Thought for Food

My dashboard is spoooooky tonight. (floraflora &...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:40:17 -0400

My dashboard is spoooooky tonight. (floraflora & verenasays)

How The Democrats Can Blow It ... In Six Easy Steps

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:35:00 -0400

How The Democrats Can Blow It ... In Six Easy Steps :

“A blueprint for losing the most winnable presidential election in American history” by Michael Moore.

Number One: Keep saying nice things about McCain.

Well, they can check that off, at least: “Obama’s Ads in Key States Go on Attack.”

"I saw two of them having sex on the counter top."

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:54:21 -0400

“I saw two of them having sex on the counter top.”

- Andrea supports Jane’s theory that we are hosting a fly fertility hospital and maternity ward.

At least someone in this apartment is getting laid.

The Amethyst Initiative takes its name from ancient Greece,...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:25:00 -0400

The Amethyst Initiative takes its name from ancient Greece, “where the purple gemstone amethyst was widely believed to ward off drunkenness if used in drinking vessels and jewelry.”

Chinese astrology agrees:

It is common to wear amethyst jewelry if you are about to drink a lot. Amethyst will protect you from drunkenness and will keep you sober.

I can’t believe I went to what was, at the time, the 8th biggest party school in the country and they never taught me this!

Amethyst Initiative unites educators in quest to lower drinking age

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:16:37 -0400

Amethyst Initiative unites educators in quest to lower drinking age:

So civilized:

College presidents from about 100 of the nation’s best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.

Hey look! Gramps got his photo op. That’s nice.

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:14:46 -0400

Hey look! Gramps got his photo op. That’s nice.

Blueberries rock. And fyi, this recipe is awesome. I’ve...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:38:20 -0400

Blueberries rock. And fyi, this recipe is awesome. I’ve made it twice; a total knockout. Word to the wise, though: the crust as written is too crumbly. The second time I mixed the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter in a food processor and added about 1 tbsp. of maple syrup to help things stick together.

The pint of blueberries that I ate today for lunch (there were also some almonds and pepitas involved) was almost too sour — a sure sign that the season is passing.

Make hay, my chickens!

This exchange, from the premier of Pineapple Express, gave me a...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:49:44 -0400

This exchange, from the premier of Pineapple Express, gave me a chuckle.

What I Learned Today

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:51:26 -0400

Douchey is as douchey does.

Hot.

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:42:37 -0400

Hot.

Funeral Home Style: Not Just For The Dead Anymore! Kristen Smith...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:41:00 -0400

Funeral Home Style: Not Just For The Dead Anymore!

Kristen Smith is the reigning Strawberry Queen of Plant City, Florida.

Her royal obligations keep her on her toes, and her hair — long, lustrous, and requiring hours of maintenance — became just one more duty lending to her sleep deprivation.

So she called on her friend Nancy Rupp, a cosmetologist that works at the local funeral home “fixing the hair of loved ones.” That inspired Nany to style Kristen’s hair in her sleep.

Nancy lets herself in when it’s still dark out, has a cup of coffee, and plugs in her curling iron. Kristen sleeps with her head at the foot of the bed, her hair streaming down the end. By the time Nancy has brushed and secured it in curlers, Kristen is yawning and waking up.

No word on whether Kristen trusts Nancy with her make-up. Big hair we can all agree on, but the signature eery plastic look is not particularly popular with the living.

Abstract of The New Yorker story & more photos here.

Dear Nora, Thanks for getting back to me. Excerpted from an email I just sent. To a man named...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:48:53 -0400

Dear Nora,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Excerpted from an email I just sent. To a man named Doug.

The bricks are getting heavy….

Woah, that was fast.

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:46:46 -0400

Woah, that was fast.

"It’s like cooking a stew in your kitchen."

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:38:00 -0400

“It’s like cooking a stew in your kitchen.”

- Vahid Majidi, assistant director of the FBI’s weapons of mass destruction directorate, on producing the anthrax spores used in the 2001 attacks.

When I finished all the recipes in American Food Writing, thus meeting my food blogging mandate, I thought about starting a blog that focused on zany food challenges. Anthrax soup is not exactly what I had in mind. (I started 2050 A.D. instead.)

* Majidi also compares the spores’ mixed DNA to different colored M&Ms. Dude is weird.

How did I miss this?!

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:06:27 -0400

Remember the hostage that moved her murderous captor to surrender to law enforcement with readings from A Purpose-Driven Life? I didn’t know she later admitted she also plied him with crystal meth! WTF.

(I realize now why I never heard that twist: it was revealed on Sept. 28, 2005, when something bigger was on our minds.)

When friends and family forward me emails featuring such laffs as a snapshot of the “Haircut...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:47:28 -0400

When friends and family forward me emails featuring such laffs as a snapshot of the “Haircut of the Year,” “Spanish For Nannies” viral videos, and a long report titled “Cat Gets Head Caught in Garbage Disposal,” it is all I can do not to hit “Report Spam.”

Cesspool

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:53:07 -0400

I have finally turned off the laptop & submitted to my bed (though I haven’t given up my mobile device just yet), and what do I have on my eyebrow - then my arm - now inches from my nose? A FUCKING FLY, THAT’S WHAT.

Inspired by this meme, a mosaic of my trip home. (Herein:...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:24:00 -0400

Inspired by this meme, a mosaic of my trip home. (Herein: babies! Gena! and more babies!)

By the way, I keep thinking that the meme must be a marketing scheme for Big Huge Labs, and if it is, hats off.

This line-up from Mardi Gras past makes me wet.

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:43:00 -0400

This line-up from Mardi Gras past makes me wet.

Complaints Department

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:34:00 -0400

Why can’t I go to sleep before 2 am anymore? Why do I always get a second wind at midnight? NOTHING GOOD HAPPENS AFTER MIDNIGHT. Not work-wise, anyway. Blog-wise? No, not that either.
FLIES. Someone has left the window open while I was away* and it is a FLY FIASCO in here. They are landing on my bare shoulders as I try to type. They are swooping in front of my face. I am not only agitated but disgusted. I’m thinking about flies and shit — not fly shit

* In fairness, Jane says no one left the window open without the screen. Her theory is that they are being born inside our apartment. You see, we foolishly let about 6 house flies in awhile back. Over several days, I lured and killed them with a shallow bowl of agave nectar. But Jane’s theory (I guess) is that they laid eggs before their demise. This is theoretically possible, however, utterly unlikely:

Adult flies […] lay eggs in moist, decaying organic material, such as manure. Each female fly can lay up to five hundred eggs in her three to four week lifespan.

Admittedly, our apartment is a bit of a mess after the tyranny of the bedbugs, but we do not have mounds of manure anywhere, even in the recesses of Andrea’s walk-in closet.

And for your final gross-out, I give you this mental image:

[House flies] belong to a group of flies known as filth flies, due to their preference to breed in either manure or garbage. House flies feed by regurgitating saliva into food, which dissolves it, and then sucking the material back into the stomach.