Dear Kid,

Being as how you are All About The Food (‘bout the food), I thought you might be interested in hearing about The Next Food Network Star.

Lots of food, lots of tears, lots of challenges, blah, blah, food. Some interesting people, some not so much. Some interesting in the wrong sort of interesting way.

Last week Giada and Bobby had made a decision about who to eliminate from the competition. Then at the very last moment, Giada changed her mind and sent home someone else.

Why? So glad you asked.

The person she sent home was Twit Boy (my name for him). And Twit Boy had the lack of sense to act like a twit in front of Giada during the elimination.

We the audience had the benefit of seeing a bunch of other twit-times. And we applauded Giada for deciding not to put up with him any longer.

Yes, The Next Food Network Star is a competition. Yes, some people thing that being obnoxious is “good TV”. (For the record, I am not one of those people.) But this is a competition to be on TV! Obnoxious is not the trait the Food Network is going for. Yeesh.

The Food Network is about collaboration, experience, joy, and food. Except for Cut Throat Kitchen, and even that is fun-ish.

Last night, the challenge was up and coming food trends. Apparently in the not too distant future, we’re going to be eating raw, stinky, slimy, burnt, and/or incendiary food. Or should I say restaurants will be serving that type of food. Because the only things that appeal to me are raw (which I can probably make myself: oh, look! Food I haven’t cooked!) or burnt (yes, I like charred food and always have).

The chef contestants were divided into teams to cook. Who won? Neither.

Wait, what?

Yes, Bobby says neither team hit a home run and therefore neither team has a golden ticket to stay another week.

The cooks were judged individually and someone was sent home, but we didn’t really care all that much.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

The first day of September has come and gone. The good news is that we’ll have a Sept 1 again next year. The bad news is that this year’s is past, never to be seen again. Enjoy today because tomorrow will be too late for 9/2/13.

Did you follow all that? I hope so.

Yesterday was a calm but wildly productive day. Got a bunch of cooking and some cleaning done in preparation for Grandma and Grandpa arriving on Wednesday. I love, love, love having them here. I only wish I had elves that worked harder to get the house presentable.

It’s a good thing I don’t live in a time when women are expected to make bread on a regular basis. First of all, you know how I feel about expectations. Secondly, kneading requires Serious Effort, which is why all those women had fabulous triceps. Mine are whining about even having to type this.

As we have long established, Bobby Flay, et al., have nothing to worry about in terms of competition from me. I remembered the raisins for the challah (yay), but we didn’t have enough white flour. Pi and I decided I could use wheat flour so what we can say for sure is that the challahs (or challot if you prefer) are round, raisin filled, and finished. What they taste like remains to be seen.

Et al is the abbreviation for the Latin et alia. Et alia literally means “and others.” It is used as a scholarly way of saying “and all the other dudes of a similar ilk but it would be too inconvenient to list them all here.” You can see why et al is a better option. Not to be confused with El Al which literally translated means “tourists flying to Israel.”

But here’s the Yup-That’s-My-Mom kicker: While the loaves were busy rising, I found the white flour. I knew we had more. I even looked on the shelves in the basement (where I eventually found it) and it Was Not There The First Time I looked. Seriously. Sneaky darn elves. Little guys need to spend more time cleaning and less time moving unsuspecting bags of flour around.

Also got the apple kugel made. Booker thinks apple kugel is much better than challah because random bits of apple falling on the floor are much more to his liking than random fluffs of whole wheat flour puffing into the air and making him sneeze.

Have a great Labor Day!

Love, Mom