Domesticity

I really must accept the fact that I love all things domesticated. Well, maybe not all. I'm not a scrapbooker and I don't sew well, but wow, I love fancy food and housewares.

I just went to Wegman's grocery store for the first time, and I had way too much fun. I was having more fun than anyone else there. It's a regular grocery store, with actually pretty good prices, but they also have a natural/organic section the size of Earth Fare, a fantastically tempting bakery, a huge hot and cold bar and wonderfully looking meats. Even their dry goods aisles had interesting items. A grocery store trip should not make my day, but it did. That was far more fun than clubbing or going drinking. A visit to Ikea or even Pottery Barn and Pier I will do the same thing.

I fight the stereotype of the stay-home mom, but I guess I shouldn't. I love to decorate. I love to bake. I love to try new recipes. I love to blog in the middle of the day. And there's nothing wrong with that.

No Carolina sweetness

This weekend, it was colder in Charlotte than Fairbanks, Alaska.

The strawberries are gone. The peaches are gone. The mountain apples are gone. Not just the normal panic every spring from some small frost. Apparently, the crops are totally destroyed.

This is very, very sad. There is nothing better than a sweet South Carolina peach in the summertime.

Georgians, please let me know if there's any peachy hope left from your state!

ADJUSTED PROGNOSIS: Apparently, the strawberries weren't hit too badly. Small consolation.

At least it wasn't a flag cake

Disclaimer: No actual food was harmed in the making of these desserts.

I've never been an overtly patriotic person. Sure, America's great, but so are lots of other countries -- a few of which we could learn from. This past weekend we didn't do anything special, really, though we pulled out Abigail's kiddie pool for the first time this season, and I made fajitas in a nod to the start of summer. But something in me must have been longing for the cookouts of my childhood, for the hamburgers and potato chips and much-disdained baked beans and especially the desserts. Desserts of the Jell-O and Cool Whip variety. Desserts in all their fruity, cold, gelatinous glory.

Now, yes, I've ranted about the perils of gelatin as cuisine, but even then I included an out for dessert. And something in me really, really wanted a pie. A lime pie, complete with zest, so it wasn't a total cooking cop-out. It was an alarming shade of green and had a tinge-too-artificial flavor, but still good. While I was on a roll, I made Strawberry Delight Squares. I don't know what I grew up calling these, but there's Jell-O and cream cheese and a crushed pretzel crust, which was the ingredient that sounded so appealing. There's just something about sweet and salty together. Sadly, since I was veering from the official recipe, my crust didn't really set right and the squares have to be eaten with a spoon, but again, quite yummy. And I did add orange zest to this one, again to pretend I wasn't completely selling out.

So, even though I wasn't being particularly mindfull of our war dead, at least I was being full-on American this weekend. But fear not, the Fourth of July won't lead to this: