Just eat it in a bowl

In my life of good, bad, and really, really bad decisions, a couple things came to light this week that made me laugh as things you really shouldn’t do.
These are not things that require heavy lifting, but an easy Sunday morning diatribe may just be in order.
Everyone knows you shouldn’t go to the grocery store hungry. That’s when you end up with oatmeal cream pies, chips, French onion dip, ready-to-bake cookie dough, Cheez-Its™, pizza rolls, Pillsbury everything, and the first thing in the checkout lane that has chocolate in it.
But I made the bigger mistake of going this week for peanut M&Ms. Just peanut M&Ms. I should’ve just went to the convenience store and grabbed a small bag for $8.37 but I decided I could save per peanut M&M by getting a bigger bag.
In a weird twist of Mars fate, there they were in a big yellow grab bag just past the cart corral at Fareway in Fort Madison.
It's like they knew I was coming. I think they was a six-piece brass band behind them with a “Welcome, Chuck” sign adorned with gold streamers. That might be my imagination, but I woulda sworn.
And these just weren’t your regular peanut M&Ms. These were the holiday versions. Thank GOD! I don’t have to worry about brown and yellow and orange candies. Just the festive red and green. A whole bag of red and green crunchy, chocolatey goodness.
I threw the 1-pound bag in the cart and was headed around to pay and then ended up going down the juice aisle, down the frozen food section, through the chips aisle, back to the produce section, through the cereal aisle, and then back through the dairy case. There is no method to the madness. It’s just madness. I think, and then I go.
Someone told me in a text to make sure I get the “unfertilized” eggs. Me, not being the consummate grocery guru, didn’t know there was such a thing as a fertilized egg for sale. So, I started reading all the styrofoam egg packages. Someone was screwing with your friendly neighborhood reporter. However, there is such a thing as a fertilized egg, but stores must order them special. So there. I may be gullible, but I’ll find a defense for it.
Thirty minutes later, I’d spent $89 and had a small cart full of stuff I didn’t really need. Multi Grain Cheerios™ - you know for the health factor, but then you open the bag and there they are completely glazed like donuts. BOOOO.
I spent about $20 on a juice I drink once a week made of two parts pomegranate juice and one-part aronia berry juice. Yikes. That better be doing something good, cause it tastes like someone juiced a stick and added fruit juice.
Hey, ask my brothers, I’ll try anything once.
Which brings me to my other “don’t do” in the grocery/cooking arena.
I got some keto-friendly bread to make sandwiches because apparently eating healthy is “too expensive” And this goes to the 'I’ll try anything once'. My favorite sandwich is a grilled ham and cheese with pickles inside the grilled part. Parthenon used to make THE best grilled ham and cheese with pickles. Someone needs to reopen that dawg. I miss the salad bar, too. Someone could open that and I’d spend almost as much as I spend at Kempker's. Almost.
Anyway, don’t make grilled sandwiches with Keto bread. I don’t think that sponge is real bread! I oiled the pan with avocado oil, rubbed it in, buttered the bread and built the sandwiches. I did have to pre-grill the ham slices because they never get hot and that ticks me off. Melted cheese on cold ham – blech.
So that pan was hot and seasoned and the sandwiches were ready piled high with cooked ham and mild cheddar. I put about eight pickle slices between the cheese and the ham. I set the two sandwiches on the skillet and let them cook. Sipping on my stick-and-berry juice, with the radio playing, and me trying my best Tootsie Roll dance moves through the kitchen, I went to flip my great smelling, sizzling sandwiches.
NOPE.
My long thin spatula slid gently through the bottom of the sandwich leaving the nice crusted surface stuck to the pan. WTH!? I flipped the first sandwich and it was very clear as the pickles and cheese stared at me from the spatula and the destroyed bread, that I was eating this out of a bowl tonight.
Now, I like my stuff all thrown into a bowl. It just tastes better that way, but I was going to dip this in ketchup one time. I envisioned a nice corner-to-corner cut of the sandwich with layered ham and gooey cheese and pickles, dipped delicately by the corner into the ketchup, cuz the same person that said get the “unfertilized” eggs told me to try the ketchup. “Just once.”
Well, I had no sandwiches, as the other one performed the same way. They did the same thing when I tried to take them out of the pan. So, not to be deflated, deterred, or denied, I threw both messes into a bowl. Scrapped the toasty shims of bread out of the skillet, threw that in the bowl, took a butter knife and massacred it. Then I drizzled ketchup on top with the elegance of Ina Garten, put the bowl on a plate with some crinkle cut fries I overcooked in the toaster oven, and went off to the living room and a tv tray.
What a disaster, but man, that rocked. Bowl eating is the best.
So a couple things. Never ever go to the store just ‘cuz you’re craving M&M’s, they “know” you’re coming, and never use keto-friendly bread for grilled sammies.
And speaking of something working out great, they’re putting Betty White on a postage stamp. She would love that but would be just a little disappointed she doesn’t have to be licked – But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.