Seriously.. this is a true story, don't let it happen to you!

Peapod is by far one of my favorite things. It involves shopping, the internet, and food, my three most favorite things. oh, except my husband of course is the favoritist :) Yet there are times when things ... how do you say.. backfire with Peapod. The most recent experience was yesterday. It started with a simple sale but ended in RED RUM...

Ladies and Gentlemen.. the lesson here starts with this small piece of information.
Fresh = they are still ALIVE.
Mussels = THEY are still alive!

It all started with this boredom thing that is taking over my life. Making dinner keeps me occupied. So when shopping for groceries, the sale on mussels seemed like a challenge. The delivery came on Monday morning. Bryan had a meeting that night so I postponed Mussel Meal for Tuesday night. I put the mussels in the fridge in the bag they came in and forgot about them till about 5pm on Tuesday night. I started prepping for the meal, reading the recipe, cutting stuff up etc. When I came across the instruction of "debeard the mussels." interesting no? I proceed to my favoritist chair for surfing the net to search for instructions on this strange shaving of the mussels. It is here where the story takes a turn....

As I find the instructions on the net, I also find that fresh mussels are sold alive. Any that are open if you tap them, the alive ones will shut! creepy. now I refuse to go close to the mussels as i now know they are alive. except then I read, that upon purchasing mussels you should immediately go home and put them in a cold wet towel in the fridge so they can breath, otherwise they will die. hence, leaving them in the PLASTIC BAGGIE in the fridge wasn't the best plan. I call Bryan who is on his way home from work and promptly freak out. While talking to him (thanks to my new wireless headset) I remove the bag of suffication out of the fridge. I put them in a bowl of cold water, then try to cut the net the fishmongers put them in. Some of them after being put in fresh water, promptly close which promptly sends a shiver down my spine. seriously creeped out I can no longer enter the kitchen until Bryan gets home. he did the debearding (ew) and the cleaning (ew) and pretty much the touching of the mussels (double ew). I used tongs. really long tongs.

the end result is we threw out about half of them, which were open and didn't close when tapped, meaning I killed them in my fridge. The rest, maybe about 15-20, I cooked which means I killed them in the pan. Too freaked out to eat them, Bryan said they were delicious.

the lesson = if you buy anything that might ever have been alive, make sure you know what to do with it when you get it home.

(again ew)