Dear Reader Column 11-17-04

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Dear Reader,

A sale isn't really a sale in Florida if the "Buy-one-get-one-free" is for flour or cereal. Not unless you're going to use a lot of it soon--real soon. I never had this pantry pest problem when I lived in Wisconsin, but if wheat products sit around in Florida for too long--even if they're in a Ziplock bag or a plastic container sealed tightly with a lid--little itty, bitty, black bugs hitchhike their way in and set up housekeeping.

Bran flakes with raisins seem to be one of their favorites--at least at my house. (I suppose even bugs have heard about the benefits of eating bran and staying "regular.")

Bran flakes is a staple in my husband's diet, too. He eats at least four bowls every day, and he doesn't like the idea of sharing them with insects--so we only buy small quantities. It had been months since I'd seen a flour weevil, but guess who showed up the other day when I was mixing up my muffin recipe?

I measured the sugar, eggs, cinnamon, flour, buttermilk and then stirred in the rest of the ingredients--including the bran flake cereal. A couple of final swirls with the spoon, and then I saw it--a bug--scurrying along the counter beside my mixing bowl. Oh no!
There was another one, and another one, and when I looked down to survey the situation, there were bugs crawling up out of my muffin batter. Gross!

The bugs were frantic--running for their lives. It was a flour weevil 911 alert! The black critters were panicked, desperately trying to scale the inside wall of my mixing bowl, stopping periodically to shake the muffin batter off of their legs. (That buttermilk is sticky stuff.)

The batter was like quicksand, but the weevils were organizing, linking their little legs like a chain to safety from deep in the middle of the bowl. Some of them had even broken out the emergency landing equipment, their nose plugs and swim caps keeping them dry, while they backstroked to safety. Surely I was in the middle of a horror novel.

Obviously I had to throw the batter out, but I must admit that for a split second a couple of options ran through my frazzled mind: They're going to get baked at 350 degrees, so couldn't I just consider them protein? And don't people regularly eat things like this on reality television shows?

But I quickly came back to the real world, tossed the batter and the bowl--by now it had too many memories--and headed for the grocery store.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
www.DearReader.com

Comments

[Gwynn]

Suzanne, get yourself some Bay Leaves and put 3 or 6 in your flour and cereal and you will find the critters moving to another neighborhood very quickly. Hope this helps.
Your new reading buddy,
Gwynn Findlay (from Lakeland, Florida)

[Ann Blake]

Suzanne, Try keeping your flour in the refrigerator & bay leaves in your cabinets. No bugs!

[pat meder]

Today little tale about bugs made me laugh
I work for kelloggs cereal and how could
those bug have the nerve to go into our cereal. But you made me smilt.

[betty]

Hi, i had to email you. that was so funny. I was taught to keep flour in the frige Aany way I take care of a 92 year old lady. And she called me a few weeks back She had open a new bag of flour and it was full of bugs. Anyway,So i know how bad they can get. In her case the flour was 2 years old. She had it in her pantry.

[Lisa]

Hi,
I'm subject to these bugs also,I live in Fl and just threw out all my food just before Christmas and they are back again!! I also noticed that the mullers pasta always seems to have the bugs so I don't buy that anymore.I will try the bay leaves but does anyone know where these bugs come from??I would like to get to the root of the problem.
Thanks in advance for any info Lisa