The Infections Blues…

Alice and I had a rough week health-wise. I started the day Sunday with a toothache. Alice’s “clamshell” ears are prone to infection and though we had done our best to clean them, it got ahead of us and she was in obvious pain. My trip to the dentist, Monday afternoon was not terribly encouraging. Alice’s vet visit, though expensive, proved an easier fix. It seems this is the season of small aches and pains becoming louder and more pronounced.

Rather than dwell on the medical crisis du jour, I dug deeper into the world of cooking and eating better. My years overseas where I was unable to get fresh milk turned me into a milkaholic. I drink only whole milk and use cream in my coffee. I love dairy products.

I don’t know why it took me so long to discover Connolly Brothers Dairy Farm. They sell two types of milk in the heavy glass, gallon containers, Whole Raw or Skim. Snap-on plastic tops have replaced the cardboard inserts with foil I remember from my youth. The day I stopped by on a whim I was looking for milk and cream. The milk was there but cream has to ordered a day in advance. The system is to write your name on the calendar with how much you want. I chose Saturday and wrote one quart. A quart of light cream at the local grocery is under two dollars, right?  I couldn’t make change when I bought the milk so I overpaid figuring four dollars would more than cover the cream when I returned on Saturday.

The store runs on the honor system.   It is not manned, so you fill out your order/receipt envelope, insert as close as you can get to the total and pop it in a “locked” box. I was pleased to see my cream sitting in the cooler, until I noticed the price. I suppose I could have left, but it was one of those weird situations you sometimes find yourself in; no one else but you will know, should you do the right thing?

I bought the odd container, overpaying again by a dollar, and took it home. As I was mumbling around, thinking of dinner choices the other side of my brain was still working on the price of cream.  I wished I had a lovely covered crock for my cream instead of the squishy  ice cream container. I settled on an oyster stew  with a side of carrots for dinner, and was humming along nicely with preparations. That’s when I opened the container.

This wasn’t cream, this was the cream of cream, the dairy jackpot, the kettle of gold at the end of the creamery rainbow. Yes, $8.00 was extravagant. It also would have bought me the following:

Just over two gallons of gas

A package of cigarettes (which I have quit)

A cheap bottle of wine

As I gazed into its creamy perfectness, I thought this is how I’ll fight the Infections Blues, with  totally decadent confections!