JennotJenn

*Shudder* My sister and her husband luv Thomas Kinkade. I don't get it. I also think that Anne Geddes may do some artwork in Hell, too.

I have a CD called: "Mary Schneider, Australia's Queen of Yodeling, Yodels the Classics". You have not lived until you've heard The William Tell Overture yodeled. You know, I think those Christmas albums where dogs and cats bark and meow Christmas carols would give scratchy yodeling a run for its money.

Bond Girl, my husband and I will be in SF the same time you are (we'll be there a little longer...rolling in early afternoon on the 22, leaving on the 27th). Trying to decide on Helmand or Zuni for our first night...is it worth making reservations at Zuni for a Thursday night (husband really prefers a "play it by ear" approach, but I don't want to drag my jet lagged ass around town just to find out the place is full up). Big thing we need is a good place for morning coffee and pastry fix. We're staying on the edge of Union Square/Tenderloin. Are either Rigo's Patisseries or Tartine nearish, and does either serve a passable cup of coffee? Must have coffee with pastry. Actually, must have coffee throughout the day. Favorite coffeehouse anyone? Thanks guys. You really do rock.

The chef: My mom. 1) She's an indifferent cook to begin with, clains an "allergy" to garlic, also claims that she can smell blood in anything but very well done beef (and that it makes her vomit) and age has turned her into a truly awful one (actually, she doesn't cook at all any more) 2) Having her hovering over me for all eternity would undo all that therapy that I've gone through in my mortal life. The waiter: This guy I used to wait with who would would rub the free bread all over his crotch before serving it to customers. The dishes: Well, leaving out obvious really horrible stuff like monkey brains and concentrating on things I've actually been forced to eat in this life...mom's overcooked canned asparagus with Velveeta; Hungry Jack biscuits; devilled eggs (no pun intended) made with Miracle Whip; fried chicken with soggy skin; and jello with Cool-Whip for dessert. Oh, and snacks in Hell would consist of banana on white bread with globs of mayo. Companions: My mom's family. They make Woody Allen look well adjusted, Tammy Faye Baker look in control of her emotions and Hitler look accepting.

Your idea of a good time and mine shouldn't clash if we take those ideas to the appropriate places. I have no problem with a group of folks getting loud in a sports bar, a pub, a college bar, etc. I have a problem with them getting loud at the bar in a fine dining establishment. That's not appropriate. If you and your peeps get loud enough to have management ask you to tone it down in a place where that sort of behavior is tolerated or even encouraged, then yeah - you shouldn't be let out of the house without supervision, even if you are old enough to drive yourself there, legally buy the drinks, or even make more money than anyone else in the room and regularly perform life saving surgeries. You are, quite simply, an ass. Children may not know what is or isn't OK, but their parents do. The very parents that take the screaming little monsters to Chuck E. Cheese are teaching their charges that running around maniacally and shreiking in a public space, is OK under some circumstances. Is it any wonder? Ok, I have a long story about both kinds of kids in restaurants (kid-kids and adult-kids). I used to wait at a sort of upscale but touristy restaurant in a restored German religious settlement. It was nicer at night, lit by beeswax candles in pewter sconces, white tableclothes...not too bad. We had to wear late 17th century colonial pioneer costumes and schlep down 2 steep flights of stairs to retrieve food and soft drinks, which gets old after a whiney kid asks for his 5th refill of Sprite. Anyway... We were located in a restored 19th century tavern which was broken up into 6 separate dining rooms. A large enough party could reserve an entire room if need be. So I was assigned to wait on this party of around 15, who had reserved a whole room and who would be celebrating their parent's 50th wedding anniversary. Ok, fine, I should be making some good $$$ on the table, yay. Well, the party arrives already drunk (except for the kids and the happy couple). One of the guys has an open Heinken bottle in his hand as he walks through the door, which is quite illegal in our town (I think it's illegal all over NC, but I won't swear to it), but my manager told me he was going to overlook it for the time being (i.e. unless it became a problem). The women have that overly tanned, bleach blonde I-used-to-live-in-a-trailer-but-I-won-the-lotto look. But whatever, fine, they may still be perfectly nice people. I go to the pantry to get bread ready and to give them some time to settle down and look at the menu. I go back into the room and the kids are still running around like little demons. I congratulate the older couple on their 50th anniversary, and take drink orders. The moms on hand manage to corral the kids long enough to order drinks. Of course, the already trashed adults order more alcohol, mostly in the form of Miller Lite. But fine, no problem, any alcohol will add to the bill and drunk people usually order more food. When it comes time to order drinks for the kids, mom asks her little boy (around 5 or 6 years old) what he wants to drink. He mumbles apple juice to her and she asks if we have apple juice. "No," I reply," but we have apple cider. It's a very, very mild apple cider and tastes almost identical to apple juice, really." And it really did. I couldn't tell a difference in a side by side taste test. Well, this woman's eye's narrow and she snarls "I think I know what apple cider is!" Ok, damn, lady, sorry. So I listed the other juices we had and mentioned we also had Sprite. Little tyke pipes up (addressing me this time) and says he wants pineapple juice. At which point his drunken uncle stands up and yells: "Pineapple juice!!! What the hell kinda reee-tarded kid drinks pineapple juice?!?" The kid orders Sprite. And it was downhill from there. The kids ran around like it was a playground, tripping me up at every turn. The adults were rude and demanding and loud and drunk. The drunk uncle was a piece of work, standing up every so often to shout such charmers as "Hey er'body...look at me...I look fuckin' good in this suit! Fuckin' A!!" To top it off, our head line cook was stoned even more than usual AND in a worse mood than usual, so food was coming up super, super slow. The only saving grace is that they were contained in their own room...at first. They are not pleased with my service, so they call for my manager. They tell him that I was sullen and a shitty waitress. So my manager asks me about it, knowing that these people are a piece of work and blotto to boot. I told him I wasn't sullen, I was just concentrating really hard on not falling over one of the kids. They also complained that I didn't do anything special for their parent's anniversary. Manager asks me about that. I told him that I very politely and appropriatly (I thought) wished them a happy anniversary and exchanged a few pleasantries about how 50 years was a wonderful accomplishment and how I hoped they had many more happy years together (though at this point I was doubting that many of the 50 years had been happy!). So manager goes to talk to the party again, at which point a screaming match begins in the lobby, disturbing every single other guest. I'm upstairs, away from the fray, but I can hear my manager screaming "What the hell did you want her to do? Sing to them?!? This isn't TGI Fridays for God's sake! Maybe that would be a better place for you!" Then he brought up the illegality of bringing in an open container, and that he would call the cops, citing that and disturbing the peace as precident. Then he blacklisted them from the restaurant. They left. Luckily, my 15% was included in the bill, which my manager refused to comp. Yes, I know I'm lucky to have such an understanding manager. It was unreal. These people were straight out of a John Waters movie. So, yeah, lots of people should be banned from restaurants. And with kids that small (but old enough to know better), the parents are to blame. Obviously, in this case. Personally, kids in nice restaurants make me nervous because I'm afraid they'll misbehave and the parent's will not respond. But I will honestly say that I've never experienced that in a nice restaurant.

Wolfert has generously offered her help with the recipe. In preparation of her walking me through it, I read the frying chapter from How to Read a French Fry. So now I have a question: What is the best way to break down my oil to the magical "Optimium" stage? I read that loose batter and salt break oil down very quickly, but I'm guessing I don't want to do it that way. So what do I do? I want something cheap that I won't feel like I'm wasting food (which is why I hestitate to do fries...all that wasted potato).

Oh yeah. I forgot about deep frying. Also my nemisis. markf424, maybe your oil is too new (just read frying chapter in How to Read a French Fry...knowledge is only academic at this point, since I haven't tried to fry anything since reading it).

do you just mean frou frou drinks in big glasses or any drinks in big glasses? because i def hav an affinity for unhealthy sized manhattans I'm not Betts, but I'll answer for myself: I want any frou-frou drink that calls itself a martini (but is obviously not a martini) to go away. Especially if it's served in a gigantic martini glass.

I'll trade ya a bread/cookie/cake lesson for a biscuit lesson. I should be able to make them, but I can't seem to get it right. They're either flat or dry or both. And yes, I've tried White Lily, though my grandmas said something was off about the last couple of bags they've bought. I've tried Crisco. I've tried butter. I guess all that's left is to give lard go. Which is fine by me...just wish I could find the real, old timey lard and not the hydrogenated crap. Now, my mom's mom swears by mayonaise in her biscuit dough, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I know it's just egg and oil. I make it from time to time because I don't keep any in the house, not even for guests, so when someone comes over and wants mayo on their sandwich, I have to make it. But I can't stand the stuff. Smells like Elmer's glue. So the thought of putting it in biscuit dough willingly is something I just can't wrap my mind around it. So, there you go. Biscuits are my nemisis. Oh, can't make their relative the scone either.

That's funny- when my friends and I caught it we always thought there was something going on with him and his young buck assistant. There was always something kind of pervy about him to me. Yeah, me too, once I got a little older. Something seemed "off". There were few programs that we were allowed to watch growing up. We could watch anything we wanted on PBS, though, which is why my first crush was on Dr.Who (the late 70's/early 80's one). Anyway, of course since the Frug was on PBS, it was ok for youngins (dunno why we nevered watched Julia...maybe she got on my mom's nerves..mom was/is weird like that). I wasn't too interested in his food until I realized that some of the things he was making made my mom turn green. So I would squeal in delight as he made kidneys, or liver, or sausage from scratch, because I knew it was going to make mom want to be sick. Very amusing shit for a sadistic 4 year old. It wasn't his cooking that inspired me to cook or experiment in the kitchen...no, that was a book called The Toothpaste Millionaire which began my experiments in food science. Note to everyone: turmeric and baking soda does not make a good toothpaste. However, I lovedlovedloved the travel/market segments. My favorite game when I was little was to get my atlas and my encylopedias and plan trips to cities all over the world. I tried to learn to count to 10 in each language, learned major exports, and once Frug came along, I started getting very, very interested in the food of each city or nation. He really was the first person to show me food from all over the world other than the spaghetti with mushrooms that dad made when mom was working second shift.. And since our diet was pretty much limited to dried beans, cornbread, kraut and a few garden veggies, the idea of this whole world of food was very, very exciting. So he may be a drunken pederastic bastard, but damned if he didn't get me interested in world cuisine.

Probably yes. It looks like we're free that day, and we've already done our taxes and we owe less than we thought, so a celebration is in order! So, anyone else?

Oh, and from King of the Hill... Bobby's fruit pies, Dale's Mountain Dew, when Bobby gets gout from eating too much organ meat and nitrates, Spapeggy and Meatballs, the apple brown betty that sends Brooks (or Dunn) to the hospital, when Hank has constipation and Dale advises bacon grease, then they go to the health food store for tofu (faux-fu for the tofu intolerant), when Hank orders macaroni and cheese for his vegetable, Peggy and Bobby grilling over charcoal instead of propane, Minh adding nutmeg to everything, when Hank thinks Minh and Khan have cooked doggie... and frito pie edited for grammar

That's because in the Future, they're eating nutritionally balanced processed food that comes out of machines a-la Star Trek and presumably monitored by Robots. They also have to walk their dogs on high-speed treadmills every night, so it keeps them in good shape. Frankly, I think we're gonna end up like in Futurama fattening ourselves on Slurm only to become the next meal for Lrrr, the king of Omicron Persei 8. Of course, if we're eating Popplers, doesn't Lrrrr have the right to eat us Another fave from Futurama is when Frye gets sick from eating the egg salad sandwich from the truck stop vending machine. "What kind of eggs?" then they show the eggs from some kind of horrible parasite. That and the Edith Massey Egg Lady scenes from Pink Flamingos have honestly reduced my overall egg consumption. Oh, and the scene from Osmosis Jones when Bill Murray and the chimp fight over the hard boiled egg. But we're not talking about movies here, are we? Oh, and all the Beavis and Buttheads...when Butthead chokes on the chicken nugget, when they get roped into the art class by the promise of free nachos, Cornholio and his candy and cappachino addictions, when Beavis poisons the whole restaurant with his horrible "thingy" disease, when they deep fry the rat, etc, etc We watch a lot of cartoons in our house...

? He was trying to read and the sound of my chortles was distracting him. And no, the concept of moving to another room does not occur to him

I was the biggest fan of the pickled pork rinds. Husband took the computer away from me because I was laughing so hard at "Steve Don't Eat It!" that it was really annoying him. He gave it back on the condition that I didn't go back to Steve's page as long as he was in the room. Oh, and this is one of my favorite quotes:

I do like a 90/10 ratio when I'm making pork dumplings. For sausage, though, 70/30 all the way. I buy butt and grind my own. I use my Kitchen Aid which I prefer over the Cuisinart, which I feel chops rather than grinds (different strokes, eh?). My last batch of breakfast sausage came out a touch dry desipte using butt, so I'm buying fatback to grind along w/it next time if the butt looks a little lean. If you don't have a grinder, you could probably buy a butt and ask the meat guy to grind it for you. Even the big chains around here will do that most of the time if you're buying the whole cut of meat (say, not asking them to grind a 3 lb butt down so that you can buy a pound or so).

I got my lovely box of mixed bitters from Fee's today. Can I just say again how darn nice these folks are. The total for 4/5 pint old fashioned bitters, 4/5 pint orange bitter and the small bottle of peach bitters, plus UPS shipping to NC was $20 and change. Not bad at all! I'm quite pleased. We tasted a bit of each straight up (a small dash of each). We like the Fee's old fashioned bitters quite a lot. Nice and spicy. Husband says they remind him of Christmas. The orange ones we also like. Not as complex as the old fashioned, but I can tell they're still going to add that extra something to cocktails. Long bitter finsh. Nice. Even Husband liked the peach bitters. He doesn't even like peach. They do have a strong almond flavor that I really, really like.

I ordered one large bottle each of regular, orange, and peach bitters from Fee the other day. They were very, very nice and helpful with my order. I don't know the total cost yet (they invoice and my order isn't here yet), but it's probably not going to be over $20, which is fab considering a small bottle of Angostura bitters (which I love, too) goes for $4.99 or so around here. You don't have to buy by the case, btw. Husband was totally grossed out by the idea of the peach bitters, but I sorta like peach. I thought a dash or so would be lovely in a fresh peach sorbet this summer. Besides, if we don't like them, I can pawn them off on my dad. He likes fruity mixed drinks, especially anything peach based, most especially Fuzzy Navels, and I'm guessing a dash or two would be good in that. Anyway, Southeast Indian vegetarian buffet's got me down, and this thread's got me inspired, so I'm off to make a club soda and bitters. Seriously stomach settling.

Reminds me of The Disgusting English Candy Drill from Gravity's Rainbow.

I've got 72. 5 of them are up for sale on Amazon, but they're technically still mine.

Ugh, I forgot a couple. The dried pasta reminded me of one. I love uncooked rolled oats. If I'm picking some up from the bulk bin at Whole Foods, I have to be careful, because I've caught myself snacking on them in public. Also, and this is probably my most shameful: Dunkin' Stiks. They're made by Little Debbie or Lance, and they're "doughnut" sticks. Basically deep fried shortening and flour dipped in a crapload of sugar and allowed to age in the vending machine. The shortening leaves this vile film on the roof of your mouth, too. Damn. My sister and I used to eat these all the time when we worked for my dad in the summer. This isn't mine, but my husband's shame: The first time I spent the night at his apartment I got up the next morning looking for some cereal to eat. His roommate was already in the kitchen, and I asked him where I could find the cereal. He pointed to the cabinet. I opened it and found the cereal. But I also found a box of Milk Bones. "Andrew, are you and Heath getting a dog?", I asked. "No. They're Heath's. He likes to snack on them." As in the man I just spent the night with eats dog biscuits. Because he likes them. Not sure what this says about me, but I married him anyway. For the record, he no longer eats dog biscuits, though I've seen some human grade ones with apples and peanut butter in the store, and I've been tempted to buy him some, just for old time's sake. But I have a feeling they just wouldn't be the same as the Milk Bones. edited for spelling

My little sister moved from North Carolina to Hawaii two years ago. When I told her that McD's served Spam, she thought I was joking and emitted her usual phrase of disbelief: "Nuh-uh". So I got a call from her on her cell phone a week or so after she moved. She was standing in line at McD's. "Jennifer. They really do serve Spam!! And rice! Spam and rice!" Never doubt the wisdom of your older sister in matters related to Spam. So, do you have a link to the Spamjam festival in MN? We have a friend who takes his Harley cross country, mostly in search of bizzaro museums. Dude is a Spam fiend. I think his trip is this summer...do you guys have a Spam museum, too? That would make his day.

And as for sours, I realized the other day that I would rather have Sour Patch Kids than chocolate. I rather loathe myself now.

In my book, that is one of the best things you can eat. On gpod white bread, of course. My parents had two peach trees, you ought to try a miracle whip and peach slices sandwich, but you really have to stand over the sink. And it's best on home made white bread Banana sandwiches with mayo. I'm not saying I like them, just that my parents used to make them and make us eat them. Tomato sandwiches on white bread w/a ton of mayo, too. And sometimes my dad and my sister would eat just mayonaise sandwiches (mayo on white bread). I really wish I hadn't written all that out so early in the morning. I'm feeling very queasy now. Seriously, I can't eat untoasted/ungrilled white bread anymore because as soon as I bite into it, I swear I smell mayo.

Shots of Lee and Perrins worstershire. Take bottle, lift to lips, briefly tilt head...ahhh...spicysalty tamarind goodness. Old El Paso refried beans cold, out of the can Spicy beef ramen (but only when I've had a cold or stomach virus) Husband likes peanut butter and mustard on white bread