As soon as I heard the 2024 presidential election results, one of my conclusions was that, as things unfolded, the most “you can’t make this shit up” chaos would reign. The closest approximation to such a reality that I found was the Batman Multiverses. Since I’m not a time nor dimension traveler, I’m considering the next four years to be my life in one of Batman Universes.
Around November 2024, I started reading A Year with No Sugar. One behavior I adopted since then was to avoid high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The author went nuts and did away with ALL sugar, finding it in meats, gravies and other unexpected places.
Years ago, I stopped eating all so-called breakfast foods because of the ridiculous amount of sugar found in all of them. I’ve only recently started buying instant oatmeal again for the cholestrol-lowering properties, but may start buying plain oatmeal and just adding my own mix-ins.
At end of the book, there were recipes. Normally, I don’t cook. I just forage leftovers from Mom’s and my sister’s cooking. Since I’m not a picky eater and an omnivore, I make out pretty well. Yet, since vacation PTO was right around the corner, I baked Apricot Date Lemon bars, which I thought were delicious. My family all politely tried it and didn’t care for it. More for me!
The only other thing I made, which was part of the New Year’s Day good luck meal, was my favorite version of cornbread: monterey jack cheese, sharp cheddar cheese, whole corn kernels, and green chilies. Since the pandemic, I can no longer find hot green chilies, so the mild ones had to make do. For this recipe, I used three tablespoons of agave since we had no honey, as the recipe called for. Nonetheless, it turned out delicious.
This paired well with the black-eyed peas that my sister made and the other auspicious foods that Mom made: tomato blunder, ham fried rice and collard greens.
Speaking of “green,” the president-elect wants to buy or conquer Greenland, which the Danish government says isn’t for sale; wants to rename The Gulf of Mexico, “The Gulf of America;” and wants to annex Canada, making it the 51st state.