A-Z Munchin' Monday: NUTS TO YOU!

This week, for our Monday Food Focus, we're going to celebrate all things nutty. Consider the lowly nut. We call crazy people "nuts". Not much respect for the actual nut, is it?

I'm a pretty big fan of nuts. We usually have a couple varieties around, and I am likely to toss 'em in a jar or can with some raisins, and mix them up as a snack.

We had some pistachios around a couple weeks ago and you could just hear the clatter from the pistachio shells hitting the wastebasket (or in some unfortunate cases, the floor). And isn't it fun to go out to one of them country road house steak joints that stick a big ol' bucket o'goobers out there for you to shuck and eat, and just toss the shells all over the floor? is that living or what?

One memorable nut experience we had was gathering those big ol' sloppy walnuts you can find under some apathetic neighbor's tree, bringing them home to our apartment (this was some time ago), setting them out strategically in the driveway, and running the Vega (I said this was some time ago) back and forth over them until they were adequately "shelled" (or is it "de-shelled"? or just plain "road killed"?)

I have a sweet tooth for those peanuts you can buy that are toffee coated, or honey roasted. But I also like them plain with the aforementioned raisins. Cashews, pecans, almonds - pretty much all good.

I leave you with a quote from one of my favorite, largely improvised movies, "Best in Show", about a dog show actually, but there was this character taking his dog to the show, who took great pride in his knowledge of nuts. As he explained to the cameraman:
"I used to be able to name every nut that there was. And it used to drive my mother crazy, because she used to say, "Harlan Pepper, if you don't stop naming nuts," and the joke was that we lived in Pine Nut, and I think that's what put it in my mind at that point. So she would hear me in the other room, and she'd just start yelling. I'd say, "Peanut. Hazelnut. Cashew nut. Macadamia nut." That was the one that would send her into going crazy. She'd say, "Would you stop naming nuts!" And Hubert used to be able to make the sound, he couldn't talk, but he'd go "rrrawr rrawr" and that sounded like Macadamia nut. Pine nut, which is a nut, but it's also the name of a town. Pistachio nut. Red pistachio nut. Natural, all natural white pistachio nut."

Salivate over more foods starting with N by visiting Jen's blog, "Unglazed".