food

Press play above before reading.

For the past week or so I have been playing this song from the new Muppets movie at meal time and it  occurred to me as I lay here trying to sleep the reason why.  Because by the time meal time rolls around everything is great.  Not because we are always so amazingly happy like in the song, but because of the amazingly hard work it takes to buy and serve the food we feed our kids.  

Allow me to explain what I mean by that....  We are a little "granola" when it comes to food.  That means we

believe in the food bogey man.  We read lots of articles on scary blogs but primarily we talk to lots of other

food hippies who spook us about new things to avoid on pretty much a biweekly basis.

By way of example, yogurt.  Not a big deal you think.  Wrong.  Of course it's gotta be organic, the other

stuff is just low-priced poison.  Then it's gotta be made from whole milk not skim or some low-calorie

garbage, then it's has to be sugar-free.  This is because someone told us babies shouldnt't have processed

sugar.  I forgot why, maybe something about ADHD, but I just made that up.  

See!  Not as simple as you thought.  That leaves one brand that is sold at one store within 5 miles of our

home for approved yogurt.

What about just cut up fruit you ask.  Good question, what could go wrong with small pieces of strawberry

Well, I will tell you, everything.  Are they organic berries?  Are they locally grown?  Are they from the 

US?  We are patriots here and want to support migrant workers in California not Chile or Spain.

How about fruit with a skin that you peel off, that sounds safe you say, pesticides are probably only on the

skin.  Well, we agree.  We are on a budget and needed to interpret things loosely somewhere.  So kiwis,

bananas, mangos, avocados, etc. are in.

But wait, I haven't dropped the bomb yet.  We keep a kosher home.  

Oy gavult!  

Yes, I'm serious, that means that whatever selection you thought existed has now been cut in half.  You have

to go around looking for the obscure hippy food, then it also must have a hechsher on it certifying that it is

kosher.  Not a big deal until you try to find the damn thing.  It's basically a little tiny, nearly invisible U with a

tiny, nearly invisible circle around it.   Or a K with a circle or one of dozens of other possible symbols

certifying that the food was prepared without breaking the strict code of Jewish law in its preparation.

Have you tried to find organic kosher cheese in the greater Philadelphia area?  You would have better luck

finding a mets fan at the Philiies world series parade.

But I did it, I found one bar of cheddar, it's sold at Trader Joes and it is from New Zealand.  No joke, we

are so absurd that we only eat cheese that come from organic cows with close ties to the rabbinate who live

on a small island in the pacific ocean near Australia!

So if you take the enormous grocery store we primarily shop at that is so big that it is named Giant, we can

shop at the equivalent of 1/2 an isle spread out over the whole place.

So like the lyric says, "everything is great." At least by the time we actually sit down to eat!