The Republic of T.

(With apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)

It began with Veggie Booty. Or rather, I should say, it ended with Veggie Booty. As was my habit, I’d tossed it into the cart during our family’s weekend grocery shopping trip. I didn’t read the label, in part because I’d read it before, to make sure there were no animal products among the ingredients, and didn’t think I needed to read it again. Then I learned about the recall.

Also, shopping with a healthy, active five-year-old doesn’t lend itself to taking the time to read labels. So I didn’t. Until I read that Veggie Booty was recalled because it was tainted with salmonella, which was traced back to a spray-on seasoning, which was eventually traced back to China. Fifty two people became sick, complete with bloody diarrhea, including an 18-month-old.

My spouse and I each take about 30 seconds or less to read a food label. Even though we’re shopping with our five-year-old son and our two-month-old son, we have all the time in the world. In fact, because of them, we have all the time in the world to read food labels. We have 1,900 years, to be exact, because it will take the Food and Drug Administration 1,900 years to catch up on food import inspections.

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People are always asking me about where to find vegetarian food in the metro D.C. area, and back in March I posted a review of several vegetarian or veg-friendly eateries in the area. Well I have another to add after this weekend, thanks to my ever-so-thoughtful non-vegetarian husband who — even though he’s so not a vegetarian — always keeps an eye out for vegetarian restaurants we haven’t been to yet. That’s the kind of guy he is, even though I like to joke that he was on the Atkin’s Diet before there was an Atkin’s Diet.

So I wasn’t surprised when he told me about Sunflower Restaurant, which was totally vegetarian and has locations in Falls Church and Vienna, VA. Initially, I thought maybe Cafe Sunflower, where Katharine and I had dinner once, had branched out of Atlanta. That would have been fine by me, but when I checked out the menu online I was even more intrigued. We made plans to visit for dinner
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I’ve seen it more times than I can count, and I’ve always thought I knew why it happened. Now I’ve seen it confirmed, somewhat. At the local Y, where we take Parker for his swimming lessons on Saturdays, there are two strategically placed vending machines. Or, rather, annoyingly placed if you’re a parent trying to hustle your kid out the door before their eyes land on the snack machine that’s positioned so that you can’t get out of the door without going past it.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve looked up from my reading, those times when I’ve sat waiting for Parker’s class to be over, to witness parents having to deal with their kids’ tantrums after being told they wouldn’t be getting anything from the vending machines. Their claims of “I don’t have any money,” “we have snacks in the car,” or “we’re going to have lunch when we get home” don’t always work. Other parents limit their kids to one or two of the healthier snacks in the machine, with fewer tantrums as a result, but little enthusiasm.

Then there’s Parker. I can count on my fingers the number of times he’s wanted something from the vending machine or when we’ve had to nudge him away from it. I’ve sometimes wondered why he doesn’t seem to want the vending machine fare as much as other kids. Now I think I know one reason why: because it’s not being sold to him by commercials.

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I don’t often blog about food or cooking, even though it’s one of my biggest hobbies. (I once applied to culinary school, got accepted and offered a grant, but decided not to go after spending a summer working in a restaurant.) I love to try new recipes, and since the Food Network is one the most-watched channels in our house, I’m always seeing recipes I want to try. When I do, I fly to the computer to find them on the network’s website, print them up and stick them in my binder. (Yes, I have a binder of recipes printed from various websites. So I don’t have to print them up again every time I want to use them.)

Deserts are a specialty of mine, and I love peaches. So when Alton Brown demonstrated this recipe for Individual Peach Upside-Down Cakes, I knew I’d have to try it.

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After grinding away most of the week on a project at work, I’ve fallen behind in my blogging and my blog reading. I’m just about through digging through my RSS feeds. (I know, there’s this handy function called “mark all read” that I should probably learn how to use, but then I’d miss something) That’s just marking the stuff I want to read. Actually reading it comes later.

Being in the habit of posting regularly is a hard habit to break. Half the time, as is the case now, I’ve got four or five posts in mind that I want to write at some point, and I spend a good bit of time thinking about what I want to write while actually doing something else. I won’t have time to write the posts that are percolating in my brain until sometime later. But in the interest of not letting things lie fallow for too long here. I thought I’d post something I’ve been meaning to write for a while.

It’s the answer to a question I often get from people who are about to visit the area. Where are the best places to go for vegetarian food in D.C.?

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Just in case you or your kids are as partial to PB & J sandwiches our son, check out this article on a salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter. Then check your pantry, and if you have a jar of Peter Pan or Great Value brand peanut butter with a product code beginning with "2111," throw it out. Better safe than sick, hospitalized or worse. 

This sweet potato soufflé is something I whipped up to take to a holiday party yesterday evening. (For the uninitiated, those are marshmallows on top. Think of them as a meringue.) For some reason it occurred to me to take a picture of it, and then to post about it. Why? Because lately I’ve been revisiting old dreams and passions of mine (another story), and cooking is one that I’d forgotten about for the past year or so, while we were living out of boxes and waiting for the house to be completed. Now that we’re in it, and we have a functioning kitchen again, I’ve been pulling out some old recipes.

Besides, the kind of political blogging I’ve been doing takes time — time to read, time to think, and time to write. Lately that’s more time than I have. I’m not sure that food blogging takes any less time (time to cook, time to think, and time to write?), but until I finish thinking through a couple more politically-oriented posts, it’s worth a shot.

So, why sweet potato soufflé?

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Not that I ever need an excuse to eat Ben & Jerry's ice cream, but I have one now that they've switched to cage free eggs.