The news shows have started lying about what their programming is going to be in order to trick us into watching more about Michael Jackson. I guess once every single news show has had its chance to weigh in with their own special version of his life things will settle down.

Last night the second half of 48 Hours Mystery was supposed to be about a married couple, man and wife body builders in Las Vegas who murdered their personal assistant and burned their Jaguar out in the desert with her body in it. Their defense was that she died from self-inflicted drug overdose and they panicked when they found her body. One of the witnesses against them was the guy who helped the man buy a gas can to carry the gas out to the desert. So I set my DVR to record it because both of the body builders were supposed to be interviewed and I wanted to see what they had to say. The first half of the hour was supposed to about Michael Jackson, so I know you've guessed what happened - forget the body builders, it's all MJ. I was tricked.

I've been avoiding live network TV, sticking to my recorded cable shows about cooking, Gene Simmons, and Ren and Stimpy.

There are a bunch of challenge cooking shows where they give the chefs a mystery ingredient that is hard to figure out what to do with. It's like cooking around here when I don't feel like going to the store, have to make do with what's on hand. That's also the way we should all operate to save grocery money, buying what's on special that week instead of walking in looking for certain ingredients to make a particular recipe.

The other day walnut oil was on special, marked down to a fortune, and I decided to splurge on it. I'll use it to make salad dressings for one thing, so I'm telling myself it's a savings from buying bottled dressings, and there are other uses in desserts, vegetables, and entrees. I get tired of the same old oil and vinegar with some Italian seasoning herbs in it. I had some basil growing in a planter but the deer ate it.

Smoked paprika was another sale item. It's very trendy right now, so I'm excited to try it out. Of course I have to find a spot for it in the spice cupboard. I'm thinking of taking one of the old paprikas next door in case the visitors want to make deviled eggs.



This is my dried bean collection. I mix them together to make soup that we have at least once a week. See the big white ones second to the right? Those are called Mortgage Lifters, and they are huge, beefy things that would fill up a family for cheap. I don't think I could face a bowl of them by themselves, but they are okay in soup.



I think it's important to have a bean meal every so often to remind us that there are people in our country struggling to feed their families. Of course, here I am eating beans and thinking good thoughts while those families are digging between the sofa cushions for change so they can take their pudgy toddlers to McDonalds for supersized French fries and soda pop. If someone gave them a bag of dried beans they wouldn't know what to do with them.