spinach drought

Apparently, we're in the midst of the Great Spinach Crisis of 2011.  Heck of a way to start the year, if you ask me, and Angst had a few things to say (squeak) about it, too.  When I did my standard grocery shopping operation on Sunday, neither Whole Foods nor Superfresh had so much as a tender little leaf of fresh spinach anywhere in the produce corral.  Because of my unreasonable persistence natural optimism, I stopped by Whole Foods on my way home from work last night, hoping they had magically come into the possession of asparagus and spinach.  I was half-right, but I still haven't made the jerk asparagus, regardless.

Instead, as I detoured down the road that would unite me with my Beaujolais, I found myself craving a pasta dish.  Despite the dearth of fresh spinach in Philadelphia, henceforth known to my Irish brethren as the Spinach Famine, I made Pasta e Fagioli with...Arugula from Appetite for Reduction (Am I the only person who repeatedly starts to type ...Destruction and then has to back up and type it correctly?).

Although arugula doesn't cooperate with the wilting process quite as willingly as spinach, Mister and I both agreed that it lent a very nice "zip" to the dish that we both enjoyed...enough to make good on my promise to my mom to have a second helping when I cook from this book.  Angst wasn't quite as excited about the Arugula Situation and was quite vocal in his protests, even going to far as to stand with his hind feet on my chair and his front paws on the table, staring Mister down while I filled our bowls.

If you looked up "Disgruntled" in an illustrated dictionary....

Once he felt he had said his piece and realized that his plaintive cries had fallen upon unsympathetic ears, he retired to his blanket for a long Winter's nap, leaving us to our corrupted "spinach."