I was recently the runner up in a blogging competition here. I entered an essay contest aimed at picking a blogger to attend the International Housewares Show. I really wanted to go, so I wrote about my filthy secret: I have a lot of crappy kitchen gear. Considering what I do for a living, it’s shameful that I own a 1989 grocery store can opener and some Guardianware aluminum pots that my granny bought from a divorcing couple in 1942. I wrote about how I marched right out and purchased a Wusthof Trident vegetable peeler about 11 years ago, and it changed my life. I should attend the housewares show, I wrote, because I can totally channel the power and excitement of awesome kitchen gear.

Never mind that I couldn’t actually attend the housewares show, since I would be in New Orleans. I never win anything, so I figured it was harmless enough to enter.

They called a few days after I submitted. I missed the call, so I was really nervous by the time we connected. I spent a lot of psychic energy thinking of how I would say, “Thanks for choosing me! I can’t go to Chicago.”

When I finally connected with the pubescent-voiced customer service manager, the news was sosososo good. I didn’t win the blogging trip, but they liked my writing, and they felt bad about my kitchen tools, so even though it wasn’t part of the original rules, they wanted to give me a big ole gift certificate to spend on their site! Is that the nicest thing? Aren’t they the bestest cooking gear website people ever? I want All-Clad measuring cups, a silpat muffin tin, a thermal Pyrex dish carrier. So, what should I get?  What would you get?

Look what I found! I love abandoned shopping lists –they save me the trouble of openly ogling people’s grocery carts.

I have several techniques for cart ogling. There’s the Pretend to Rearrange My Items, which lets me walk around the cart and lean over for a better look at what’s in your cart — all that lunch meat and just one bag of carrots? You call that a balanced diet? There’s the Very Interesting Edition of the Enquirer This Week while I’m eyeing those two large boxes of prunes in your cart — constipated, poor dear.

Here are my two latest finds. I love the color coding of this one: grocery items in blue ink, produce in green ink, action steps in red ink. Pure organizational poetry.

Notice that the shopper is buying two of everything: napkins, cups, plates, two (Big) boxes of Cheer, cereals, milks and creams. Possibly for Mary. Mary doesn’t get any grapes, bananas or berries. Or cheese. Hard cheese, for you, Mary.

And the yellow list. Plug covers, stair locks, vitamins, daycare, key for me, potty seat(?). Get out the garter belt and lube martinis and rock music – it’s a weekend away while grandma’s got the kids. Listen, Grammy, between a potty training child and some off-leash dogs, you’ll have your hands full. I hope that “dead bolt entry” goes smoothly at least. And I got my fingers crossed on that potty seat decision — it’s a tough one!

If you’re addicted to shopping lists, there are more at Shopping List compendium, a collection of annotated lists from somewhere in southern England.

 UPDATE, 8 Jan. 2007: TA plays its part in the great national conversation about cart-ogling. Or is that oogling?

Chocolate and marshmallow are for me what basil and garlic, what soy and ginger, what sour cream and paprika are for others. Perfectly paired, irresistible, unsurpassed.

So when the Southern Festival of Books asked me to host the session on David Magee’s MoonPie biography, it was really just an excuse for me to buy two cases of MoonPies.

Published by the University Press of Florida (which apparently isn’t associated with a university or it might have actually had access to an editor), the book tells the misplaced-modifier, dangling-participle, incorrect-possesive, comma-spliced story any snack food company would envy: A snack that represented good value in hard economic times evolved into an cultural phenomenon across the South. Soon the company dropped all its other products and for 50 years has produced only the Moon Pie. No advertising, little marketing, no synergistic partnerships. One product that means “Southern” to millions of people in five generations.

How much would you pay for a story like that? Full Story »