The Food Stamp Foodie

So lately I've had a major case of Velcro Baby, otherwise known as Baby Who Never Wants To Be Put Down, which makes it hard to write. I posted a pic of this sweet little Velcro dumpling this morning one-handed as he held fast to my hair with both fists and chewed my cheek. Ah, motherhood. I have never enjoyed it so much in all its precious fleeting glory. As Dear Daughter is turning 16 next month, the F-Bomber is now 6 and tiny boy is the last of the fleet I feel, I don't know, exhausted, happy, confused, lonely already. The other night the two older children were gone with friends and baby was napping. Hubby and I actually had dinner together, neither of us juggling a grabby, crabby tot or refilling milk glasses or cutting meat, etc. It was WEIRD I tell you! Strange and outlandish! I felt my mortal clock ticking loudly as I was reminded: Good God woman, this is what old age will be like. Just you and Matt. Listening to each other chew. And my GOD did he always eat like that or is this a special night because no kids are around? The noise was unholy!

Anyhow, as per the title of this post, I am now embarking on a sideways kind of mini-feature of F-Bomb and Mom: a periodic posting that will ponder the issues of feeding one's family while feeling poverty's pinch at the supermarket but still feeling the keen desire to eat well. In this mini-blog, blog-ette or bloglet, as it were, we shall examine issues such as: Is it ethical to purchase luxury items such as brie, balsamic vinegar or toaster strudel with food stamps? (Uh, probably not); How can I feed my family of five on pennies a day (and still make them feel that they are still enjoying their favorite meals, with each food group represented); and cheap food product reviews. The latter I will tackle today in my first Food Stamp Foodie post. And please, if anyone out there is offended by the name of this post, please feel free to ream me a new one. I do realize that people are struggling and hungry and trying really hard to make ends meet. Rest assured, I feel you. I am you.

So. Lets talk ramen. Yes, these starchy turds in cellophane have been a staple of the broke for, I don't know, centuries? When I was a kid we once lived in a rented duplex alongside a very motivated, interesting and mainly non-English speaking Korean family who ran a home sewing business. The children, first generation Americans, were wonderful playmates. Their daughter, Ami (pronounced Ah-Me) and I were instant best friends. We even started our own neighborhood newspaper which is remarkable, since I was only in first grade and she in second and it was hand-printed in both English and Korean. My pen name was Jade Snow and we covered the north side of Escanaba like pros. Anyhow, I digress.

The neighbor children, which included Ami and her two young brothers, introduced me to ramen for the first time. It was their favorite after-school snack and I saw them eat it often. They were eager to share and after an initial period of doubt I gave in and tried. Salty. Weird. Starchy. What's really weird? They didn't cook it. Ami and her brothers would sit on the back stoop, peel back the crinkly wrapper, extract the silvery little seasoning packet, rip it open with their teeth and sprinkle it over the hard crispy noodles. Chomp and repeat, crispy white bits flying everwhere, the tiny curls collecting on their clothes for later, I guess. I didn't know that ramen was eaten cooked until high school, when it became a dietary staple after a night of, um, 'recreational smoking' with my friends.

The other night I was discussing ramen on the phone with my mother. Ramen is poor food, but it is a nourishing, hot meal that, for about .19 cents a package, fills up your tummy and your cupboard for a very reasonable price. But what about when company comes over and you're pinched for an entree? Enter the cup 'o ramen complete with freeze dried veggies and shrimp or TVP. Fancy! Still cheap! Same quick cook time, but clean up is even more of a breeze because it cooks and is served in the same container! Woo Hoo! My mother thinks I'm hilarious. And for about .48 cents a serving, your guests will be full, satisfied, and impressed that you stepped up your game for them.

But what about date night, you ask? What happens when you're still on a ramen budget but you have a special someone coming over? Not to worry. I have recently discovered the Holy Grail of ramen, the defacto champion of cheap noodles, nay, the GOD of all ramen: Nissin chow mien. Can I get an Amen?

My dear uncle Baboo turned me on to these sweet eats and I am eternally grateful. At about .78 cents a pack for these tasty num-nums, they reign as the most expensive ramen, but as you can imagine, the most delicious. They require more cooking time; five minutes compared to the standard three. Instead of one spice pack to open there are three to fumble with and they do not exhibit the curliness of regular ramen but by God, these are the most fantastic cheap noodles you will ever imbibe! I swear, they are WAY better than the noodles at my favorite Chinese buffet and an ocean apart from any other ramen, ever. The terriyaki beef is by far my favorite - it comes with a little veggie pack, seasoning pack and flavored oil. Yumm-O.

According to the Nissin website, there are 15 flavors, though locally I can only source three, the beef, chicken and shrimp varieties. I have had all three and all are delicious. Since I have discovered Nissin noodles, I have eaten them for lunch every day; I am sure my doctor would be so proud of me (not so hot on the sodium content, like all ramen)! So try them, for real, you will thank me, your date will thank me, your wallet will thank me, your doctor, not so much. And that's it for this post. I am tired and it's late. Over and out.

Sweet Baby Grady!

And now without further ado...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was a little over a year and it has flown and we have grown and you can't even imagine how much. We are now a family of FIVE with the birth of baby Grady James on June 22, 2009. Much of the time I've been absent has been spent on the growth, birth and nurturing of this new addition.

You see, it was not an easy pregnancy, birth, or postpartum. In fact, it has been the toughest physical challenge I have ever undertaken. But I am no cocky young hen; rather this bambino is the last of the litter, there will be no addendum past Grady in the book of this life. And what a sweet, savory little morsel Mr. Grady is. He is infant perfection in all his stinky sweetness and truly has the best personality of any baby I have ever known (and I have known a mess 'o babies, I am here to tell you).

So in the course of medical issues of mountainous proportion (baby's and mine), and a whole host of other bothersome personal issues, I seem to have taken quite the hiatus from writing personally and professionally. It was as though there was nothing I could say, for more than a year, that warranted written (or keyed) words. Nay, the commitment of it all was too much I tell you! Yet the words and stories kept building up till my head is full to bursting and the voice of my soul is screaming for release! Yes, drama! Though it seemed as though I could not find the words. Niblets!

Then, as the great Oprah's phrase is coined, I had an Aha! Moment. Literally. I had laryngitis. A bad case. So bad I couldn't ever whisper. And in the course of still having to manage a house with Three! Children! and Confounded! Husband! I had to communicate and thus the paper and pen was discovered and the words poured forth through pursed fingers then excited fingers then fastly flowing fingers of fury and it all came back to me! Yes! Oh YES! Writing is, for real and for me, as simple as putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Okay stupid, there it is, as it has always been, and yes, I am a writer and yes, it is the only thing I really know how to do and yes, it is still all there and I can still do it and oh my GOD I am so glad to have myself back again because I don't necessarily like where I've been and I wasn't too sure about where I was going but hey, today it's all pretty okay.

So, what to look forward to here: Recipes! Christmas projects sewn badly! With pictures! Hilarious family fiascoes! Swear words! Run-on sentences that you have to read three times to "get" yet somehow you know what I'm talking about from the very first second and you're like yeah, that's what it'd really be like to have a conversation with this crazy woman and does she ever shut up!?! And more pictures!

So, please, if you're still out there, give me a shout-out! I'll be here whether you like it or not!!!

Coming soon...

F-Bomb and Mom will be back after this commercial announcement.

Messy Hessy and all that Jazz

Yes, the Banks fam survived Disney World. and it survived us. Oh, what stories there are to tell. But that is for another day. Loved it as I did (and I REALLY did love it) I am sort of Disney-d out. So much gets skimmed in the retelling that it seems unfair to reflect here in a blase way. I will update on that later, I promise, complete with pics of frazzled and hot kids, me with a humidity-induced afro and gorgeous husband on silly rides.

But today I am posting on the messiest children's rooms on the planet, yes, I dared to say planet because if your kids' rooms can top these, then you deserve some sort of big-ass prize like a year's supply of Swiffer Sweepers or a Dyson vac (I'm not sharing mine!!!) or some other stupendous thing that I will say I'll send you and won't. So. If your children's rooms are worse than mine, I'll send you stuff. Maybe a box of McDonald's toys I've gleaned from the pile or terrible vending machine stuffed animals (or worse yet clowns) or busted Hotwheels tracks or piles of crayon nubs or half-eaten sidewalk chalk buckets.... MoooHoooHawHaw....

So how do you make children clean their rooms? Gwen, even threatened with no allowance ever or no sleepovers or no food or no anything will clean up minimally but as soon as my back is turned, the crap pile is back. And whenever I tell Fletcher it's time to clean up his room he gets a hangdog attitude and sadly muses, "But I like it messy. I can find anything I need here!" (The top two photos are of his room, the bottom three of Gwen's).

And maybe he's right. Creativity thrives in chaos. Or so I've lived. My whole life. As my little sister once said to our mother about our home, "Mom, this is one messy hessy!" And how. We grew up neck-deep in craft projects and magazine piles. And I am certainly not a neat freak (and let me tell you - neither is hubby!) We live in a large, divinely dumpy old home where even the yard isn't immune from "Stuff" like the giant trampoline with draping walls that have seen better days and loads of bedraggled garden plants, overgrown sunflowers and sun-faded Little Tykes toys. And home-made bricks, a broken car, collected busted glass for a "someday" mosaic - it goes on and on. Inside and out. And really, I like it that way. But how much is too much?

Come on, readers - anybody out there got a messy hessy - or messy kids rooms they'd like to share? I'd love to hear your thoughts and see you photos...

I'm only faking when I get it right

So my soundtrack lately has been Fell On Black Days by Soundgarden. The rain, the ever lovin' rain and the grey, dark days have suited me to a black T-shirt lately. Sure don't mind the change.

I don't seem to get along very well with anyone. Gwendolyn pisses me off constantly and the F-Bomber, on the verge of 5, has been the worst-behaved I've ever seen him be.

My husband - husband who? is prickly as I am, though he doesn't admit it. I'll do it for him.

Are we ready, in our psyches, for back to school? Are we all hormonally morphing into prickly pears at once? Are we bored, nonsensical, buzz-killed and down? Are we all on the verge of breaking up? That's how it feels to me.

And yet in two days we are jetting to a 10-day momentous family trip and I have to say it: I'm kind of dreading this.

When marriages go bad there's always that last-ditch-shot-at-inducing-romance-vacation that never works and surely sounds the death knell and inks the pen that signs the divorce papers.


Is this our last-ditch attempt at being a family? My shoulders droop and my head goes cloudy when I daydream about our trudging off to the Magic Kingdom. I can hear the arguing already and I want to cry.

The four of us in one hotel room - shoot me! The hours on the airplane - what were we thinking?

But the trip was a gift - we weren't thinking. It was a generous gift from husband who's? dad. We were so excited for a while, and now here we all are. On the verge. Of something. Terrible? Wondrous? There's no turning back now. This adventure must run its course for good or evil.

I really don't want my four year old to break up with me. I don't want the rest of the family to, either. It's just that I am the Queen of Endings and the Goddess of Beginnings; it's the middle that I really suck at. I always have and right now, that's where we squarely sit, right on our lumpy, stubborn asses.

Painful pearlies

So I've really been feeling like the world is beating me to a pulp lately. My painfully boring job has gotten more painful (like big boss surveillance and heaping helpings of reverse atta-boys), the kids have been, well, kids, and Matthew has been so busy working at work and home I feel like I can't stay awake long enough to remember what his face looks like let alone get a reminder glimpse - our schedules just aren't conducive to spousal bonding. Then there's the usual snotty teen problems (although Gwen has mainly been the good child lately) and the four-year-old who is almost five going on 30 and yet has re-discovered the terrible twos.

So on a recent trip to the dentist I was horrified to discover that even though I am a brushing and flossing professional, ("I can't see one speck of tartar or plaque," squeals the hygienist, head 3/4 of the way into my mouth), it seems as though my teeth are crumbling. Like, totally falling out of my head. Like, as in, they are busting apart and I need like a zillion caps. And - dramatic pause - my favorite - that's right folks, more Painful Dental Surgery!!! And my insurance won't pay for most of it! And, like, I'm still really young, vain, and do NOT want to be a denture-clad, toothless mom at my son's first day of Kindergarten next year!!!

My dentist uttered my least favorite phrase in the universe: "Well, it looks like we're going to have to refer you to a dental surgeon."

The last time I was in this position, I spent my entire income tax refund, had a drastic allergic reaction to the pain medication (think Violet in Willy Wonka, then add hives and suicidal tendencies and the inability to stop crying for three weeks), and alienated my family so badly I thought they would kill me before I could off myself and put myself out of misery. But I also quit smoking then. For good. But that's another story.

And that night, when I came back with my great news, my little Mr. lost his SECOND baby tooth - the other tiny pearl onion on the bottom, just next the the ginormous adult bottom tooth beginning to poke through the gumball-pink skin. Ahh, the circle of life, played out dental-style. I just hope h hasn't inherited my PROBLEMS and frequent trips to the dental surgeon.