My sweet niece, Caroline, on the other hand has some serious allergies. Her whole face gets swollen when we cook any shellfish in the house, and peanuts will close her breathing passage ways right up. That being said, we have all become very conscience of being around her when we have peanuts or shellfish.
For the past three years, my family has gone on a week long family vacation to Carolina Beach. The first year, I had a one year old, the next year I was pregnant and had a two year old, and this year I had a three year old and a three month old. Needless to say, I have had limited time with my toes in the sand. I haven’t even had time to snap a picture of them to post on Facebook to make all of my friends jealous. When I see the cliche “toes in the sand” photo on any method of social media, I immediately think of a terrified toddler who needs two adult hands when a wave is in sight and trying to anchor down an umbrella, which is guaranteed to blow a half mile down the shoreline, to cover up my infant who won’t nap on the beach anyway. Then I picture myself packing up the chair, the umbrella, the bag of sand toys, the towels and whatever infant sleeping tent I got ripped off on that summer and making my way back to the house where I look forward to a 3 minute shower and a moist towel that has clearly dried in humidity. I know, better beach years are to come….in about four years.
It is normally Thursday that everyone is dying for a break from the sand and pool, and we need something else to do. We always opt for the local zoo with ample shade, a decently price gift shop and mediocre fencing for thier fierce and deadly animals such as crocodiles and tigers. I mean, we literally are one foot from the mouth of a crocodile behind a thin and wobbly chain linked fence, but on ‘Family Beach Vacation Thursday’, we will do whatever it takes to use our time and keep the kiddos happy.
If there was an award ceremony for the trip to this zoo, Caroline would earn “Most Easy Going” every time. When you purchase your ticket, you can buy corn and peanuts to feed the animals. Remember what I told you about the proximity to deadly animals? Well, this simply decreases said proximity. This is not just a petting zoo with the likes of a few goats, a friendly pig and a turkey or two. This is a full on zoo. “Here, here, here crocodile, have some peanuts…Oh tiger, come here… I have come peanuts for you.”
As noted earlier, Caroline can’t even touch peanuts. For the first half mile of this zoo, every animal only eats peanuts. At each cage, we would remind Caroline that the animal couldn’t have corn. She patiently held her full bag of corn while everyone else was firing peanuts at every animal in sight. She kept a good attitude for awhile, but soon she began to get sad. She just wanted to feed an animal. We all got enthralled at a monkey that would catch our peanuts and throw it right back at us, hard. I mean he would peg us with the peanuts, not hungry I guess. In the distance, we looked over and saw Caroline standing by the goat named Jack. She yelled across the zoo, “Daddy, does this one ‘take corn’?”
Of course the goats ‘took corn’, and being a goat is synonymous with being bad at something in our family, we really took on this term. “Did you play well or did you ‘take corn’?” When you lose at anything you will get heckled by goat sounds coming from the mouths of every original Smith. With all of the negative stigma flowing in the direction of goats and corn, we have to stop and pay respects to the delicious cuisine that corn can be the foundation of. This corn salad is always a hit, and it is super simple! Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Mom’s Corn Salad
Ingredients
– 4 drained cans of white shoepeg niblet corn (this is important not to alter)
– 1 bunch of green onion, chopped
– 1 container of grape or cherry tomatoes cut in half
– 1 tsp mayo (if you want, not necessary)
– salt and pepper to taste
Directions
1. Combine above ingredients.
2. Refrigerate.
3. Enjoy!
Cook With Coupons 