The Employee And Athlete I Was Meant To Be

One of my favorite things, that happens every year, has started to happen. Do you know what it is? It's when the fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/winter food magazines start showing up in the grocery store!!! Isn't that so exciting??? Anyways, I just about flipped out when I stopped by HEB to pick up apples and bananas (I didn't sing the song, dang it...) on the way home from work yesterday. There, on one of the magazine racks, were about 5 different holiday related food magazines. It was like Christmas. Really. I couldn't decide which one I could rationalize getting first so I picked the one that was fall baking related because don't you just love baking in the fall? (I promised the rest of the magazines that I would come back for them and I would never forget them.)
Every spring I say to myself 'Sandi, summer produce is your favorite. All of those berries and watermelon and such.' (By the way, the last watermelon of the Roughton household's summer 2011 has come and gone; they just aren't seedless anymore and they're getting smaller while their price is going higher. Such a sad time.) But THEN when summer starts to wind down, and fall is around the corner, I start saying to myself 'Sandi, fall/winter produce is your favorite. All of those apples and gourds and citrus.' So this all means that either, a) I'm flighty or b) I'm bipolar when it comes to my produce of choice. Possibly a combination of the two. I don't know. It's really up in the air.
Pumpkin is probably my favorite thing to bake with in the fall. But oh those clementines start showing up all over the place and they're so easy to transport in one's purse and peeling them is just divinely simple!

Moving on, I got home and Pete and I decided that putting on comfy pants and laying in bed to read the new magazine together was the best idea ever heard of. So we did. And that is when I discovered something amazing people. The job that I was destined to have.


Can you properly see what the second person listed did? FOOD STYLING. Do you know what that means?? That means that you're the person who gets to coordinate all of the pictures of things that are edible. Styling the food, if you will. HOW FANTASTIC WOULD THAT BE? Here is an example of how Greg styled some scones with a spoon and some something or other:


Look at that food! And especially how it's been styled! That Greg is one talented guy! Do you know what else I thought of? I bet they probably use all kinds of glossy sprays and pins and what not to make food look absolutely perfect and stay in place for the shots. But, BUT. Sometimes they only show one slice of a pie or one piece of a cake. Why make the rest of the cake inedible for just one picture? That means that somewhere off of the page, there is most of a pie or a cake or a batch of cookies that has to be eaten by someone... Why not let the food stylist get in on some of that action???

If you can tell me how one goes about becoming a food stylist, I will style food for you for the rest of your earthly life. Possibly, into the next one as well. It depends on how much I love it. Because, people, this is destiny here.


Also, today I had another epiphany. I know. Please, everyone, stop being amazed at how wise I've become since starting this blog. The truth is, I've always been this wise. Anyways, today one of my co-workers said Pluckers has the best fried pickles. (For those who don't know, Pluckers is a wings/sports bar kind of place in these here parts. If you've been reading my blog for the past few days, you would know that I am in the market for a new wings place because Buffalo Wild Wings just doesn't cut it.) So I texted Mike and I said 'Have you ever had Pluckers?' and he said 'No' and I said 'Me neither!' and then neither of us said anything for awhile and then I said 'Dinner...? and he said 'Pluckers?' and I said 'YES!' and he said 'okay.' So everything was set in stone. I called in the order so that I could pick it up and we could eat it while watching Lost because really that's just the most productive thing to do when one needs to try a new wings place AND watch Lost in the same evening (seriously, I still don't know what the heck is going on over at that island.)

Anyways, I'm standing there, waiting for my food, watching the soccer game on the big tv behind the bar and I notice, for the first time, how awesome soccer is. It really is a very intricate dance, don't you think? And then I started kicking myself because I almost tried out for soccer in high school but then I chickened out (mostly because the girls soccer team was very cliquish and I didn't like many of them so why make high school more difficult than it already is?) I'm not an athletic person. At all. But, I feel that if I had given soccer a chance, I think I might've been pretty decent with it.
Oh well. Now it will have to go on that magical boat where we put our hopes and dreams that we let die and watch it sail off into the horizon with Gandalf and... that's the end of Lord of the Rings huh? Okay it's time to end this post.