Parsnips?

A good housewife should cook well. Right? I mean if you can't serve your man a gloriously home cooked meal, then you must not measure up very high on the housewifely list of good housewives. Or something like that. Well, I, unfortunately, do not feel very adept at the whole cooking thing. Therefore, I decided that I should make a stab at cooking. Not that I can't follow a recipe. I can. I just can't cook you know. I can't instinctively cook. I always make the same two meals - when I make meals, that is (which, of course, I shouldn't admit. However, I shall admit to you...I don't cook very often at all.)

Due to my faults in the cooking department, including, but not limited to, my lack of ability to really cook, my cooking redundancy, as well as my lack of cooking meals during a week, I decided that I needed to start cooking.

The first thing I did was to pick out new recipes - that I would actually eat. (I never knew there were so many recipes out there that I would not eat...) Then, outfitted with a shopping list (and Daviah) I stopped by Sprouts to do some of my produce shopping.

Everything was going swimmingly. Until I looked at my shopping list. There staring me in the face was PARSNIP. Parsnips. I began wandering around the store. Parsnips? What on earth did parsnips look like? What were they? They were a vegetable, right? I thought so. Maybe. So I decided that the vegetables would be a good place to look. I moved purposefully towards the vegetables all the while thinking, "Should I ask someone? What would I say? 'Excuse me, but I have no idea what a parsnip is. Could you perhaps show me?'" I looked at the row of vegetables. I looked up at the row of labels. Slowly I began reading them.

Collared greens. Parsnips. Some other vegetables I don't even remember what they were called. Oh wait! Parsnips! I was elated. I had found them. Then I looked down. There were many unrecognizable vegetables under the label. I didn't know what to do. I had come too close to be thwarted now. I looked again. Were they those white ones? What shape were they?

Then I made an amazing discovery. Next to the label was a picture! A picture. What brilliance. Whoever had thought of that should be knighted (not that that would do much good in the U.S. I suppose). However, the picture was drawn, and, as the parsnips were nestled in among other root-like vegetables, I was a little concerned. After much pondering, I decided that since the picture was white and looked vaguely like the white, root-looking vegetable, it must be a parsnip. I picked up a few and placed them in the plastic bag and headed over the Daviah (who had been getting fruit for the whole ordeal) and the shopping cart.

Daviah looked at me and looked at the bag.

"What are you getting parsnips for?" she asked.

The moral of this story is: when you do not know what a parsnip is - ask your younger sister. She will know!