Just call me Violet

I've been feeling rather Violet Beauregarde-ish this past week. You all know Violet; she's the snarky little cuss from Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (and Charlie and the same) who disregards warnings to not eat the still-in-experimental-stage blueberry gum and in nabbing and noshing on a piece, swells into a giant blueberry in danger of exploding.

I myself feel like I've swollen into a giant blueberry and am in danger of exploding. The reason for my blue state: Blueberries were on sale this past week. At an incredible price. For pounds -- I said POUNDS, not PINTs -- of the little balls o' goodness. And I couldn't resist.

I have fond memories of blueberries as a kid. Often during summertime visits to my paternal grandparents, the visit would include picking wild blueberries. Each of us kids would be handed a gallon ice cream pail, the plastic ones with a metal handle, and sent off into the woods to fill it with blueberries. And fill it we would, with mounds and mounds of berries, returning the bucket to Grandma and getting a big smile of thanks in return.

To be honest, I don't remember any specific food bearing the berries in the days that followed, only the picking of them. And nibbling berry after berry while filling the bucket. There was no shortage of berries, no need to temper the sampling as they were dropped into the bucket.

You won't find such blueberry abundance where I live now, won't find me out picking them as there wouldn't be enough to fill even pint-size ice-cream containers. So I buy them from the grocery store. And this week I bought lots -- pounds, in fact.

And I have eaten pounds. I've had blueberries on my Cheerios every morning for breakfast. Blueberries with my lunch. Blueberries for morning snack, blueberries for afternoon snack. And each time I'd open the refrigerater for any reason at all, I'd pop a small handful of blueberries into my mouth, just because they were there.

I also made blueberry cobbler, an altered version of "Patsy's Blackberry Cobbler" from The Pioneer Woman Cooks. It was divine. I strongly urge you to go buy some blueberries while they're on sale -- or pick a pound or two if you're so fortunate as to live in such a place that picking is an option -- and give this cobbler a try. Just beware: You may not be able to resist the urge to gobble the entire dish yourself, placing you in a Violet Beauregarde-ish state similar to mine. But you and I, unfortunately, aren't likely to have a team of oompah loompahs rush in to rescue us from our explosive fates.

Blueberry Cobbler

1/4 pound (1 stick) butter, melted

1 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

2 cups fresh blueberries, rinsed and patted dry

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 3-quart baking dish. In a medium bowl, whisk 1 cup of the sugar with the flour, baking powder, salt and milk. Whisk in the melted butter. Pour the batter into the baking dish. Sprinkle the blueberries evenly over the top of the batter. Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar over the top. Bake for 45 minutes. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar over the top and return to oven; bake 10 more minutes.

Serve warm, topped with ice cream or whipped cream.

Makes 8 servings.

Today's question:

What's your favorite summertime fruit dish? Feel free to share the recipe in your comment.

Distance from Grandma a good thing? Maybe ...

Here's yet another reason why Bubby is probably better off with me being a long-distance grandma rather than us living within close proximity of one another.

(Wait ... I don't recall there ever being previous reasons why he's better off with me living 819 miles away. Oh well ...)

Anyway, a recent study shows that children whose grandparents serve as their primary daycare providers are more likely to be overweight than kids in other daycare situations. And not by just a smidgen. Those wee ones watched by Grandma and Grandpa full time had a 34 percent increased risk of being overweight. That's THIRTY FOUR percent.

I can so understand why that is, though. I love watching Bubby eat. I love giving him food that he loves to eat. I love taking pictures of him eating. My favorite video of Bubby is one in which he learned to say "Mmmm..." -- over and over again as he ate food Grandma fixed just for him.

If I were Bubby's daycare provider, man oh man would that kiddo get to eat some yummy stuff. All day long. There'd be snow ice cream in the winter, root beer floats in the summer, macaroni and cheese for each and every meal -- if he wanted it for each and every meal; if not, I'd make him anything else he requested.

Oh, and there'd be ketchup. Lots and lots of ketchup. Bubby loves ketchup!

So yeah, it's probably a good thing Bubby lives in the desert and I live in the mountains and rarely the twain shall meet.

But we will be meeting this weekend. And I've got five full days to plump up my Bubby's skinny little legs.

Don't tell Megan, but I've already stocked up on ketchup ... and the fixins for macaroni and cheese ... and baked up a few loaves of banana bread ... and a couple dozen chocolate chip cookies ...

Today's question:

What was your favorite food as a kid?

My answer: Macaroni and cheese. Definitely. Oh, and homemade mashed potatoes. I still love the two more than just about anything else. (As long as the macaroni and cheese isn't made with that powdery cheese from a package!)

Just added to the Recipe Box

Quick and Easy Chili

The cheese on my pizza

var linkwithin_site_id = 103414; When I first learned I'd be a grandma, I knew my new grandbaby would take possession of huge chunks of my heart. 

I also knew the baby would command my reserves of physical energy -- for hugging and rocking and playing and dancing and ... Well, you get the picture.

What I didn't know was how much of my mind the grandbaby would take over, how much of my thought process would be consumed by the little one. But since Bubby's arrival in the summer of 2008, I think about him all the time.

I never expected this. I was never told by other grandmas about the mind-jacking the little munchkins perform. I never read about it in any books of grandmother tips/advice/lore I consulted.

But Bubby is always on my mind. Always.

When I hear a song on the radio, I imagine bopping around with Bubby. When I cook up some sweets or try out a new recipe, I wonder if Bubby would like it. When I'm at the craft store, I seek out crafty things he might want to do. When I'm out and about, I see things I'd like to point out to him: the deer, fox, squirrels, dogs in the neighborhood; the great big truck (he loves trucks!) that just drove by; the loud airplane overhead; the sweet and squishy Valentines Day stuffed animals in the stores.

I think of him all the time.

I'm not crazy. Honest. I do think of other things. I work, I read, I sing, I write, I engage in a few not-so-grandmotherly activities (I'm talking shots and such here, folks -- get your mind out of the gutter). I do have room in my little peabrain for thoughts other than those of Bubby.

But, like I said, Bubby is always on my mind -- just not always top of mind. He's always right there, sometimes just below the surface of more pressing thoughts, waving and saying "Hey Grandma (or Graya)! I'll just be over here, smiling and dancing and playing my harmonica while I wait for you to come out and play."

(Okay, I admit, I do sound a little crazy.)

I've tried to think of an analogy for the way Bubby has taken up residence in my mind. A way to express how he's sometimes the only thing I'm thinking about; other times he just makes whatever else I'm thinking about more interesting ... or at least more manageable. But I suck at analogies -- and metaphors and similes and all those other "writerly" things that a writer should know -- and the only thing I could come up with is cheesy. Literally.

Here's my analogy: Bubby is the cheese on my pizza. Sometimes he's the only thing, the most important thing, the tastiest thing on my mind and in my life. My cheese pizza.

Other times I have a topping or two -- an idea or two, an experience or two ... say, a ham and pineapple sort of life, enhanced by the cheese. I love the ham, I love the pineapple, but it's made even better by the cheese on top of it.

And during the very best of times, I have a meat-lovers supreme pizza with extra onion and green pepper (hold the mushrooms). Lots of flavor, lots of good things going on. Mmmm. mmmm, mmmm. But most important of all, those supreme pizzas demand extra cheese. The topping that tops all others. The special addition that makes it the best pizza ever. Loads of ooey, gooey cheese.

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Yep, silly analogy or not, Bubby -- who makes everything more palatable, more enjoyable, more knock-me-down-filled-to-the-brim-with-love -- is definitely the cheese on my pizza!

Today's question:

What's YOUR favorite kind of pizza?

The Saturday Post

The other night as I chopped vegies for a salad for dinner, the red onion was surprisingly sweet. Not in terms of taste, but in terms of what I found as I sliced the onion.

See for yourself:

 

Aren't those sweet? After one slice revealed a precious heart in the middle, I sliced ... and sliced ... and sliced. I sliced far more onion than Jim and I would ever eat on one salad, and every single slice had a heart (or two or three) embedded in the center.

I took pictures, of course, and wondered if anyone has created a website dedicated to food that looks like something else.

Sure enough. One quick google and there it is: MOFA: The Museum of Food Anomalies, "An online exhibition of the Art of Regular Food Gone Horribly Wrong."

Some of the MOFA wonders include a "happy-on-the-inside" pepper, a smiling calzone, an "Edvard Munch Honeycomb," the requisite Virgin Mary banana chip, and -- my favorite -- Happy Beer. Check it out.

Soon the museum will also include my sweet little red onion hearts -- perfect for Valentine's Day.

Eat your heart out!