I write and post a lot of lists for my friends on my personal Facebook page that the general public never gets to see. I write “Positive Lists,” lists of “Things to Do,” and lists of “Pets I wish I had but Never Will.” Random shit like that. Since there’s a fuck of a lot less food in my life to write about, I’ve decided to start publishing some of those lists here on my blog for everyone to see. I hope you will enjoy them.

First…

I recently bought a coffee maker online that I thought was from Italy, turns out it’s from China. The instructions are hilariously full of grammar and spelling errors, and it takes a coffee filter size that does not exist in the realm of human science or technology. It makes a chunky style coffee full of delicious grounds every other pot, when the human-made filters collapse. Best thing about it: It’s red. So cool! And now…

Positive List…

1) New Coffee Maker Not So Bad After-all – It makes coffee. Plus it’s a fun game trying to get the cones not to collapse. Sometimes I win the game, sometimes I lose. But there’s always coffee.

2) Procreating Doves Prove Nature is Fucking Relentless – Two doves built a nest on our front porch, shit out some eggs that morphed into hideous lizards that eventually grew feathers and became cute as fuck then flew away, and THEN those same two doves just went right ahead and shit out more eggs! Waiting for hideous baby lizards any day now.

3) Friends Consistently Remain Not Stupid – While the world seems like it’s being run and overrun by massively stupid people, my friends have remained staunchly not stupid. Thank you, Friends.

4) Favorite Foods Help Fight Pandemic Blues – As the venues I know and love realize that it’s adapt-or-close-up-for-good time, more and more of them have been offering take-out & delivery and other creative ways to stay afloat and continue to serve the community. And by “community” I mean my own sad mouth. Thank you Rustic Grape Wine Bar for the pim cheese & biscuits this weekend. Now I can live another day.

5) The Kindness of Strangers – Yadda yadda, milk, blah blah blah… so cliche, but fer rillz, perfect strangers have sent me money with very nice notes that say shit like, “Thanks for all the food recommendations over the years,” or “I’m enjoying the coloring pages.” The money is very helpful, and the notes are just the milk this colicky baby needs.

6) Bad at Math – Just realized I only consumed three of the four edibles I have! Had. Make that all four.

7) Girl Talk with Mom – Yesterday my mom said to me, “You need to re-do your nails, Honey,” and it didn’t sound weird at all. She’s right of course, my nails are a mess.

Bonus Batter: Helping my mom clean her basement, she handed me a mop that looked like it was made to spot-clean a doll house. I swabbed a narrow path in the dust from the stairs to her art-makin’ room and called it a done deal for now. We both laughed when I told her about the pathway, and agreed that mop is a total POS.

We were like,”why does a mop like that even exist?“😂

It’s like a facsimile of a mop. A 3-d printed 4/5th-scale model of a mop. An idea for a mop that never quite gelled. A mop made by someone who had only ever seen a 33dpi jpeg of a mop, but never held or used an actual mop. A prop mop. Three hours later, and that fuckin’ mop was still making me laugh!

PS – My mom wants you to know that she did not purchase this mop for herself, and has always questioned it.

8) Asheville is Not Other Places – There is absolutely nowhere else on Earth I’d rather be right now than Asheville, North Carolina. Except maybe Iceland. Iceland seems like someplace I’d really enjoy.

9) Squirrels – ’nuff said.

10) Dawn! – No, not that hateful ball of flames that rises in the East every morning, but my awesome GF who is riding-out this pandemic with me at Casa de la Food Fan!

Clear Example of Dawn’s Awesomeness: She’s been going to Ingles Markets every 10 to 14 days to stock-up on stuff. She doesn’t want me to come along (yay, no germs, plus no chores!) so the other day I asked her to pick up “something snacky in a bag” for me, and added that “I trust you to know what I like.” Well, she fucking nailed it, with a bag of lightly salted, Laura Lynn brand tater chips, not “ruffled,” nor “kettle cooked.” My favorite snack-type food in a bag that there is in this entire world! With the possible exception of cheese popcorn, which I didn’t need, because she’s been MAKING IT! <3 <3 <3 Thanks, Dawn!

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Thanks for reading!

If you want to, no presh, you can tip me for my writing or for whatever reason you want, through Venmo at Stu-Helm, or through Paypal at stuhelmavl@gmail.com

From left: Chef Jacob Sessoms of Table; Chef William Dissen, The Market Place; Chef Steven Goff, Standard Foods; Chef Katie Button, Curate; Chef Joe Scully, Chestnut and Corner Kitchen; Stu Helm; Chef John Fleer, Rhubarb; Chef Karen Donatelli, Donatelli Bakery; Chef Peter Pollay, Posana Cafe; and Chef Matt Dawes, Bull & Beggar./ Photo by STEWART O’SHIELDS for ASHVEGAS.COM

Stu Helm is an artist, writer, and podcaster living in Asheville, NC, and a frequent diner at local restaurants, cafes, food trucks, and the like. His tastes run from hot dogs and mac ‘n’ cheese, to haute cuisine, and his opinions are based on a lifetime of eating out. He began writing about food strictly to amuse his friends on Facebook.