I am making eggplant parmesan for dinner tonight and I guess this is the last batch of that stuff I will be making with fresh tomatoes for a while. I’ll be back to using canned tomato paste mixed with whine or whatever leftover tomato sauce I have hanging around from some other prodject (intentionally misspelled). I have been pretty spoiled here since sometime around mid-August or thereabouts. For one thing, there has been a grokkery store right there in the lunchroom at my work. Farmer J makes his living as a software developer but I think his heart is in the little farming operation he runs in his spare time. We all benefit from that. Fresh tomatoes, peppers, squash, raspberries, green beans and I forget what else. Oh yeah, corn on the cob!!! How could I forget? I can do much of my produce shopping right there at work and his prices are a lot less than Whole Foods or my beloved Plum Market.

He plowed the corn field a couple weeks ago and I think the last tomatoes were this week and we’re moving into pumpkins and things. And so we move rapidly toward the winter months in the Great Lake State and if you are lazy (like me) and don’t grow and preserve your own food, you are stuck with a few root vegetables and whatever the grokkery store has to offer. Shipped in from Cali or China or South America or wherever. Yes, I know we are “supposed” to eat locally and all that stuff. I am moving more and more in that direction but I am not a zero tolerance type person and it’ll be a pretty cold day in hell before I stop buying oranges and avocados and other things that just plain do not grow here in the Great Lake State.

It always kind of cracks me up when I read parenting bloggers and they are going nuts because their kids refuse to eat anything green. Or eat the same thing over and over and over and over for a couple weeks and then, just when you have laid in a lifetime supply of whatever it is, they suddenly refuse to eat it. Or eat air, as my kids often seemed to do. I want to comment sometimes but I generally sit on my hands because I’m sure nobody wants to listen to what some crabby old bag has to say. I sure didn’t listen to unsolicited advice from crabby old know-it-alls when my children were small. I also know how hard it can be to raise children and that what worked for me and my children may not work for someone else and their children. We are dealing with an unfathomably complex set of variables here.

But, y’know, despite many years of crazy eating habits, we’ve come full circle around here. Before I had the beach urchins, we ate relatively healthy food. I cooked things from scratch for the most part. I don’t like prepared food out of boxes and cans in general and I like to chop vegetables. But then there were kids… Teensy tinesy little six pounders who bounced along on the 0% growth curve throughout their childhoods, healthy as little miniature horses. Our habits changed a bit. Spaghettios sneaked onto the menu and later on that horrible fluorescent orange macaroni and cheese that *I* didn’t even like when *I* was a kid came crashing through the back door courtesy of “Papa”, the sweet grandpa next door. We won’t even talk about when they would come home from play rehearsals and microwave slices of pepperoni on paper towels. Blech! But then. They went away to college and, defying the stereotype of college kids packing in crappy cafeteria food, my kids went the other direction. I don’t think either one of them is a declared vegetarian but meat is not frequently on the menu and they are inspiring me to use fresh ingredients whenever I can find them and shop locally if possible. It is a challenge around here unless you have the time *and* dedication to ferret out food sources. Me? If Farmer J is out of business for the season, I mostly make do with walking to the Plum Market. I think CSAs are cool but it sounds like waaaaayyy too much food for us and I would overdose on kale and rutabaga very quickly.

So, yeah, obviously I am in a better mood. I didn’t even notice the mess in my house when I came home today. Although maybe that’s because I am absolutely utterly totally exhausted from work today. Devqua was after me today in full force and it was fuuunnnnnn but I am drained. And those are my beach urchins in the photooooo. The baby is wearing her (my) favorite little fishie suit (I think they call them “onesies” these days) and yes, the toddler with the blueberry eyes *does* have a dirty face. It’s probably chocolate. I bet her grandma gave it to her!

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