Roasted corn and roasted red potatoes are a huge step up from the way those vegetables normally taste. And grilling seems to bring out the best in onions and all sorts of squash, even without any extra seasoning.

I love Jersey corn cooked on the grill. It's just so much better than boiled corn on the cob, and light years beyond canned or frozen.

I've also always been more than a little unadventurous with the grocery-store veg, but I third the idea that the good stuff is a completely different non-animal. Growing my own makes a huge difference for me: I started gardening because I wanted to play in the dirt and had happy childhood memories of my mom's and grandma's gardens and refused to pay $2 over and over for the little plastic packets of herbs and knew that the few veggies I really enthusiastically loved were way better when they were freshly grown; once I fell in love with growing things, I started wanting to try more and more different species and weird varieties, and having a relationship with a vegetable makes me 1000 times more likely to want to try cool ways of making and eating it.

(I'm also one of those weirdos who turned into a foodie and cook as a more-or-less direct result of being an insanely picky eater, and the gardening thing is closely related. If I make it, I know exactly what's in it and can totally finesse my way around my remaining weird taste and texture issues without having to explain yet again that no, I don't like food-that-EVERYONE-likes, and yes I really have tried it, and yes, I mean I've tried it several times, and...)

Thanks, Brenda, I appreciate it.

My pizza was disappointing. The pesto was half salt, blech. Here is where I scrape everything off the crust, pick out and eat the veg, and nom the crispy bits of crust. I wonder if they'd consider making a chicken pesto pizza subbing garlic olive oil for the pesto? I went for pesto because I can't do the tomato based sauces.

::sits on amych's bench. her garden bench. eats raw homegrown veggies::

Freshly picked sweet corn is a miracle of yum. It's a delicate creature and a different animal than if you wait a week and/or put it in the fridge.

One of my favorite ways to grill it is with some basil stuffed under the leaves.

Watching "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" is making me want to road-trip and try all these places.

I just got totally confused by the fact that we're also talking salad in Bitches. But then I scrolled back and remembered that discussion started with arugula as liberal shibboleth. I love us.

Just catching up on all the food talk. I'm kind of meh on most veggies, but I will admit, I'm so looking forward to our local Farmer's Market opening up in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to see all the great, fresh things we can get.

I like veggies fine. I wish I could get better veggie dishes at fast food places, but...yeah. Seems unlikely they're about to start serving nom-licious roasted brussels sprouts or whatever. Not fast to make, even if I can pop them in my mouth fast! But I'm very much of the "things I make need to be fast to make, and keep a long time in the pantry/fridge/freezer" and ...fresh veggies are not that (and frozen veggies mostly don't taste nearly as good). So...yeah. I don't eat nearly as many as I want/should.

I like kale with soy sauce and garlic. I have Brenda's blog open to read in another window momentarily.

I performed in the show last night and there was hardly any audience, which was sad, but it went well, and the producer liked it and asked us to perform in her show in May, yay!

Went to Home Depot and spent $150 on painting supplies. AND went to the other paint store and spent $90 on the actual color of paint I had to buy. Geez (and that's AFTER the nice lady gave me a $50 discount!! It first came up as $140 and I kinda gulped, and she was like "Hmm. Do you...have AAA?" and I was like "No..." and she said "...hmm....we'll put you down as a contractor...")

And then I managed to make it to the last of the four classes at the weekend's Hoedown (tonight is the big "ball"). I slept in and skipped most of them, I was too tired, and obviously had the show and didn't go to last night's dancing! I got a call while I was getting the paint, saying "We have your badge, you did know it was this weekend, right?"

Oh, and the keys I had made at Home Depot don't actually work. GRR.