Peanut Butter Update

I got a call yesterday from a sweet, little old lady in San Angelo, Texas who wanted to make sure she could still eat her peanut butter from the jar. Our main message sent out about the salmonella outbreak has been that retail peanut butter, i.e., peanut butter in a jar, is still safe to eat. However, there has been a recall on a lot of the peanut butter crackers we all love to eat.

Last night I learned that Byron's roommate had bought several packages of peanut butter crackers days before the recall, because they were all on sale. I wonder if some guy at the grocery store had an insider?

It's interesting (and comforting) to see how Americans truly love their peanut butter. I've heard the statement a couple times that "they'd rather take the risk than not eat their peanut butter."

I guess that's their choice, but our hope is that the salmonella scare, while it should not be taken lightly, will not cause a huge dip in peanut butter by the jar sales. That not only causes problems with food manufacturers, but could later cause a surplus of peanuts on the market and drop prices even more than they've already fallen.

If you're not sure what products are on the recall list, go to the FDA's web site.

Go to the TPPB site to read our statements.

Continue Eating Peanut Butter, Please

I'm sure you all have read the headlines over the past couple of days that warn, "Do Not Eat Peanut Butter" or "Peanut Butter Recall" or "You Will Die a Slow Painful Death if You Eat Peanut Butter"...

Since my job is basically to promote peanuts and peanut butter, I'm going to tell you that you should keep eating peanut butter - out of the jar.

Yes, there has been a recall on peanut butter products that were used to make cracker snacks. However, peanut butter in jars on your grocer's shelf is very safe and nutritious to eat. In fact, you should all eat some every day, especially if you're Hispanic. It lowers your risk of diabetes, and Hispanics are about six times more likely to have diabetes.

I got this email from the American Peanut Council yesterday. I think it tells you what you need to know:

The FDA and the American Peanut Council are urging consumers to postpone eating products made with peanut butter pending information about which products contain ingredients produced by a plant in Blakely, Georgia. Products from that plant have been linked to salmonella contamination in Minnesota, Georgia and Connecticut. Retail peanut butter brands on grocery shelves are safe and need not be avoided. Consumers should visit www.fda.gov for a list of affected products in the days ahead.

This also gives me a chance to further preach on how the media tends to sensationalize the facts. Some people may argue, "You work for the peanut industry. Of course you're going to say it's O.K. to eat peanut butter."

My answer to them is, "Yes, I do work for the peanut industry, but we don't make a habit out of telling people to eat something that is going to destroy their intestines."

A headline like the one that was on MSNBC yesterday that read "Do Not Eat Peanut Butter" is ridiculous. No, you shouldn't eat the products that are being recalled, but to encourage everyone to give up peanut butter eating all together? It makes me want to buy an ad that says, "MSNBC Doesn't Wash Their Hands After Using the Bathroom" or "MSNBC Eats Roadkill".

No, I don't know if those statements are true for people that work at MSNBC, but they could be damaging to their reputation, just as their headline was to the peanut industry.

My main point here is don't always believe what you read in the headlines. There's always another story behind what's printed. My job used to be centered around writing news stories and headlines. Did they ever teach us in our college journalism classes to sensationalize the news? If they did, I must have been eating peanut butter or something inherently dangerous like that and didn't pick up on that bit of information.

New URL Name Thing

Hey team, I changed the URL of the blog to EssaysFromTexas.blogspot.com from the old lindsaymariewest.blogspot.com. If for some odd reason you had the old site bookmarked, be sure to update it to the new one. If you don't have it bookmarked, then that's fine, too.

If I made you mad by changing the URL then leave a nasty comment or something.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say Woo Pig Sooie in honor of the Hogs knocking off No. 7 Texas Tuesday night. Other than the fact that beating Texas is almost spiritual for me, it's also nice to finally have enthusiasm back in Arkansas basketball. It's about dadgum time.

Double Team

The bad part about loving a sports team is you set yourself up for very few highs and a lot of lows. When you're passionate about a team you're going to get your heart broken. I've been a Razorback fan all my life. When the Hogs went to the national championship in basketball in '94 I was eaten up stupid with Hog Wild pride. During March Madness that year, I would get so wrapped up in the games I would have to run outside and shoot free throws to help them win, which I'm sure really helped. I also remember wearing a Razorback cap in the bathtub the night they played for the national championship against Duke, because I thought I would jinx them if I took it off before game time. Hey, I was 11, give me a break.

Basketball was my bread and butter then. Now it's college football.

It's safe to say I will always be a Hog fan first and foremost. And, all Hog fans can agree, we've been through some ups and downs emotionally over the past couple of years. But we keep on keepin' on. Many fair weather fans have long since jumped ship, but the rest of us hold on in hopes of the team that will bring us back to glory.

Since I sought higher education at two universities (Arkansas and Texas Tech), I was faced with the struggle of whether or not to root for the latter. When I first started graduate school out here I went to several Red Raider football games. Yes, I was entertained by the "air raid" high powered offense that usually put 50 plus points on the board, but there was a part of me that just wouldn't allow myself to feel the passion I felt while calling the Hogs. I'd like to call it loyalty, others might call it stubbornness.

However, after re-immersing myself into Raiderland, I've taken on a 60-40 sports perspective: 60 percent of my heart calls the Hogs while the remaining 40 percent puts it's guns up. I do feel a loyalty to Tech since I went to school there, but my alma mater will always win out when it comes to my loyalty if the two schools play each other (which I pray never happens for relationship purposes - I can be very hard to tolerate when winning and losing and pride and bragging rights are on the line.)

Needless to say, being a Razorback fan was miserable during this year's football season. However, being a Red Raider fan was like a crazy roller coaster ride that got me through the season. It was kind of like having your cake and eating it, too, then having it completely taken away from you. The Hogs sucked, but Tech went undefeated through 11 games.

I was at the Texas game when Tech beat the then No. 1 Horns in Lubbock on a last second pass to the best receiver in college football. It was the most amazing sports moment I will likely ever witness in person...or on TV for that matter.


Lubbock was on fire with that same hype I remember from Fayetteville when the Hog basketball team was ripping up the nation, and I was feeling it, too. I think a few other Arkansas fans back home even put their guns up this season, because there wasn't anything better to do in Hog country.

Then Tech got their national championship hopes crushed after going into Norman, Okla., as the No. 2 team in the country - the highest rank in Tech history. The stupid Sooners took us to the trash can. Lubbock felt like someone had let the air out of the city the next day. That also kind of goes back to the whole West Texas football craziness that exists out here, too. The region's hopes and dreams rest on what happens on Friday and Saturday nights during football season.

Since Tech was one of three one-loss teams in the Big 12 South, we were thrown into a tooth and nail fight for a spot in the Big 12 championship. We didn't get in, but we got into the Cotton Bowl. The idea of Texas Tech getting no national respect is a whole other blog topic, but non-Red Raiders just don't like the idea of Texas Tech being in the national championship picture. They've never been there, so they need to stay out of it, apparently. Jerks.

So, on to the Cotton Bowl we went. I was there last year as a Hog fan and got my heart broken. Bad. We got thrashed my Missouri. Despite have a terrible New Years Eve, New Years Day 2008 was worse.



But this year I went as a Red Raider. We were to play Ole Miss, who is now coached by the Arkansas-loathed Houston Nutt, who did his best to destroy Arkansas football before he left. I couldn't decide what I wanted worse - Tech to win or Houston Nutt to lose. I realize those are the same thing, but they were actually tow different things in my head.

Apparently, I am terrible luck to any team I support when I attend their away games. I went to a Tech game in Austin a few years ago - lost that one. I went to the Cotton Bowl last year when the Hogs played there - lost that one, too. I went to see Arkansas play Texas in Austin this year - lost again. And, now this year's Cotton Bowl...

Unfortantely, we lost. I hate even typing those words: "We lost". It hurts me. And, I feel comfortable saying "we" when referring to Tech.

Tech's cinderella season came to a disappointing end at the last game ever to be played at the 73-year old Cotton Bowl in Dallas, which was a lot bigger this year than it was last year for some reason.

I hate losing, but I did get to throw a tortilla at kickoff - a time honored Texas Tech tradition that somewhat finally made me feel like a real Red Raider.

I am now content with me a double teamer. Does that make me a Red Hog? A Razor-raider? Or a Raider-back? At least the colors are similar. That makes things handy.

2008: Over and Out

Well, it's New Year's Eve and tomorrow we will start a new year. New Year's Eve has always been rather anticlimactic for me. We worry about what fun and exciting thing to do to ring in the new year, yet it never quite lives up to expectations. It's almost like I expect some big explosion of confetti, fun and amazingness to occur at midnight. While the countdown is exciting, once you hit 12:01 it's all downhill from there as far as the evening is concerned.

I remember one New Year's Eve a few years ago we spent the whole night trying to figure out what to do and a consensus was never reached so I saw the new year come in by the clock on an oven.

When the new millennium rang in, I was at a party at a Christmas tree farm. We heard loud booms and for a split second thought the skeptics were right and the world was coming to an end all because computers were confused by the changing digits. It turned out to be really big fireworks in Fayetteville at someone else's really cool New Year's Eve party.

I haven't quite had this blog a full year yet, so I can't see it feasible to do a recap. So, instead here's some pictures from my holiday at home in Arkansas.

This is Sadie with a dog mullet wig on Christmas Eve.

This is a blazing sunset on Christmas Eve. Either that or Santa caught on fire.


These are pies about to be eaten (by me) on Christmas Eve.

This is a 'W' in one of our fences. Obviously, it stands for 'West', but just to clarify, if you happen to be wandering aimlessly through Viney Grove and need a compass, don't rely on the W's to point you in the right direction, because they stand for a last name and have no directional meaning.




And these are Christmas lights on my house. We had to replace a couple of bulbs and didn't get them all replaced when we put them up over Thanksgiving and the lights have yet to be lit this season. So, my house has sat there pretending to be in the Christmas spirit.

Dad and me did a little walking up on the mountain on Christmas day to work off all the pies we'd eaten. On our 40 acres up on Stevenson Mountain, there's bluffs and a cave. I consider myself to be a friend of the outdoors, but I choose not to be friends with caves. While they're neat and I like the idea of them, I really would just rather not go inside them.


Meanwhile, back at the farm, I strolled around the pond bank to enjoy the beautiful winter's morn. Actually, it was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.


Later that night we had an ugly sweater party. Even the dog got a sweater, but it was actually cute.


So, over and out 2008. May 2009 be way cooler than you were.

Feral Hogs

An unwritten rule of the outdoors (mainly if you're a hunter) is any time you go out to scout the scene for wildlife and you take a gun with you, you likely won't see a darn thing.

But, if you leave your guns at home like the Johnny Cash song tells you to do, then you will see every wild animal, Sasquatch and exotic bird in North America. It never fails.

A group of us were in Rotan last weekend and decided to scope the countryside for species of the feral existence. We opted to leave the weaponry at home.

The result? We saw a whole pack of feral hogs, three decent bucks, a passel of does, a yeti and Elvis. Unfortunately, I only got a picture of the hogs.

While we were driving along a field that had been planted in winter wheat, I noticed a black animal below us. I thought it was an Angus cow, so I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to appear too jumpy since I was the only female in the truck. Turned out it was a stinkin' huge black wild hog.

We scurried out of the truck and I tried to take a few shots (I didn't have the appropriate camera gear, of course) and the darn things bolted out of a bush right at us. There were at least six in that group, and several others, including the large, beastly one, ran off in the other direction.


By the way, for those of you who have never seen or been where feral hogs have been, they stink. They stink really bad. Plus, they leave their nasty smell behind for you to enjoy.

These last two pictures don't really have anything to do with the hogs.

Attack of the Giant Tumbleweeds

Obvious statement: The wind blows a lot in West Texas.

Another obvious statement: There are a lot of tumbleweeds in West Texas.

The little cold front that blew through here on Tuesday that brought us some nice, tranquil snow flakes that violently blew across the sky like millions of tiny white pieces of Styrofoam really brought some wind. The wind was straight out of the north. Let me reiterate (and this is mainly for those of you who do not live in West Texas): when the wind blows out here, it REALLY blows. Wind speeds of 10-20 mph are considered "breezy" days. They go virtually unnoticed by weathermen and regional inhabitants alike.

When they forecast wind, that usually means it's going to blow at least 30 mph, with gusts often up to (and not limited to) 50-60 mph.

There's nothing to block it out here folks. Nothing. And when it's cold, it cuts like a knife.

With that being said, I saw something really funny when this front moved through. A large crowd of tumbleweeds had gathered in the banks of the overpass of I-27, which runs very near our office. I mean there was a large pile of these things.

The winds started blowing straight out of the north, which was just enough to push this large pile of tumbleweeds out of their "nest" so that they individually rolled south up the entrance ramp onto the interstate. Hilarious. I witnessed tumbleweeds playing a game of follow the leader.

Meanwhile, we have a fence that divides the office property from a bordering field to the north. On our side of the fence is a well manicured lawn. On the field side of the fence is a baron, prickly, sticker-filled, tumbleweed-breeding field. When the wind started up on Tuesday, the tumbleweeds that didn't merge onto the interstate piled up on the fence line like a pile of marshmallows.

*On another note, I need to explain a correction to yesterday's post. The economic impact of the WNFR in Las Vegas is $70 million in non-gambling money, not a meek $7 million. That's a rather substantial piece of information that makes my story from yesterday make more sense.