So last night, at 11:30PM PST, the kindly mad scientists over at CERN lit up the Large Hadron Collider. I wasn't worried, as no matter how large the hadrons are, their collision wasn't really going to result in a black hole that would swallow the earth. Well, probably  not - or, as the director said, it's less probable then simply disappearing while shaving in the morning. Thus far I haven't done that, either.

Never the less, pyr8queen  and I figured it was a good excuse to have an end of the world dinner. So after swimming (about 25% longer for me than I was planning, which means some of my stamina is coming back) we stopped at the marvelous, miraculous, gigantic Whole Foods on Lincoln and Rose (which has a wine bar, hot food, sandwich station, and a wine section larger than most liquor stores...) and picked up fixings for a good dinner.

For starters, we had curry croquettes, and cheese on crackers. (Their cheese selection is absurd.) I marinaded some lamb leg cutlets in a ginger-horseradish terikyaki, and made garlic mashed potatoes and baby bok-choy with shoyu. pyr8queen likes anything that is innocent to eat, so lamb and baby bok-choy are particular favorites of hers. She loves to eat the succulent marrow of the lamb, revelling in the violation of its cute, innocent, adorable soul. And she'll only take her bok-choy in baby form. So obviously this was a good meal for her. The lamb was a little under done (easily remedied by throwing it back on the grill for a bit) and everything else was just fine. For dessert, there were little tubs of pre-made cookie dough at Whole Foods, so I got snickerdoodles and they turned out excellently.

Whole Foods is quite a phenomenon - the place is always packed, which is maybe not such a big surprise for Venice. Still, while walking around in there, I can't help not wanting to eat everything I see. It all looks so good! (Tonight we're making skewers of pepper and various hand-made sausages, with grilled giant shitaake mushrooms with blue cheese crumbles and balsamic vinaigrette. ) Anyway, the crowd is fairly predictable for a Whole Foods...but as evidence of the ancillary purpose to which some shoppers are obviously putting it, one young woman was wandering the vegetable aisle in a bright red t-shirt that read "Single - and playing the field!" So I guess people really do meet in the vegetable aisle? (Which is more like a vegetable football field, here...) Given that we tend to amuse each other quite a bit, pyr8queen and I were giggling and maybe carrying on just a little. We got crazy mad-dogged by one woman, who seemed to be either alarmed or offended by our very existence. What was her problem? Did she put a curse on us? Strange!

The world has failed to explode, however. Now we need only wait until the 21st of October, when they actually collide those large hadrons.