*I apologize in advance for the length of this entry. The title was meant to refer to the overload in my brain, then I look at the finished entry and it looks like I should have some room in there now, because I unloaded it all here. okay, on to the entry...
Now They've done it. I'm officially bewildered. In recent years, I've read about the evils of microwaves. Don't nuke your food - it alters the food on the molecular level and takes away nutrients. True or not, I'm enough of a food snob that nuking always felt so wrong. I reheat pizza in the oven. Microwaves are to be used only for heating water (because how much can you screw up boiling water?) and reheating things that can't be done in the oven or toaster oven, like pasta. Then I read a new little tidbit, thanks to Organic Style, one of my favorite mags. What did They have to go and mention to make my little head spin? A microwave heats only the food, not the air around it. Therefore, it is more energy efficient than an oven. Huh. Now, the air in my microwave does get a little warm, I do believe. But I can see how the fact that a microwave is so much smaller than an oven would make a difference in energy efficiency. And while the toaster oven is smaller than the oven, you do still have to heat stuff for longer in it than the microwave. So now, I think I'll just eat cold foods. Why should I have to choose between eating foods with unaltered molecules or being energy efficient? Its just not fair. (while proof-reading, I felt compelled to come explain that I don't just believe everything I read, I plan to research this more fully after I've finished learning all about making boobs dry up.
And speaking of my food snobbery, I keep putting off writing about it. So here goes.
I'm a food snob. Sure, I'll eat fast food here and there. My typical homemade dinner usually consists of Tyson frozen chicken breasts from the bag, put into a casserole dish, with a marinade of some sort dumped on top, and baked. On the side, we'll have Annie's boxed pastas (shells and cheese or some other variety) or some Uncle Ben's rice packet, and some fresh broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower, with ranch for dipping. Substitutions for the pasta/rice include french fries or mashed potatoes. Subs for chicken include premarinated pork loin, pork chops, and I just branched out and bought some turkey breast filets.
So, see, I have no right to be a food snob. I'm no gourmet chef. But I can NOT bring myself to buy canned veggies. There are very few things that I buy canned, and I always buy them canned: tomato sauce/paste, beans of any kind, and cranberry sauce. Thats as far as it goes. I buy fresh and frozen. Fresh for eating raw, frozen for cooked either alone or in recipes. And the kids and I hate cooked veggies.
This could be a problem one day. On Sunday, I was chatting online with a friend while getting ready to head to the grocery store. We had also just discussed silly tropical storm Ophelia (and i've had a silly story to go with her floating around in my head, but i won't share. its too late now) so she reminded me to get canned goods and water. Which, knowing her, was at least partially a joke anyway, since we both like to make fun of people who panic and fill their pantry every time a thunderstorm or single snow flake is in the forecast. But still, I figured that while I don't expect Ophelia to be any big deal, I should get a few things that we'd be able to eat uncooked for a couple days just in case. You never go long without power on a military base anyway, at least not here. And I promise, I did walk up and down the canned foods aisle a couple times. I grabbed a couple of the family size tuna pouches. I even got a couple cans of spaghettios (i do those on the stovetop too, to make up for their having been stored in an evil aluminum can). But I couldn't force myself to stock up on canned goods. I did however, get some fresh friuts and veggies - hey we can eat those with no power! - and some frozen fruit - which can be thawed and used like fresh. And I did get water, but partly because I think the water here has Kryptonite in it, or some other bad sounding substance. I'll probably rant about that one day.
In the meantime, I'm debating cooking a dinner up to stick in the fridge just in case the oven doesn't work when the horribly tropical storm Ophelia rocks my neighborhood. But I wouldn't want to eat it cold, so I won't. See. I'm such a snob.
(By the way, they've cancelled school for this oh so horrible storm, what with the 20 mph winds forecasted for our area. Come on people!)
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