misosouper, a shopping blog

The best gifts to please screeching, barking, tired households like mine, short of free babysitting and maid service.

Sweet felt frames for all the birds in your flock.

Because as long as you’re bribing the kids with hot chocolate, you might as well take that Carnation instant cocoa to the next level.

A trick from my beloved grandmother, who hails from the pre-germ era:  kids love counting and rolling coins.   These colorful metallic trays are also perfect for making change when they play store.

Put your foot down once and for all.

Be the goose that lays this golden egg in their backyard.

The only foreseeable issue with these Lego-handled utensils is that the kids will insist on eating with them stacked in an awkward fork-spoon-knife combination. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Made from densely packed magazines, this bulletin board (no push pins necessary!) is the sharpest I’ve ever seen.

The ultimate rainy day entertainment: a 500 piece “impossible” puzzle based on an abstract illustration by Alex Beard.

These cards make traveling sew much fun.

Why freeze ice when you can freeze the cup instead?

This gigantic digital photo frame (15″!) makes that newborn baby almost lifesized.

While they’re not quite Anarchy in the UK, these punky monkeys are so much cuter than letting them stick a safety pin through their ear.

Bedtime battles be gone:  turn on this constellation maker and snuggle under the Milky Way tonight.

Memorialize the whole family on a stick-figure pillow that Mom and Dad will keep on their bed forever.

Yes, these are bugs encased in Lucite.  Is that creepy?

Feed their Bob Ross addiction with a paint-by-numbers set.  Just make sure it doesn’t end up in the garage sale by “accident.”

Use these spy sunglasses to confirm your long-standing conviction that they are indeed following you.  Even if “they” just happen to be, um, your parents.

Because after all this fun, mom and dad are tired.  Guaranteed.

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When it comes to cooking, I am incredibly lazy.  I also try to be healthy, and the two don’t always jive.

As if the heavens opened and answered all my nutritional prayers, this steamer will prepare an entire meal–protein, veggies, and rice–all at once.  Memo to my family:  get ready for some serious salmon and green beans.

Whole Foods?  Bah.  It’s the one you date, but don’t marry:  overrated, and usually overpriced.

Fresh Market?  Expensive, but pretty close to perfect, especially their selection of vacuum-fried vegetables, some of which you can purchase online.  The best of the lot is the okra chips, which are surprisingly sweet and crisp, rather than flaccid and gooey, as okra can often be.

FM even preserves the okra’s slender, sculptural shape (as opposed to slicing it into the more traditional pieces), just like these lovely okra salt and pepper shakers, which sit on my kitchen table reminding me to eat some more.

Not Martha got here first, but really, who’s complaining about another mention of cupcakes?

Because my daughter’s preschool is one of those composting, can’t-eat-crap environments, I must bake some kind of healthy muffcake to share at her school birthday party.  While I think it’s fun to confuse the poor kids by making some kind of zucchini-raisin-cranberry-carrot concoction, the kids would probably appreciate me mitigating the un-fun factor with this decidedly fun giant cupcake pan.