Sometimes what you get isn't what you wanted

Three weeks ago, I signed up for a bi-weekly delivery of vegetables. I was super excited about this. I was so super extra excited about this that I told everyone who would sit still long enough. I checked the website about every eight minutes in case they'd updated the list of what would probably be in the box. I Googled for reviews of the service in case I'd managed to miss one. I thought about vegetables more than is strictly good for anyone.

I have to admit I was disappointed.

Now, this is in no way a negative review of the service itself. Once we've gotten a few more boxes, I'll probably review it in detail and by name (just in case I'm not the only obsessive Googler out there). It's just that my ideas about how it would be to get the box of vegetables didn't pan out. I didn't arrive home to a tidy package, all waiting to be unwrapped and photographed for posterity. My kitchen was still dirty. There were still days when I wanted to eat convenience food rather than cook delicious vegetables. Having organic vegetables delivered to my house didn't manage to change me instantly into a model person, drat the luck.

We got another box today, and I was a little more prepared for the anti-climax. I couldn't quite keep myself from checking the site a lot to find out exactly what would be in the box, so the score is definitely Obsession: 2, Pamela: 0. I got home this week and Josh was in the kitchen spontaneously cooking collard greens. He was excited about them, and they were damn good.

The kitchen could still stand to be a whole lot cleaner, and the odds of me having a peanut butter sandwich for lunch next week are excellent, but I'm starting to see that the produce box might yield some good things. Not the ones I thought I was getting, but things I wouldn't have known how to picture.

Adding to my things to do list

Here's an interesting article from Slate, about what to make (and not make) at home. I've always had a (possibly overly romantic) picture of producing homemade soup stock, jam and bread. But bagels and yoghurt? Never really crossed my mind.

Now, after reading this article, I'm adding "make yoghurt, bagels and granola" to my list of stuff I want to try this summer. I already wanted to eat more yoghurt, so when the quart in the fridge is getting low, I'll replace it with homemade. (I reserve the right to say "yuck" very loudly and never do it again.)

If I have tons of lovely fresh yoghurt to eat, of course we'll need granola to eat with it. So that's also not too hard to imagine doing. The Alton Brown recipe the article refers to has maple syrup, which is expensive, delightful and not my favorite thing, so I may branch out there. But again, this seems pretty easily attainable, and also healthy.

As for the bagels, that's another story. Homemade bagels seem like a once-in-a-while indulgence. Some time in July or August, I'm going to decide to make bagels on a weekend, treat us to smoked salmon and cream cheese, and see what happens.