The morning newspapers are often a great source of amusement to me (as long-time readers already know.) today's grins include...
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE
A woman who convinced her boyfriend that it was a good idea to kill her husband, was finally executed last night after spending the past 18 years in prison. Judging by her appearance, she spent the time eating potato chips and pork rinds.
And what did she request for her final repast on Earth? Nachos and a DIET FROSTED LEMONADE.
A MESSAGE TO THE POPE
Mind your own business - in Vatican City. Not content by abusing his invitation to speak to our Congress by lecturing the members, (by the way, water off of a duck's back) you also saw fit to praise Kim the Kentucky Klerk for her anti-gay stance and asked that the diet lemonade drinker (above) instead be sentenced to life in prison.
A reminder: Vatican City and Catholics are your jurisdiction, not the United States. Thank you for your co-operation in this matter.
THE US CHESTNUT PASTE SITUATION
This is hardly funny to serious bakers, but Whole Foods didn't have any; neither did Bristol Farms on its Website and Trader Joe's (Website) wouldn't say. Apparently amazon.com is the sole purveyor.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Buy Now Before They're Gone!
The Chestnut Cake recipe is from the French Kitchen book and it appealed to me because it asks for minimal flour and absolutely NO baking soda or yeast or whatever the hell you bake cakes using them. I. Do. Not. Bake.
Reason? I can't stand to get flour on my hands (or beach sand on my body) and I don't understand the precise amounts called for - I do NOT run the flat side of a knife over a teaspoon of an ingredient. That is for people who care how it turns out and I am not one of them. We are surrounded by places to buy cakes.
CHESTNUT CAKE
2 17-oz. cans chestnut cream - Whole Foods, the author says, has them.*
4 large eggs separated
1 T honey
2 T melted sweet butter
1 teas. pure vanilla extract
Zest from 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup ll-purpose flour
Pinch of sea salt
Oven: 350
Butter a 9-in. pan, line with parchment paper.
Whisk together the chestnut paste, egg yolks then whisk in the honey, butter, vanilla and zest - combine well
Sift in the flour and salt
Whisk the egg whites and add 1/3 of it into the cake batter and then fold in the rest. Bake until the top is cracked, about 40 minutes.
* But I read in this morning's paper that Whole Foods is closing shop. This means that potential chestnut cake bakers need to strike now!
Shopping there will be a new experience for me. I once took an elderly friend shopping there and a can of tuna was $7.00. Haven't been back since. If it turns out this chestnut paste is $10 a jar, I would substitute with an equal amount of marzipan...
See why I don't bake? I'm a living warning against oven use.
Reason? I can't stand to get flour on my hands (or beach sand on my body) and I don't understand the precise amounts called for - I do NOT run the flat side of a knife over a teaspoon of an ingredient. That is for people who care how it turns out and I am not one of them. We are surrounded by places to buy cakes.
CHESTNUT CAKE
2 17-oz. cans chestnut cream - Whole Foods, the author says, has them.*
4 large eggs separated
1 T honey
2 T melted sweet butter
1 teas. pure vanilla extract
Zest from 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup ll-purpose flour
Pinch of sea salt
Oven: 350
Butter a 9-in. pan, line with parchment paper.
Whisk together the chestnut paste, egg yolks then whisk in the honey, butter, vanilla and zest - combine well
Sift in the flour and salt
Whisk the egg whites and add 1/3 of it into the cake batter and then fold in the rest. Bake until the top is cracked, about 40 minutes.
* But I read in this morning's paper that Whole Foods is closing shop. This means that potential chestnut cake bakers need to strike now!
Shopping there will be a new experience for me. I once took an elderly friend shopping there and a can of tuna was $7.00. Haven't been back since. If it turns out this chestnut paste is $10 a jar, I would substitute with an equal amount of marzipan...
See why I don't bake? I'm a living warning against oven use.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Quel Blague! Non, Quel Con! Sale Americains!*
"They Eat Horses, Don't They? the Truth About the French" by Piu Marie Eatwell Thomas Dunne Books 342 pages $26.99
Arguably the French have a very poor PR firm. "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" was one I hadn't heard but I am all too familiar with: they're all adulterers; they smell 'cause they never shower; ALL French woman are thin and (as if that wasn't bad enough) they are all perfectly dressed and groomed (which doesn't exactly go along with the "never shower" bit, does it?)
With no further ado --
Today's classic, the very popular French sailor t-shirts, in 1858 were made an official uniform piece in the French Navy. The stripes (21 to celebrate each of Napoleon's victories) were easier to see on a man overboard.
The Bidet is no longer a standard piece of equipment in a French bathroom. The Italians use them with gusto though.
All of the French smoke and Paris is always covered by a cloud of smoke. Not so.
World smokers:
Greeks 39%
French - 26%
British - 22%
U.S. - 16%
The Vatican drinks more wine than the French per capita, per year.
* translation: What nonsense, no? What bullshit - dirty Americans!
Arguably the French have a very poor PR firm. "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" was one I hadn't heard but I am all too familiar with: they're all adulterers; they smell 'cause they never shower; ALL French woman are thin and (as if that wasn't bad enough) they are all perfectly dressed and groomed (which doesn't exactly go along with the "never shower" bit, does it?)
With no further ado --
Today's classic, the very popular French sailor t-shirts, in 1858 were made an official uniform piece in the French Navy. The stripes (21 to celebrate each of Napoleon's victories) were easier to see on a man overboard.
The Bidet is no longer a standard piece of equipment in a French bathroom. The Italians use them with gusto though.
All of the French smoke and Paris is always covered by a cloud of smoke. Not so.
World smokers:
Greeks 39%
French - 26%
British - 22%
U.S. - 16%
The Vatican drinks more wine than the French per capita, per year.
* translation: What nonsense, no? What bullshit - dirty Americans!
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Caption Contest! Prizes!
 |
| Photo #1 |
PRIZES!
1st - A stay at the Doolittle Home for the Gently Deranged. Unfortunately graffitti creeps have crossed out the original title and written in instead "for the batshit crazy." Do not let this dissuade you from entering. Winner will pay all transportation costs to this fine Bangor, ME, facility located in an abandoned granite quarry. Length of stay to be determined by Staff. Incidentally, the facility is not now and never has been associated with any AMA credentials.
2nd - For those inadvertantly thrust back into "bad habits" by the viewing of these photos, a three day stay at the Betty Ford Clinic, Palm Springs. Winner to bring his/her own toilet scrub brush.
3rd - A generous supply (30 days) of Mind Bleach @ from Clorox. Please apply ONLY as directed.
To submit your caption, please address it to: racebookwriter@aol.com with your photo number in the subject line.
Samples in the bin for Photo #2 - My sister Jane: "Are you growing a tail?"
Me: "No I am not going to the pool and that's not my billfold, lipstick, cigarettes and cell phone in the back."
PHOTO #1
"Tendentious anyone?" Jay
PHOTO #2
:What the hip people are wearing in Southern California. Jay
Saturday, September 26, 2015
A Sad Surprise
Yesterday - for no good reason - an old friend from 50 years ago popped into my mind and I determined to Google her and see how she was doing. It was already late and we were going to bed so this morning, I went to Google.
Deanna Waulters' obituary was the first thing that popped up. She died in 2003, age 63, with no cause of death listed nor donations requested. She died at home, leaving a daughter (I never knew she'd had children) and another woman as her "companion."
Was the companion a longtime nurse of some sort? Which asked again the question, "What did she die of?" Or did she go to pitch for the other team and in the Midwest, newspapers use that instead of "partner"? She was certainly straight when we ran around together.
And run we did. We were as bad as a female could be without being "bad girls." I remember ... we used to go to the drive-in in winter with a trunkful of cold beer and a grocery bag of buttered popcorn. I fell totes in love with James Brown in some kind of documentary; it may have been one of those "Live from the Apollo" concerts. Any road, when he did "Please Don't Go" and they kept dragging him off of the stage and he kept running back ... I wanted to BE James Brown, no kidding.
Another memory ... we were sitting at the bar and the bartender carded us. I pulled out my legal but fake driver's license (and this is how I got it - I wrote to Jeff City and complained that an error had been made - I was born in '39 not '40 and sweated bullets for three weeks until the new one came.)
When it was her turn to put up or get out, she said, "They didn't ask me how old I was when I taught school at (school that taught black children)" and we got away with it!
Two salesmen types bought us a drink. When they asked if we'd like to go somewhere else for another, we said "Yes" after grinning at each other. We knew exactly where we would take them. Deanna insisted on driving ("Never get in a car with a stranger") and off we tootled in her '58 blue and white Ford convertible.
We took them to the only transvestite show in the Midwest (it had to be, trannies being scarce on the ground there) and when at the end of the show and the performers pulled off their wigs and lifted the bird seed bags out of their bras, we thought these guys would die of shock. Well worth the hours spent listening to them.
RIP Deanna, truly a boon companion.
Deanna Waulters' obituary was the first thing that popped up. She died in 2003, age 63, with no cause of death listed nor donations requested. She died at home, leaving a daughter (I never knew she'd had children) and another woman as her "companion."
Was the companion a longtime nurse of some sort? Which asked again the question, "What did she die of?" Or did she go to pitch for the other team and in the Midwest, newspapers use that instead of "partner"? She was certainly straight when we ran around together.
And run we did. We were as bad as a female could be without being "bad girls." I remember ... we used to go to the drive-in in winter with a trunkful of cold beer and a grocery bag of buttered popcorn. I fell totes in love with James Brown in some kind of documentary; it may have been one of those "Live from the Apollo" concerts. Any road, when he did "Please Don't Go" and they kept dragging him off of the stage and he kept running back ... I wanted to BE James Brown, no kidding.
Another memory ... we were sitting at the bar and the bartender carded us. I pulled out my legal but fake driver's license (and this is how I got it - I wrote to Jeff City and complained that an error had been made - I was born in '39 not '40 and sweated bullets for three weeks until the new one came.)
When it was her turn to put up or get out, she said, "They didn't ask me how old I was when I taught school at (school that taught black children)" and we got away with it!
Two salesmen types bought us a drink. When they asked if we'd like to go somewhere else for another, we said "Yes" after grinning at each other. We knew exactly where we would take them. Deanna insisted on driving ("Never get in a car with a stranger") and off we tootled in her '58 blue and white Ford convertible.
We took them to the only transvestite show in the Midwest (it had to be, trannies being scarce on the ground there) and when at the end of the show and the performers pulled off their wigs and lifted the bird seed bags out of their bras, we thought these guys would die of shock. Well worth the hours spent listening to them.
RIP Deanna, truly a boon companion.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Social vs. Practical
In A French Kitchen by Susan Herrmann Loomis Gotham Books 303 pages $26.95
Loomis lives in Louviers, a small town in Bretagne where she has apparently co-opted every woman of cooking age as a friend. The book is a compilation of cooking tips and recipes of "the typical Frenchwoman." It should be mentioned that in this book, the women personally cook at least one and often two four course meals per day.
It should also be mentioned that a four or five course dinner always includes these two items - a salad course followed by the cheese course and for a five course meal, add dessert.
Loomis and I were bopping along in sync until I read her recipe for something called Tartiflette and hissed in disapproval. It's the family-style version of raclette, made quick and easy.
The raclette I know and serve is the social version with a raclette grill that melts the cheese from the heat under the grill above which is used for pepperoni or deli ham or turkey or Canadian bacon and it is accompanied by a bowl of boiled potatoes (use herbs in the cooking water for more flavor) cornichons and a baguette chunk or three. Everyone is issued a small black skillet for the cheese and cooks to their own rhythm. It's a lot of fun and makes for a great dinner party - leisurely with plenty of time for lively conversation.
Loomis takes away all of the fun - she boils the potatoes, puts them in a casserole dish, covers them with cheese and puts the whole thing in the oven until the cheese melts. This travesty is served with the accoutrements above.
After some 24 hours of cogitation, I conceded that her way is better for serving your family quickly and easily -- but dammit, my way is more fun.
Loomis lives in Louviers, a small town in Bretagne where she has apparently co-opted every woman of cooking age as a friend. The book is a compilation of cooking tips and recipes of "the typical Frenchwoman." It should be mentioned that in this book, the women personally cook at least one and often two four course meals per day.
It should also be mentioned that a four or five course dinner always includes these two items - a salad course followed by the cheese course and for a five course meal, add dessert.
Loomis and I were bopping along in sync until I read her recipe for something called Tartiflette and hissed in disapproval. It's the family-style version of raclette, made quick and easy.
The raclette I know and serve is the social version with a raclette grill that melts the cheese from the heat under the grill above which is used for pepperoni or deli ham or turkey or Canadian bacon and it is accompanied by a bowl of boiled potatoes (use herbs in the cooking water for more flavor) cornichons and a baguette chunk or three. Everyone is issued a small black skillet for the cheese and cooks to their own rhythm. It's a lot of fun and makes for a great dinner party - leisurely with plenty of time for lively conversation.
Loomis takes away all of the fun - she boils the potatoes, puts them in a casserole dish, covers them with cheese and puts the whole thing in the oven until the cheese melts. This travesty is served with the accoutrements above.
After some 24 hours of cogitation, I conceded that her way is better for serving your family quickly and easily -- but dammit, my way is more fun.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
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