Eating Food @ Moms: Food From an Alternate Universe.

Going over to my parents house to eat has become an increasingly challenging endeavor. This is because of my mother's descent into the madness that is a Trader Joes addiction. On grocery day she is Trader Jones-ing for some economicly priced organic food stuffs. And who can blame her? The prices, the health, etc etc, right? Except that Trader Joe's offers only a mirage of the food you know and love. Chase it and be warned, there is no oasis just over the horizon. Yet still women everywhere, my mother included, continue on, thirsty in the desert.

You see, it's not enough for the Trader Joe's addict to bring home a frozen pizza. They instead come home with a frozen muselli wafer, featuring organic light vodka red sauce and aged goat cheese ricotta. Breadlike base? Yes. Red Sauce with Cheese? It's there. But is that thing I ate in any way a pizza? No, it is most ceretainly not a pizza. I know this because pizza is good, while muselli wafers, with light vodka red sauce and goat cheese...they taste like a combination of cardboard, rainwater, and curdled rats milk (in a pretty decent light vodka red sauce).

For my mother and the other TJ's addicts, it's too unfashionable to eat regular, everyday brands and foods. Those brands have, after all, been responsable for fattening us up with their trans-fats, and their high fructose corn syrup...for shame! Poor little fat elementry school kids.

So no, there will be no cereal and milk for breakfast...that would be too simple, too delicious, too normal. No, instead you may have Whole Grain Kashi and Kefir. And honestly, the Kashi was pretty good, for horse food...but what the frick is kefir? It's definitley not milk. It's kind of like, but not quite, yogurt. "Of Questionable Origins" is not a quality that I regularly seek out in dairy.

I understand that health is a good thing, and organic food is very healthy. And I'm sure that through some transative property, organic food is therefore a good thing. Except when it's not. When men (and I'll just go ahead and speak for all of us here) want Ice Cream, we don't want Soy Ice Shavings. When we want Fried Chicken, we defenitley do not want Poached Organic Tilapia Tenders. And Rice and Beans are not the same as Quinoa and Edimame.

Somewhere along the line, the Trader Joes addiction became too strong and overpowered my mother, and I fear she's gone forever. So, take this as a cautionary tale, or eat like a rabbit for the rest of your life...it's your choice.