Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Public Love Letter

Yesterday, I made one of my quarterly trips to Earth Fare, my favorite grocery store in the world next to Trader Joe's (which, by the way, will be opening a store in Atlanta soon - and not a moment too soon either: their prices are WAY better than Whole Foods and Earth Fare, but until now I have only seen them in California). I am such a food nerd.

I gazed longingly at the cooking magazines while I waited in the checkout line. The beauty of these liberal, natural food stores is that they have a fantastic variety of food and environmental publications to choose from. This is not Walmart. Money is entirely too tight right now for me to indulge my propensity for expensive gourmet mags, so I suffered quietly (not an easy feat - I am Cindy's daughter, after all). I ALWAYS want to read more about cooking, but I settle for whatever I can find at yard sales. I am cheap. Its okay - I can admit it.

The magazine that caught my eye the most was the Spring/Summer issue of The Best of Fine Cooking Fresh. The subheadline bragged of "a new collection of more than 100 delicious vegetable recipes." I actually salivated. In the checkout line. It was most embarassing, especially with Odd Toddler screeching that he wanted a plantain. (No, he's not smart enough to know what a plantain is - he just thought they were cute little baby bananas).

The cover was gorgeous, a beautiful shade of springtime green (a welcome sight after our long, arduous Southern winter), featuring a plate piled high with fettucine primavera. I vowed that I would check their website when I got home. Imagine my distress when the website did nothing more than advertise this particular special issue. There were NO recipes online. Very, very frustrating.

And then...

Mom called me late in the day to say that Mrs. Carr, my favorite teacher that I never had the pleasure of actually having as a teacher, had sent a cooking magazine home with the kids for me. Yep. You guessed it. SHE SENT THE VERY SAME MAGAZINE THAT I HAD BEEN POUTING ABOUT EARLIER THAT VERY SAME DAY. I already thought she was a cool lady, but this takes the cake. I mean, hey, this was more thoughtful than anything my sweet carnivorous husband had done for me lately.

And so, this particular blog entry is to say, where everyone can hear me, "Mrs. Carr, you are so cool!" Yes, cool enough that I, Sheriff of the Punctuation Police, used an exclamation point.

3 comments:

yolie said...

She must be cool, as I, your coolest sister, have never warranted an exclamation point from my Big Sister.

Anonymous said...

i too was smitten by the cover of this magazine, actually saw it in a model home recently just on the coffee table, and vowed to find it...well i have had NO LUCK after visiting multiple stores! i am about to buy it online because i just must have that cover fettucine recipe!!! funny that i found this blog while searching for the recipe online. i hope you made the fettucine and i hope it was fabulous! :)

Sarah Beam said...

MARLA, I still have the magazine, and I would be happy to email or fax you the fettucine recipe. Post another comment with your email address or fax number, and I'll get it to you. Take care.