Stick your finger in and smell it.

Nothing beets hanging out with Sleepless and eating chocolate cake. Unless, of course, we are eating it as our entree and it is chocolate beet cake from More Than Just a “C” in the Box.  Sleepless and I pride ourselves in this healthy dietary choice – you can’t beat beets! Just our luck, it was $5 Sangria night. So, we asked one of our favorite bartenders, Late Bloomer, to make two with a kick of champagne. “Can you do that?” I asked him. “Yes, we can. In fact, I’m going to make you ladies something better than a Sangria. I’m going to make you a Cambria.”

While Late Bloomer was mixing our drinks, I ran into some friends. I suggested they try the chocolate beet cake and both Sleepless and I shared the nutritional value of the beet. Vegetable cake – who knew it was possible? Sadly, Late Bloomer informed us it is not the beet we were thinking of, rather, it was the sugar beet variety of the Chenopodiaceae family, not the Amaranth family. Sleepless was devastated to learn of this travesty. Late Bloomer, like any good bartender, was quick to provide good, sound advice, “No, no, don’t be sad. Go back, take it back to where you were before I told you and hold that belief close to your heart. Embrace it.”

A little later in the evening, Late Bloomer was telling us about the impact of the oil spill and that he took some of the contaminated shoreline to a city council meeting. After the oil company stated they had cleaned up all of the oil, Late Bloomer presented his shoreline sample to the group and suggested the Mayor, “Stick your finger in and smell it.” With all of his knowledge about beets and oils, I asked Late Bloomer if he was a scientist by trade. “No, I just care.” The Mayor did smell oil and Late Bloomer’s comment was aired on the news. The next day, he received loads of comments from his friends suggesting he stick his finger in and smell it.

I would stick my finger in the chocolate beet cake and smell it. More importantly, I would eat it! Late Bloomer dressed up our slice beautifully with whipped cream and “a raspberry for every bite.” The slice was rather large and, as decadent as it looked with the raspberries, we didn’t take that big of bites. We thanked him for his kindness and attention to detail and then Sleepless asked if we could get a few more raspberries. “Absolutely. Was that not enough?” asked Late Bloomer “Based on the slice, the number of berries, and the size of our bites, those aren’t raspberries, those are rationberries,” I replied. He returned with a shot glass full of raspberries, refreshed our Cambrias, and asked why we weren’t friends on facebook.