Yesterday I dropped by Costco to order a birthday cake for Mr. Gadget, what with his 40th birthday looming. I was distraught, distraught, I say, to find that no longer is the white whipped frosting an option. Heretofore, it has been the only reason to buy such a cake. It requires a major occasion to justify the acquisition of a half-sheet cake. It’s not the only unfavorable change, either. For some reason they changed their take-and-bake pizza options from plain cheese (our family favorite), plain pepperoni, and combo to ‘gourmet’ meat lover (disgusting concoction loaded with an abominable amount of salty greasy meat products), ham/pineapple, and mozzarella/basil/tomato. I would probably like the fresh basil kind, but I don’t think Mr. Gadget would go for it, and we generally end up with the ham/pineapple, which we like, but it just isn’t as good as the previous plain cheese*. We tried the meat version, but had to scrape off all the meat to make it palatable. Not to worry. That meat found a home in a future meal in which it was not so overpowering. So. As devoted a Costco customer I am, these changes are not to my liking.
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I cooked four chickens last night. Costco had a buy one, get one free coupon, and one in this case is a two-pack. So I had four chickens to deal with. I’ve been pining for some nice home-made soup so decided to roast them up and then make stock with the remains. I could only fit three in the oven, so I cooked the fourth in the pressure cooker. Fully cooked whole chicken in 20 minutes. Woot. The other three took two hours. Every time I do this, I tell myself not to do it again, ever, due to the mess and effort. I’m not a big fan of skin peeling and decarcassing. I figured I’d do it in one fell swoop and get it over with, though, rather than on four separate occasions. So I cooked them all. I won’t be doing that again soon.
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We had chicken with mashed potatoes, and mushroom gravy for dinner last night. I was going to do the gravy from scratch, using the roast drippings, but that would have meant waiting for the chicken to cook, and I decided we’d dine on the pressure cooked chicken instead. So I used a poultry gravy mix and added fresh sauteed mushrooms. Not long after, Harry said, “Mommy, you itch my back?” I lifted his shirt to comply and was horrified to find a sheet of bright red rash covering his entire back. I tore off his shirt and inspected the rest of him, and it was spreading to his chest. Luckily I had bought a pack of Benadryl skin cream and had it on hand. I doused him with it and gave him a dose of cold/allergy medicine, only to find, upon closer inspection of the lotion label, not to cover large areas of skin, and not to mix with any other antihistamine. Oops. I was ready to call the doctor and/or race to the ER, but the lotion started to take effect and he showed no signs of anaphylaxis, so I waited. And Googled. It’s obviously an allergic reaction, but I’m not sure if it was the mushrooms or the flavor enhancer additives in the gravy mix. I think he’s had mushrooms in tiny quantity before, but he tried tasting one raw last night. I wonder if it was the gravy. It’s enough to scare me away from prepackaged foods for a while, even though he’s had plenty of convenience crap like mac & cheese, ravioli, and canned soups, all of which probably have those same additives. I’m going to have to be even more vigilant with my label screening. Meanwhile, I need to find the culprit. I might try a scratch test tonight**. That year of breast milk was supposed to shield him from this sort of thing.
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Did I mention the latest exclamation heard shouted about the house? This, from a three year old. “What the HELL?” You see, we let him watch the Spiderman movies**, all three of them, and in the last movie, Eddie Brock makes that exclamation when the black Spiderman (the dark side of Peter Parker) destroys his camera. So it stands to follow that that is an appropriate expression for moments of frustration and consternation. He says “Dammit” alot too. I tell him these aren’t very nice words, or they’re grown-up words (and still not nice).
*It sounds as though we eat a lot of pizza. But we don’t. Honestly. It’s all relative, though, right? Okay. Truth. Maybe once or twice a month.
**Please don’t call cee pee ess.
