Red Beans and Rice Mondays: The Grapes of Wrath

Alright now, this raisin thing has gotten way out of hand. You don't need raisins to enhance the flavor of anything other than oatmeal. So I have no idea why this picture and recipe popped up in my Facebook feed this morning or why anybody in their right mind would eat that crap. Seriously, jerk chicken with bananas and raisins???

Not even Mikey is gonna eat that (and if you don't get that reference, then trust me, you don't want it either). We aren't children. We don't need dried fruit added to food unnecessarily. Nobody wants that. Trust me, Karen, and say it with me: Nobody wants raisins in their potato salad. And though somebody somewhere this weekend is in the kitchen right now mixing up a batch of this crap, I assure you that nobody is going to eat it, not even to be polite. And if you leave it behind, trust that it will end up in the trash, and the raccoons won't eat it either.

People may like raisins, but nobody loves them. That's why you can only get kids to eat them from those boxes the size of your thumb. Anything larger than that, and you need to cover them with chocolate or yogurt. And given the choice between any other hard candy from the bottom of that church lady's bag and a pastel-colored yogurt-covered raisin, I'm pretty sure most of us would pass on both. And seriously, who prefers Raisinets to popcorn?

Dr. Suess initially intended for Sam I Am to entice that guy (whose name is Joey?) to eat raisins, but it wasn't as catchy as green eggs and ham. If you can imagine how raisins almost ruined a classic children's story, then why would anybody want to ruin a batch of collard greens that way? No Martha, NO.

Now there are a few exceptions, but these are trying times. Folks are stressed so at the cookout, they just want to kick back, talk smack, play spades, and eat foods that they recognize. Nobody is in the mood to try some dish you saw on Pinterest. And nobody comes to the BBQ to eat leftovers, so that's why nobody is going to eat that curried chicken salad. No thank you, Ina, this ain't a tea party or a Missionary Ministry social.

And for just a minute let's acknowledge the laxative effect of dried fruit, so unless you don't plan to use your bathroom, do NOT set out a bowl of trail mix for folks to snack on while the food is on the grill. And I don't care how many recipes you see that rave about rum raisin ice cream...you've been warned.

That's about all I need to say on the matter. Raisins are NOT INVITED to the cookout, not even if they sing and dance and come from California.