A Love Story That Breaks Veggie Hearts

Absolutely hilarious

I try to read a lot.  Sometimes I am successful and other times, I will let days slip by me without ever cracking a binding. So, while enduring a long layover in an airport recently (I honestly can't remember where I was) I spied Food: A Love Story on the shelf, which has been on my "to read" list for quite some time.

I'm not going to give a lengthy review here - I honestly laughed OUT LOUD about every other page of this book. Most of the time spent reading this book was on a plane, so just imagine me busting a gut next to some random stranger trying to sleep. Whoops! It was so outlandishly funny that I could pick it up and read it again, right now. Instead of a review, here are my favorite jokes, which mostly happen to bash vegetables.Read more »

Kings of the Farm

Great - now I have this song stuck in my head. Substitute 'farm' for 'road'. Capice?

If you don't already know, this week is NFR week. National Finals Rodeo. The Big Show. Super Bowl of rodeo.  You get the point. The NFR is shown exclusively on Great American Country (thank God, I was so tired of waiting up till midnight for it to start when ESPN had the rights to it) and on Saturday night, the guest hosts were two boys from the show Farm Kings.

Basically, the show follows a family (The Kings, get it?) as they do their daily farm chores. The Kings own and operate Freedom Farms where they strive to provide Pittsburgh with the freshest produce around. There are TEN KIDS and the mom who do all the work - I haven't seen an episode but I would be willing to bet that Mom is one tough cookie (seriously, ten kids).

I only found out about the series because I upped my DIRECTV subscription for 10 days so I could watch the NFR. After December 15th, it's sayonara GAC and Farm Kings, too. I'll have to DVR a few episodes so I can get the lo-down. For those of you who, like me, are cheap and have the bare bones cable package, here is a clip of Farm Kings you can watch. Maybe it will entice you to upgrade!



Has anyone out there seen a whole episode? What did you think?

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

p.s. My rodeo man crush, Trevor, is pursuing his 10th all-around title. For more info on his awesomeness, check out previous posts. I'm also a big fan of first time NFR qualifier Jared Keylon. Jared was my boyfriend's roommate when we were at Fort Scott Community College and lived next door. You'll never meet a more hard working, determined bareback rider than Jared. He's making a solid showing at this year's NFR and you can bet he'll be back for more in future years.

Other faves I am loving right now:
Cory Solomon - calf roping
Kelli Tolbert - barrel racing (that horse can eat up a third barrel)
Trevor Brazile and Patrick Smith - team roping
Chad Masters and Clay O'Brien Cooper - team roping
Tuf Cooper - calf roping 

Potatoes Say Good-bye

Geez, I love taters. I don't know if there are many other people out there who adore potatoes like I do. I love them fried, baked, mashed, crinkled, shredded, covered in cheese, boiled and even raw. They are their own food group to me - a delicious food group of starchy perfection.

Which is why I've decided to give them up.

But only until Easter - and then it's game on for Grandma Buzzard's fried chicken and mashed taters for Easter dinner.

That's right, I'm giving up potatoes for Lent and I think this may be an even harder challenge than when I gave up soda for Lent (a lack of Dr. Pepper almost killed me).  So what will I be eating instead? 

Well, I'm obviously not going to cut back on my meat consumption. I'll continue to enjoy lean beef, tasty pork and lots of different forms of chicken. But to fill the gap on my plate where potatoes used to go......

That's not an exaggeration, I generally am pretty strictly meat and potatoes.... and cottage cheese. I looooooooove cottage cheese. If you don't believe me, ask the Ninja.

To fill this void I'll likely be eating a lot more of the following things:

- Green beans - did you know one cup of green beans contains 30% of your daily Vitamin C req's?
- Corn - One cup contains a pretty significant amount of Thiamin and Vitamic C
- Rice/pasta - I'll try to eat whole grain options in this category. Whole grain foods are very heart healthy and by the way, so is lean beef!
- Cottage cheese - this obviously has a lot of calcium in it!

If you haven't noticed, I'm not a big fan of vegetables. However, I like lots of different kinds of meats so maybe I'll rotate some kangaroo or some other exotic meat in there to toss things up a bit!

Are you giving anything up for Lent? If so, what?!

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

I Love McDonald's

For several reasons.

While in Australia, I ate a lot of McDonald's food. Not because I had cravings or anything (read: Buzzard is not pregnant) but because I generally didn't like the food in Australia (too many veggies and far too much lamb) so I took a lot of long walks to McD's (known as Macca's) for some world famous fries and 100% Australian beef (that's a topic for later discussion).

Australia's McDonald's did a great job reaching out to consumers and putting a face to their beef and potato producers. In fact, one of my first blog posts after arriving in Australia was about their great agvocacy on packaging.

That's why I'm super excited about the latest marketing campaign by U.S. McDonald's: commercials featuring beef, lettuce and potato producers for the chain. Steve Fogelsong, former NCBA President, is featured in the beef video and throughout the video he talks about passion, having experience and occasionally getting your "butt kicked." He also touches on the quality standards for McDonald's and states that "you can't get great taste without great quality."

In the other two videos, the producers talk about the hard work that goes into farming and how they are continuing a family farm for the 4th generation. The story about how iceberg lettuce got its name also comes up - you learn something everyday!

This is such a fantastic initiative and I am thrilled that McDonald's has stepped up to the plate to make the connection from farm to fork. Obviously, they are doing it for their own accord but the ripple effect that it could have for agriculture is monumental.

So for your viewing pleasure, here are the beef, potato and lettuce videos that are creating a firestorm of buzz among agriculturalists. I hope you enjoy them and share them with your friend!




Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~