"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." - Carl Sagan

Even when I just need to buy fruit and vegetables at the store, I have to have a grocery list. It’s just something my Mom instilled into me. Well, of course, now there’s a website that might have my old grocery lists, that I threw out, archived.

Grocerylists.org  features to date 1,100 other people’s grocery lists. Some of the “found” grocery lists have things on them like junk food, “anchoys”, lunchmeat, dressing mix, and 2 dinners. Every month the site also gives away a free food-related book or food-related something. The site’s creator, Bill Keaggy, lives his official motto, “Collector, maker and breaker of things,™” creating and hosting other blogs dedicated to all sorts of things.

I bet there’s a site out there dedicated to people’s restaurant orders too. And I’ll find it…..

One of my friends from my Portland days had one of her comics in this publication called Too Much Coffee Man. Today I felt like the “man” below…..

And I thought you probably feel this way too sometimes…..working in this industry, so thought I’d share the good laughs from Too Much Coffee Man with ya.

Check out the link. Let yourself laugh. And have another cup of jo.

When I was teaching 5^th & 6^th grade Science in the woods of the San Bernardino Mountains, my meals were usually pre-determined by the cook in the dining hall since I worked on a camp site barely funded by an unnamed department of education.  My “official” classroom supplies were a bit hard to find in my classroom of woods, food being one of those supplies. So, my fellow teachers and I loaded up on vegetables at the salad bar at night. Well, loaded the vegetables up into our backpacks to have snacks for the next day. Come mid-day, mid-hike, mid-lesson, the next day, my fellow teacher Thom would throw me a couple carrots and I’d throw him a couple sticks of celery to get through the day. Now, that’s vegetable delivery.

Have any out of ordinary experiences with vegetables lately? Do tell.

Oatmeal Cookies

Brought to us by Cooking.com,

Ingredients

 Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with waxed paper. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Cream together the sugars and butter. Add the egg, vanilla and milk, and beat until smooth. Stir in the sifted ingredients and mix well. Stir in the grated orange rind, then the oats and raisins.

Scoop up balls of the dough with a tablespoon and drop enough of them to fill the prepared baking sheets, spacing them approximately 2 inches apart.

Cooking Directions

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until just brown. Remove immediately from the baking sheets and cool on a wire rack. Repeat with the remaining mixture, preparing the sheets as in step 1.

With all the food blogs on the Internet, cyberspace has a full belly.

FatMan Seoul says “Burp Me” instead of “Email Me.”

Ismyblogburning.com is a blog dedicated to tracking online food blogging events. So, if I eat a burger and write about it on this blog, is it cool enough to be an “event”? I mean it’s an event when my Dad eats but that’s a different story. Well, I suggest reading the Beginner’s Guide on Ismyblogburning.com to see the exact description of a food blogging event.

Chef Wayne’s Recipe Blog also thinks this food blog is cool enough to link up to and not only contains a diverse collection of recipes, but food news.

For more tidbits of food bloggin, check out the Boston Globe article on those so obsessed with food that they have to blog about it.  Geez. I don’t know anybody like that……

From the online news source, Ananova,

Low fat camel's milk chocolate is due to hit shelves after an Austrian chocolate maker joined forces with an Arabic camel farm.

Vienna-based Chocolatier Hochleitner has developed the sweet treats by using milk from the United Arab Emirates and money from the Abu Dhabi royal family.

Company head Johann Georg Hochleitner said: "We have come so far and what was once thought of as a crazy idea has become a huge project, particularly in the Arabic world where there is a potential market of about 200 million people."

He added: "Powdered camel milk is sent from Abu Dhabi to Austria where we produce the raw chocolate and then send it back for processing to a factory in the middle of the desert."

According to Hochleitner camel's milk is a good alternative to cow's milk because it is lower in fat and sweeter.

The chocolate, which is to hit the Arabic market this autumn, is called Al Nassma, after the cool wind that blows in the desert.

And the chocolate is expected to be introduced to the EU market after its launch in Abu Dhabi in the autumn.

What are celebrity foods? What makes a food so special that a celebrity requests it be served at their event or a celebrity quotes it as their favorite food? Does the food strut around like a carrot on a catwalk? Here’s what I found out on the Internet about what some celebrities enjoy most, food-wise. Why is up to speculation.

Lindsay Lohan – Chinese

Mariah Carey – Pasta and salad

Elvis Presley – Peanut butter and banana sandwich, baked apple and sweet potato pudding

Woody Harrelson - raw, vegetarian foods

David Gahan, Depeche Mode – Thai & Italian

Willie Nelson – tex-mex food

If you’d like to see some celebrities caught eating, look at this funny website, http://www.celebrities-eating.com/. Ah, I love the Internet.

It’s springtime & that means it should be time for a picnic. With the recent unpredictable weather, I thought you’d agree that more time should be spent on choosing the location of the picnic than the food to be enjoyed there, so here’s some suggestions for a fast and easy meal for the occasion.

Menu

Sliced Smoked Turkey

Sliced Smoked Salmon

Sliced Tomatoes

Herb crackers

Fruit salad

Oatmeal cookies

Smoked turkey or smoked salmon with tomato on a herb cracker tastes divine.

Preparation

In the Morning

Cut melon, peach, plum, and bananas or your favorite fruit into bite size pieces. Put fruit into a plastic container and seal it with a lid.

Cut the sliced smoked turkey and salmon into squares.

Place the sliced smoked turkey, the sliced smoked salmon, and the sliced tomatoes each in a separate Ziploc bag.

Place each bag in the frig.

Cook the oatmeal cookies.

(see recipe under Recipe section)

About 10 minutes before leaving for the picnic, place each Ziploc bag, except the one containing the cookies, “in an insulated pack”. Then place the pack in the picnic basket, along with the cookie bag, your choice of beverage on top, and the crackers. Place a trash bag in there too for clean up later. And don’t forget the paper and plastic - plates, napkins, cups, and silverware.

Anyone have any other ideas for a fast and easy picnic meal?