The owls are not what they seem

Coming to grips with grapes

Extra credit if you can name the cultural reference that informs the title of my post today.

Hint: You have to be extra weird to get it. But in a good way, like the pirate.

And the way it ties in today, is on the subject of grapes and at least one other thing.

Have you tried lately to buy a good grape?

You should know that for many years I have been more or less obsessed (overused word; forgive me but in this case it is accurate) with red grapes.

Green grapes are okay but I'm going for the resveratrol in the red kind.

For a long time, as soon as I bought my grapes, I froze them.

Then, when thawed for a certain length of time (about ten minutes), they were like round semi-mushy popsicles. Most delicious and fun to eat.

Best for summertime, but I look for grapes year round.

Here is the problem: It has become difficult to find good-tasting grapes.

And then there is the price, which is at times so outrageous that I won't buy the grapes no matter what they taste like.

But lets talk about taste. And texture! As those concepts apply to the red table grape.

Two things are paramount: a snap when you bite, and a tart-sweet flavor. Juicy of course, but not too juicy.

Naturally then, when I come upon the grapes in the produce department, I first look them over. I'm checking out their overall appearance, to include their size. And then if I think there is hope, I taste one or two.

If you put a grape in your mouth and bite down and there is a slight resistance, that's a good sign.

But then the taste which follows must be an ideal balance between sweet and tart.

It's a heady mix and more often than not, the grapes I encounter these days do not pass muster.

I've tried putting red grapes on my list when TG graciously goes to the store for me, and keeping my fingers crossed when he comes back and I find that he bought some.

Easy Candied Pecans cooling on the Silpat

It's not that he is ignorant of grape characteristics; it's just that he does not eat them, so it doesn't mean as much to him what they taste like.

He makes every attempt to bring me what I'm looking for in a grape, and often succeeds.

But a few months ago I had to tell him that what he'd brought home was not up to snuff in the least.

They were large round globe grapes.

I'm sorry and if you like this variety of grape, God bless you, but for me? Just no.

These grapes are, one, too big. Too round. And, two, they have seeds.

SEEDS! I mean, who wants a grape with seeds? Not the pirate.

You have to bite one -- they're huge, nearly ping-pong-ball sized, so you pretty much have to bite them in half anyway -- and those seeds (like, four of them) are in the middle.

Then you have a decision to make: either crunch on those, which is unpleasant, or tease them out with a fingernail and put them in your napkin.

Ugh.

It destroys the grape eating experience, I am here to tell you. But then there isn't much to eating that kind of grape to begin with.

There is no snap and there is no tartness. What's inside is mushy sweetish water, the flavor of which barely if at all resembles that of a red table grape.

I don't know what they're thinking by putting those on offer in the produce department because I cannot imagine who likes them.

So anyway last week, after New Year's celebrations had died down and become a thing of the recent past, I went to the store with a list.

By the way, normally on New Year's -- either Eve or Day -- we don't do anything special.

But this year, since I'd been sick at Christmas, I wanted to make some festive foods and have the family over.

We also invited a new friend from church, who accepted our invitation and it was nice getting to know him.

I served (again) Naughty Hammie Sammies. It will have to be a while before we have those again, because they are addictive.

Funeral Potatoes ready to go into the oven

(And I should tell you that instead of the three-fourths pound of shaved ham called for by the recipe, I use a full pound. Go thou and do likewise.)

In addition to the sammies we had Funeral Potatoes (recipe tweaked to include one cup of sautéed onion and a packet of Ranch dressing mix), a reprise of our Christmas Eve bacon-wrapped Lit'l Smokies with a BBQ dipping sauce, baked beans, deviled eggs, pirate cheese ball with cracker assortment, tortilla strips with salsa, Easy Candied Pecans, and Brownie Pie served with Reddi-wip, the price of which has gone through the proverbial roof.

(I mean, seven dollars for a can of whipped cream? Give me a break. We bought the store brand.)

Back to the grape story, which took place a couple of days after our congenial New Year's soirée.

Standing in front of the refrigerated grape area, said grapes already loaded into cellophane bags, not even having planned to buy any but noticing that they looked like the kind of grape I like, I tasted one.

It was perfect. That grape was just the right size -- not too small, not too large, about the size of a marble, Goldilocks in grape form -- and it had the snap. And it had the tart-sweet flavor.

We were there. We had arrived in beautiful downtown gorgeous got-to-have-some Grapeville.

Thrilled, I picked up a bag stuffed to the gills with grapes.

At the till I loaded not just my grapes but all of my purchases onto the conveyor belt. I know most of the cashiers at this particular store -- well I mean, at any given time there are only perhaps two cashiers ringing up groceries -- but I noticed that a young girl unfamiliar to me was working that day.

When I say young, I mean maybe eighteen years old. She was tallish and slender, but what stood out and was in fact impossible to ignore, was her hair.

Now mind you I had not stared directly at the young lady; I was busy with my stuff and I don't stare anyway.

But I could not help but notice the constant, near-obsessive relationship the young cashier had with her hair.

The hair was long -- to the middle of her back -- and stick-straight. It was mouse-brown in color, unexceptional in that way but nevertheless clean and soft and well cared for.

It was hair that gets a great deal of attention from the one upon whose head it lives. Hair that has frequent contact with shampoos and conditioners, not to mention styling tools and a hairbrush.

Because of its length and texture, and the fact that it was unrestrained, the hair hung like a soft curtain over the girl's face.

It wasn't just in her face; it was all around her face, in fact obscuring her face unless she touched and moved the hair every six to eight seconds.

Which she did. 

In my peripheral vision I could see that she would first run her hand across the top of her head to reposition the hair, a useless gesture because it immediately fell right back into her face.

Deep Dish Brownie Pie is one hundred percent legit

She would then toss her head before sweeping the hair across the back of her neck and over onto one shoulder so that if she held her head at an awkward angle, for a few seconds at least the hair hung across only one side of her face.

There was no scrunchie lodged on her wrist, to use when she'd gotten enough of incessantly fooling with the hair. She did not anchor the hair behind her ears or make any attempt other than constantly moving it around, to keep the hair out of her face.

At about that time I was up. It was my turn and I needed to hand the girl a can of cut green beans and say I have twelve of these (Rizzo eats green beans every day at three o'clock), so that I didn't have to haul the whole cardboard tray of them up onto the belt.

And the cashier kindly and efficiently dealt with that, and when she did, I noticed something.

I realized with what I admit was a jolt, that she was a he.

My cashier was a young man and not a young lady, as I had supposed for the past several minutes.

He was a person of gentle features and as I said, slender. And then there was the abundance of hair, and what seemed to me to be a distinctly feminine preoccupation with it.

As the young man continued to struggle with his luxuriant hair between scanning each item -- a situation which must have been exhausting to deal with throughout a multi-hour shift -- I wondered why someone in management had not told him that he needed to pull his hair back and secure it somehow.

Because if he got careless and leaned down three inches while the conveyor belt was running, bringing an order close enough for him to scan the items, it would have grabbed his hair. The potential liability for the store was clear -- at least to me.

And if that had happened, there would have been a kerfuffle resulting in some hair having to be cut, if not an even worse scenario unfolding.

Not to mention the distraction of a grocery cashier constantly touching and flipping and sweeping and obsessing about the hair on their head, in a setting where food is being handled.

Was this a case of someone in authority not wanting to risk offending an employee seeming to display a certain identity, even though under the circumstances it was a clear dereliction of duty not to do so?

Even though by not saying something, in my opinion the management was at the very least ignoring common-sense protocol, and at the worst, putting the young man at risk, at least marginally, of injury?

I have an uneasy feeling that if the cashier had been a female, the directive would have been issued forthwith: hair should be secured so that it does not fall into the face and have to be constantly touched, especially when worn at a length that makes it a hazard when working near a conveyor belt.

At any rate, we'll never know.

The young man rang up my groceries the rest of the way and said he hoped I'd have a good day, and I thanked him and since I always say I appreciate you (because I do), I said that and walked away.

When I got home, I was so excited to have some really good grapes. I washed and tasted one or two more as I put my groceries away.

Rhett at Aunt Audrey's, fixing to pray over his dinner

Only, later -- the next day, to be exact -- I realized something.

In the bag I had purchased, a quantity of good grapes -- the kind I like, the kind I look for, the kind I love -- had been placed on top of a quantity of those huge round watery seed-laden globe grapes that I hate.

The ones with no taste and no texture but no dearth of utter nonsense.

It was only then that I saw clearly marked on the cellophane bag:

RED GLOBE GRAPES WITH SEEDS

Because a completely different type of grapes were present in impressive numbers when I checked them out visually, and reached inside the bag for a taste, I had not noticed that what lay beneath them was the opposite of what I thought I was getting.

Even though the bag was clearly marked, there reigned confusion.

Guess I'll have to look more closely next time instead of making assumptions based upon information gleaned at first glance. And plan what I buy into, accordingly.

Lesson learned.

And that is all for now except to wish you a Happy New Year.

Oh, and to say that today and always, I appreciate you.

=0=0=0=

Happy Tuesday

Comments

[Ginny Hartzler]

It is SO good to see you again! Thanks you so much for your card and all of your concern, it meant and does mean so much to me!!! I totally agree with your theory that if the cashier was a woman, they would have informed her of some hair protocol! Goodness, looks like you just cannot win the grape thing! And by the way, have you heard of the cotton candy grapes? VERY sweet. I have printed the Hammie Sammie recipe, I am going to try it. I am going to scroll down now and see some of your posts that I missed.

[Ginny Hartzler]

No, I don't know about the owl quote. Do tell, I am so curious now!

[Ginny Hartzler]

Darn, I cannot find any previous posts! Well, I hope you had a great Christmas! Were you sick?

[Leilani Schuck Weatherington]

I made a grape pie once with red seedless grapes for a church supper. It was good, and people actually ate it. My friend went to the store yesterday to by grapes and they were $4.99 a pound. She did not come home with grapes. You may have to make another trip to the store to see whether the young man with the hair is still working there, and if so, has his hair been dealt with.

[Jennifer]

@Ginny ... Hallloooo my friend! It's good to see YOU! So glad you're feeling better. I don't understand why you are unable to scroll down and see my posts! They are there! Anyway YES I was sick not once but TWICE in December! Bronchitis and then the flu! Ugh let's not look back. I have heard of cotton candy grapes and they are too sweet for me. Regular red table grapes are plenty sweet if one can only find some that are normal, with the snap and the tart to go along with the sweet! Can't wait to hear what you think of Naughty Hammie Sammies! They are so good! OK so "The owls are not what they seem" is a quote from Twin Peaks, a strange 1991 TV show of which I am a fan starting on day one and continuing until the present, hahaha xoxo

@Leilani ... whaaaaat? A grape pie? I am going to search for a recipe because I've never heard of such a thing. YES sometimes the grape prices can be ridiculous and when they are I do not come home with grapes either! I will sure be on the lookout for the young hair man because they've just got to make him tie that back! xoxo

[Mari]

Grapes! Yes - I hear you . I hate those big tasteless grapes and am so not a fan of seeds in them.
I can't imagine how disappointed you were to find those kind in your bag under the good ones.
The naughty Hammie Sammies are so good. That brownie pie looks yummy too.
I agree on the cashier. Management is afraid to say something.
I appreciate you too!
PS - Twin Peaks...

[Jim and Barb]

Oh no! Seeded grapes are the worst! I worked in the grocery industry for 30 years and know my grapes. They come from different parts of the country and South America depending on the time of the year. Some are good, some are not. Summer is definitely the best time for the grapes you are referring to!

[Jennifer]

@Mari ... Did you KNOW Twin Peaks or are you cheating off of Ginny's paper? Hahahahaha! I can't imagine you liking that crazy show. But anyway yes the globe grapes are gross!!!! I got snookered!!! I'm so glad you liked the Naughty Hammie Sammies!!! xoxo

@Jim and Barb ... YES so good in summer! I got a few good ones out of that batch the other day though, before the nasty ones were revealed! It was such fun enjoying them. You enjoy South Carolina in the wintertime, some may say the best time to visit here, hahaha! xoxo

[Jim and Barb]

Oh, on the owls. Does it have something to do with only owls and demons come out at night?

[Mari]

No cheating, I just now saw your answer to Ginnie. Was that there before? I did watch the show for awhile, but wasn't a huge fan. :)

[AC]

I wondered if you would get back to grapes and you did. Well done. I can't tell you how often I have reached for an item and brought a different item home. I figure what I must do is look away while my hand reaches, and I miss the mark.

[Skunk (aka Mike Bay)]

The grapes this time of year are not what they seem, true that.
Even the owls complain about the ones they get in the blue room at Twin Peaks...or when it comes to owls, Twin Peeps. *Most owls read that, pull a wing over their face and wince "owl, that hurts..."

It's an owl thang.

Love red grapes, but getting good ones this time of year is next to not happening. Never had a grape pie...sounds intriguing.

[Jennifer]

@Jim and Barb ... no it's a line from the short-lived 1991 TV show Twin Peaks! The log lady says it to Agent Cooper, hahaha! xoxo

@Mari ... I just can't picture you watching that in 1991, hahaha! I was intrigued from the opening scene but I admit it took some dedication to see it through to the end. Very weird show. xoxo

@AC ... I've done the same. I noticed the other day that I have a bag of frozen collard greens in my freezer. I have never eaten a collard green and have no plans to. I must have thought it was broccoli, hahaha! xoxo

@Mike .. Will you be here all week? Haaahahaa! Did you know that some years ago, I was viciously attacked by an owl? It was at night. True story. I survived to tell about it. It will probably be a while before I venture into the produce department looking for grapes. Once bitten, blah blah xoxo

[Lori]

We love grapes too and it does seem hard to find good ones this time of year. I prefer the purple grapes but also like the red. What I've been having trouble finding for months are decent bananas. They all look horrible and go bad so quickly.
I agree, if the cashier would have been a female she would have been told to pull her hair back immediately. Sad that there are double standards now because so many are afraid to speak up and offend someone.
Rhett is just the most adorable child!!
I hope you've fully recovered and enjoyed the first week of the New Year. Hugs!!

[Jennifer]

@Lori ... I don't buy many bananas so I haven't noticed, but TG will occasionally bring a few home and then ignore them, and I end up freezing them for banana bread! We don't communicate very well I don't supposed, hahaha! Yes I think it's miraculous that I got a few really good grapes in January. I'm thankful for that. Being afraid to speak the truth lest we offend someone is becoming dangerous practice! If we don't forsake that foolish path, we are doomed. I agree that Rhett is darling. His eyes! What a doll. I am feeling fine and hope you and TBG are too! xoxo

[Jeanette]

I love grapes but rarely buy them because A) the price is ridiculous, even in the summer unless they are having a sale and B) they are the worse fruit I can eat being diabetic! Rich loves them though so I do buy them for him when I can find good ones on sale. Yes, the store is taking a huge risk not making that young man (?) pull his hair back. I won't tell you what I saw one time when I worked at U of M pathology when a lady got her hair stuck in a conveyor belt. I'm sure you can imagine. Such a cute picture of little Rhett ready to pray! I'm writing a second comment with my address that you can just delete. Have a good week my friend!

[Carla TePaske]

Hello my dear friend,
Oh my goodness me... you had me laughing about the hair, the conveyor belt, and then she was a he. We have a new young lady, who is yes, a young lady working at our local market, she is beautiful. I have gone to her twice to check out, and she is just lovely. She wears her hair in a bun with a flower.
xx oo
Carla
P.S. I am so happy you are feeling better!!!
P.S.S. I cannot stand Cotton Candy grapes... have you tried them? So strange to breed a grape to taste like cotton candy!!!
Carla

[Jennifer]

@Jeanette ... Yes the price can be ridiculous but it's so nice to find good grapes when they can be found and you don't have to hock the farm to buy them! Ugh that must have been a gruesome sight, hair in a conveyor belt! Hard to forget. Thank you for your address! xoxo

@Carla ... Someone who takes the time to style their hair and put a flower in has my vote every time! I maybe tasted a cotton candy grape once but would never buy them. They are sweet enough as it is! Yes I'm feeling all better. Isn't it a blessing? Haahaha xoxo

[Donna]

Rhett...how adorable! He's growing up so fast...
The brownie pie and potatoes look SO good! Printing!
And as for the grapes, I'm with you. A grape with seeds...are useless and too much work. The young woman/man/boy/girl...I get tired just trying to figure them out...absolutely needed to pull said hair back off the face! Accident waiting to happen. I used to be an A&P checker back in my high school days and I can guarantee Anything that gets caught in those rollers ,Stays in those rollers! Super dangerous...maybe you could call the manager and just suggest something be said for the kids safety? Just saying...I would get so aggravated with all the hair antics I'd probably say something...lolol
And lastly, Twin Peaks...yes, I looked it up! Lolol
Probably not what you were looking for...
Love you sweet friend!!
hugs
Donna

[Jennifer]

@Donna ... hahaha yes Twin Peaks! Girl you MUST make the funeral potatoes and the brownie pie. The pie is AMAZING and so easy! Yes I should have said something at the store but you know how I am ... shy and retiring, hahahahaaa! xoxo