You know how there are some foods that instantly remind you of a particular time in your life? Pink grapefruit when I was pregnant, for example.

I found another special taste again today, quite unexpectedly. I have a staff meeting tomorrow morning, during which we’re going to talk about scintillating topics like the upcoming year’s calendar and strategic plan. Worse, I am going to be doing lots of the talking. So I decided that I’d bring breakfast, just to make the morning a little happier.

We love stuff like donuts and scones in our office, but no one really needs them (least of all me), so I decided I’d make homemade granola bars, heavy on the fiber and fruit. A quick search found an uber-popular blog recipe that’s also super-easy. (A little more sugar than I’d planned, but hey. It’s for the hardworking women of the St. Mary’s Advancement Office!)

One bite, though, and I was rocketed back seven years, to a snowy week in Brooklyn, NY, where I went to help my sweet friend and new mom Rosemary take care of week-old baby Lucy. The first weeks of a baby’s life are nothing short of miraculous, but it’s tough on the mom, both physically and mentally, and I was so glad to be there. Every morning after Rosemary and Lucy were settled, I’d set out on a long walk, admiring the historic brownstones, gazing across to the gap in Lower Manhattan that I’ll never get over, and window shopping on some of the loveliest blocks in the world.

Eventually I’d make my way to an organic bakery on Smith Street, and buy one of their homemade granola bars, full of almonds and dried cherries and seeds and oats. At the end of the week, I took a stash of them home with me.

And tonight, I found them again, the taste of a very special week. Wonder if Lucy, now my adorable seven-year-old godchild, would like them?

Look closely at the shoes in this photo. Beat up, last legs, shot … they are trashed. Why? Because the kid wearing them has been waiting for — make that dying for — the sneakers he ordered at Christmas to show up. The sad tale:

All during the run-up to the holiday, all T. really wanted was the unconscionably expensive privilege of ordering custom-made Reebok Zigs online. Okay, we said, but that’s your biggest/best/only present. Okay, he said, I really, really want them.

On Christmas morning when he went to place his order, the site was down. The next day, still not available. And the next, and the next. Finally, we got an email with a promo code to use when we finally did place an order. SORRY was the promo code. (I should have known, and stopped the order right then.)

Finally, on December 30, he placed his order. And found out that SORRY only applied if you weren’t ordering custom shoes. Harumph, I said. They’ll be worth it, he said. Even though the company told him when he placed the order that the shoes wouldn’t ship until Feb. 6, and we’d made it clear that there would be no other new shoes before then. Okay, he said.

Well, it’s tough to keep a kid’s sneakers together, and today, four days after the promised ship date, I finally reached someone at Reebok customer service. It seems the custom shoes T. ordered had a defect, and were being made over. The new ship date: Feb. 19. Which would have been nice to know without having to call about it. No record of any order at all existed online at the link they had sent me.

“I’m so sorry,” said the nice woman on the line. “Has anyone offered you any compensation?” I didn’t tell her about SORRY; just said no. “Hold on,” she said. A few minutes later, she was back on the line: Apparently our order was still “in the window,” and there would be no compensation. By now I had begun vowing that I’d never buy another Reebok product, after I was going to have to tell my kid he’d now wait for nearly two months to get the one Christmas present he had been waiting for. “You could call back on Monday,” she ventured, “and ask to see the tracking,” which I guess is code for “that’s the first day we can give you any discount or coupon for botching up the already overpriced, long-delayed order with our company.”

Yes, I know it’s just a pair of athletic shoes. And maybe this is cosmic payback for letting him buy something I don’t really think is worth the price. But it was his Christmas present, darn it, and it makes me MAD that Reebok isn’t at least able to ease his long wait for gratification.

I sure hope those shoes are worth it, whenever they finally show up.

I have a new favorite restaurant in Memphis. I’ve eaten there off and on for a couple years now but recently I’ve tried some new things and I’m telling you, this place is fantastic.

I know ya’ll midtowners think there’s nothing good outside the 240 loop, and I’m pretty sure if you saw this obscure little storefront in a Germantown strip mall with the nondescript “Mexican Deli” above the door, you would never, ever stop there. Your loss. Because what’s behind that suburban door is something you won’t get anywhere else for miles around – authentic Mexican food.

“We don’t serve cheese dip” is the unofficial slogan of Las Tortugas Deli Mexicana. Owner Pepe Magallanes from Mexico City said he waited 24 years for someone to open an authentic Mexican restaurant in Memphis before finally doing it himself. “Texas ruined Mexican food for the United States,” he laughs. “We don’t eat rice and beans out of a can at every meal. There are actually some very upscale restaurants in Mexico.” Read the rest of this entry »

In celebration of its 30th birthday, today is FREE CONE DAY at Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shops (or as I like to call them, Crack Dens) so plan accordingly. Memphis-area stores that are participating include:

• Downtown at Peabody Place and Third
• East Memphis behind Houston’s on Popular
• Germantown at the Village Shops of Forest Hill

I ate so much Cherry Garcia when I was pregnant I’m surprised Elijah wasn’t born with a stem growing out of the top of his head. Or a scruffy grey beard. But I can also HIGHLY recommend the One Cheesecake Brownie because OMG are you kidding me? Eat ice cream AND help fight world AIDS? Oh, I am SO there. But I’m thinking just to be adventurous, I might actually try Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream.

Click here to find the shops in your area that are participating.

*We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.*

I’m not much of a cook, but I do love to bake. And I have made some kick-ass chocolate cakes in my time, but nothing – and I mean NOTHING – has earned the raves of my family like the carrot cake I made them. Seriously. I don’t get it either. I said to My Kid, “You know there’s vegetables in that.” He didn’t care. He ate two more pieces.

The lovely thing about this recipe – which I horked somewhere off the internet and do not claim to take credit for having created – is that it’s from scratch but it’s SO EASY. I tend to go for those “Start with a box of yellow cake mix…” recipes. Because, you know, why gather a lot of loose ingredients when Betty Crocker was kind enough to do it for me and package it all up in a nice little box?

And this carrot cake doesn’t require a lot of grating and soaking and preparing of raw vegetables. No, it has a SECRET INGREDIENT that makes preparation a snap. Cake recipe after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »