One of These Things Is Just Like The Other

I recently watched the documentary Forks Over Knives.

I am horribly susceptible to documentary talking heads,

so as I watched the credits I vowed I was going to

CHANGE ALL MY EATING HABITS.

The light of day and some internet sleuthing made me realize that no, I wasn't giving up

dairy and eggs, among the meeeellion other foods the doctors said I should

if I wanted to make it to my next birthday.

However...

One guy did point out that both milk-making cows and

meat-producing cows are "factory-raised," i.e. treated as food-producing widgets

instead of brown-eyed, sweet-faced moo-ers.

(How could I be mean to that sweet beastie?)

My research turned up that organic yogurt is generally made from "pasture-fed" cows, but, boooo, my favorite Trader Joe's yogurt is NOT organic.

So I went looking for organic yogurt, since I eat yogurt like other people eat,

I dunno, potato chips?  Point is, I eat a lot of yogurt.

And look!

(That's Minnie's brother, Jack, btw, supervising my photo shoot.)

Notice anything?  The tasty (but more expensive) organic Wallaby yogurt looks pretty similar to the tasty (and less expensive) Trader Joe's brand vanilla yogurt!  It turns out that they are the same, just in different packaging!

Yay!  I can still eat Trader Joe's yogurt!

Now I just need to find a vegetarian*-friendly cheese, and I'll be golden!

*For the record, I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't eat beef.  

Traditional rennet-based cheese is made from calf's stomach.

In Which I Embark Yet Again On A Gardening Quest

As I detailed in this post, I do not have a green thumb. 

But I have dreams, DREAMS blog readers!  I want to humble brag about how I have

too many tomatoes, bushels of zucchinis, armloads of herbs... won't someone

help me out with my harvest?

So. When it came time to order from this company:

I had one important criteria.  I wanted the description of the tomatoes to

include these crucial words:

"Heavy Yields."

I mean, take a look at the Costoluto tomatoes I grew last year:

They look pretty good, right?

But take a few steps back...

Sigh... this is the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree of tomato plants.

But things will be different this year!!

In addition to my successful Sungolds, I ordered three new tomato seeds.

(Don't be judging my nasty kitchen grout.  This isn't a housekeeping blog.)

In addition to the merits of taste, all three of these tomatoes -- Mandarin Cross, Isis Candy, and Big Beef Beefsteak Tomato -- also promise some variation of those magic words,

"HEAVY YIELDS."

So I'm hoping next year I'll have some better photos to post,

and some more tomatoes to share.

Have a Beet-y Valentine's Day

Back around 2oo6, I fell hard for the show The Office.  I became obsessed, obsessed

in the way a viewer can when she comes slightly late to a show

and then mainlines the earlier episodes.  

Although I'm no longer even that much of a fan of the show, something very cool has come of it:  internet friends.  For my Office buddy who lives back east, I made a Valentine's card inspired by a line in season two's Valentine's Day episode:

Pam:  "Everybody gives out little presents and stuff.  Like last year, Jim gave me this card, with Dwight's head on it... it was horrifying and funny and..."

A few minutes of Google yielded the needed images, and this card was born:

Man, I crack myself up.