Some Thoughts About Food Items

1. Tillamook Brand Marionberry Pie ice cream is sheer ambrosia. Julie served me some when I visited her recently. I had a big dish, and then another biggish dish a while later, and before bedtime the next evening I finished off the carton ("You don't mind, do you?" I said between slobbery spoonfuls). It's vanilla ice cream rippled with marionberry, which is nice and tart, PLUS chunks of pie crust, which add a salty, cookie-dough-like effect. Oh my, but it's tasty. I mourned when I left Julie's home. I was going to miss her, and I was going to miss Tillamook Brand Marionberry Pie ice cream, for I understood it was sold only in the Pacific Northwest. But WinCo Foods has recently debuted in these parts (WinCo as in Washington-Idaho-Nevada-California-Oregon) and darned if there isn't a panorama of Tillamook ice creams in the frozen food section. Marionberry Pie ice cream has been in our freezer ever since. I highly, highly, recommend it. This is also my niece Julia's favorite ice cream.

2. Today Emma and I had a discussion about repentance. I told her that all of us make mistakes, even grown-ups make mistakes, etc. Mommy makes mistakes all the time, for example. "Like the time you put ketchup on your hot dog instead of mustard?" she said solemnly. You see, Joe has carefully trained this child. She knows that nobody, I mean nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog.

And if you don't believe me, take it from Clint Eastwood.

3. Speaking of ketchup, I admit to using it inappropriately in the past. When Joe and I were dating he was aghast to learn that I often ate frozen burritos with ketchup for dinner. But I grew up putting ketchup on Mexican food. There was no such thing as salsa in La Grande, Oregon, in the 60s. Mom fried up the tortilla shells in oil, we crammed them with hamburger, lettuce, and cheddar cheese and doused them with Heinz ketchup. And they were good, especially with cold milk. It wasn't until 1982 that I first encountered salsa. There's an entry in my journal that year after I had dinner at someone's house where they served chips with a "good, tomatoey kind of sauce."

4. I also remember my friend Genia telling me (circa 1974) about a really good new kind of chip-- "Nocko" Cheese Doritos.

5. And my first memory of ranch dressing is vivid. Frances Cooper brought us a quart jar of homemade ranch dressing (1970?) and we were...smitten. There really was a Hidden Valley Ranch, by the way. The internet says: "In 1954, Steve and Gayle Henson opened a dude ranch near Santa Barbara, California, and named it "Hidden Valley Ranch". As a side business, they sold to guests a special dressing that Steve had developed in Alaska. The dressing was popular, and they began selling bottles that guests could take home, and later opened a factory to sell packets of ranch seasoning that had to be mixed with mayonnaise and buttermilk (packets that are still available to this day). In 1972 the brand was bought by Clorox for $8 million."

So maybe it was 1972 when Frances Cooper brought over the quart jar. And having "Clorox" included in a description of ranch dressing is unsavory.

So enough food talk; on to the Emma pictures. But please do share your own random food-related bits of trivia. I think they're innaresting.

Emma pictures: We went for a walk along the Jordan River Parkway last night. Emma scampered. There she is in mid-scamper below.

And is it just me....or is she not just about the loveliest little girl in the entire known universe?