The plum crop is in, and, though less bountiful than last year’s bumper crop, it is still ridiculously large. Like last year, there is simply too much to eat fresh before it spoiled, so I set about making plum jelly in order to preserve as much of it as I could.

I got as far as my second gallon when I was about to run out of pectin. I was on the verge of buying more when I realized the madness had to end. I still have at least a couple of gallons from last year’s crop; what the hell was I doing making more? But if I wasn’t making jelly, what in Rodale’s name was I going to do with all these plums?

Foist them off on my colleagues, that’s what. Come on down and grab some fresh apricots and plums, guys; they’re sitting on my desk. If you do not take some fruit I will find you and give it to you, by force, if necessary. You will eat this fruit. You will eat it because you want it. Because it’s goddamned delicious. Seriously, they’re fantastic. Eat these fucking plums. Right now.

I was strolling through the grocery store yesterday when I took a turn down the cereal aisle. The kids naturally began clamoring for sugary, crunchy whatsits, but I was able to deflect their demands by pointing out that we already had a supply of said sugary whatsits. Undaunted in their voracity, they ran further down the aisle to the shelves of fruit snacks and began a new round of pleading.

Fruit snacks come in a variety of licensed shapes and brands these days, almost invariably invoking some cartoon or recent movie franchise—the usual pop-culture stuff, though a fair amount of generic shapes, like dinosaurs or the fruit from which the flavor of these rubbery neo-Jujyfruits is ostensibly derived, are also available—in order to make them interesting to kids. This I understand.

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компютриOrdinarily, I don’t share the cherries from the tree in the backyard. I eat them all myself. Selfish? You betcha.

This season, though, there’s simply so many that even I can’t eat them all. Since they’re sweet cherries, they’re not particularly good for turning into jam and jelly, and I can’t stand to see something so beautiful and perfect go to waste. So I’m bringing them in to work on Monday. You like cherries? Show up in my office; they’ll be in the fridge.

There’s about enough cherries left on the tree to supply two or three days’ worth of unrestricted gorging on the best cherries you ever laid lips upon, so don’t delay. Get your butt across campus and take advantage of this once-in-a-year offer now!

I went to the local Winco supermarket. In the “canned meat/soup” aisle, I found cans of “whole chicken”. As in bones and everything. I don’t know why it should have bothered me so much, but I really found it mildly unsettling to think about a whole bone-in chicken in a can.

I had a sort of mental image of a pale, quasi-fœtal object sliding out of the opened container, covered in goo, with a sickening “shhhhhlorp” sound. Mmmmm. Just like Mom used to make.

For some reason this reminds me of the Whizzo Quality Assortment.

On a whim, I took the boys out to eat tonight. We ended up at the local instance of Red Robin. I don’t go there a whole lot, since A) the service invariably sucks and B) I’ve spent more than my share of hours there, having worked for the chain many moons ago. Nonetheless, I will admit the burgers there are pretty damned tasty. I also have my own favorite custom recipe, honed over the course of the two heartbreaking years I spent slaving away over their broilers.

Tonight, I ordered that special recipe, because I hadn’t had it in a long time, and it sounded good. The fact that my wife was working late and therefore not present to roll her eyes and make pointed comments about my expanding gut had, of course, absolutely nothing to do with my choice. When the food arrived, the waiter told me that out of all the customized burgers he’d ever served, this was the only one that had ever actually made him hungry.

Damn straight, I thought. That’s because this burger is made from 100% Pure Awesomeness. But hey, don’t just take my word for it. Order one yourself someday. It’s a Banzai Burger with the following modifications:

• 86 the pineapple
• Substitute pepper jack cheese for the cheddar
• Substitute chipotle mayonnaise for the regular mayonnaise
• Add red onion
• Add avocado

If you’re feeling particularly hostile to your vascular system, substitute fried onion straws for the red onion. As an added bonus, vegetarian variants rock just as hard; simply use a regular Gardenburger patty, or add a bit more avocado, to make up for the missing beef. That’s good eats right there.

Seriously, try one. Your taste buds (and your cardiologist’s college-age children) will thank you.

Those who know my eating habits know that I have a particular affinity for salty, crunchy comestibles. I will turn up my nose at all manner of sweets and baked confections, but open a package of Doritos within earshot of my desk, and my face will be burrowing to the bottom of the bag with sickening alacrity.

Any Cheeto unlucky enough to exist within my sphere of perception has a life expectancy measured in mere femtoseconds. Pretzels? Down the hatch. Is that a can of peanuts? Kiss it goodbye. And don’t even get me started on Kake No Tane, just hand me a funnel and a tamping rod. Crunchy and Salty are two of my basic food groups.

Though I am blessed to live in a land boasting a plenitude of edibles both salty and crunchy, there has always been a special place in my heart (right next to the aortic plaque) for chips. Plain chips, flavored chips (anything but soy chips). Within that category, of course, there are the old, predictable classics like barbecue-flavored potato chips. One brand’s barbecue chips are just like the next; an old standby. Not particularly thrilling, certainly nothing to shout about, but perfectly reliable. (Pretty much like my pecker, except that it’s immeasurably easier to convince somebody to put barbecue chips in their mouth.)

I now know how wrong I was (about the chips, that is), for I have tasted the very ambrosia of the Gods. While I had previously sampled some of Kettle Foods’ fine potato chips, finding them tasty indeed, even those toothsome snacks were nothing like their Krinkle Cut Classic Barbecue chips. Oh my. Exquisite is only one of the superlatives one might use to describe this most excellent of chips. Not only is it extremely flavorful, but the flavor is perfect.

You know that sweet, smoky, caramelized flavor of, say, a crispy bit of chicken skin or the nibbly edge of a rib, slathered with barbecue sauce, fresh from the grill? That’s exactly what these taste like. Kettle has captured that taste exactly. Quite simply, I don’t think I will ever deign to touch a plain ol’ BBQ chip again. They are inferior in every measurable respect, nearly beneath contempt. There is no turning back once you have had these Kettle chips; they’re that good. Seriously, pick up a bag, you won’t be disappointed.