This Joy’s Life

For all you HATERS out there who think I’ve lost my mind when I talk about fixin’ up some yummy Pear Salad – 1 pear, sliced in half, 1 dalop of mayonnaise, sprinkled with shredded cheddar cheese – I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! And, it’s not just “a crazy Joy thing,” either.

I give you exhibit A:

The menu board at The Yogurt Shoppe in Columbus, GA:

Here it is on the plate.

Salad = Mayonnaise in the South. Think about it: Egg Salad, Chicken Salad, Potato Salad, PEAR SALAD.

I rest my case. Yummy.

See this:

This is lettuce that I grew in my first ever vegetable garden!!!

For those of you who are like, “yeah, so, what’s the big deal?,” you may not be aware that in the past my mantra towards the greens was: I don’t DO salad. That’s just NOT how I roll. Bryan Latham, you know what I’m talkin’ ’bout.

Now, to be clear, that’s not to say that I didn’t DO salads at all. Like any good Southerner, I love me some pear salad, jello salad and the like. When in the South, simply add a dollop (or two) of mayo to your favorite fruit (e.g. pear) or fruit substitute (i.e. jello) and wait for the party in your mouth. And, yes, I did say add mayo:

Southern Born, Southern Fed. That’s me to a T. But now, you see, I’m trying to eat a little better and I, of course, want Clara to have a healthy diet. Currently, she eats no vegetables at all except the serving or two I can get into her via the V8 Fusion juices.

Anyway, I read that having children involved in the process of growing their veggies makes it more fun and more likely that they will actually eat them. Also, I hated throwing out the half used (or less) bag of greens after having a random green salad craving (or short-lived “brand new, totally healthy diet!” moment). The obvious answer to such a dilemma . . . grow the silly stuff in your own backyard!

I have to give myself props, too, because, if I do say so myself, the lettuce has turned out fantastic in spite of my not yet having developed a green thumb. I’m also growing (all for the first time): new potatoes, yellow potatoes, walla walla onions, the romaine lettuce as well as a purple kind, strawberries and a couple varieties of tomatoes. This doesn’t count the herbs that I’ve been growing for a couple years: mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, and dill.

Pictured below is the beautiful and yummy-tasty green salad I had for dinner tonight, along with a bowl of tomato basil soup and the jello salad. Bon appetite!

Oh. And did I mention that my lettuce is, like, totally organic! That’s what I’m talkin’ about – yeah.

Never joke with a Southerner about frying up ANYTHING.

Gwen asked me to bring dessert to dinner last night and in jest suggested it be fried Twinkies. Silly rabbit, she didn’t think I’d do it but I pulled out the “Gran Pappy” (eat your heart out “Fry Daddy”) and we fried the dickens out of those Little Debbie snacks!

It smelled like the fair and I managed to eat one and half of them. Surprisingly, the cream filled center got soaked up into the dough. That was the only thing missing from our yummy? experiment.

Real food we love to say, but would hate to have to eat:

TOFURKY
Tofu molded into the shape of a turkey.

TURDUCKEN
A chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey. (Thanks to cousin Sid for clarifying that this is not a dirty German word.)

Just a random posting to prove to my Northwestern peeps that Southerners fry EVERYTHING – even Salmon:

Last night Carrie and I ordered a pizza and you could add an oeuf – the French LOVE their eggs. We wanted to see what this would be like so we ordered a relatively normal pizza with cheese, olives, artichokes, tomatoes and basil and the oeuf. I swear the egg was just cracked open on the cooked pizza but wasn’t cooked itself. We just spread it around and hoped it would cook a-top the hot pizza. No signs of food poisoning so far!

After dinner we decided to walk along the beach promenade and see about finding a club or local discotheque to go dancing in. Ultimately, we decided to just sit on the prom and people watch. (People watching has been a huge entertainment for us in Cannes.)

Not too long thereafter we were approached by a two boys (and I do mean boys, about 22, not much older than the high school students Carrie teaches and I sub for.) They were very nice and it was fun practicing our French and letting them practice their English. Between us all we were able to have a pretty decent conversation, until they wanted us to go with them to the discotheque and we had to break their little hearts gently that we were married and tres fidel.

So, they moved on and a similar pattern of approach, confused French-English conversation, requests of movement over to the discotheque, marriage revelation, confirmation of fidelity to our husbands, and pretty abrupt end to conversation ensued for the next couple hours.

The conversations really would have been pretty hysterical to someone observing the scene. At one point, the conversation led to French fries’ French counterpart the pommes frites. What other things were called “French” in the US? Well, there’s Frenches mustard and French Toast, of course.

But French Toast was not a concept that made sense to them. We tried to explain using the French words we knew to describe it: panne (bread), oeuf (egg), sucre (sugar). But, they kept thinking we were describing a crepe. So, pantomime ensued as we played a game of impromptu charades to depict the process of making French Toast.

The bowl was created by rounding out each arm, egg was dropped into the bowl and a stirring motion followed, the bread (my driver’s license for a prop) then was dipped in the bowl of egg. But we had a really hard time getting them to understand the idea of toast. They saw only a crepe being made when the driver’s license was dropped in the pan on the stove. So, Carrie’s wallet was solicited to become the toaster and the series of pockets for credit cards the bread slots. Then the driver’s license popped up and I played hot potato with it to indicate how hot the bread, dipped in egg, had now become. Then the sugar was pored on top.

I’m still not sure they got it, but by this time I think we were all ready to move in a new direction with the conversation so they feigned as though they did understand and the game was over.

The French love their ouefs.

Now, Shakespeare wrote “a rose by any other name would smell the sweet” and here in Ireland they seem to have taken it to heart. Not only is Johnny Rockets renamed Eddie Rockets out here (see Why Cut The Cheese?”), but TJ Maxx is TK Maxx and JC Penny’s has an Irish cousin just known simply as “Pennys”.

Cereal hasn’t escaped re-naming either, as evidenced by “Frosties” (Frosted Flakes), “Honey Loops” (Cheerios), and “Frosted Shreadies” (Frosted Mini-Wheats). This must have something to do with the culture here. They must perform extensive consumer tests to see how the cerals are accepted under different names. What does it say when “Frosted Flakes” is an unacceptable name to another country? Of course, perhaps I’m being a bit presumptuous that they were “our” names first?

It is an interesting thing to be missing cheese slices. You really can’t buy slices of cheese in Ireland, at least in Dublin. Can’t find them at the supermarket. They give you shreaded cheese at the sandwich shops. Even at the poor man’s Johnny Rockets (out here Johnny goes by Eddie), the American 50′s style diner, they give you shreaded cheddar on your hamburgers, slightly melted. Sheaded cheese on an American Cheeseburger, well, it’s just not quite right, somehow. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.