christina aguilera on national public radio?

it's true...i was listening to NPR this afternoon on a tiny radio in the kitchen (ironically enough, playing housemother/domestic goddess as both parents were working today) when, at the end of a great piece about a new word surfacing in england (the word is chavs) the christina aguilera hit "dirrty" (no, that's not a typo) played as the "exit music" to the piece. the song's subject matter is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the very "saturday evening post"-type moment i had been having: evie in the highchair eating cereal and applesauce, i dilligently mincing clove upon clove of garlic;

i'm not making it up...proof here. you can imagine the slightly uncomfortable moment as the silence blissfully took over for the house-grunge-stripper beat, and the hosts searched for a more comfortable segue into the "real" news.

i know, the real question is what was i making for dinner? as i said, both mom and dad were working, so as an extended olive branch to my youngest brother (who is thirteen, hence we are not always getting along) i whipped up some shrimp alfredo (augmenting the canned sauce) with penne. for evie and i, i modified a recipe for veggie black bean burgers, adding corn and kidney beans, skipping the green peppers. they came out well, i think. yesterdays adventure in the kitchen was homemade falafel (i even made the beans myself!) with a kind of garlic-y sauce of miracle whip, tahini, and cayenne, and yet another variation on an egg salad theme.

last week's attempt at making spinach pesto, wherein i substituted fresh spinach for basil, ended up a strange neon green (think of the slime in the nickelodeon show "you can't do that on television"); it tasted, i'd say, average. edible, mildly pleasant, nothing i'd pay for. thankfully, i chatted with a chef at a wedding this weekend and came home with a better understanding of fresh/herb based sauces, and a new set of ideas and proportions.

planning on doing evie's grocery shopping in the morning, so i'll possibly attempt the spinach pesto again tomorrow.

now that "lost" is in summer re-runs, i'll have even more time for cooking!

my, my, my, i train for meals the way some men and women train for the high jump, no?