My stomach was cramping so badly that I was convinced that Vicky was having her baby.

I reasoned that she and I had bonded so deeply when we roomed together at BlogHer that I could feel her labor pains.

I don’t know. It seemed feasible at 3:30 in the morning.

*

When I woke up the fist thing I did was check facebook to see a picture of the baby.

There were no photos.

So I e-mailed Vicky.

There was no labor. No  baby yet. She slept through the night.

*

It must have been the entire sleeve of Pringles I ate yesterday.

I have got to stop doing that.

I watched it happen. They say you can’t, but I can. Maybe you can’t, but I can.

I CAN DO ANYTHING! You can’t stop me.

It was amazing.

(They don’t really call me The Myth Buster. They call me “The Boiler”.)

The game was 2 – 1 Canada at the time and it was so exciting that my husband and I were actually both standing in front of the television.

When the door bell rang we just looked at each other and said pretty much in unison “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Who is soliciting door to door during the U.S.A./Canada hockey game?

I almost didn’t answer it, but we have a DVR so we paused the game and I went downstairs.

Through our sidelights I saw that it was Leanna, my seven-year-old neighbor. I stopped being angry right away because: 1) I like her. She’s pretty cute and what does a seven-year-old know about Olympic hockey?, 2) She was wearing a sombrero. It is really hard to be mad at somebody wearing a sombrero. and 3) She was holding a bag that was probably for me.

I opened the door and the bag WAS for me.

The bag contained four boxes of Girl Scout Cookies. Two boxes of Somoas and two boxes of Thin Mints.

I don’t know how closely you are following my life, but I am currently involved in two weight loss competitions, really three if you count the side bet that I made with my dad yesterday.

It was as if he was in cahoots with Leanna.

But my father scheming against me with neighborhood children isn’t my point. My point is that every year, just as I am figuring out how to diet and exercise properly a cute little girl comes to my door with cookies, delicious Girl Scout Cookies, and tries to sabotage my diet.

I’d like to propose that the girl scouts move their cookie deliveries to the fall when I tend to be on a Halloween to New Years Eve food bender anyway.

I’d also like to propose that anyone who rings my doorbell during an important sporting event wear a sombrero to lessen my wrath.

And while I’m making rash proposals to the world, can somebody make sure that Sidney Crosby stays in Canada. That guy pisses me off in the NHL and internationally.

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

My first reaction was to recite that to myself 800 times a day and see if it worked. I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting motivated to lose weight in the last couple of years. I thought maybe this would help.

Instead, it just made me realize how wrong she was. Here is a short list of reasons why Kate Moss is wrong.

• beer
• Doritos
• Pringles sour cream and onion chips
• bacon
• bagels
• a bloody mary
• macaroni and cheese
• foie gras
• french fries
• Anything from Five Guys
• brownies
• fresh strawberries
• cheese steak
• fried rice
• burritos
• beef stroganoff
• wine
• pizza
• fried chicken

See? Those are just off the top of my head. I didn’t even put any real thought in to that list. Just think if I had more time to expand!

Then I read this.

“Kate Moss’s comments are likely to cause many more. If you read any of the pro-anorexia websites, they go crazy for quotes like this.”

The slogan is adopted on various websites, including one called Starving For Control.

Green, 22, who is a size 12, added: “Millions of girls aspire to be like Kate Moss. These comments are shocking and irresponsible.”

Wait a second. Pro-Anorexia websites? There are multiple websites that support a disease?

What is this world coming to? Are there pro-polio websites? Are people hoping to successfully become alcoholics? Do we need websites to help us get sick?

Getting back to Kate’s motto, maybe I’m not the best judge of what being skinny feels like. The last time I was truly “skinny” I was recovering from mono, so to me skinny feels like a really bad sore throat and dying. I’m sure it feels different to her. Maybe to her it feels like millions of dollars.

I have no personal reference to how millions of dollars feels, but I bet it is pretty awesome.

It just seems to me like in this day and age (the day and age where I just became my grandmother by using that phrase) where even France has banned runway models that are too skinny and young girls are dying every day from anorexia we could try to promote more healthy concepts than “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”.

And in that top picture at least, skinny actually looks sort of painful.

I am trying to raise a daughter over here. I would love it if she can be spared the weight issues and self-esteem bullshit I have been dealing with since I was 12.

I’ve got some nice meals to look forward to. We’ve secured reservations at The French Laundry, Mustards and Cyrus.

Now, who has recommendations for a place to stay in Healdsburg or Sonoma or Calistoga?

I’ve got my Napa days pretty well planned out, but what non-Napa vineyards/wineries are not to be missed? Consider yourself my AAA.

Not to be confused with my AA, you can be that when we get home.

Gabe does most of the quality cooking in this joint, but I try to do at least half of the cooking.

This is why I was on the internet trying to figure out how to hard boil an egg.

I mean, yes, I know you boil eggs in a pan with water in it on the stove, but I was looking for cooking times. Hard boiled eggs always trip me up.

I went to my handy dandy search engine and I searched for “perfect hard boiled egg”.

And you want to hear something crazy? I chose the third entry because it looked the most promising and it just so happens that I personally knew the person who wrote the article.

I don’t mean that I met her at a book signing or we were introduced once at a cocktail party. I mean she used to be my boss.

I just took 40 minutes finding a picture of us together from BlogHer ‘07 and it turns out I look like a crazy person with balloon head and so I won’t post it, but thanks to the glory that is Flickr (and the genius of Isabel via twitter):

Picture Courtesy  Mom2Summit flickr pool

We are the two in the middle. I am the pasty one. She is the one with the pretty hair.

My whole point is that what are the odds that I find a random recipe on the internet and it turns out to be written by someone I actually know? Maybe this web isn’t so wide after all.

And also, thanks, Stefania. My eggs were perfect.

All by yourself.

In one sitting.

***

In related news, I may need to get my engagement ring re-sized, but hopefully this is just a temporary situation due to extraordinary salt intake.

***

I seriously feel like I am going to explode.

Don’t try this at home.

I have a theory about cheese powder having addictive properties akin to heroin.

You think I am crazy.

I give you the following examples:

Cheetohs

Doritos

Ritz Toasted Chips, Dairyland Cheddar Flavor

Planters Cheez Blass (their spelling, not mine)

I challenge you to eat one of any of the above, then wait two full minutes and eat two more of them.

Then stop eating them.

There is no way you can stop after that. There are only three things that can stop the madness.

1) Horrible stomach ache.

2) You can run out. You have no choice but to stop, and you feel to sick to drive to the store to buy more.

3) You are in the presence of another adult who calls you out. “Are you seriously going to eat that entire bag of Doritos?”

__

In related news, I have a horrible stomace ache.

2)    What is your favorite kind of cheese?

3)    What is your favorite varietal of wine?

4)    Have you ever eaten foie gras? If so, did you like it?

5)    What is your favorite flavor of potato chip?

___

]]> http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2009/02/17/questions-for-you-food-edition/feed/ 56 http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2009/01/17/laws-and-sausage/ http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2009/01/17/laws-and-sausage/#comments Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:16:27 +0000 Goon Squad Sarah http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2009/01/17/laws-and-sausage/

Making Sausage

Originally uploaded by Sarah606

“There are two things in the world you never want to let people see how you make ‘em: laws and sausages.”

- Leo McGarry: The West Wing

(Kemp, you read my mind when you said that on Twitter.

____

Sausage anyone?

I’m not kidding. We’ve got a ton left.

I’m trying to convince Gabe to start a food blog.