Ruined by good food

I've been eating primarily local organic food from the farmers' market lately. I'm lucky that I live walking distance from a year round farmers' market. I also signed up for a winter CSA (community supported agriculture) with Keystone Farm, so I get a box of food every week (with pick up at the market on Saturdays). In my 1/2 regular share, I get meat, cheese, 1/2 dozen eggs, granola, and a bunch of seasonal fruits and veggies. In winter that means primarily apples, potatoes, carrots, onions, and greenhouse grown lettuces. Because of this I've been doing a lot of cooking. A LOT. It's a challenge to find a way to use everything in my box each week. And I do love a challenge.

When I pick up my box each week, I also pick up a few other staples: milk (whole raw and organic from happy grass fed cows), yogurt, bread, and anything else to supplement what's in my box. There's even a stand that sells dried herbs and dried beans. I've only been to the grocery store a few times in the past months, to buy things like olive oil that aren't available at the farmers' market.

But all this good local organic food has a consequence, which I discovered last night.

One of the things I usually have a few of lying around are frozen lasagnas. From a certain company (think red box). Growing up my mom would even buy the family size when she didn't have time to make lasagna from scratch. It's the next best thing to homemade, and I always thought it was quite tasty. I also usually had a few of the blue boxes of mac 'n' cheese as well. They're comfort foods. For those nights when I don't have the energy or focus to cook. Meaning I could do myself serious harm if I tried to use fire to make dinner because I'm so tired I'm likely to burn myself by grabbing a hot pan without an oven mitt. Last night was one of those nights.

So I pulled out a frozen single serve lasagna and heated it up. And this is where it gets depressing.

It didn't taste good.

Really. I didn't enjoy eating it. I ate it because I was hungry, but I was honestly tempted to throw it out (read: give it to my dog, the walking garbage disposal...who needs a compost bin when you have a dog?) and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead but my bread was frozen. I was telling my best friend S about it and she said it's like when she tried to eat her favorite boxed mac 'n' cheese (a popular organic brand) from her childhood and all she could taste was salt and chemicals. And that's exactly what it was that I tasted. Salt and chemicals. It even left an unpleasant lingering aftertaste on my tongue. I ended up drinking a glass of that whole raw organic milk to cleanse my palate and wash away the chemical and salt coating on my tongue.

I've been ruined by good food. Damn.

Annoyed

Audi, yes, the car company, has been using the serious crime of identity theft in a series of commercials. They're marketing their new car as "unmistakable." So to illustrate this, they're using identity theft. In one commercial, kids exit school to be confronted with a line of cars that are exactly the same...only the kid who's mom is driving the Audi is able to find her and confidently gets in the car while his classmates are stumped at identifying their moms. In another, a woman is confronted with line after line of identical cars in a parking garage, unable to find hers. Of course, the Audi is the only one that's different. You get the idea.

Frankly, I find them disturbing, insulting, and they really piss me off. Everytime I see one of those commercials I want to throw something at the TV I get so angry.

Identity theft is serious. VERY SERIOUS. I cannot stress that enough. You have to take it seriously, both to prevent it and if you are unfortunate enough to be a victim. It's much more serious than your car looking like someone else's car, thankyouverymuch. My identity is so much more important than a friggin' car. It determines whether or not I can buy that car. Or buy anything else, for that matter. As a victim of identity theft, seeing Audi use that serious crime for a car commercial only makes me want to never ever buy one of their products. Ever. They have permanently lost my business.

I think that Audi take a long hard look at their use of such a serious crime to sell a vehicle and consider publishing an apology to those of us that have been victims. Not to mention fire their head of marketing for letting a campagin like that move forward. Poor taste. Very very poor taste, Audi. I am not impressed.