Another Brilliant Newsflash

MSNBC has posted yet another piece of urgent medical news, entitled "Longer Needles Needed for Fatter Butts." It's starting to look like The Onion.

I'm Having a "Traditional" Thanksgiving.

That's right, it's noon and my turkey is still frozen.

Cooking Shows Should Carry Warnings

"DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME"

I just made some seriously weird shit for dinner. I'm trying to rescue it by baking it in the oven. It was supposed to be fried. Rachel Ray, you are seriously messed up. I know, some of you tried to warn me about her, but it looked so easy and homey. I got sucked in. I'm a total food slut. "Look, you can make it crispy and cheesy and..." YEAH! When will I learn? Julia, why did you ever leave us?

Dubloons Accepted

My kids like to play restaurant. Today it's Cafe Aaargh!!! They serve seafood, kelp cookies, sea horse milk, and citrus fruits (because, my daughter told me, friends don't let friends get scurvy!). They said that if you arrive at the cafe and there is nobody at the hostess station and nobody comes when you ring the bell, you should run because it means they're being raided by pirates and she's off trying to save their goods. Likewise, if you are dining and an alarm goes off, it is a pirate raid and you should draw your sword. If you don't have a sword, run for it. They have a special offer right now. For two dollars you can get a coupon for two full dinners. The money goes to a charity to prevent and cure scurvy.

I don't remember being this demented when I was that young. Mine developed over time.

This Needs a Caption...

I Anticipate the Next Big Announcement

There's an article on MSN entitled, (and like Dave Barry says, I'm not making this up) "Obesity Pills Work Best With Diet, Excercise". Yes, somebody, and I pray it was not we taxpayers, funded a STUDY to find this out! Thank goodness for people with medical degrees, huh? The rest of us would never know this stuff if not for their superior intelligence and education. I mean, who could have guessed such a thing? As for it qualifying as news, well, that's another topic.

Someone Needs to Be Beaten

As is often the case, it's someone in the world of advertising. The latest thorn in my side is the phrase "artisan bread". Oooh, I hate this. I guess "gourmet", which was meaningless in the first place but served its purpose well, has lost its impact. I would think that the phrase, used simply as it is and not as an advertising catch phrase, means bread that is not only hand-made by a person, but also has an individual characteristic that has been achieved by artful development and would not be duplicated by somone else. The combination of grains and the texture of crust perhaps. It is individual, and not just a skill, a job, a production, but an art. Not for mass production. Yet, I'm hearing it a lot more. The Panera chain uses the term. Their bread is very good, but simply by being a chain, they negate that characteristic. If they were a single bakery with one or two people making bread, each in his or her own way and you couldn't get it at any other bakery, that would be one thing. This? No. Yesterday I actually saw a coupon for Pepperidge Farm frozen "artisan bread" dough! WTF? And this year, our church's harvest festival put it on the flier. It was still the same bread they sell every year, but since they're calling it "artisan", they charged like two dollars more per loaf or something, which basically is what it comes down to. "Artisan" is the new "gourmet" and the only difference between it and regular bread will be a couple of bucks.

The worst part- yuppies will fall for it and spread it around like herpes. Good bakers will have to adopt the term to keep up with the market and then the price of a decent loaf of bread will be completely absurd. I can't stand what those frickin' yuppie dorks do to food. They elevate the trendy, whether it's crap or not. In a couple of years there will be a different trendy wine, vodka, chocolate, whatever, and guess what. The former trendy one will still taste the same, but the taste was never the point in the first place. Don't tell them that of course. Does not compute. Just hope that they don't discover YOUR favorite "whatever" because soon, you won't be able to afford it anymore and the only ones who can are the ones who won't know enough to appreciate it. But fear not, eventually it will fall from grace and though you may be considered fashionably ignorant, it's better than being fashionably idiotic. Artisan bread. They're fuckin' kidding me.

The Strange Legacies We Leave

My dad died on Sunday. Today when I was doing dishes, I noticed his coffee mug on the side of the dish rack. That's where it always stayed, waiting for him. For some reason, he didn't like to put it in the cabinet with the rest of the mugs. No, HIS had a unicorn on it and could not be subjected to the cooties of the more common inhabitants of my cupboard. This mug survived The Great Mug Disaster of Nineteen Eighty-somethingorother. He had a small galley kitchen. There was a narrow "wall" that was actually more like a pillar at one end of the kitchen on which he had a rack to hang the mugs on. Well, one day when he was making dinner and doing "ballet", he decided to combine some kind of pirouette with some kind of jete and kicked the whole rack off the wall. No, dad wasn't a dancer, he was a regular guy (mostly) which is what made it all the more embarrassing and caused him to blame it on the cats when his live-in girlfriend asked him what the hell happened to the mugs. A couple survived, one of which was his unicorn mug. His very favorite. That was a close one. Needless to say, he was more careful about combining ballet and cooking. So now I have this mug and I'm wondering what to do with it. Should I put it in the cabinet to catch cooties from my other mugs? Should I use it when I already have two other mugs that are my regular ones? Should I leave it on the rack where he put it? Hmmm...

We Made These

I'll write some thoughts about our halloween later. And I do have thoughts.

CRANKY!!!!!!

I waited until the baby was asleep and I rolled out another pie crust. I started to make the filling. I followed the recipe until the end, and THAT'S when I realized that they had left out a step! I poured in the filling, thinking it was awfully runny, and after it went into the oven, I realized I hadn't done anything with the brown sugar mixture. It was supposed to go in UNDER the liquid and now it's going to be gross so why is it even in the oven? Idunno. Because I'm an idiot. I'm very, very unhappy, in a grumbly, not friendly sort of way.

A Bright Spot

What a crappy, crappy, crappy day. It was good to hear that the Cafe Du Monde reopened today. At least I know that one thing is right in the world. Now if I could just be there right now.

In Case You Are Wondering

I'm sitting here NOT making six dozen pumpin-shaped, orange frosted cookies. I'm not doing the tons of laundry that need to be done. I'm not doing any school lessons with the kids, and I'm not out shopping for stuff I need in the next few days. Well, well. I did, however, eat breakfast, get relatively dressed, and do a load of dishes. Hearing the dishwasher going is always encouraging to me.

I'm not particularly tired as I sometimes am, and I'm not feeling blue or anything. The kids aren't being evil. I just feel like sitting here. For no particular reason. Just sitting here. Well, my ritalin is kicking in, and that always brings me to my senses. I swear that damn pill practically talks to me. "Now Rima, it's not so hard. Just go over there, and do this. See? That was simple. Now do this. That's it, you're doing great! It's not complicated at all."

So in a few minutes, I will be mixing cookie dough while the kids have their elevensies. Then we'll clean up the foodage and I'll work on Alex's history project with her while guiding Stevie through whatever workbook section she feels like working on. I will, at that time, be completely ignoring the screaming and the crayon missiles being launched by my son. And then, Idunno. Piano, lunch, laundry, math, desperate need for a nap, suddenly inspired Jackman's Table entry... could be anything.

Good Dr. Doggie!

I was browsing through a women's magazine while sipping my morning coffee. There was an article in which several doctors were interviewed for medical advice that they think is important but that most people don't think of. There were expected things, of course, like how every household should have Benadryl and baby aspirin on hand, but my favorite piece of medical advice was this: To insure proper medical care in a hospital, bring individually wrapped treats like cookies and chocolate to give the staff members. I wonder if that was a full-credit course in medical school, or just one of those pass/fail, half-credit things.

Epitaph: She died of pie.

Did you know that you can hurt yourself with chocolate? I didn't know that. I do now. You know that "death by chocolate" dessert that some restaurants have? Well, that isn't it. It's here, right in my kitchen and in my stomach, and I am afraid, very afraid. There are worse ways to die, but to never want to eat chocolate again, well, that's tragic. This is assuming that I survive. Tony Bourdain would not survive this pie. (though my crust, as usual, was to be worshipped) Let this be a warning so that lives may be saved! But tell eegee to send the recipe anonymously to Sardi's. Heh heh.

Unsupervised

The girls are in bed. The baby is asleep on the couch. This means one thing. I'M GONNA MAKE ME SOME PIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What Really Goes On at Our House

You know that baby toy that is made of different sized rings that they have to stack on the post? Well, my son unscrewed the post and is using it as a microphone to sing. He's a year and a half old. And yes, I'm well aware that it's after eleven pm. That's just my life.

Those Wacky Scots

I recently went to a Scottish festival, which was a lot of fun, and many clans had tents set up where you could go and get info on them and meet fellow clansfolk. They are all listed in the program, along with their mottos. This made for good reading. Typically, they are about being brave, being strong, being steadfast, etc. Clan MacKintosh, however, seems to be a little more special. Their motto is "Touch not the cat without a glove". Hmmm.

Now I wonder, is this a safety thing or a cleanliness thing? Were they germ freaks and could have basically picked anything besides "cat"? "Milk not the cow...", "Shear not the sheep..." etc. Or is it a safety issue, where they know cats scratch so wear a glove when you touch them. OR do they mean the CAT has to wear gloves to cover the claws? Did the MacKintoshes put gloves on their cats? Can you picture how the vermin must have taunted the poor things, not to mention the dogs, though I would assume the dogs had their own similar problems imposed upon them. Probably diapers.

Now our clan motto is "Dread God". (Well, not mine really, my husband's. I'm Puerto Rican and our clan motto is "Ever on guard for falling coconuts") Supposedly, that means to have a healthy fear and respect for God, but I'm married to one and I'm pretty sure that it's because they were naughty lads. I bet there was lots of "Oh please oh please oh please God, if ye let me live, I swear I'll not touch another drap o cratur" ZZZZAP! and " I wasnae kissin' Jenny, I was savin' her from chokin', cross my heart and hope te ACK!"

He's at it again...

I am amazed, truly amazed at how deceptive the size of a toddler's stomach is. Angus had another pukefest. He's sleeping now. I was lucky that I had a clean pair of sweatpants left so I can pick up my husband at the station tonight. Our couch needs to be condemned.

And on a completely unrelated note, if you are a "lassie", and a Scotsman asks you if you have any Scottish in you, don't answer! It's a trick!

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!! CALL 911!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was cooking dinner when Angus came to me, holding his finger out in front of himself, squeaking and looking distressed. I assumed he had boobooed it and wanted it kissed. As my lips touched the adorable, little, pink fingertip, I realized that he wasn't hurt, he was showing me a booger!!!!!!!

Remember when Snoopy kissed Lucy? Yeah, that was me!

Mmmm, Oooey Hughey Wolverchops...