Food -- the shopping for and storing of it, the preparation of it, the cleaning up of it, and in particular the feeding of Ezekiel and Ellie with it -- has featured very prominently in our "Summer of Sngs." Food has been a thing.

Jessica and Matthias are determined to foster in their kids a healthy relationship with food, and one prong of their approach is to let the kids choose, within reason, what they do or don't want to eat. I can see the long-term benefit of giving them as much autonomy as possible, so there's that.

Then there's the fact that the Sngs are used to having some kind of cooked food three times a day. And, believe me, I don't cook three times a day! I don't even cook once a day if I can help it. Thankfully, Jessica does like to cook, and they were both very willing to fend for themselves in that department.

And then there were the groceries.

Pre-COVID, I went to Walmart once a week right after my Wednesday morning work-out for our main shopping run, and either Scott or I usually stopped by one or two additional times in the week for a specific forgotten item (or three). I also went to Harter House once every two or three months.

Then during the pandemic lockdown, I abruptly changed to a strict "once-a-week-on-Wednesday-morning-and-live-without-whatever-I-forgot" schedule of grocery runs. And this year, when Walmart instituted its despicable self-check only system, I rebelled by doing as much of our grocery shopping at Aldi as possible. I'd go to Aldi on Tuesday afternoon, get everything I could there, and then do my standard (hopefully smaller) Walmart run on Wednesday morning.

For many, many years we have had not one, not two, but three food-cooling units in our home: our standard fridge-freezer in the kitchen plus, down in the cellar, another standard fridge-freezer AND a full-size upright freezer. The cellar fridge-freezer is the one we had in our kitchen in Little Rock. We bought it used, and we moved here 25 years ago. Its freezer compartment still works fairly well, although I have to defrost it every few months, but this year its fridge section has only been maintaining 45-50 degrees, instead of the necessary 35-38 degrees required for most perishable items. So I can't store extra things like milk and eggs and cheese down there, and produce is iffy.

Back in May, I suspected that when the Sngs arrived and we'd have seven of us living here (and during Katie's visits we'd be a family of eight), there'd be no way for our upstairs fridge to even begin to hold a week's worth of groceries. Within the first three days my suspicion proved correct.

Jess and Matthias like grocery shopping, either alone on a date or as a family outing, so at least once or twice a week they'd make an afternoon Walmart run and pick up whatever I asked them to. But since I have not yet fully overcome my control freak habits and still wanted to do some -- OK, most -- of the grocery shopping myself, I went to Walmart first thing on Monday and Friday mornings, and I also made an afternoon run to Aldi a number of times with Ezekiel.

In my attempt to please everyone all the time – and don't ask how well that's been working for me! – I tried to keep on hand a decent supply of several items that don't normally grace our fridge, freezer, or pantry shelves. Running out of any of them was, in my mind, potential cause for yet another "quick" (ha, ha!) grocery run.

- Avocados (one to two bags per week; eaten straight by Ellie and as avocado toast by Ezekiel)

- Blueberries (for snacking or with kids' meals)

- Coffee and creamer (for both Matthias and Andrew)

- Dark chocolate (Jessica's preferred snack)

- Fresh spinach (for Jessica's salad)

- Frozen berries (for smoothies, a.k.a. "poodies")

- Fun freezer foods like Hot Pockets, mozzarella sticks, Arby's curly fries, and bacon, egg, and cheese croissants (treats for Matthias)

- Greek yogurt (whole fat, plain, unsweetened; for Jessica's smoothies which she shared with Ezekiel and Ellie)

- Natural peanut butter (Smucker's, crunchy of course)

- String cheese… co-jack slices… cream cheese spread… sharp cheddar hunks; basically cheese in any form. Cheese is available in Hong Kong, but because it's very expensive, when Jessica's in the States she eats as much cheese as possible.

- Truly astounding quantities of strawberries. Between Jessica and me, we went through six, seven, or even EIGHT one-pound boxes of strawberries each week all summer! Running the numbers, that comes to a minimum of 78 pounds ($116.22) of strawberries consumed during our 13 glorious Sng-filled weeks! We also recall that Aldi's ($1.49/box) were much sweeter than Walmart's ($2.77/box) J, but didn't keep as long L.

- Watermelon. Scott and I do generally buy a watermelon each week in the summer, but we needed extra this year because most all of us like it, and Ellie absolutely LOVES watermelon; she finds it both edible and squeezable. J

- White rice (preferably jasmine)

Now, this foodie post would be incomplete without at least a brief mention of Congee ("con-jee").

"And what the heck is Congee?"

I thought you might ask. It's homemade baby food, basically a porridge made with rice, Napa cabbage, meat or fish, finely diced vegetables, and some seasoning(s) – but no salt. Matthias is the Congee chef. Every few days, he'd cook up a batch of the stuff and we'd store it in our totally packed kitchen fridge along with everything else. Ellie usually had Congee for dinner and sometimes for lunch as well. She was generally fond of it, but only as long as she couldn't see – or see anyone else eating – some other more desirable option like egg whites, watermelon, or cheese, all of which trumped Congee in her estimation.

Congee-wise, Jessica had a jingle which we all picked up on. Although I can't do it justice in writing, I will attempt to type it here, and I'm sure all the members of Shady Fam II will fondly remember the tune and rhythm.

                     Congee for the Girl

"It's congee for the girl, duh-dum-dum-dum.

Congee for the girl, duh-dum-dum-dum.

Cah (ah-ah-ahn) gee (ee-ee-ee), cah (ah-ah-ahn) gee (ee-ee-ee),

Congee for the girl!"

Here's another version of the same song.

                   Bath Time for the Boy

"It's bath time for the boy, duh-dum-dum-dum.

Bath time for the boy, duh-dum-dum-dum.

Baa (aa-aa-aath) tie (aye-aye-ime), baa (aa-aa-aath) tie (aye-aye-ime),

Bath time for the boy!"

And speaking of that most special boy, one morning his grandpa made him a most special breakfast component: one egg, scrambled and microwaved in our Chef Buddy Microwave Egg Maker, then topped with a slice of melted co-jack cheese. Scott creatively dubbed this creation, "Cheese Egg," and it became one of Ezekiel's favorites. Although the Sngs don't have access to a microwave right now in their quarantine hotel, they will when they get back to their apartment. So I sent along our extra Egg Maker so Ezekiel will still be able to have Cheese Egg at home, albeit probably topped with less cheese than at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Sing it with me, everyone!

"It's Cheese Egg for the boy, duh-dum-dum-dum…"

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