lowering the bar

All the Barenaked Ladies songs that I can think of are uptempo tunes with verbose lyrics. After a couple of listens, I tire of them and tune away when they come on the radio. "One Week" is a perfect example. You might also know "If I Had $1000000."

Given their penchant for clever lyrics, I was interested in hearing their new children's song, "Snacktime." I had read that the song named the favorite snacks of several celebrities including Lyle Lovett (watermelon) and Weird Al Yankovic (honey roasted peanuts). Plus, I enjoy a good snack as much as anybody. The song can be heard on BNL's MySpace page. Instead of intricate rhymes, the song is a sleepy number that repeats the hook: "Snack time, snack time, oh snack time." The celebrities literally phone in their snack choices. Janeane Garofalo likes microwaved chocolate donuts and Gordon Lightfoot enjoys pasta, which is more of a meal than a snack.

Most of the snacks of the rich and famous in the song would fail the "rules to eat by" that were on "Nightline" last night. A proponent of organic foods says we shouldn't eat anything our great-great-grandmothers wouldn't recognize as food. I know that Michael Pollan's point is to get us to eat mostly plants but my favorite part of the report (four and a half minutes in) was the old Twinkies commercial that claimed the snack cake gave your child "energy to go on and protein to grow on."

not a spoonerism

What makes a place one of your "regular" restaurants? Do you have to go there once a week? Once a month? Once a year? I thought about that question yesterday when my wife and I saw that our regular Fuddruckers had closed. I wonder what they did with all the wall decorations.



We drove by it yesterday on our way home from Grandma's birthday party in Fairfax County, Virginia. The restaurant was in Salem, about halfway between our house and Northern Virginia. My wife and I could each get a salad and split a burger or a chicken sandwich while taking a break from the eight-hour road trip. I'm pretty sure I had been to the Salem Fuddruckers more often than the one near my house in Knoxville, which is still open.

always more fun

The cupcake fad is about to hit Knoxville in a big way. We already have VG's Bakery and MagPies, both of which I still haven't tried. However I have discovered another blog devoted to the little treats, Cupcakes Takes the Cake.

Now The Cupcakery has established its first foothold in East Tennessee with a delivery-only location in Oak Ridge. They plan to open a Bearden store in June. I had the opportunity to taste a couple of their flavors one afternoon last week when a box was delivered to the office. There were enough for me to take two varieties home. I cut each in half and shared them with my wife. The Double Chocolate had a disc of baking chocolate stuck into the buttercream icing as a garnish. The Peanut Butter Cup had a crumbled Reese's on top. As you would expect, the creamy frosting steals the show from the chocolate cake. That's probably why a cupcake shop in Los Angeles sells icing shots for 75 cents. I think I would enjoy one of these gourmet cupcakes with some buttercream injected into the middle. Can't have too much frosting.

If the Bearden store were already open, I would be tempted to swing by this week for the featured flavor, the Graceland. It has banana cake with peanut butter icing. I've always loved banana cake. By the way, why can't I ever find the frozen Sara Lee Banana Cake I loved as a child? Anyhow, back to the point. The Cupcakery will offer Graceland cupcakes from April 28 through May 3. I wonder if they might be similar to the Elvis Cupcakes I saw online. One of the blog commenters suggests a Fluffernutter cupcake. This. Must. Happen.

Bearden will actually be home to two cupcake shops. Their online calendar says Cities Cupcake Boutique will have its grand opening on Sunday, May 18 but according to their store hours, they will be closed Sundays. When I was a kid, Sundays were the busiest day at the Crestwood Bakery. Everyone went there after church. Oh yeah, back to the point again. Cities cupcakes are each named after a different city. Knoxville gets an orange cupcake. In a bit of political commentary, the vanilla cupcake is named after Washington, DC. Maybe they can do a peanut butter and banana cupcake and name it after Memphis.

junior samples

Part of the fun of a trip to Sam's Club is getting the free samples in the food section. The pizza's not bad either. I've noticed that there are more sampling stations on Fridays than on Mondays.

Most of the products being sampled are things I would never buy. I can enjoy a small taste of a fattening food without buying a gigantic package of it. For that reason, I try to slip away before the Sam's staffers do their soft sell. They usually will say "those are only (price) and they're on the shelf right here." Some of the ladies will look right at you and wait for you to put a package of whatever it is in your cart. However the lady who usually serves fresh fruit samples is always pleasantly conversant. On her advice, I've tried a different type of apple and stocked up on navel oranges, which have been especially good this year.

My standard operating procedure changed the other day when I tasted a sample of a spread on a cracker. It was simultaneously sweet and spicy and fruity and smoky, all flavors I love. Without even looking at the price, I grabbed a 40 ounce bottle of Fischer & Wieser Original Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce. I hesitated just long enough to check the label for the amount of calories and sodium per serving. Only 40 calories and 60 milligrams of sodium. Sold!

Despite the shape of the bottle, its consistency is more like jelly than BBQ sauce. The sample lady had put a dollop of the jelly sauce on top of a schmear of cream cheese on a cracker. I don't bother with any of that. I just pour the sauce directly onto my five ounces of chicken. Next time we have turkey, I will use it instead of cranberry sauce.

how 'bout a monster for breakfast

The rain today made it feel right to stay in my pajamas and plop down in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal. The only difference from childhood was that my bowl now contained exactly ¾ cup of Kashi GOLEAN instead of something with marbits. And that I was watching EWTN instead of Saturday morning cartoons. I had another childhood flashback last week when I saw a box of Quisp at Dollar General.

After finishing breakfast, I clicked around the Internet for a while. Coincidentally I found more cereal reminders. First I saw a funny movie poster that wonders what it would be like if they made a live-action film about Count Chocula. Then I saw an older Count at an imaginary cereal mascot reunion.

Last Halloween Jimmy Kimmel dressed as the Count while the rest of his on-camera staff dressed as other cereal icons. Together they looked like Chris Burney's arm. A couple of years earlier my friend Bean wore a Count Chocula costume to the KROQ Halloween party.

Before last Tuesday's Einstein Simplified show, Dave Snow and I thought of a new twist for the "Race for Coffee" game. Instead of sending someone across the street for coffee during a guessing game, we can send them to the Knoxville Pearl for a bowl of cereal and milk. I visited the place when it first opened and saw the images of the General Mills cereal monsters painted on the wall.

onward and upward you must press

The Catholic Charities Annual Dinner Gala took place last night in downtown Knoxville. My wife and I had a great time, mainly because there were so many people there that we knew, including Fr. Ragan Schriver who greeted everyone as they arrived. We said a brief hello in the hotel lobby to Bruce Hartmann. I found out today that Bruce is number 39 on BusinessTN's 2008 Power100 list. Had I known last night, I would have congratulated him. Before dinner we had a nice chat with Fr. Eric Andrews near the cheese tray. All three have been my guests on a public affairs radio show over the past two and a half years.

At seven o'clock the crowd moved into the ballroom at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Our seats were at table 26. My wife and I both thought we were losing our minds as we looked for our table. Tables 24, 25 and 27 were all lined up in a row as were the rest of the numbered tables. Eventually we found table 26, out of sequence on the far right of the room. The salads and desserts were already in place at each of the tables. The salads were all the same but the desserts alternated between cheesecake and chocolate cake. People all over the room jockeyed for position so they could sit in front of their preferred dessert.

The after-dinner entertainment was by the Smokyland Sound Barbershop Chorus. The singers walked right past our table on the way to their risers. As soon as I saw them, I secretly hoped they would sing "The Roses of Success" from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." While the senior members of the group sang their first couple of songs, two others stood against the wall near our table waiting to go on. My wife and I recognized one of them as Jim, a member of the All Saints choir. The two wore tuxedo shirts and bow ties but not the sequined vests that the others had on. At that same time, someone at our table wanted coffee. A helpful priest jumped up and asked Jim to serve our table. We could read Jim's lips as he explained that he was only there to sing.

Fr. Michael Woods interrupted Fr. Ragan's closing remarks to publicly thank him for all his hard work as director of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee. The thanks were delivered roast-style as Fr. Michael teased Fr. Ragan about his vegetarian diet and his casual attire. We learned that Fr. Ragan and several other priests got stranded in Atlanta when their connecting flight to Missouri was canceled. They were supposed to attend the ordination of Bishop Vann Johnston. Speaking of bishops and Knoxville's current lack of one, Fr. Michael jokingly put on a red skullcap during his remarks. When we spoke with him later, he was very relieved to hear that the Vicar General, Monsignor Xavier Mankel had gone home just before the comedy commenced.

exhibitionists

Two of my former hometowns are hosting exhibition baseball games today. One game is in a brand new stadium, the other in a throwback venue. The Nationals play their first game in Nationals Park while the Dodgers return to the L.A. Coliseum, where they played when they first moved to Los Angeles 50 years ago. Meanwhile my Mets are playing today in the Civil Rights Game in rainy Memphis. I'll watch the beginning of each game on TV. The Mets game came on ESPN at 5:00, the Nationals game started on MASN at 6:00 and the Dodgers game is on NESN at 10:00. The Nationals game is also available for free on MLB.TV. I clicked on to it just in case MASN was blacked out on my TV. The video is the same but the computer stream is using audio from the visitors' radio broadcast.

While the architects and environmentalists are gushing over the new stadium's design and eco-friendliness, I am most excited about the food choices inside Nationals Park. They will regularly have menu items like Milwaukee brats and Philadelphia cheese steaks that honor National League opponents. Some food items will only be available when the corresponding team is visiting, like knishes when the Mets are in town and California rolls when the Dodgers visit.

As a former Washingtonian, I think it is fantastic that local restaurants will have outlets inside the stadium. Who needs a brat when some Red Hot & Blue BBQ or a Five Guys burger is available? My wife will be able to reminisce over some Gifford's Ice Cream. She and her family used to get Gifford's on the way home from the airport.

My next scheduled trips to the D.C. area will be too short to take in a ballgame. When I finally do get to the new stadium, even I should be able to resist the temptation to bring in my own food.

you're it

A few of the blogs I regularly scan have been tagged with the same meme. I got tagged by missybw at The House of Flying Monkeys. Who can I tag? I think I've used up my quota on other memes. I either need to find some new targets or try something else. Here's my idea. Tag yourself. Go ahead and write your own responses in the comments here or post a link to your own blog.

Name one thing you do every day:
The obvious answer is that I post something on my blog. I also try to watch and delete something on the HD DVR or the TiVo.

Name five things/people that make you feel good:
dark chocolate
doing improv
reading my friend Bean's blog
a nice long nap
swimming in my backyard pool

Name four things you love to eat but rarely do:
Oreos dunked in milk until they stop bubbling
lobster
pomegranates
pulled pork BBQ

Name three things that remind you of childhood:
smell of my mother's Chanel N°5
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Batman

Name two things you wish you could learn:
to sing half as well as my wife
to deal with the anxiety that causes me to procrastinate (add link later)

with two you get eggroll

The White House may have had the Jonas Brothers perform today but we have our own Easter Monday tradition here on the blog. Last year and the year before, I showed off our family's decorated eggs. This year we take a look at how my son makes his annual Earth Egg. Using regular Paas dyes, he soaks one in blue until it reaches the desired hue. Then he uses a Q-tips cotton swab and a glass of water to erase the dye from the land masses. He dips another swab in green dye and paints on the continents. Obviously the North and South Poles are left white.



My son was happy with the way his Asia turned out. Below, he's displaying India for the camera. The finished product takes its place among the rest of our 2008 Spring collection, with Europe and Africa visible. Last year we showed you the Western Hemisphere before it got peeled and eaten.

eyes are smiling

The annual Women Today Expo happens this weekend at the Knoxville Convention Center. Wow. That means it has already been a year since my wife and I showed off our makeovers in the fashion show at that event. To promote this year's expo, the News Sentinel has a slideshow on their website. Look for me in photos 8 through 13. Those are the ladies from Garde Bien Spa Salon fussing over me in the first few pictures.

I think more than a few people will show up this weekend expecting to go to the Food City Food Show, which had been a part of the Women Today Expo for years. The line to get in to the Food Show was always so long, it made me think that more people came to it than to the main event. The Food Show's popularity has allowed it to be spun off into a separate event to be held in September. I guess that means Chef Walter has this weekend off for a change.

Food City sponsors Chef Walter's daily cooking segment on WVLT. Today he made an Irish Soda Bread that looked spectacular. It made me want a piece of my mother's soda bread, slathered in butter. I called Mom today to tell her about it and to ask if she would mind me putting the family recipe on my blog. Here it is, in time for the early celebration of St. Patrick's Day in some Catholic dioceses around the world.

My Great-Grandmother's Irish Soda Bread

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ cup butter
• 1 tablespoon caraway seeds
• 1 cup of raisins
• 1 heaping teaspoon baking soda
• 2 to 3 cups buttermilk

Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in butter, dough becomes like pebbles. Coat caraway seeds and raisins with flour and add to mix.

Mix baking soda into 1 cup of buttermilk. Slowly add to flour mix, a little at a time. Continue adding buttermilk slowly, until the dough is moist and forms a ball (or pulls away from bowl). The amount of buttermilk needed depends on the weather.

Put a tablespoon of flour on a board and coat hands with flour. Knead dough a little and shape it into a loaf. Cut an X into the top.

Bake in two greased and floured 8 inch pans (or as one loaf on a cookie sheet) at 375° for 45 to 50 minutes, again depending on the weather. Test with a cake tester. Cool on a rack. Enjoy.

rumbly in my tumbly

The original plan for Wednesday's post was to list the various dessert items that have been tempting me since the start of Lent. It turned into an all-cupcake missive. As a result, a few other sweets got left out until now.

Hurley is my favorite character on "Lost." When I learned that Jorge Garcia is a blogger, I eagerly read through his archived posts. He was impressed by a Milwaukee restaurant that served extra soda alongside his root beer float. I too, enjoy root beer floats although mine are made with diet root beer and fat-free whipped topping. His fondness for Oreo Cakesters also rang true with me. Over the summer I shared a three-pack with my son. Thanks to Jorge, I'm craving them again.

The folks at Slashfood continued to make me salivate with some red velvet layer cake and chocolate almond cakes. The latter led me to a site called Dessert First, which featured a molten chocolate cake on Wednesday. I occasionally get Google hits on a mention I made of chocolate lava cakes a year ago. Still haven't tried one though.

Chef Walter got ready for Valentine's Day by making a Butterfinger cake on Monday. I especially enjoyed his reference to Jackson Pollock as he poured on the chocolate sauce. I wonder how many people watching had no idea what he meant.

lead us not into temptation

Only a week into Lent and I'm feeling the pressure. The culprit is cupcakes. They are everywhere lately. Last night some showed up at the Einstein Simplified show for Dave Snow's birthday. Although I didn't eat any myself because of Lent, I did persuade several of my fellow improvisers to twist the tops off to make cupcake sandwiches. Or icing sandwiches, if you prefer to call them that.

A few days back I spotted some turtle cupcakes at Food City. As a fan of both turtles and cupcakes, I had to take a picture. I saw a different take on turtle cupcakes at a store in Pigeon Forge recently. They sell a soft plastic mold for a pull apart cake, which is one step better than the cupcake cakes I saw at Wal-Mart last year.



While I was adding the links to Saturday's post, I saw a picture of a New York Giants cupcake on Slashfood.com. The accompanying story had a link to Clever Cupcakes, the Montreal bakery that made it. Slashfood gave us a homemade chocolate cupcake over the weekend too. Following a series of links that started on that site eventually brought me to a blog called Cupcake Project.

On top of all that, today's News Sentinel is all about the cupcake. The food section has a great picture that will make you hungry, which therefore qualifies the photo as "food porn," the snarky blogosphere term for glamour shots of anything edible. The pictured cupcakes are from VG's Bakery in Farragut.

The article also mentions MagPies Cakes in the Old City. Despite the pie in their name, they sell celebration cakes and cupcakes. The photos they posted on Picasa certainly could be called "food porn" too. As I looked at the pictures, I wondered why I've never succumbed to their enticement. After all, I've been going to the Old City on Tuesday nights for almost six years. I've also been in that part of town on several Sunday afternoons for practice sessions with people auditioning to join our improv group. MagPies' operating hours give me the answer. They're closed at 4:00 on Tuesdays and all day on Sundays, which means I've never seen them open.

i.h.o.b.s.

Did you vote on Super Tuesday? Did you eat anything that day? Apparently IHOP thought we couldn't do both. In addition to voting, I went to work, posted a blog entry, went to a business lunch at a client's, bought some salad at Sam's Club, picked up my son from school, took a nap and performed with Einstein Simplified. Who's to say I couldn't have eaten a short stack as well?

Pancakes were traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday as people used up the fresh ingredients that would go to waste during Lent. Because several states had their primaries on Shrove Tuesday this year, IHOP moved their celebration of National Pancake Day to February 12. Too bad the voters in Virginia, Maryland and DC will be too busy to enjoy free pancakes that day.

nosh bridges

It seems like every newspaper had a story and every local TV news show had a cooking segment about snacks over the past two weeks. Super Bowl Sunday has become an eating holiday to rival Thanksgiving. Finally, here's an opportunity for me to post some photos of snack foods that have been stuck in my camera phone for months.

A simple trip down the snack aisle at Wal-Mart reminded me of when I was a kid and my parents took us to Colonial Williamsburg. While there, I saw a lecture on archeology. The speaker said they were trying to determine the age of various glass bottles they had uncovered in what was probably a colonial trash pile. He lamented that the people of that era didn't write about changes in their drinking containers. He said it would be akin to someone writing "Dear Diary, they changed the shape of my Coke bottle today." Obviously the archaeologist didn't foresee a future full of blogs in which we do exactly that. And now you know why I was compelled to take a picture of some Planters jars that are cleverly shaped like Mr. Peanut.



I spotted this bag of Rap Snacks when someone brought it to an Einstein Simplified show some time ago. The lighting was poor but you can still read that they are YoungBloodz Southern Crunk Barbeque flavored chips. Crunk chips might have been more appropriate for the last time that the Super Bowl was played in the ATL.



Salty snacks are okay but my weakness is sweets. With Lent starting on Wednesday, I may use the Super Bowl as an excuse to enjoy a popular New York treat, namely the Mallomars that have been Ziploc-ed in the pantry since October. Makes sense if I'm rooting for the Giants this year.

My camera phone still had the image of a Kosher cake I captured at Kroger. I photographed this Strawberry Flavored Angel Food Roll, not because I craved the taste of it but because I loved the name of the bakery that made it. The label from Fancy Schmancy Desserts says it's "so good Bubbe will take 2 pieces home... in her purse."

flavor fave

As popular as "American Idol" is, I shouldn't have been so surprised to see the familiar logo filling an ice cream case at my local Wal-Mart. The punsters at Edy's / Dreyer's must have worked overtime to come up with five new flavor names: One Split Wonder, Mint Karaoke Cookie, Cookies 'n Dreamz, Cheesecake Diva and one that Vols fans will love, Most Orange-inal.



For the uninitiated, Edy's is the brand name they use in the East. It's known as Dreyer's out West. Kind of like Hellmann's mayonnaise, which is called Best Foods west of the Rockies.

My extensive research shows that Dreyer's did this last year too, with five different flavors that had names not quite as clever as this year's. Did you try Take the Cake, Choc 'n Roll Caramel, Hollywood Cheesecake, Soulful Sundae Cone or Triple Talent?

Season 6 Idol contestant Melinda Doolittle and another guy I barely remember host a website where you can vote for your favorite new slow-churned flavor. I wonder who was on the Edy's website last year? Melissa McGhee and Kevin Covais? How about Scott Savol?

local news anchor on pot

Chef Walter made a chicken and macaroni bake on the noon news today. As best as I can recall, the main ingredients were butter, cheese, heavy cream and more butter. At the end he threw in some chunks of chicken and some frozen peas and carrots. He topped it with bread crumbs and (of course) butter. When the camera zoomed in for a close-up of the stove, I saw something move where I didn't expect it. It was the reflection of a cameraman or maybe the floor director walking off to the right. Then I noticed Stacy McCloud on the left of the pot, watching from the wings.

meet Napoleon Bananaparte

The spoonful of reduced-fat peanut butter on my banana looked enough like a bicorne hat that we had to take a picture. Bonne année!

too many nogs, not enough time

They were offering samples of egg nog in tiny Dixie cups at Sam's Club today. It was not thick enough or sweet enough for my taste. Instead I stopped off at Weigel's on the way home and bought two small containers of their egg nog, which went directly into my freezer.

This past August, I finally drank the Weigel's egg nog I had frozen in 2005. At four ounces per serving, it took me four days to finish the pint. It still tasted great, which is why I decided to freeze two pints this year. Like two years ago, I wanted to find bottles with an expiration date of 12-25. They only had 12-20, 12-22 and 12-29. I almost didn't buy any. Fortunately I got over my little obsessive moment and bought the 12-29 since it would be freshest.

I know that I will have to watch my calories for the rest of my life. It's tough this time of year because of the abundance of treats to tempt my sweet tooth. I would love to have a scoop of egg nog ice cream at Baskin-Robbins but I'm not sure if I'll get around to it. My starchy dance card has been filled lately with things like the slice of pie I had at the company Christmas party tonight, the piece of cake I had after Tuesday's improv show or the Christmas cookies our family will bake in the week ahead.

Another treat I'm curious to try but probably won't is boiled custard. I'm not exactly sure what it would taste like, although I did find a recipe on a blog that described it as egg nog without the nog. Does that mean it tastes like just egg? I saw some boiled custard at Kroger the other day, alongside some pumpkin egg nog. That's something else I would like to try but I won't buy a half gallon container. I might be tempted to drink the whole thing.

which is better, cake or pie?

The finance department employees at Scripps Networks invited me to be a judge for their cake decorating contest today. When I arrived at the headquarters, I was excited to see that the control room was visible from the lobby.



The contest was inspired by "Ace of Cakes." In fact the first cake I saw looked like Duff Goldman. One of the other judges took off several points because of the unsightly stick propping up Duff's head. Tough room.



The following three cakes tied for first place. A Christmas tree scored points for being completely edible. They used Fruit Rollups for the ribbon and jelly beans for the ornaments. Several of the other cakes had internal supports or plastic decorations.



The Snoopy cake deserved its prize for the working Christmas lights and the little Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I'm not entirely sure about the actual Milk Bones though.



I was also impressed by the cake designed to look like a glass of milk, served with a plate of cookies for Santa. If you look closely, you can see that there is a real glass of milk in the center of the cake.



The contestants and judges each received some small parting gifts from each of the Scripps Networks. We got an apron from Food Network, a folding ruler from DIY and a key fob vial from GAC. What was inside the little waterproof container with the country music network logo on it? Earplugs.

have yourself a meery little Christmas

How can you get a five dollar discount on a delicious sheet cake at the supermarket bakery? I found out tonight at the last Einstein Simplified show of the year (we're now off until January 15). Loyal audience member Tom brought the cake to share with us after the performance. He had inadvertently placed the order with an employee whose English wasn't quite as good as that of the rest of the staff. Or maybe she's just a huge fan of Meerkat Manor.



Joann Dunkle used to come to the Einstein Simplified shows and expressed an interest in joining the group before she moved to Chicago. Now that she's living in the improv Mecca, she's taking a class at ComedySportz. I got an email from her this morning with a link to a local news story about the class. She wrote that you can see her briefly near the end of the story playing two games with reporter Mark Saxenmeyer.

dinner dance

The first annual All Saints parish Christmas party was held tonight in the gym at Knoxville Catholic High School. The place was packed. My wife heard that nearly 900 people had RSVP-ed. Over 700 of them showed up. The parish provided the meat, the beer and the wine (and the soft drinks). The parishioners brought salads, side dishes and desserts. After the party, the excess was taken to Samaritan Place. I had my first ever taste of Strawberry Pretzel Salad and really loved it. There weren't any leftovers of that. Before dinner, Fr. Michael Woods grabbed the microphone to make an announcement and to say grace. As he tried to get everyone to be quiet, he quipped that this was why they didn't serve wine at the beginning of Mass.

At the other end of the building, the drama students were putting on a play in the Megan Birkel Performing Arts Center. As we left the party, we saw a car in the high school parking lot with something written on the windows. My wife pointed out that teenagers are really getting carried away with their text messaging nowadays.

right store, wrong color

Kroger had some bananas on clearance today for 29 cents a pound. The discounted fruit filled a shopping cart in the produce section. I chose a bunch that looked fine to me, with only a few small brown spots on the otherwise yellow fingers. Why the discount? Their website gives a clue:

If you select a bunch of bananas that are perfectly yellow, eat them all as soon as possible because the ethylene gas produced by bananas causes them to ripen, then spoil, quickly.

A Louisville business journal reports that Kroger has special banana rooms infused with ethygen 2 gas to partially ripen them. Another article on the Kroger website says:

Don't be afraid to buy green bananas. The fruit will ripen quickly once you get it home and leave it uncovered at room temperature (about 70 degrees). Growers pick bananas while green and keep them cool while shipping to keep them from ripening.

That might explain why the store had a basket of "golden ripe bananas" that were completely green. Another blogger noticed the same discrepancy at Ralphs, a subsidiary of The Kroger Co.

hankey-panky

Kathy's husband Keith told me that they've never seen "South Park." Although known for his good sense of humor, he was being completely serious. This means that Kathy truly had no idea that her chocolate-covered marshmallow men looked exactly like the Santa-hat-wearing character from the show. The fact that she didn't know makes the coincidence all the funnier. Weird Ralph must have agreed. He submitted the blog entry to Digg.com

After reading the post, Kathy and Keith felt compelled to bring me some of her cream-filled cupcakes with ganache icing. It was absolutely delicious.