Beans on Branches (& I’m Loving It!)

Now y’all know I’m tryin to live right. So two double coupon days ago DivaCardista bought her some double coupon bran cereal. But child, that bowl of so called bran flakes was baptized in & preserved with so much honey, [barley malt and corn] syrup, brown sugar and glycerin (of all things) that I could save it, bag it and give it out to the trick or treaters for Halloween. Got dog! I’m like, where’s the bran? And where’s the demented Battle Creek dentist who designed this here cereal? (Probably at the bank.)

Thank goodness for fresh fruit to serve with it.

Why, you didn’t think I threw my cereal away, did you? Oh, no my dear. Having been raised and influenced by survivors of the Great Depression, I just hook it up with a bunch of good old New Jersey blueberries, half a banana and some plain walnuts. Then I sprinkle this faux bran cereal on top. May as well use it as a condiment, since it pretty much is.

Furthermore, if my dearly departed Daddy knew I was throwing away "good [non-refundable] food", I declare he would come back from The Other Side and burst out crying. And we can't have that, now can we?

If neither the heat nor the calendar hasn't confirmed summers arrival for you, the abundance of wonderfully fresh & delightfully cheap fresh fruit sure should. In the winter or even late spring, you’d go to your green grocer and ask kind sir, do you have any blueberries? And he’d say, yeah. a couple. how many you want? And then he’d get a pair of tweezers and give you three tiny scared lifeless blueberries for four dollars. Now? For three dollars you can just about get as many robust & delightful blueberries as you can cart away. Gotta love summer!

And then there’s watermelon. Lord help me, if I didn’t have as much self control as I do, I would eat this cool red sweet divine lycopene-rich temptation three times a day, three seasons out of the year. Holla if ya feel me!

I’m also loving this arms race between our beloved fast food corporations. Back in the day when water was free and cable was cheesy, who would have dreamed there would one day be something called edamame (aka "beans on branches" or soybeans) sitting up in somebody’s salad at the local Fry and Go? But it sure is nice to see something green just as easy as seeing something greasy at the drive through window.

And a word for the strangers who nuke, fry or serve us food, fast: Let us take a tiny moment to whisper a word of prayer for every mother’s child who has to serve anything today where gravy has to touch and mingle with cheese as a predetermined part of the entre!

May your summer day be full of actual flavor and true delight.

Blessings,
DivaCardista