Evil Weevil

I like to make a grain mix with grilled vegetables and meat for dinner. It's made by Archer Farms, the brand you can find exclusively at Target and it includes wild rice, brown rice, bulgur wheat, red quinoa and rye. I like to add even more wild rice and quinoa to mine, so I always mix it in a large plastic storage container to keep in the pantry. I use my rice cooker so it's super fast and simple, adding an extra cup of water, and cook on the brown rice setting. When it is done, I stir in some Bragg's Liquid Aminos and voila! A yummy, nutritious side dish! (Leftovers are amazing in soups!)

Many times in the past two years I have purchased rice that was infested with weevils. Usually I caught it right away and was able to dispose of the infested bag immediately, before more than a handful escaped into the corners of my kitchen. We like to call them evil weevils. I'm sure you'll agree if you have ever experienced this nightmare. There is something very disgusting about opening a bag of food and finding loads of creepy crawlies! Especially when you realize that those creepy crawlies hatched from eggs that you probably wouldn't have noticed and eaten if you had cooked it up before they hatched. And some of you will simply shrug your shoulders and say, "Extra protein."

Not I...

A few months ago when I was running low on my whole grain mix and wanted to stretch it to last for another 2 meals, I decided to add a bag of brown rice too. I had just emptied the last of my wild rice into the container and was beginning to pour the brown rice on top when I noticed several weevils falling into the mix. ICK!

I scooped off all of the brown rice from the top that I could, carefully inspected what was left and took the compromised rice to the garbage outside. For the next few days we were finding weevils all around the house. In the bathrooms, in the bedrooms, in the living room and den, in the laundry room...wherever you went, there was a weevil! (I must admit, this kept James very happily busy...he is my resident exterminator.) Slowly the amount tapered off and a weevil sighting became rare. YAY!

But a week or two ago we began finding them all over the house again. But this time there were many times more than the last. I quickly searched the pantry (we were busy packing for a long weekend out of town) and found a bag of rice that clearly had a few weevils in it, so that went out with the trash. I thought that our little weevil hatchery had been eliminated and the task at hand was simply rounding up the little creatures that had gone exploring.

When we returned from our trip, we noticed that there were many more weevils all around the house. Some were dead, others were definitely not. Eradicating evil weevils became the equivalent of an Olympic sport in our house. James received gold, of course. Lydia didn't even place. She just stood there, pointing and screaming until James came to the rescue. (Where does she get THAT from, I wonder?)

This morning I went searching for a bag of barley that I knew was somewhere in the pantry. I was going to try making a bean barley soup for dinner. I found it buried way at the bottom of the pantry, underneath a million bags of dried beans and behind dozens of cans and jars of tomatoes.

And there it was...

The most enormous colony of weevils I have ever seen! They were hatching out of my barley!!!

Jerks.

Out went the barley, in came the vacuum and the weevils stood no chance. What a deep feeling of satisfaction as each one was sucked up the vacuum tube into oblivion! Ha Ha, evil weevils! Look who's laughing now!