Saving the Earth, One Cricket At A Time

A couple of months ago, I found myself inexplicably curious about food trends. Okay. Truth be told, there was a measure of explicability regarding my curiosity: I had recently discovered the yum factor of a handful foods which previously I had difficulty even pronouncing, such as quinoa, falafel, couscous, and chipotle...or is that chipoltay? (I still have no idea what to do with acai or sriracha, and regularly slaughter bruschetta, but if you so much as think the word sherBERT in my presence, you will be immediately and soundly slapped -- in an obviously passive voice.)

As a side note, cleverly disguised as a paragraph, a couple of years ago, I overheard some friends discussing ways to prepare something called keen-wah. In the following months, I heard about it more often and wondered what it was, and what accounted the sudden celebrity of this funky, unpronounceable little grain? So in a moment of weakness, I looked it up. Wikipedia describes quinoa as “a species of goosefoot...a grain crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal.” Ahhhh! A "pseudocereal”! Okay, I totally get that -- like Cap'n Crunch's Sprinkled Donut Crunch or Post’s Poppin’ Pebbles (“Fizzes in your mouth with burstin’ berry flavor!”) Suddenly quinoa's meteoric rise to fame began to make sense.

One evening last January, I spent far too much time sipping a strong mug of milk chocolate Swiss Miss, because sometimes January requires comfort food, and learning about some pretty amazing food trends, as well as some downright batty foodies. I discovered the Good -- the rise of fats, savory waffles, and the “new” burger (I love the kind with a cooked egg, bacon, and maple syrup on it); the Bad -- seaweed, fermented foods, and savory ice creams; and the Unconscionably Weird -- parsnip cakes, cucumber sorbet, and beet flourless chocolate cake. And then I nearly choked on my mini marshmallows: “insect powered food”. Call your broker now and divest yourself of all your stock in Raid because there is a much more eco-friendly way to handle those household pests. And don’t even think about siccing Fluffy or Boots on them anymore; round ‘em all up yourself (the bugs, not the cats) and fire up the grill.

This from a chilling article in Time.com: “Insects are protein powerhouses; grasshoppers, for instance, have about the same protein content as a chicken breast. Full-bodied insects won’t appear in your Safeway this year; get ready for them to arrive in processed form, especially protein-packed power bars... [And expect] insects, processed as flour, to soon become a popular protein sources for bakery and cereal products. Full-bodied insects — tentacles and all? Further off, but coming.”

But in all seriousness, when you think about it, it makes total sense to make a switch: Per pound of usable beef, we use twenty-five pounds of feed and two thousand gallons of water! By contrast, a pound of cricket meat only requires two pounds of feed and a gallon of water. The other obvious solution here is to skip the crickets entirely and just eat the cricket feed instead. If I remember my pioneer history, I kind of think crickets feed on our crops. So to save the earth, we just go ahead and eat the quinoa or Sprinkled Donut Crunch after all. I'm ready to do my part.

Exhaling Pop Rocks

I'm dying. It's that simple. And honestly it is a relief to finally come to terms with my impending and inevitable expiration.

I check my temperature, for the third time in 10 minutes: holding steady at 98.6. To the casual observer, 98.6 may sound "normal"...or "average"...or "ordinary"...or "typical". But I take great pride in being an informed participant in my own physical and mental health, and I happen to know that according to this thermometer, "normal" for my unsick body is actually 96.8! Therefore, at 98.6 I am feverish, febrile, fiery, and flushed, and rambling more or less directly down the slippery slope to death's door.

Because I am generally given neither to hyperbole nor to embellishment -- I'll admit to occasional verbal aggrandizement but that's different-- it must be acknowledged that I am in a very serious situation. It is 2:00 in the morning and I am alone. Ken and Emma are comfortably and healthily wrapped in their cocoons of silent and selfish slumber, while I eke out the last minutes of my short life, alone on the futon, fighting my delirium in order to play my next few turns on Words with Friends.

I cautiously inhale and it feels as though I've just sucked up an entire hill full of ants. I attempt to exhale and I gasp and choke and splutter and..um...well...cough. It is a packet of Pop Rocks powder in my lungs. My eyes bulge from the effort and veins stand out on the side of my head, and yes, I did bring a small pocket size mirror into the den with me, so I know. It is important to chronicle all details for the future use of the Emergency Room staff. When the next round hits, I attempt to hold my breath rather than exhale. I really have no explanation for this tactic. Blame it on the fever. This stratagem ends in the near disastrous result of my head exploding: body fluids bursting out of cranial orifices like too much fizz in a bottle of pop.

Exhausted from the effort of coughing, debilitated from the effort of not coughing, I quickly finish my BuzzFeed quiz (Rapunzel, and I should live in Hawaii) and feebly fold in half over my pillow. I whip out the mirror again and notice that my eyelids are getting heavy. I cough and I wheeze and I splutter and I gasp and I even choke, for good measure, as I gradually drift into syncope, having narrowly avoided The End this once. But who knows if my luck will hold out the next time my allergies flare up. I recommend that you send chocolate, or more chocolate (flowers aren't edible), sooner rather than later -- just in case.

I Recommend the Umber Jodhpurs

After a brief sabbatical of eight months or so (yes, it was a very nice nap) I have decided to take up the pen again, so to speak, in defense of the much maligned fashion trend of Guy Capris, or as my brother descriptively refers to them, “France Pants”. In an article dated April 1, 2015  (yeah-- what about it?) the NBA announced that the Utah Jazz, “once again at the forefront of NBA fashion”, will be wearing Three-Quarter Court Pants. You may have noticed that Three-Quarter Court Pants is a much more macho and manly name than “capris”, which are named for the Italian island of Capri and which is literally translated as “girly girl clothes” (not to be confused with the islands of Bikini, Bermuda, or Gaucho.) Predictably, the ensuing online chaos, clamor, and commotion among fans could be summarized as, "Yikes, what a stupid idea."

The question as to whether or not this article is simply a hoax is in my mind quite irrelevant. What is at stake here is of far greater significance than whether or not this is an April Fools Day joke: This is about accouterment equality. Think about it. For years, Guys have had two (2, II) entire appellations for the length of their britches—Pants or Shorts. In the meantime, Women have had, in no particular order: pants, crops, capris, gauchos, pedal pushers, clam diggers, skimmers, Bermudas, walking shorts, the superfluously and redundantly named short-shorts, the confusingly named hot pants, and Daisy Dukes—named for an icon of American red-necked flooziness. For decades Guys have been stuck with just two boring trouser lengths. I say we let them enjoy their France Pants, and quit giving them such grief about it.

Guys need to be able to have a little fun with life, too.  Think about their occasionally dull and deprived existence: They don’t even have a decent color name vocabulary. Once you get them past the 8-count Crayola pack, they got nothing.  Several years ago my husband and I participated in a game where participants answered questions to show how well they knew their spouse or other family members. I was asked the color of my toothbrush to see whether or not Ken remembered it correctly. I quickly replied, “Coral”.  The ensuing uproar among the male participants and audience members was frantic, frenzied, and furious! Certain that I had chosen a color word which they could no more verify than chartreuse, ecru, or tourmaline, it took several patient, persistent, and very muscular women to point out that “coral” cannot be fairly nor accurately substituted with either red, pink, scarlet, vermillion, strawberry, or salmon.

Perhaps if Guys were able to add a little fashion fun and frippery to their wardrobes, without all the chauvinistic and narrow-minded badinage and persiflage, we would be one happy step closer to understanding this sentence.