Absolute Organics - additional note

A quick follow up to the rave review of Absolute Organics. Being the neurotic cheapskate that I am, I did some pretty detailed price comparisons before we signed up with Vonda. Many of the products are less expensive than the same products offered at Harris Teeter, especially grocery items like coffee and honey. For example, Larry's Beans (organic coffee) is about $1.50 cheaper through Vonda. However, the bottom line is an average 7% premium over the same basket of products at HT, or about $2.50 extra per box (3 week comparison in 2006). I think that's a good price to pay for (1) doorstep delivery, (2) a level of forced variety that helps our menu stay diverse, and (3) great recipes for the items in the box that week, e.g., carnival squash.

Absolute Organics

A few years ago Randy and I started making the move to eating more organically. Since we have both lost parents to cancer, we want to reduce the amount of weird chemicals we put in our bodies (and in Vivy's body too). So we started ordering organically grown fruits and vegetables through Absolute Organics. Today Steven and Vonda, the company founders, were featured in the Money Wise section of the Charlotte Disturber. Lake a look if you are interested:

http://www.charlotte.com/business/moneywise/story/475766.html

We highly recommend using their service!

From Chairman Mao and Abacus

Enjoy.

http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index?pn=nickname

The Amateur Ambassador also recommends: http://www.mess.be/inickgenwuname.php

9 to 5

Vivian is now one of Emily's desk accessories, in addition to the stapler and pen and pencil caddy.

Skip the brains

Vivy had her first visit to John's Country Kitchen this morning. Though she decided to skip the brains and eggs, she still turned heads wearing her adorable pink cap.

I am Southern

Vivy got her first strand of pearls this weekend.

They are tiny freshwater pearls, and they are perfect for any baby who wants to wear pearls. I got a similar strand from my Aunt Nancy (the same aunt that gave Vivy her strand), and I still have them. Nancy told my mom that she had gotten Vivy a present that was "very Montgomery" and gave them to Vivy this past weekend while she, Mom and I were making our whistle stop tour of the South. My Aunt Malone had already sent her a monogrammed baby bracelet, so Vivy is ready for her next picture day.

My family moved to Charlotte in 1984, leaving our regular trips to Montgomery at the Georgia state line. Even though I never lived in Montgomery-- never wore monogrammed sweaters or attending cotillion balls-- I lived vicariously through my cousins, Jennifer and Julie, and grew up feeling like these things were somehow apart of my own past. But my family didn't move in those circles in Atlanta or in Charlotte, and as time went by I began to detach and almost disdain those kinds of experiences. I became more metropolitan, more intellectual I suppose, and regarded the southern experience as sheltered and superficial.

Since then I have vacillated between loving and leaving the South. Yet as much as I want to break away from it, I naturally gravitate toward decorating my house in coordinating floral and stripe fabrics and can't leave my pearl earrings in my jewelry box. I'm probably even going to buy Vivy something smocked to wear at Easter.

Why do I write this? Because during this trip to Montgomery I somehow was able to just embrace my sweet Southern family and not worry about how "southern" everything was. This world is apart of me, and this weekend I remembered that. And I'm glad Vivy will grow up tasting it too, even if only every once in a while. So what if I don't drink before noon (even on a Saturday) or that I don't have a Shi Tzu named Coco Chanel who has her own pink monogrammed dog bed. I am still Southern.