Thing One and Beloved went grocery shopping together this past weekend. He used to go it alone, but since he's a man of leisure (i.e., cooking, shopping, schlepping kids around, arranging playdates, babysitting the children of the single moms in the area, cooking, making the most of farmer's markets, building beds, installing shelves, planning meals, keeping house, and general merrymaking with children. sometimes merrymaking means coming up with crafts ideas, sometimes it means mapping out the neighborhood, sometimes it means playing Othello, sometimes it means dancing to goofy music) ....

what the HELL was I saying?

Beloved ... man of leisure ... no longer doing 100% of grocery shopping on Sundays in a hurry so one of 2 days off is wasted in Whole Foods.

Right.

so last week, he took Thing Two with him. Thing Two's name is now Julez. I'm sick of "Thing Two." It's still a variation, but has more of her personality.

They had fun. They bought fruit, and they had tea (it was a cool day, and she tends to always be SUPER HOT or SUPER COLD), she chose some things to try.

So this past week, Emz went with him. (that's thing one - thing one no more - again, sick of it). They came home with many finds. They got a COCONUT. Emz was also very happy to come home with some cheese. It was sheep's milk, and she had a sample in Whole Foods while they were shopping, and she said it was the BEST CHEESE IN THE WORLD. They also got Apples. Red ones. Red, Gala Apples.

[chapter 2]

Tonight, we had a fantastic dinner. beloved and i are continuing with our healthy eating campaign (perhaps i should call it "low glycemic index eating campaign, since some may balk at our choices if they were on a "low fat" campaign"), and he made us a fantastic dinner with Thai Basil Beef and some green beans with a peanut sauce. It was delicious! He was worried that it was too spicy for the girls. But while they each had their complaints, spicy-ness was not one of them --- Emz didn't like the peanut sauce (she's weird) and Julez didn't like the large amount of ginger in the meal. But neither said too much about it, and finished their dinners. Julez even had seconds on beans.

But while we were eating, Emz said, "Can we have some cheese for dessert?"

What a lovely idea!!

[chapter 3]

We finished up dinner, I finished some laundry i had going, and beloved and i dealt with some business we were tending to (post forthcoming).

Then, I cut the cheese.

We often have dessert. A little something, a nip of sweetness. sometimes it's fruit - sometimes it's goldfish crackers. things like that. sometimes we pick up chocolate covered raisins from Trader Joe's, and the kids get 8 or 10.

But we have never had CHEESE. it was such a compelling idea.

Emz' cheese came in a small wedge. so i had Julez inform Beloved that we were about to serve the cheese, and I served it on a dish .... we all (gasp!) came to the dinner table! We had one large plate of cheese! We nibbled! We chatted about the yumminess! Beloved said, "some fruit would be really good with this!" Julez got an apple, I cut it. Emz taught us (as Beloved had taught her) how to choose a good, ripe apple. (As IF I will ever go to the grocery store!!)

We sat and ate our fruit and our cheese. We had such a nice time.

We always eat dinner together ... there are rare ocassions when i cannot be here ... this is the second time while I'm in school that there are 12 weeks in a row where I miss a weekly dinner. This time it's Thursdays, last time, I think it was Mondays. But otherwise, we eat together, at the table.

But dessert (the girls just taught me the difference b/t desert and dessert ... if s's are dessert, you always want more .... something like that) - we usually eat on our own, or the girls are at the table while Beloved and I are doing other things.

Julez loved it. She was so happy about our extra time together, and our cheese, and then she and Beloved looked up the French phrase for the "Night of Cheese" and we decided that since we had so much fun,

Tuesdays are now the Night of Cheese.

It even made it onto our Dry Erase board, abbreviated (so as to not take up the entire Tuesday block) as NF. Every Tuesday.

Which means whichever young person goes to the store with Beloved each week must choose a cheese.

The Night of Cheese. A new Chateau Zuska ritual (if Beloved wants to suggest a new House Name, he may do so).

posted by Zuska @ 8:18 PM

1 Comments:

At Tuesday, September 05, 2006 9:24:00 PM, Unknown said…

Awesome cheese story. I think I'll go cut off a bit of feta while I brief Health Law.