Guess what. I'm gonna be on Road Trip Nation! Thanks to the Unknown Reader who recommended my blog to her friend Camilla. Unknown Reader, I enjoyed meeting your friend!
Sneak preview of upcoming novel.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Response from Whole Foodswhich I thought was very nice and well written
Hello Gwendolyn
Wow- I am so disappointed and embarrassed to hear your story! This behavior is completely unacceptable and I am shocked to hear that one of my department heads would react in this manner.
Please accept my deepest apologies. We pride ourselves on offering our guests the finest hospitality in town and in the nation. To have one of my team leaders respond in such an inappropriate way has not only damaged our relationship with you but set a poor example for the rest of his team. I read your email last night before bed and could only think about how many other times this may have shown up on the sales floor without my knowing.
Rest assured that I will be following up with [the offending manager's name, spelled correctly] as soon as he gets in today. I will also find about about the recipe that you requested and make sure we get it slotted in the production schedule for you.
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart that you took the time to contact us yesterday. I know that most people who had been treated in this manner would have walked out and never looked back. Your feedback will give me the opportunity to address this issue immediately and ensure that no other guest has an experience similar to yours.
I would love the opportunity to leave you a gift card at the service desk. I completely understand if you would prefer to pick up the card at one of our other locations, but would like the opportunity to meet with you in person and reassure you of the level of service that our team is capable of.
I will have a card waiting for you at guest service as soon as we open- just let me know if you would prefer to pick up elsewhere and I will arrange that for you.
I will be back in touch on the recipe, and please don't hesitate to contact me directly if I can be of further assistance
[store manager's sig]
Response from Central Market
I'll send your idea off to our Food Service folks and see what happens - [Selling Manager's name]
Sighing with Relief
(I really did send both those emails, right before I posted them on the blog.)
I'm glad Whole Foods wrote me back and was nice about it, because I really do like then for more than just that chicken. But I couldn't say so, because my feelings were hurt and I was temporarily blinded by that. I felt like they were a boyfriend that did me wrong -- I didn't actually want to break up with them, but I was prepared to do so if they couldn't respect my feelings.
I'm glad I can go back, because I'm currently obsessed with this stuff they have called Green Gazpacho, which I guess you're supposed to eat like soup, but which I only eat with naan, as nature seems to have intended.
See, kids? What does this teach us?
WRITING:
Helping customers get what they need, since [the year the Egyptians or whoever invented it].
Sunday, August 10, 2008
le sighIt's Sunday night and I have to go to work tomorrow, just like most of everybody else.
And I like my new job, but I always feel now like I get home so late that weekend evenings don't even count as free time... there's only barely enough time there to, like, go to the bathroom and change out of my work clothes and feed myself and ask the kids if they fed themselves and make sure there's a work outfit for the next day at work...
that I feel really pressured, each weekend now, to get as much personal stuff done as possible...
and by Friday at 6 PM, I'm already overwhelmed by the futility of it. I already know there's no way I can get it all done.
Then, Sunday night, I'm kind of crying. Or would be, if I weren't so dehydrated from running around like a maniac in the 105-heat-index heat, trying to get stuff done.
At least I got the kids haircuts, and got one of them new shoes. And did half a birthday for the other.
Just typing that out makes me realize, anew, how much I didn't get done.
:I
Long Division
I can't remember what else I wanted to tell y'all.
There was stuff -- semi-clever observations of life sorta stuff -- but I can't remember while I'm sitting here stressing over how little time I have.
I just taught someone long division, because he didn't learn it in school. This person told me today, "Mom... Can you teach me long division today? I still don't understand it, and I don't want to go back to school in two weeks not knowing it."
So I taught him, with much empathy, because I remember not being able to get that shit straight when I learned it in fourth grade. And then the 5th grade teacher pairing me up with some dude I didn't like so that he could teach me, because she didn't have time to teach me while the rest of the class was moving on to something else.
So it's apparently genetic, this hard-time-with-long-division gene. So now I can expect my son to have the same trouble with calculus, because I didn't understand calculus at all until the end of the year, when a kindly Rice professor volunteered to teach it to me the weekend before finals.
My son said, after I taught him, "They taught me, but with a bunch of little stories that just made it more confusing. Like, there was something about Santa Claus going up on the roof and dropping remainders down the chimney. I couldn't understand."
Me: "Oh my God. How can anyone learn math from crappy, unseasonable metaphors?"
My son: "Right."
And, in teaching my son long division, I noted other math skills he needed to learn. So now, some time during a break at work tomorrow, I need to find some teaching tools online and print them out, then take them home with me and hurry up and teach my kid more math skills tomorrow, in the 2.5 hours between my rush hour commute and bed time.
Oh, yeah... and then I have to finish writing a novel.
Dude
My oldest son, meanwhile, just turned 16. So, of course, 9 billion people have told me this week, "I can't believe you have a 16-year-old son."
Really? I can. I've been living with this kid for 16 years now. I can totally believe it.
I guess it's supposed to be a compliment -- that I look too young to have a kid that old. Unless, of course, you take it as shock and the dawning realization "OMG, this was a teen mom!
Or, unless you take it as people telling you that you don't seem mature enough to parent a teen?
Some time after that, I was at a social function where more than one person made witty remarks about the fact that I drink and say curse words in front of said 16-year-old son. Like, "Nice parenting skills, Gwen," said with sarcasm-dripping voices.
These were all people my age who had toddlers or babies only, mind you.
So I just didn't say anything. Well, eventually, I did say, "He's on the honor roll. Is your kid on the honor roll?"
But even that was too much. In the same way that I used to ignore criticism from kidless people, I'm now having to ignore criticism from people who only have babies and toddlers. I don't know what these people are thinking -- that they're awesome for cursing and drinking only when their babies are tucked away safely with their babysitters?
And what happens after that, when the babies get older? What am I doing wrong -- being myself in front of my kids? Failing to lie to them about how grown-ups have a good time? Failing to shelter them from reality? Failing to put on an alternate persona whenever they're not at the babysitter's? Or failing to leave them at the babysitter's in the first place? (That last item is probably the real answer.)
I'm so far removed from the conformist social mindset, as far as parenting goes these days, that I don't even know what that mindset is anymore. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's nothing to lament.
A while back, someone had a party and I was there with my kids, and someone else was there with her toddler. And people drank, and the toddler got sleepy. So the toddler went to sleep on the couch.
And, of course, someone who only had a baby had to make a remark about that. "I feel sorry for Toddler," she said.
"Why?" I said.
"That's so terrible that she has to live like that," NewBabyMomma said. She pointed to the toddler, asleep on the couch, then pointed to the toddlers' parents, who were having a good time. Then, noble point made, she walked away.
A guy next to me said, "What is she talking about? When I was a kid, I fell asleep at grown-up parties all the time."
"So did I," I said.
And then, silently, we both felt sorry for NewBabyMomma's baby, who we assumed won't be getting to go to grown-up parties.
I see parenting I don't approve of, but I keep those opinions to myself.
I don't approve of the style of parenting that ends up with teenagers putting on a big phony innocent show for their parents, then getting drunk on the weekends with their friends, God knows where, without their parents' knowledge.
I don't approve of the style of parenting that involves telling your kids phony words about yourself, then proving yourself a liar with your behavior. If I tell my kids I don't drink and I don't curse, and then they stay up late one night and see me doing it when I think they're asleep, aren't I only teaching my children that they're supposed to grow up and lie?
I see other parents do this shit, and I just think, "Better them than me." You know? Because I'm taking care of my family, and I don't have time to monitor anyone else's.
I had a duel with an old man.
One of my neighbors, an elderly gentleman, came to my yard the other day and started lecturing me about my lawn.
I don't like to be rude to old people, but I also don't like strangers telling me what to do. So he and I argued, as heatedly and yet as politely as possible.
In the end, we reached understanding. I think we even acheived mutual respect. We were very much alike, this know-it-all old man and me.
The funniest part is that, while we were having it out in my front yard, one of our other neighbors (one who hasn't spoken to me since asking me what church I attended and hearing the answer "none") was standing in his yard, gawking and eavesdropping like old Mrs. Kravitz from the Bewitched TV show. I would have pointed at him and laughed, if I hadn't been busy making my points to the old man who was trying to make his points to me.
The old man was trying to convince me that:
1. I have chinch bugs, not fertilizer burn.
2. I should have known that I had chinch bugs, not fertilizer burn.
3. If I had no way of knowing the difference between chinch bugs and fertilizer burn, I should have preempted their existence by seeking the advice of neighbors with nice lawns.
4. Since I failed at numbers 1, 2 and 3 listed above, I had proven myself an uncaring lawn mistress who was unworthy of neighbors coming by with friendly advice.
I tried to convince the old man that:
1. I obviously had fertilizer burn, not chinch bugs.
2. The knowledgeable, helpful neighbors were obviously the ones who had already helped me determine that I had fertilizer burn, and were not the ones who avoided me until this day.
3. I was not uncaring -- I was busting my butt at a job all day and had already spent a considerable amount of my paychecks trying to fix the fertilizer burn, and therefore needed no unneighborly old men lecturing me this late in the game.
In the end, cold logic won out. I have chinch bugs, and so do my two friendly neighbors. The old man does not, and therefore we all should have applied to him for advice.
Also, the old man was not in the wrong for avoiding us all. Because, seriously, how could you expect him to visit people who don't seem to care about their lawns?
Today I met up with my two friendly neighbors and informed them that they had chinch bugs. Then, I told them how to fix it, just like the old man told me. They told me that they'd seen me having it out with the old man, but weren't sure whether or not to intervene, since our arguing was so polite that they couldn't be sure that's what we had actually been doing.
I like the old man now. He's pretty awesome. I'm going to buy him a plant and write him a thank-you note, I think.
The hardcore Christian guy across the street, though? I have to say I've lost a little respect for him. A little more, I guess.
>:)
That's all.
Time for bed now. I'll spend a few minutes at my new hobby, first, though.
My new hobby is so terrible and borderline OCD-ish, I'm not even sure I should tell it to y'all.
Should I?
My new hobby: Checking out cookbooks from the library, marking the recipes I like, then xeroxing them and putting them into a Recipe Binder I made.
Why am I doing that? I don't know. I don't even like to cook. Everybody knows this. My kids are like, "Uh..." and then they're thinking, "Don't say anything aloud about mom's new OCD-ish hobby, which is totally nonsensical since she totally hates to cook."
And yet, this new hobby soothes me. So I do it, when I can, for a minute or two before I sleep at night.
I hope y'all's OCD-ish hobbies are soothing, that your lawns are chinch-bug-free, and that you all sleep well tonight.
Labels: chinch bugs, domestic, neighbors, obessions, parenting
Saturday, June 28, 2008
recent food obsessionsI.
There's this place in Rice Village, in Houston, called Istanbul. They make Turkish food, which I guess is kind of like Greek food but not exactly. Case in point: their dolmas taste like the ones I've had at Greek restaurants, except sweeter, more subtly spiced, and more awesome. The first time I had them, it was 2 AM and I'd been drinking, so I wasn't even sure if I was imagining how awesome they were. But I wasn't. I went back there the other night and got three orders of them. The menu says "with sweet spices and fresh dill." They taste like cinnamon and maybe anise. I'm kind of obsessed with them.
II.
Similarly... Usually there is no good food to be had in my suburb. However, you can drive there on any given weekend and find a million billion children begging for money. They beg for bands, for choirs, for baseball teams, for Jesus, or anything. I usually give my cash to the kids who ask in the most professional way, or else kids who don't know at all how to ask for anything and subsequently get scolded by their parents and peers.
So, the other day, I was accosted by children in front of a chain store, and I gave a dollar to the kid whose older brother yelled at him, "You're not even doing it right!" Right after I gave that kid a dollar and he took it in a silent daze, I saw that there was also a bake sale. I walked over to examine the goods and let the very professional parents pitch to me. I bought a lemon bar and a piece of baklava. "Oh, those are interesting," one of the dads said. "[So-and-so's] mom makes those."
I don't know who so-and-so's mom is, but that woman made the most awesome baklava I've ever tasted in my life. I ate that stuff two months ago and wish to this day I could find that woman and buy a whole pan of it from her. Again, there were secret spices. I divined that there was grated pistachio, plus the normal baklava ingredients -- honey, butter, walnuts, philo -- but there was also something else. A spice, and not a sweet one. A very subtle bit of it. Was it coriander, maybe? Turmeric? Maybe it was fresh dill.
III.
Oh my god, I am so obsessed with Moroccan chicken right now -- the kind with preserved lemons and olives and raisins and olive oil -- that I can barely talk about it. First, I had it at this Houston restaurant called Saffron. That was my first time eating Moroccan food, and it totally turned me on to it. But they're only open for dinner, and we haven't had a chance to go back.
Then, the other day, we went to Whole Foods for groceries. (No, I don't buy my groceries there. I only buy a few things there that you can't buy anywhere else. I'm not rich, and even if I were, I wouldn't buy all my groceries at Whole Foods.) And, oh my god, Whole Foods' hot deli had chicken with preserved lemons and olives and raisins. And I was so happy, I almost cried. And I bought a pound of it, then drove it home and put it in the refrigerator, meaning to eat it for dinner the next day. Then, two hours after that, I took it out of the refrigerator and ate it all, cold, and it was so good I almost broke down sobbing.
And then I went back the other day to get some more, and they didn't have it, and I left Whole Foods without buying anything, and all the way to my car, I sang to that chicken: "How can I live without you? How can I... something, something, whatever? How can I ever, ever survi-i-i-ive?!"
But the chicken didn't answer.
I could probably go to Central Market and buy a jar of preserved lemons, yes, knowing as I do that that is the secret ingredient. But then what would I do? What are you thinking -- that I could use those lemons, and some olive, and some raisins, and some olive oil, to cook my own chicken?
No. That's never going to happen. Come on. Be serious.
IV.
For my boyfriend's birthday, I took him to Mockingbird Bistro. I had the braised short ribs. My plate looked just like this. I'll let you imagine how that tasted. (Hint: It tasted completely freaking awesome.)
I felt uncomfortable in the restaurant, however, because as we were finishing our meal, it quickly filled up with the kind of rich people who believe that it's tacky to care about one's clothing. Either that or they just had really bad taste. I can never tell for sure. But, either way, I couldn't stop staring at them. I stared at them and thought that they must have thought I was a tacky poor person, because I'd worn a pretty dress. I was torn between being ashamed of my obvious poor upbringing and very relieved that I'd grown up poor enough to wear pretty clothing in public. I stared at their ugly, old dresses and wondered where on Earth they'd bought them. It totally boggled my mind. I'm not kidding.
But then we left, and the short ribs eclipsed all my thoughts. And they stay in my mind now, and in my heart. (Not just in my arteries, you know.)
The Lucky Shopping Day
The other day I had the day off, because my job is awesome enough to give us random prizes each month, and I won the prize and I chose a day off from amongst the prizes. So I was taking that day off the other day, and, of course, that meant I had to go to my favorite thrift store for several hours.
Sometimes, when I shop for clothes, I notice there seems to be a certain color motif happening in my selections. That day, at the thrift store, I was working a Calvin Klein-esque neutral pallette. I found a million, billion skirts, pants, and shorts in beautiful taupes, muted browns, and creamy stones.
Then, magically, every single thing I tried on fit perfectly. It was only a matter, then, of picking my very favorite skirts, shorts, and pants. So I did.
Then, I found these shoes, in my size, in almost perfectly new condition, for five dollars and forty-five cents.
Then, to top it all off, I decided to scope out the men's jeans. I scanned the racks for my oldest son's size, and came away with one pair of Guess jeans and one pair of Lucky jeans, for ten dollars each. I'm not even kidding. And my son isn't a label whore, and neither am I (relatively, I'm not), but I couldn't pass that up. Who would have?
I left the thrift store and went to Starbucks to get a latte. While they were making my drink, someone accidentally made an extra shot, and they offered it to me for free. Yay, I said, as they poured it into my venti iced skinny hazelnut extra special double special drink thing. Yay!
Then I went to Payless shoes, just for the hell of it. Because my friend Brie always wears awesome shoes, and when I ask her where she got them, one out of ten times she'll say, "Payless," and I'll say, "Dude, you don't have to lie. If you want to keep your shoe sources a secret, just say so."
But she claims she's telling the truth. So I went in there to find out for sure, and I got two awesome, awesome pairs of shoes with the buy-one-get-one sale working for me. (One of them being the same pair I saw Brie wearing. Sorry, Brie! I bit your flavor. But it's okay because my feet are way bigger than hers, so they don't look the same on me.)
Then, because I was on a roll, I went to Big Lots and scored another beach umbrella, which we sorely needed, for eight freaking dollars.
Then, I went to Old Navy and, miraculously, they had more than one cute thing in sizes that fit me. (Granted, they were all different sizes, probably because they were each made in a separate third-world country. But still.)
And, I forgot to say, they had a brand new Benetton suit at the thrift store, and its price was $13. It wasn't in my size -- it was like size 2 or 0, but it was there, and it was $13, and I touched it and marveled at it and gasped in awe. Just wanted to tell y'all that. Just thought you should know.
And then I went home and felt happy.
The End
post script
I searched for preserved lemons online and found this woman's blog and immediately loved it. I don't like to cook, but this woman fills my head with ideas. I'm going to show her ideas to my boyfriend and let him cook the things she says.
Labels: gluttony, Houston, materialism, obessions
7:44 PM # (9) comments
