A salmonella outbreak has been linked to attractive 10-inch cucumbers imported from Mexico.

See? I didn’t forget to write a Howdygram post today after all. I’m right here at my desk in the study with a great big icy glass of Diet Sunkist orange soda. And before I forget, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO SAM AND ME. Yesterday was our ninth wedding anniversary! If you want to send a check or a present please contact me immediately for our shipping address. Thank you in advance for your generosity.

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Healthy eaters need to sit up and take notice. Two people are dead and 341 are puking their guts out in 31 states after a salmonella outbreak has been linked to attractive 10-inch cucumbers imported from Mexico. Seventy victims have been hospitalized; more than half are children under the age of 18. HOLY SHIT.

The Centers for Disease Control says consumers should not eat, restaurants should not serve, and retailers should not sell any of these recalled cucumbers. Well, duh. They continued: “If you aren’t sure if your cucumbers were recalled, ask the place of purchase or your supplier. When in doubt, throw them out.” The recalled cucumbers are large and dark green, seven to 10 inches long, and are sometimes called American or “slicing” cucumbers, as pictured above.

This would be an appropriate time to switch to Pop Secret with movie theater butter.

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Looks like I’m finally ready to start reviewing Mountain House freeze-dried meals, a product I recently discovered by accident on Wal-Mart’s website that’s a perfect product for senior citizens with mobility issues who can’t stand up to cook. I will rate them for you using the Howdygram’s brand new five-chopper Senior Citizen Food Review Rating System.

The four Mountain House meals I tried first were Biscuits & Gravy, Beef Stroganoff, Scrambled Eggs with Bacon and Noodles & Chicken with Red Flecks, and all four were winners. Never in a million years would you know these meals were freeze-dried and reconstituted. The gravies were thick, the sauces were perfectly seasoned, the tiny wads of freeze-dried meat tasted like fresh, and those adorable scrambled eggs remind me of a fluffy cut-up omelet. With lots of bacon.

Online you can find Mountain House freeze-dried meals all over the place. I like Amazon and Wal-Mart the best — they’ve got the fastest delivery (and it’s free) — but I’ve also ordered from CampSaver.com when Beef Stroganoff was out of stock everywhere else and from BePrepared.com. In case you’re interested, I’m planning to stockpile my favorites so I don’t have to get hysterical about not being able to cook when Sam goes to California at the end of September. (Yes, my mobility issues are really THAT BAD. I can’t stand up long enough to boil water in the microwave.)

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Oy, bad news from Hollywood! Former child star Dickie Moore, who appeared in dozens of movies and the “Our Gang” comedies, died yesterday at the age of 89. He was married to actress Jane Powell, who isn’t dead yet.

Some of Moore’s film credits included Marlene Dietrich’s son in Blonde Venus (1932), the first talkie version of Oliver Twist (1933), a sick little rabies victim in The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), Gary Cooper’s kid brother George in Sergeant York (1941), and he gave Shirley Temple her first on-screen kiss in Miss Annie Rooney (1942). The photo posted above features Dickie’s big line from Sergeant York.

After serving as a war correspondent during World War II Moore shifted from acting to public relations at Dick Moore & Associates, where he was the boss and nobody called him “Dickie.”

Thank you for reading this.