By Laura Grimes
While the rest of America cooed about golden-roasted turkeys and football scores yesterday, the Scatter family was concerned about deeply more important matters. Hot chocolate.
Ah! Scatter regulars just knew that line was going to be about pickles. They know the fourth Thursday in November is not known as Thanksgiving in the Scatter household [...]
By Laura Grimes
Today is a REALLY big day in the Scatter Household. The special holiday hot chocolate comes out, the Christmas CDs make their debut and … drumroll … it’s the Grand Unsealing of the Pickles.
We’ve been sharing our disaster tales of Thanksgivings past all week.
Some years back, Mr. Scatter’s family (notice how the disaster [...]
By Laura Grimes
Here at Art Scatter World Headquarters we are counting down to the day of the Grand Unsealing of the Pickles* by telling all our embarrassing and disastrous tales of Thanksgivings past.
For some reason, giant black clouds hover over us this time every year, though we always manage to have a wonderful holiday.
This year, [...]
By Laura Grimes
Two days to T-day!
Mr. and Mrs. Scatter love planning Thanksgiving dinner, even if it’s just them and The Large Smelly Boys. They love writing up the menu, ferreting out the special recipe file, taking stock of ingredients, making lists, shopping, splaying out the bounty.
Then on Thanksgiving day, they put on music and start [...]
By Laura Grimes
THE SCENE: Mr. and Mrs. Scatter arrive home late one muggy evening after going to The Theatre. It’s October, when mad science takes over without warning. The Small Large Smelly Boy is waiting on the front porch to greet his adoring parents. The He Cat’s nose is just behind the slit door.
SMALL LARGE [...]
By Laura Grimes
The first large jar of spicy dill pickles vintage 2010 has launched into the world. It was exchanged over morning coffee for kickass ginger molasses cookies. Just in the nick of time, too. A pack of Large Smelly Boys took over the house. (How rude of teachers to have an in-service day.)
The list [...]
By Laura Grimes
The pickles as social vehicle experiment is working! (Read what it’s all about here.) So far, the bartering offers include (some serious, some not so much):
Sauerkraut
Pesto plus a 2009 WillaKenzie pinot gris
Elk meat
Cream cheese braid
$57.32 (perhaps not so serious, but I know the intent is true, because we split one of these jars [...]
By Laura Grimes
When word got around that we put pickles up again this year, the barter offers started to come in. So far, we’ve received requests for pickles in exchange for:
Sauerkraut
Pesto
Elk meat
This is not a bad combination. (Forget the fact that we don’t eat meat.) Now I’m thinking that if we strike enough deals we [...]
By Laura Grimes
Dear Mr. Scatter,
You really shouldn’t let me go shopping unsupervised. Because then I buy things like Baby Fuzzless Kiwifruit. They don’t look very exceptional. They look like hard little nuggets that should be skewered and stuck in a drink. But I don’t care about that. They’re called Baby Fuzzless Kiwifruit and that’s all [...]
By Bob Hicks
Mrs. Scatter shovels a tiny spoon beneath my nose.
“You need to taste this new mustard,” she commands.
What’s this? New mustard? Mrs. Scatter’s been making the same mustard for so long it’s plastered on our sensory memories like the one tattoo you don’t regret. It’s Old Faithful, the house standard, the creme de condiments. [...]