White Flag Over Black Bean Burgers

Somethings are worth making your own: pizza dough (so easy), chicken stock (so yummy), and red rice (no package preservative nastiness). And somethings aren't: brownies (Giradelli boxed rocks), oatmeal ("ain't nobody got time for that") and black bean burgers ...

Four cans of black beans, lovingly pulverized, homemade breadcrumbs from Mom, organic eggs, chili powder, garlic salt, sauteed onion, and a healthy dose of cumin, and I just threw all the frozen patties in the big garbage can outside.

I am economical but eating veggie burgers that taste like cumin-y cardboard make me sad. I don't care enough to try again, don't eat them often enough to try again, so looks like Morningstar wins.

I'm fine with that. I know when I'm beat.

Dreaming of Dinner

It happens every year. August. For some reason, I just have a hard time cooking this month. And this year more than most years.

There's the heat. And the work. And the fact that, really, I'd rather be anywhere else other than standing  in my little kitchen. That's right. I feel this way too. Cooking is for crisp autumn days, where it doesn't seem a chore to peel more than a few apples, and where you can spend a lingering dinner with friends without having to worry about being too hot and too bothered to enjoy their company.

Yes, I have air conditioning, but I don't have it up so high that I don't know what season it is. And when I'm searing something in the oven, it seems that in my little kitchen, every time the oven door opens is a time for the smoke alarm to go off. And that's just one more thing. It is just too hot to hear that noise, over and over.

So I haven't been doing much cooking. Celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow or Gwen Stefani would call it a raw diet, but I call it lazy. Do I want to make a quiche with cheese, spinach and tomatoes? Uh, no. I will just eat slices of cheese, some raw spinach and tomatoes with maybe a boiled egg. Or maybe if I eat enough olive oil popcorn, almonds and edamame I won't have to eat dinner. Done.

Now, we all know this is excluding my comfort go-to, the roasted chicken. Eating like a king for 5 min. prep is worth it. I've recently been using a Caribbean oil blend from Charleston Spice Co. that makes it amazing. Still ...

I dream of being motivated, of deciding on a whim to bake a cherry lemon pound cake. I think of how good a mustard braised pork chop dinner with mashed potatoes would taste, or how I'd like to try to make a bread salad like the one I saw last week at another person's house. But I'm just too hot. Too unmotivated. Too hungry to wait. So I wait a little more, until that day, when suddenly the "project" of one of Rick Bayless' Mexican dishes sound like fun, not like a chore.

Until then, I'll be here, loving the heat but not able to stay in the kitchen. It's one of those worlds, isn't it?

From My Little Kitchen to Nursing Home Admittance

I live alone.

This means that one day I will have to go into a nursing home, that is, unless some kind soul takes me in. It's not that I wouldn't like to live my days out in my own house, defiantly driving my old car slow, going to get my own mail in my own mailbox, and baking cookies for little neighborhood girls who are scared to eat them because of all the crazy ingredients in jars lining my kitchen ...

In short, it's just that packaging is going to send me there. That's right, packaging.

Now, at my vibrant age (no snickering back there!), it's already come to this: I can't open most chip bags, block cheese, shredded cheese, coffee bean bags, milk containers, and assundry other products. So how do I survive? The knife.

I use the tip of a knife to break the seal on the gallon of milk, cut open the chips, block cheese, and shredded cheese, and get out the scissors for the coffee beans. I even take off wine foil with knives. I need a glass of wine, ok? Well, one grey-haired day, one of my neighbors will walk in on me wielding a chef's knife against a small package of cheese and will decide that I could be a danger to myself.

And he will be right, because it's not like I can store anything either. I can't close the zip on a zippie bag (if it's torture watching, trying being the one watched). Only Hefty one-zips please, and yes, those do get stuck too. I use old hummus containers and Parmesan cheese containers to store everything, but the lid matching can make everyone feel like we're playing a sad game of matchmaker that doesn't quite match.

And let's not even mention Saran Wrap. Let's just not.

The temptation of plums and a Wednesday night veggie feast

I love summer. I love it for the heat, the humidity (yep), the sound of tree frogs late in the evening, the smell of vanilla ice cream melting, and of course, the veggies.

On Sunday, I drove to Cottageville for a story. It's going to be a great story, yes, but on the way back, I hit a farmstand -- I simply had to stop. It's in my blood. Okra, plums, fresh corn, oh my. I couldn't help it. The farmer wanted me to taste the plums, and I did and threw a pit into the field of brush beyond the tent. He knew what he was doing, out there on 61 way past Summerville on a Sunday when everyone out there was out to church but me. He knew I could be tempted.

He was right. I bought more plums than one person should buy.

On Monday, Holly called and said she had veggies if I wanted. Boiled peanuts, squash, the sweetest little Persian cukes ever. And suddenly, here we are.

And so it's Wednesday. I am in the middle of a very heavy workweek, and yet, I'm hungry. I need food, although I don't want to take the time. (It's amazing to cook, but even for me, without distraction, sometime it is too much.) But when you really aren't eating processed food, there's not much of a choice. You have to do something.

I did. I threw some potatoes in the oven, sliced some tomatoes, breaded a bit of okra, and can we call that even cooking? Suddenly, I had one of those bounty dinners, those summer bounties, where you know that you gotta eat it up or it's going to go bad.

And here we are, the sound of tree frogs high after the rain, and Summer upon us with its tomatoes and cucumbers and okra that I wait for all year. I am just lucky that my boyfriend Beets didn't decide to join the party; I might not have been able to handle it.

For your next Trader Joe's Trip

Here's a great article about the best and worst finds at Trader Joe's. Nothing is more demoralizing for the home cook than wasting money on food you think you'll like but won't.

So happy shopping across the bridge!

The Daily Meal's Best and Worst Products from Trader Joe's