Clam Chowder

You all probably know how much Randy and I have enjoyed drinking buttermilk over the last several years.  Cream of Weber made the best drinking buttermilk ever - we loved it!  Alas, COW sold out to Dairy Gold, and we were no longer able to find tasty buttermilk!  Dairy Gold buttermilk was just not very good.  Sad day in Pocatello!  Well, Randy eventually found that he could tolerate Albertson's buttermilk and bought it from time to time.  He has trouble assimilating calcium into his body and suffers from leg cramps when his calcium is low.  He has found that if he drinks buttermilk, which is much higher in calcium than regular milk or other dairy products, then it takes care of his muscle cramps.  Soooo, after we got settled in Oxnard, we set out to find a tolerable buttermilk.  Yes, they have Albertson's here.  No, the buttermilk was not the same as in Idaho.  It was downright nasty! We checked many different stores to no avail.  Then one day we were in Smart 'n' Final for the first time and discovered they had a brand we had not tried yet.  And hurray! - finally a brand Randy could drink -- still not very good, mind you, but tolerable.  (I don't drink it - oh how I miss COW!) 

We were out of buttermilk, and one day when we were in Smart 'n' Final for some other stuff, we remembered we needed to get some more.  Oh, did I mention that the price of buttermilk at Smart 'n' Final was much more "tolerable," also, than any other we'd found.  So while we were there, we stalked up!  We got two half gallons!  We placed it on the belt along with the other items we had found, took it home, removed it from the grocery bag, and placed it in the frig.  Before long Randy poured himself a nice big glass of it.  After a big swig, he realized something was not quite right!

I suspect that the picture has given a big clue as to what the problem was!  Yup -- we had just come home with a whole gallon of Half & Half, which, by the way, was much more expensive than the buttermilk!  Now in defense of our error, you can quickly see just how easily anyone could mistake one for the other, right?  RIGHT???  Who knew you could even GET Half & Half in half gallon size!!  Right?  When we went back to Smart 'n' Final to get the real deal, there were no half gallons that day of Half & Half.  I'm not even kidding! 

We have laughed and laughed about this!  AND we made some delicious clam chowder and had the Blues over for dinner! 

(I still have half a gallon of Half & Half in my frig!)  What's YOUR favorite recipe using Half & Half?  Please let me know asap -- and please keep in mind that we do not have an ice cream maker here -