psychobombshell

Chris, I love the show! As someone who lives in Vegas now, I was so happy someone went off the Strip and showed downtown.. it needs all the help from classy people it can get! I work at a bar just south of the Fremont Street Experience, and fried twinkies are our friends! Oh and thank you for showing Ellis Island! An insider tip.. Join thier points club! Even if you are only there for the food, you automatically get enough points when you sign up for a dinner!

I kind of like how Jamie Oliver sounds like he's talking about a woman's body or something equally scandalous when he calls things "really lovely" or "really beautiful"...and the permeating Enligh "ah yea" & "right then"....

I am so sorry to hear about his passing. If it was not for him, I may not have found the wonderment of so many different culture's food. My glass of wine is for you this evening.

Been ther, done it.... in phoenix..had a 4 hour layover and decided to explore a bit.. got lost and missed my flight..luckily my airline was very understanding...I will never do that again lol

The Portland Art Museum (which BTW is having a wonderful exhibit of the Rau collection through August...not to be missed...I loved it) Is 3 maybe 4 blocks away from the Heatman. The Heathman is on the corner of Broadway & Salmon, and if you take Salmon west (Salmon is a one way street, so going west will be going in the opposite direction of traffic) til the end of that block you'll see parks..lot's of them..that's the South Park Blocks... both streets that run on either side of said park are called Park... just turn left and go uphill and on your right you'll see it after about 2 blocks... you can't miss it I hope that wasn't too confusing... it'll make sense when you see it, I promise.

My favourite tea is a simple one, Good Earth's sweet & Spicy original blend....it is so perfectly sweet on its own, no need for milk or sugar..and you can use the same bag at least 3 times.. mmm I used to be addicted to this hawaiian fruit tea whose name is escaping me.. it was red when brewed and had a like a hibisucus flower on the label and tag.. I'll have to ask my aunt about it

Did anyone give anything food related up? I gave up caffiene (which as a college student is like an essential crack) and Ebay (the HARDEST thing ever..ok, maybe not...but it's been brutal)...

You can tell who the "masters" are by their black aprons. So ever since I read this, I've been harrassing all the Starbucks patrons I know with "So, have the black aprons arrived yet?" 4 hours? geez had I known it only took 4 hours, I would've gone and worked there... our coffee origins training took a lot longer

We were pretty normal in our house, with the "no elbows", saying grace, and waiting til everyone was sserved...but there were a couple weird ones... I have no idea why, but "no singing" and "no whistling" at the table were rules...apparently someone actually did these things at one pont... of course being the rebel who liked to get under my grandpa's skin that I was, I made a point to do both.... Bravo on raising responsible well mannered kids! Question, though...as an adult, are there places to take etiquette classes? Is there still such a thing as charm school still? I'm not that bad, but my table manners could use a good polishing for when I need to sit in on lunch meeting and such. Being in law kind of requires me to make a good impression.....

Depends on how much they are paying attention and on which side... I got pulled going into canada on greyhound (apparently they have a problem believing a 26 year old woman doesn't have a driver's licence because she doesn't actually know how to drive, not that she's been convicted of a felony and had it taken away).... on the US side coming home, I smuggled in a mickey d's salad and cheese burger and nothing...I was seriously shocked at how lax the customs were for buses in Blaine.....

I can't believe no ones mentioned the episode where Marge & Homer go to the candy Con... and he picks the gummi Venus de Milo off the babysitter's tushy, then gets sued for sexual harrasment

My first real job was at Coffee People, the local alternative (well in Portland, OR anyways) to Starf**ks...and we always used to laugh at the starbucks regulars that would wander into our store, used to ordering a grande or what have you, since we served small, medium and large like normal people. I personally refuse to Starmuck any more, because they don't have a way for me to tip their employees if I'm using my card (ah the electronic age) and have no actual cash or change on me (I hate carrying it)....as many times as I've suggested it, they haven't changed. And as someone who knows what it's like to live off of tips (see above job..I'd sock away my actual paychecks and eat my daily dinner off of my tips) , I can't in conscience give my money to an orginization that screws it's employess out of my chance to pay them for their service (by the way, did you know at the Starbucks inside safeways and other supermarkets,they are supermarket employess and are not allowed to accept tips? So they are now outsourcing baristas?).

Ever put peeps in the microwave.. its fun as long as you dont mind the clean-up

Oh sorry.. that was a joke... going along with the current craze to call EVERYTHING low-carb to buy into the market.

My mom and I were discussing this yesterday, and we're waiting for Low -Carb Metemucil to come out

I usually like Starkist packed in water...my fave basic recipie from growing up involves 2 tsps regular mayo, a little bit of yellow mustard, a teaspoon of dill relish (not a big fan of the sweet pickles), and some crushed up onion soup mix. Mix it all together, let it sit for 15 minutes in the fridge (to let the flavours meld and the onion pieces rehydrate), and serve on sourdough. My other, was one I got in my early 20's, while first living alone.... I got it out of the back of Sassy Magazine...from Kim & Thurston of Sonic Youth...its called Cat Tacos.... Its basically tuna, a bit of mayo, chopped tomatoes (deseeded), chopped red onions. You then start heating a tortilla in a pan (I always used pam), toss on some cheddar and jack cheese. after it starts to melt a bit, add about 2-4 Tbls (depending on the size of the tortilla) to one side of the tortilla, and let it the chees melt all the way and the tuna mixture warm up. Fold over to creat a taco, and voila...basically a tuna melt on a tortilla

My only speacial recipie for Easter is a good spicy bloody mary to stay upright, since I spend ever Easter in Las Vegas at a rock weekender (which is basically a 4 day bender). Every year I make sure I go to a certain small bar off of the strip that can make one with the horseradish and tabasco just right. Tne I sober up and go to mass (yes, there is actually a Catholic Church about a 1/4 mile off the strip) at 5.

Ah okay...stuff I normally never eat but just had to have... Pumpkin seeds! They make my jaw hurt, but I just had to have some a few weeks ago..and not the crappy David's kind...I wanted to but an actual pumpkin, go through the trouble of scoopingout the guts and roasting them so they have that taste...and I was dying for it! But I couldnt find a pumpkin anywhere! So, I ate the david's and but it wasn't the same....

3 Bean Salad

I live my life by my cravings (hence the fact my freshman 15 was a bit more)... my current thing is roasted potatoes with carmalised onions...I will do this..,.I'll somethign I'm craving several times a week for 2 or 3 weeks, and then not eat it again for months, maybe years.... I have a small obsession with carmalisation....onions, mushrooms, shallots... Strange..???I like popcorn with a mixture of butter,soy sauce, tapatio hot sauce, the powder from onion soup mix (Ive actually devised a way to sift out the dehydrated onion pieces) and freshly grated parmesan cheese. oh and burnt pop-tarts

I would never eat a burger at a McMennamins.... ugh.... depending on the individual restaurant, the food can be good to gross (I like Ram's head on NW 23rd, they have it together there).. it's gone downhill... The food at Laurelwood is good and they have a great stout, but I was overwhelmed by the kids running around screaming. Maybe it's an incentive to drink more.

Oh, no dont get me wrong.. there is nothing wrong witht the concept, food, atmosphere, etc of SM... Im just a child licking her wounds over losing a beloved friend

You callin me trash there MSG? why I outta go get the 12 gauge outta my 4x4 and teach you a lesson! (In case you didnt know, I was attempting to be funny...but its 7 am and I ahvent been to bed yet, so it probably sucked as a joke... I apologise profusely to your sense of humour...)

This is going to make my long-suffering and wonderful mother look really bad, but.... I was 3 or 4...my mom's loser Tommy Chong-esque friends (you know the type.."Like, wow, man!" is every other sentence) decided it'd be fun to get the baby drunk... ...not that I'd want to, but I still can't drink Hamm's beer

Im a sharing and antecdote-whore....I'm one of those silly people who fills out surveys on the various blog sites, just because.... What was your family food culture when you were growing up? Different periods had different cultures. For instance,the first 6 or so years of my life my mom was a granola hippy mom , who made her own yogurt and grew her own sprouts. I had carob bunnies at easter and mollases candy canes for Xmas. Then when my truck-driver manly man step-father came along, we added things like steaks and fried chicken (I also inheirited a couple of odd food habits from him ,like up until recently I refused to eat thin soups. I'd load them up with 12 packets of saltines, or croutons, or anything!). Add to this my grandmothers WWII-style/German-Lithuanian-Irish cooking when I lived with them off and on (mmm Chicago-style kielbasa....*drool*), and to top it all off welfare-white-trash haute cuisine (you've never tasted anything til you've had chicken marinated in watered down 2-month old Mrs T's bloody mary mix! Yes sir!). Was meal time important? At mom's nope, you ate when it was time. At my grandparent's 6 o'clock on the dot! No humming, whistling or singing at the dinner table (don't ask me where in the hell that rule came from) and no eating dessert til everyone gets theirs! Was cooking important? Yeah, I loved to cook, even when I was young. A lot of the best stories from my childhood center on the kitchen (isn't that the way it's supposed to be?). Ah, remind me to tell you all the exploding beets story sometime What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? Again at mom's anything goes (hence the fact I am trying to find somewhere to take ettiquite classes for my bad table manners) and G & G's...I was a pusher, I got my butt beat a few times for that one Who cooked in the family? Mom or G-ma depending on where I was... Me now... Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions? Not really. It depended on how much my mom was working at the time. I can't remember ever going to a restaurant with my grandparents when I was a kid beyond goign for ice cream. Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over? There was always at least 2 tables going at the G-rents during holidays. They have 9 kids w/spouses and 15 grandkids...you do the math When did you get that first sip of wine? First Holy Communion count? I dont remember.. I remember the first beer though Was there a pre-meal prayer? I knwo it by heart.. we still say it even if out to lunch when my grandma is at the table Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? nope... it was a free-for-all How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? Well since I really dont have a family life now (I live on my own far away from any of my family) I guess just the little things do. My grandma finally taught me to make her kielbasa and saurkraut just the way I like it. I still eat a lot of the things I grew up with, like the carob (so sue me), and mashed potatoes (big finger to Dr Atkins!), but I feel like Im starting my own new family here in the SW, so who knows what will happen.