometimes I have to stop in the middle of the road and ask, “Who am I and what am I doing here?” Mostly, I get honked at and people say mean things as they drive by, but they don’t answer my questions. The new year can be somewhat harsh to those of us coming out the thick fog of yule-tide cheer.

It’s times like these when I have to reset. I have to step back and reenter the year without being hungover  with sugar cookies and late nights. I do this best by hiding in my kitchen until things make sense again. The kitchen of any home I’ve ever lived in has been my default haunt, if I could sleep there, I probably would. I feel at home, in control, able and in my right element. After the bustle of December I am happy to drift back into my favorite room, brew a cup of tea and get this show that is my life back up and running.

This is a breakfast I made early this week to ease us back into the swing of things. I love french toast; it is a hearty, homey food that is quick, easy on the budget and easy on my queasy baby stomach. Usually, recipes have you season your dipping mixture with cinnamon, but I decided to try something new. Inspired by the residue of Christmas passed, I added vanilla, some sugar and a little bit of nutmeg to the mix and came up with eggnog french toast. Instant win.

Post-Holiday French Toast

4-6 slices of day-old or older bread

1 1/2 cups milk

2 eggs

2 Tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

butter or oil for frying

This is an excellent use for bread that is about to go or has gone out of usefulness. Don’t misunderstand me, it will not resurrect moldy bread, but a slice that just won’t cut it for peanut butter and jelly might be nigh onto perfect for breakfast.  Didn’t quite finish that loaf of bread you made from the last column? – here’s your solution.

In a wide bowl, mix together the milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla and nutmeg. It may seem like a lot of egg, but I like the fact that it adds a boost of protein much needed in the morning. Whisk all the ingredients well and then heat up your frying pan over medium heat. Add a little oil or butter once the pan is hot.

Dip your slice of bread into the milk and egg mixture, flipping them over once and making sure that it is covered completely. I use a fork to do the flipping and then pick the piece up and let it drip for a moment or two before placing it in the frying pan. Happy sizzling ensues. Each piece will need to cook for 3 or so minutes on one side and then flip them over for another 3 minutes. The toast should be firm and golden brown. Depending on how big your slices of bread are, you should be able to make 4-6 pieces of toast.

Serve hot with lots of butter and warm maple syrup and watch this new year become a more friendly, familiar place! Enjoy…

because it’s the right thing to do

in the kitchen, passionate life 4 Comments

There is something so *Right* about family traditions.

Every family has its own web of traditions that is uniquely their own. No one really knows how they start but we all think that ours are the best and *most* unique and relish in the annual opportunity to drag them out, dust them off and use them as the foundation of our festivities.

Cranberry Molded Salad is such a tradition for my family. It seems a really common sort of tradition when you first look at it, but when you remember that no two families ever make their cranberry salads alike, it becomes something reminiscent of the ancient clans of Scotland with their intricate family tartans. You bind yourself to your family’s recipe with a fierce and nearly blind loyalty – nothing will EVER taste as good as what you had growing up. It’s a bit of an unspoken rule we whisper to our babies on their first Thanksgivings, cementing the truth that this is the Only Legitimate Cranberry Salad on Earth, accept no substitutes.

I’ve been at family gatherings where a tart jelly is served in a ridged roll, slid from out of a can. It’s tradition for them and their mouths water at the sight of it’s crimson self, quivering and glistening in the holiday lighting. I’ve seen it made with jello and chopped carrots and even marshmallows, I’ve seen it scoop-able and pour-able and even non-existent.

Every year I can remember, I have eaten my mother’s cranberry molded salad at Thanksgiving – not really a relish, definitely not a sauce but absolutely the perfect foil to the rich line up of foods that tradition orders on that holiday. We never vary, we never waver, we never subtract or substitute. There must be cranberry molded salad, we must all have a hand in making it and it must be eaten almost as an after thought. We eat it with seconds and for days thereafter in sandwiches and with leftovers. It is the last dish to be scraped clean, after we have been thoroughly saturated with Thanksgiving goodness.

Every year, without fail, my mother says something to the effect of, “Why don’t we ever make this any other time of the year, we like it so much…” and every year we all wonder for a minute about what would happen if one of our holiday foods were to escape and wander into July or March and we realize that it would be Wrong. We eat cranberry molded salad at Thanksgiving. It’s our tradition and it’s a good one. Let’s not tamper with it.

 

The Best Cranberry Molded Salad Ever

2 bags fresh cranberries, washed

2 whole oranges, washed

4 apples, cored

4 packages unflavored gelatin

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup cold water

1 cup boiled water

1/4 cup lime juice

 

This makes enough to feed a small army.

We like *our* recipe because it’s actually rather healthy for you. The fruits aren’t cooked and that means they are still in possession of their enzymes, making it the perfect thing to finish that incredibly filling meal with. That’s why we eat it last. Aha.

In a food processor, you are going to grind the cranberries, apples and oranges ( skin and all, folks!) together then dump the whole lot into a big mixing bowl. In a small bowl, add the cold water to your gelatin and let it soften. Stir the sugar into the ground fruit *well*  and add the lime juice. Once the gelatin is soft, add the boiled water and dissolve completely. Add this to the fruit blend and stir again. Cover and put in the fridge to ‘set’. This can be made a day or more in advance, it will keep quite nicely!

I’m not sharing this recipe with the suggestion that anyone should try it in lieu of their own, perhaps this could be your Fourth of July side dish and it will see other parts of the year, something it never would be able to do in our house.

At any rate, enjoy your festivities this week – eat heartily and be at peace!

 

Bear Chili

in the kitchen, Will Cook For Food 3 Comments

They told me bear meat tastes like People – I didn’t want to ask how they knew.

My rugged hunter man went off into the woods and shot himself a decent-sized he-bear. When he came and announced the news to me I thought, “What are we going to do with all that meat?”

I’ve heard that it is a tough, sweet, oily sort of meat, not exactly everything we’ve come to love about good old Black Angus!  But, being the types to embrace adventure – culinary or otherwise – I decided to do my best to cook it into some edible form and Alex promised to eat it with an open mind.

From the various hunters and other adventurous cooks I interviewed, I realized that bear is not a distasteful meat, just a misunderstood and often poorly prepared one. It tends to be on the tough yet mild side and the fact that the animal itself lives all winter on hoarded stores of fat means that there can be quite a bit of grease, but that is easily pared off with a sharp knife, leaving you with less fat than most beef. It seems this meat wants to be spiced up and simmered long. I thought – “Chili!”

I used my crock pot and cooked the daylights out of it while I was at work and we ate it with homemade corn bread and a wild greens salad – a perfect, rustic, simple autumn meal.

Bear Chili

1 lbs lean bear meat, ground

1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes plus 1 can water

4 oz cooked black beans

4 oz sweet corn (frozen or canned or fresh)

1 Tablespoon minced garlic

1/2 onion, diced

2 Tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (more or less, depending on how hot you want your chili to be)

1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

 

The first thing is to fry up your onions, garlic and bear meat (*or* ground beef, since I suppose not everyone has a package of bear just sitting in their freezer, waiting to be used!)  Start with about a teaspoon of olive oil or butter in a hot frying pan, add your diced onions and minced garlic and cook them over medium heat until they are translucent and fragrant. Next, add the ground meat with a little water. I don’t like to add more fat to fry the meat with when a quarter cup of water will keep things from sticking just as well. Break the meat into small pieces while it is cooking. Once the meat is thoroughly browned, turn off the heat and set the pan aside.

If you are using a crock pot, now is the time to rescue it from its shelf or box. If you are going to cook your chili on the stove top, get out an eight or more quart stock pot with a thick bottom. Pour the tomatoes, water, corn, beans and spices into the cooking apparatus. If you are wondering about the cocoa powder, let me tell you – it does wonders for a chili! It does not make your meat taste chocolate-dipped, rather it adds a depth and darkness of flavor that is hard to beat. Simply trust me and add the cocoa.

Now, scoop in the meat mixture and turn on the heat! As I said before, I let the chili cook on high in my crockpot for several hours. If you are cooking on the stove, let it simmer on a lower heat for an hour or two, stirring occasionally so that nothing sticks to the bottom. If you need to, cover it up or add water by the cupful if it seems to be losing too much moisture. It does need to cook for some time so that all those lovely flavors get a chance to work together and make something fabulous.

It will be fabulous, let me assure you, whether you use beef, bear, moose, venison or even ground chicken. You don’t necessarily need to be a huntsman to enjoy the fruits of field and forest.  Enjoy!

 

 

The Easiest thing I’ve ever made

days on end, in the kitchen 5 Comments

Crockpot Cookery.

That’s it in two words.

Imagine yourself at the peak of some forsaken mountain in a faraway country, seeking the answer to every reasonable American woman’s cry of, “Where will I find the TIME?!” Now imagine me, sitting there in a cave (with my knitting and some crackers and a few good reruns of Doctor Who on a solar-powered portable TV/DVD player) all wrapped up in cool-looking robes, just waiting for you to come. Because I knew you would.

So there we are. I pause my show, put down my knitting and ask,

“Why have you bothered me just as The Doctor was explaining his Time Theory?”

Then you say, “But that’s just it- Time Theories! We don’t have enough time! What’s the answer?”

I lean forward, pull the hood on my super cool robe tighter around my old, weary face (because it’s taken you a really, really long time to find me) and utter these two words,

“Crockpot Cookery.”

From out of the very sky itself, bells of victory ring out over the forgotten valley as the sun breaks through the thick cloud cover and bathes us in warm light. You face is illuminated with joy and awe and satisfaction for a moment, but then a dark shadow races across your features as you suddenly realize something…

“I had to come all this way to hear that? You couldn’t have just stayed home and written a blog post about it? It would have saved so much time!”

End of Story.

I have no idea who invented this marvelous contraption, but I bless them – a thousand times – each time I pull mine out to use, which is fairly frequent these days. I have no cool history (imagined or otherwise) to share with you about it’s origins, but I can tell you this – it has saved me time and made my life inexpressibly easier, and I think that’s just wonderful.

Don’t get me wrong – I love to cook ‘at the moment’, I truly do, but I work 3 afternoons a week which means I’m getting home almost an hour after our regular dinner time. Alex has to get up at o-dark-thirty every morning for his job and therefore tries to be in bed around 7 pm. This leaves a very, very narrow margin of time for dinner in the evening. A very narrow margin into which a crockpot can slip with ease. If I come home from work and there is a meal hot and ready in the crock, I can throw together a side of rice or pasta and a salad right quick and we can be eating in 15 minutes. Yes.

This is what we had the other night – by far the easiest, best tasting pot roast I have *ever* made, and it didn’t even need another side to go with it since I cooked the potatoes in the crock. Oh, so clever.

 

Pepper and Herb Pot Roast in a Crock

1-2 lbs of roasting meat  (the piece I used was probably 2 lbs and we were able to have this meal twice)

1 onion, sliced

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

3 cloves of garlic

1 cup of water

1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper

A sprinkling of salt

3-4 lavender sprigs (I just happen to have lavender on the window sill, you could easily use  1/2 teaspoon of rosemary or thyme or a mix of both – whatever floats your boat.)

3 medium sized potatoes, quartered

2 large carrots, cut into three or four pieces (or a handful of baby ones)

 

In the morning, I sliced up the onions, mushrooms and garlic and put them in the bottom of the crock pot, placed the meat on top and added the water, herbs, salt and pepper.  I put the top on and turned the crock pot to High. Then, I quartered the potatoes and carrots and put them in a bowl of water in the fridge. They don’t need to cook as long, so they had to wait to go in. I had laundry and other things to do before going to work that got done during the first half of the day. Before I went to work (about four hours later), I drained off the potatoes and carrots and then dumped them into the crock pot. I tried to get as many of them as I could into the broth that had surrounded the roast, covered it back up and left it on High.

I worked four hours, and when I came home – the veggies had cooked to perfection. The roast was tender and moist and flavorful – it was truly delicious. It surely didn’t taste as if it had cooked itself, even though it actually had!

So there you have it – my secret time-fighting weapon.

Aren’t you glad I didn’t go hide in a cave and make you find me to hear it?

 

 

Tuesday Presents…

10 things tuesdays 1 Comment

Another Ten Things….

I’m afraid it’s not going to be very imaginative this week. I’ve had the flu and it has wiped me clean of any decent creative energy… or any sort of energy for that matter.

10 Things I Don’t Have the Energy To Do

1) Make myself Lunch… can we say, “Yogurt”?

2) Exercise… even though I so faithfully started walking last week

3) Fall Cleaning… it shall have to wait a few more days, sorry dirty windows

4) Laundry… the thought of hauling the washer out of it’s little corner is enough to make me pass out, just saying.

5) Go for a ten mile bike ride like I was planning

6) Enthusiasm… it has left me… utterly

7) Get out of bed… nope, not happening, lunch has just been cancelled

8) Brush my teeth (my strength is fading even as I write)

9) Finish This Post.

The End

Autumnal Pumpkin Cookies

in the kitchen, Will Cook For Food 2 Comments

It’s ten o’clock at night and I should be sleeping. The morning will come quickly, I know, but I hear something outside. I hear Autumn coming. I don’t know if anyone else notices, but Fall sounds different at night than Summer. Its the leaves, I think, changing into their more festive outfits. I can hear them outside rustling and whispering and shivering in the chilly breeze and I can’t just roll over and go to sleep. Tomorrow I might wake up to find that the sound was really Summer fleeing from the cold days to come and all the trees have shed their green and blaze with Autumn color; there must be something that I, too can do to welcome the new season.

I quietly roll out of bed, careful not to wake my sleeping husband nestled deep in the quilts that have lately come out of storage, and head out to the kitchen in my pajamas.

It is cold in our dark apartment, but the windows remain open because I can’t bear to have them closed just yet. In the kitchen I can still hear the whisperings of the leaves outside while I gather up my baking supplies. The town is silent, I seem to be the only one awake in Brandon, accompanied by the small town mouse who lives beneath the cupboards. Flour, sugar, salt, spices and an egg – they all get lined up on the counter along with a big bowl and a wooden spoon. I turn on the oven and stand over it for a moment, warming my chilled fingers before I get started.

The trees are making Fall outside – I shall make it inside.

Is there a more Autumnal flavor than pumpkin? They are the choice fruit of fall adorning doorsteps, surrounded with brilliantly colored mums, and finding their way into kitchens, seasoned with cinnamon and brown sugar.

I am going to make Cake-Like Pumpkin Cookies, a slight variation of a recipe I found earlier on in the year and tucked away for such a night as this. In the morning, the mountains will greet us with dew-covered leaves in various states of Autumn dress and  I will see to it that the house is filled with the scents and tastes of Fall.

Cake Like Pumpkin Cookies

makes 2 – 2 1/2 dozen cookies

1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 Tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups old fashioned rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars. You might want to use a mixer for this, either a stand or hand one will do. If you are doing it by hand, use a whisk and mix until the sugars and butter are completely blended and sightly ‘fluffy’ looking. Add the pumpkin puree and stir, then add the egg and stir again until everything is mixed well. Add the vanilla, spices and salt, stirring so that they are completely incorporated. Now add the flour and oatmeal and blend thoroughly. There should be no dry spots in the dough. Don’t over mix it, however, and make your cookies tough!

Get out two baking sheets and grease them lightly then drop the cookies onto the trays. They won’t expand much in baking but you don’t want them to be touching. Once you have them placed on the trays they can head into the oven for 8-10 minutes. They will be a little brown around the edges and slightly firm to the touch. Remove them from the trays and let them rest on a rack until completely cool before storing.

I think the best way to have them is while they are still slightly warm, with a glass of milk or a mug of hot tea.

Welcome Autumn!

flat bread veggie pizza

in the kitchen 2 Comments

It’s what’s for dinner.

Making flat bread involves a couple more steps than the ones used to make a plain old pizza – but boy is it worth it! I started with the Plain Old Pizza Dough recipe and after letting it rise, I simply rolled it out as flat as I could and placed it on a greased baking sheet. Then, I pricked the surface with a fork – all over – and brushed on some olive oil.  After a sprinkling of garlic powder and sea salt, the flat bread went into the oven (preheated to 375 degrees) for about 15 minutes, or until the crust was lightly browned.

While it was baking, I chopped up and sauteed some onions, sweet red peppers, yellow crooked neck squash, fresh tomatoes, garlic and spinach. When the crust came out of the oven, the veggies got spread around on top and then lightly blanketed with slices of fresh mozzarella. I turned the oven onto Broil and popped the whole thing back in the oven for another five minutes or so, just until the cheese had melted and begun to bubble.

It was incredible.

Incredible, I say. The crust was thin and firm and the veggies were tasty mellow and the whole thing was garlicky and cheesy and yet rather healthy and quick, especially if you make the dough ahead of time. This meal is definitely going to be repeated in the near future!

Nailed It.

days on end, in the kitchen 3 Comments

…where you can check in, but you can never check out…

This, my dearest readers, is a Fruit Fly Trap.

Cleverly designed by some college student with too much time and a rotten banana, no doubt, they then dutifully pinned their idea on every Tips, Hints, and Tricks site on the World Wide Web – which is where I found it.

Here’s the idea: you put a piece of paper (skillfully rolled into a funnel shape – it’s harder than it sounds really) in the opening of a quart jar that has some sort of ‘bait’ in the bottom of it. The fruit flies smell the bait and fly down into the funnel and become trapped in the jar. Seems legit.

It is fruit fly season and we are swamped by them. It doesn’t matter how often I take out the trash or wipe down the counters or how tightly I seal up the fresh food – they find a way to survive. It’s getting pretty gross, so I decided to make a fruit fly trap of my own. I used an old grocery list, a quart jar and some busted tomatoes from the garden (a fruit fly delight), set up the trap (sealing off the top with some teal duct tape) and then, yes, sat and watched it.

Alex was doing something productive in the other room, but let out an appropriate sound of congratulations every time I hollered out that another fly had become prey to my brilliant scheme. I left the kitchen for the night in triumph.

It’s been several days now and I must say,

It’s All Lies.

I haven’t made a trap, I’ve made a blinking Fruit Fly Resort. I don’t know how they do it, but they travel in and out of the jar at will and have increased in numbers exponentially. I don’t know what to do. There are thousands of them and the originators of the design failed to mention what to do with the flies after you’ve caught them. Mine are sending me tiny thank you notes and requests for other types of fresh food, seems like they’re tired of the tomatoes.

Gross has turned to Grotesque and they are way too comfortable for my liking, refusing to even make a show of reasonable bug terror when I approach with my swatter -it’s as if they assume that the kind-hearted soul who provided them with such a nice vacation home would never really have the guts to then kill them.

They assume wrongly, every time.

The Fruit Fly Resort is being closed, permanently.

The End.