Dear Kid,

The next kale has arrived. This is a good thing, because the last kale was, well, kale.

Just to be clear, kale is not a vegetable. Kale is a garnish that people discovered you could turn into chips by drowning pieces in oil and spices. As “chips” kale became a great conveyor for salt and you could barely taste the kale part.

As far as some of us are concerned, even that much kale was pushing it. Which is why you’ve never been served kale in our house. (Yes, I am just anti-kale and you’ll just have to accept me as I am.)

The newest food trend is—are you ready for this?—chickpea water.

It sounds better if you call it aquafaba, but whatever you call it it’s the stuff you pour off when you open a can of chickpeas.

The good news is no one is suggesting drowning chickpea water in salt and oil and somehow turning it into chips.

The better news is it’s not kale.

Cooks and bartenders are using aquafaba as an egg white substitute for all sorts of things like meringues and whipped cream and ice cream and those creamy drink things that bartenders make with raw eggs. (Not sure where to classify raw egg consumption on the ick scale, but I’m guessing it lands pretty close to kale.)

The cool part is that people are reducing waste by taking something that was just going down the drain and turning into YUM.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to follow the trend and try using chickpea water to make meringue. But I have to say, I’m a bit intrigued.

And it’s not kale.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

My body and I are arguing a lot these days.

Body: Let’s eat cake!
Me: No.
Body: Let’s eat cookies!
Me: No.
Body: Let’s eat chocolate!
Me: No.
Body: Remind me again why I hang out with you?

Me: Tell the fat cells to go.
Body: Not so much.
Me: This is an eviction notice for the fat cells.
Body: But they live here!
Me: That’s the point. They are no longer welcome.
Body: I think I’ll keep them anyway.

Me: Get up and get moving.
Body: I got up and got moving yesterday.
Me: We have to do it again.
Body: I beg to differ.
Me: It’s not really optional.
Body: Yeah? Just try moving without me.

Body: I hurt.
Me: You don’t hurt. We went to the gym yesterday.
Body: I hurt.
Me: You feel energized.
Body: I think we’re using a different dictionary.

Body: It is time to eat.
Me: We just ate.
Body: It is time to eat again.
Me: It is time to clean the kitchen.
Body: My idea is better.
Me: True. But…
Body: So we eat!
Me: No.
Body: The cookies are tempting….
Me: Yes, but…
Body: We could just have one.
Me: Now I know you’re toying with me.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

It’s April 30^th.

Which means it’s National Hairstyle Appreciation Day. And National Honesty Day. And rainy and humid.

Which means if we’re really going to “honor” today, we’d have to go around telling people how much we love their horrible hairdo.

Personally, I suggest skipping the talking and moving straight to the balloons and cookies.

There are balloons and cookies aren’t there?

If you’re feeling excessively festive, we can throw in a quick salute to National Karaoke Week and National Welder’s Month.

In other celebratory news, do you know what happens when you overfill the single-serve coffee maker? Yep. You have the wonderful opportunity of cleaning up the kitchen counter. In completely unrelated news, our kitchen counters are looking exceptionally clean at the moment.

Have a great day, kiddo. Try to stay dry in all the rain and drizzle and try not to give yourself unplanned reasons to clean.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

New ideas can be tricky.

Sometimes a new idea seems great from the very beginning.

Sometimes an idea starts out seeming like a bad idea but then turn out to be great once we get used to it.

Sometimes an idea starts out seeming to be a bad idea but then gets sufficiently refined to be a good idea.

So it’s important to give new ideas a chance, to give them a chance to become more familiar, to give them time to grow on you.

But sometimes new ideas are just not good ideas, and if they grow on you at all it’s more like mold than anything you’d want to cut and put in a vase.

Case in point: the Curling Iron Scrambled Egg.

I like eggs. I like scrambled eggs (as long as they’re made with real eggs and don’t have weird stuff cooked into them). But there is really nothing good about scrambled eggs made with a curling iron except being able to say you did it. (Besides, it looks a little obscene.)

Making eggs with a curling iron doesn’t save time, money, or the all-important number of things to be washed. You still have to buy eggs, you still have to have a dish to mix the eggs in, you still have to open a drawer to find something to mix with, you still have to find a plate to eat on, AND you ruin your curling iron.

Seriously.

Why would someone think this is a good idea?

Cosmopolitan seemed to think it was a good enough idea to film it (here’s the link if you want to watch it yourself). I’m not sure why; I had the sound off for most of the video. But there’s a reason professional chefs don’t include “curling iron” among their kitchen must-haves: it’s dumb.

The only dumber idea I can think of at the moment is using curling iron to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Ick.

Happy Breakfast.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as macaroni and cheese. Hundreds of thousands of college students went hungry for lack of a blue box. Some of them ate ramen noodles. Most of them just drank beer and pretended to go to class.

Then in the early 1900s someone figured out how to create that amazing American invention: processed cheese food.

FACT:  Any food that actually has the word “food” in its name is not actually food.

So there was James Lewis Kraft, scrolling through his newsfeed, when he came across the idea of extending the shelf life of creating processed cheese. Then he made it magically delicious by adding macaroni and a blue box. In 1937, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese sold for 19 cents a box and enabled families to eat during the Depression.

Food needs during the Depression and during college are remarkably similar: dirt cheap, easy to make, inexpensive, minimal refrigeration required, and lack-of-budget-friendly. Ta-Da! Mac and cheese.

Not only is it cheap, it tastes good and glows like a flashlight. What more could you ask for?

What’s your favorite way to eat mac and cheese?

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

For lunch the other day, Pi and I stopped at North Market in Columbus.

After we split a macaron as an appetizer (yes, dessert as an appetizer—it was delicious; don’t judge), we wandered around looking for lunch-type food.

Pi chose a combination duck and turkey stew with a broccoli barrier and a chicken-yumminess that was reminiscent of pot-pie filling. Happy child.

I found a Greek place and asked for a delicious looking rice and lentil thing.

Server: You want just the rice?
Me: And the onions and lentils.
Server: But just the rice?
Me (confused): With the onions and lentils.
Server: But no meat?
Me (finally understanding): Ah. No, no meat. Just the rice.

The question she asked (Just the rice?) made perfect sense to her because she was used to people ordering that particular kind of rice with one of their meat selections on top. It made no sense to me because I hadn’t even considered putting a meat selection on top. When she “clarified” by asking the exact same question, I still had no clue what was going on. But when she changed the question, all of a sudden the world shifted into focus and we were communicating.

(If you prefer an alternative explanation, you could say that I should have asked a clarifying question like “What are my choices?” rather than just “huh?”. But I think I’ll stick with it being all her fault.)

It was a delicious lunch (we ate outside since it seemed to be spring in Columbus), followed by an explore. But that’s another story.

Love, Mom