Back when George H.W. Bush was running for president, there was a huge media flap when a reporter asked him how much a gallon of milk cost, and he had no idea.  Guess what?  I’m in that same boat.  If you asked me the price of a gallon of milk right now, I’d be completely out of my depth.

Let’s be clear here, I understand that I am incredibly spoiled and pampered. I no longer do regular grocery shopping. I make up a list, hand it over, and the next thing I know whatever I ordered has not only shown up in the kitchen, it’s been unpacked and put away in the fridge or cupboard.  A number of weeks ago, I met a woman who said, “I used to run into you in QFC.  Have you stopped shopping there?” The truth is, I’ve stopped shopping pretty much everywhere.

With rare exceptions. When it’s time to fix that turkey dinner for Thanksgiving or serve up the ham for Lil Jul Aften, then I go to the store, because  I know I’ll end up seeing things I need that I won’t remember to put on a list for someone else to buy.  And at least once a year, I do a sprint through Costco just to keep in practice and stay in the know. And also, occasionally, to pick up some needed steps inside building that is a: out of the rain or b: air-conditioned, depending on whether we’re in Washington or Arizona at the time.

As Bill and I have gotten older, our kids have started taking over some of the holiday cooking chores. Tom’s ham strata at Christmas; Jeanne T.’s salmon dip; Cindy’s taking charge of the barbecue grill for a summer hot dog feed.

She did that last year when Bill and I were trying to celebrate the Fourth of July while also sticking as close as possible to the no-carb way.  She used skewers and cooked up a batch of spiral hot dogs. I had never seen such a thing before, and I considered them a wonder and a marvel.  Even without benefit of a bun, the condiments stuck in the charred dips in the body of the hot dogs.

Let’s just say I loved them.  The next time we were going to have hot dogs, I marched into Safeway looking for those “wonderful spiral hot dogs.”  Guess what?  They were nowhere to be found.  The clerk I asked looked at me as though I had just landed on earth from another planet. You see, I had somehow missed the whole routine in the kitchen where Cindy had put the wieners on the skewers and then carefully used a paring knife to carve the spirals.

Cindy will be doing spiral hot dogs again to celebrate THIS Fourth of July. I will not be buying them at Safeway! I think that’s one of the things the kids appreciate about me—I’m always good for a laugh, usually at my own expense!

Happy Fourth of July, people, and remember, we’re the home of the free because of the brave.101