HER STATEMENT: True.
ITS RELEVANCE: None.
Does JMPP follow her own advice, or is this a second-tier strategy she is recommending?
Cookies work just as well and are much easier.
Didn't she find a man? I'm not up on my Paisleyana.
I helped bake a pie last weekend. I should've taken pictures. I'm sure women would be thrilled to be relieved of the pressure to bake.
Huh. You think? I always cooked, and never thought anyone found it importantly appealing one way or the other. I'd think anyone for whom pie was a major selling point rather than one possible hobby among a bunch of equally appealing ones would be kind of odd.
Whenever I've had to beat back suitors with a stick, it wasn't my cookies they were looking at.
4 - Yeah, she's living with some guy and she thinks they're going to get married. They moved in together and bought a puppy together after something like 6 weeks.
Beating people off with a stick always puzzled me. How exactly would that work? (I suppose someone with really impressive chopsticks technique might manage it with two sticks, but surely that's cheating.)
I always cooked, and never thought anyone found it importantly appealing one way or the other.
Count me as odd then, because someone who cooks is instantly ok in my book (unless it's all veggie stuff, in which case, meh, stop trying to ruin my life, woman).
My father bakes fairly adroitly and my mother hates his guts with a venomous fury, so it's not necessarily universal.
That does look like a kickass pie, though. I find myself wishing I were in Sacramento so I could enter my strawberry pie, which is pretty fine if I say so myself.
13 is awesome, although I'm sorry it's true.
8 - Oh, please. Like your saffron almond brittle doesn't bring all the boys to the yard.
I successfully hit my cooking abilities from my friends for years. Then they busted me, and my standing Coors Light potluck assignment ended.
My sister-in-law makes pies at the professional level. People drive 15 miles to eat her pies. She hates pie-making, however. Knowing how to make pies from a traditional recipe is a curse which almost ruined her mother's life, and may yet ruins hers. making pies is a sacrifice she makes for her family.
The secret of great pies? Transfats. Her health-oriented foodie customers are devastated. These great, classic, to-die-for pies are toxic. Life is hard.
11 was meant to be 9.
Also, 12 isn't odd at all. It seems fairly typically Oggedian.
Wanted: Good woman who can bake tasty pie. Please send picture of pie.
18: You've said this before, and I just don't believe Crisco stands up to lard.
And I don't think either crisco or lard are better than butter.
You know what else works surprisingly well? Cream cheese.
This is the problem with baking: more lactonormative oppression. Maybe what I really want is a woman who likes to grill.
Under Title IX, pie fights have to be funded if we intend to continue having cockfights.
16.--I really want to try making baklava one of these days, but the recipe scares the crap out of me. Two pages long! So many steps!
24: Surely at this point we are talking about a delicious cheesecake. Which btw, try using maybe 1/4 goat cheese with some kind of tart berries or pears on top. Yum.
26: !!! Can we sue you for years of underfunding?
27: Maybe what I've made is inauthentic, but it's easy, aside from the regular phyllo hassle. Grind your nuts, mix up your syrup, layer, and bob's your uncle. But there may be other steps in more authentic baklava.
28: No, it's a perfectly ordinary rich flaky crust -- you'd never think cream cheese unless told about it.
Grind your nuts, mix up your syrup, layer, and bob's your uncle.
So very, very dirty-sounding.
This looks like what I've made. Laborious, like anything with phyllo, but not hard.
You guys can see the little hearts over the "i"s, right? And in the "b", "r", and "g"?
It was excellent for breakfast.
Megan, posts like this make me think I should have moved to California to join your FTA Fan Club.
6
I think it is sort of expected that a woman knows how to cook. I think most men would find a woman who cooks more attractive as a potential wife than a woman who doesn't cook.
35.---That looks approximately like the recipe I've got, once the crap about making your own dough is substracted. Maybe it's the labor involved that's intimidating me.
I think it is sort of expected that a woman knows how to cook. I think most men would find a woman who cooks more attractive as a potential wife than a woman who doesn't cook.
Second sentence likely true, first sentence not so much; hence the post-title; I think this has changed. Among my coupled friends, I think the guy is more likely to cook.
25: I really don't have the hang of lactose intolerance. I thought that liquid milk and ice cream were problematic, but that cooking, cheesemaking, yogurtmaking and so on broke down the lactose enough not to be a problem. Not so?
In any case, there's always lard.
I made an almond cake recipe from the LA Times for a Hanukkah party. Two months later, I met a woman at another party who'd tried the almond cake that night last year, and she came home with me.
My sister-in-law could whip your pie-making asses without breaking a sweat.
Her customers say just what you do, at the very same time they're asking her what her secret is. She tells them her secret and they tell her she's wrong.
She has no hatred of butter or lard. Crisco just works better for that particular purpose. When we have the Portland meetup I'll buy one.
Not so?
It varies a lot from person to person. Some people can handle everything except milk and cream, some people even notice when pills are coated with lactose-containing ingredients.
Dammit, now I'm hungry and horny. And I'm trying to get some work done!
40: If you're not used to working with phyllo, the big difference is buying it someplace where it's pretty fresh. Phyllo that's been frozen and thawed a little and frozen and in the freezer case for six months will drive you insane -- nice fresh (well, I've only every used frozen, but I mean good condition frozen) phyllo is a pleasure to work with. Lift a sheet, lay it down, swab with butter, and on to the next. Nothing to it.
To be especially clear, 46 was not prompted by 45.
Listen to Emerson. Crisco rules them all in a pie crust.
I bake. Well.
You could prove that at Pie Contest this summer. Second place is wide open.
44: Hrm. You know they make trans-fat free Crisco, now? It was never an intentional part of Crisco, it's an impurity that can be filtered out. I think it's more expensive, but if she's handmaking pies, the price difference probably isn't much compared to her markup, and I bet it'd be an additional selling point over the basic pie quality.
Brock--please do e-mail me from your home e-mail. Thanks.
The movie Waitress is good on pie porn. And good in general.
BG: email sent. I missed that in the other thread.
I look forward to seeing Objectivist Baking -- Cooking the Ayn Rand Way on the remainder table a few years from now.
She's looking at the trans-fat-free shit. I've suggested buying one can of it and putting it in an easily-visible place in the kitchen while continuing with normal Crisco as before -- knowing full well that she's signing her customers' death warrants just to save a few pennies, and make tastier pies.
Thanks Brock. I'll send you a few questions in a little while. Don't rush to answer if you've got a ton to do.
Sure, go ahead and ban him. You're banned, by the way.
47.---Thanks for the tip. I guess that means I should probably throw out the box of phyllo that's been sitting in my freezer, waiting for me to work up my courage.
Saffron almond brittle? Really? I can't decide if that sounds good or not, but it certainly sounds intriguing.
Seriously, though, butter is way better than crisco in pie crusts. You just gotta make sure it's cold, is the thing.
60: Noooo! Make something yummy with the phyllo. Spanakopita or something.
Ech, just thinking about baklava turns my stomach. Many years ago I made myself sick desperately returning to a pan of pot baklava trying to get high.
61.--It's delicious and very very easy. You just need to find a bunch of saffron...
62.--Now that I think about it, I've never baked with phyllo at all. People keep telling me how annoying it is to work with.
On reflection, I find that I like to be the one who knows how to cook in a relationship, partly because I learned to cook rather late and still feel that it's a special magic skill. Also partly because since my parents both cook--and my father is the better with everything except baking--I don't feel that it's a way of displaying just how very correctly I perform gender. It's just another way to show off, and I'll put in almost any amount of effort if it's for showing off.
I can't make good pie crusts, though.
(But I made a really fantastic old fashioned mile-high from-scratch three-layer white cake with chocolate frosting that is, if you ask me, as good as pie. It has a bready-sweet wholesomeness equivalent to the cool solid wholesomeness of a good pie.)
64: I don't find it so. It's time-consuming is all, but not difficult.
I've never worried that cooking was a traditionally female role because my Dad did most of the cooking growing up. In fact, I learned to cook so I could be in the kitchen with him.
My wife makes unbelievable desserts of every kind, pies and cookies and cakes and ice cream and on and on. But I'm not really a big dessert person, she won't make me a damn meal no matter how savagely I beat her. Although she will cook very good meals when we have guests. That's part of the reason I consented to having kids: I'm hoping she'll cook for the kid and I can have some of the scraps. Nothing but mashed peas so far.
We are not going to take any baking advice from someone who has problems with pot baklava, let me assure you of that.
A balaclava is a kind of stocking cap or ski mask that covers the whole face except the eyes, BTW. For decades I confused them with baklavas, with embarrassing result.
My ex-wife was a terrific cook. I'm in a good relationship with a woman who says "the kitchen isn't my best room" and so I've had to step up in that department, but my heart's not entirely in it. (I do cook a mean breakfast, and did all right with redfoxt-s's frittatas.) I now find that my moments of most intense longing and regret for my recently-ended marriage have happened around food and cooking -- trying to prepare (and ultimately canceling) a dinner party, even just preparing pasta to eat on the couch with a movie leaves me stranded in nostalgiaponesia.
About a year ago, when she'd just moved out, I had a great "fuck you" dinner party with a terrific fava bean pasta and two friends to help.
Emerson, your SIL makes pies here in town?
Here's JM's saffron almond brittle recipe, btw.
Bipartisan Cafe, 79th and SE Stark.
Emerson is absolutely, absolutely right about Crisco, btw. I have yet to try the trans-fat-free version. But Crisco beats lard up and down the street.
OTOH, some of my late relations used to save bacon grease and make pie crust with that. Apo would probably have liked that better than Crisco.
Right, so Megan and I will each bake pies. Ogged will judge the pie, which involves eating a full piece of each. Immediately afterward, ogged and I will race.
I figure that way I can win at least one of 'em.
73: Looks like a cool place, provided it's not really bipartisan. There used to be a time when I could enjoy pie in the presence of Republicans, but not so much anymore, I'm afraid.
73: I ought to send my sister by there to get one to compare against my mom's lard-based crust. I'm betting on the lard.
I got a marriage proposal once out of my turkish coffee mud pie, from a guy I'd just met at a barbecue. He didn't follow through with the rock, so I'm still an old maid.
Doesn't bipartisan in Portland mean Dems and Greens? Or is that just San Francisco?
I'm pretty sure shivbunny is marrying me either because I make a great lasagna or because I have a great ass. Either way.
Leaf lard is supposedly superior for pie purposes to just regular old lard, but it pretty much guarantees that you can't tell people what's in the crust.
80: It used to, but you don't come across as many self-described Greens these days, probably thanks to Nader. Incidentally, The Oregonian claims that Emerson's SIL's pies are the best in town. This city is serious about food, so that's a pretty high accolade.
Jesus, the second party is not the Republican Party.
Not necessarily Green. Just TBA.
In Minneapolis the Republicans got 22% in the Congressional race, running against a black Muslim. The Jesse Ventura guy got 21%.
I think most men would find a woman who cooks more attractive as a potential wife than a woman who doesn't cook.
What an odd way to put it. Surely most people enjoy sharing a household with another who cooks. Cooking is cool because eating is cool. I don't know about "attractive."
I love cooking with people. Those who want to be left alone in the kitchen puzzle me -- I'm always asking what I can do to help. And those who leave me on my own in the kitchen when I cook can sometimes annoy me. Witness the ex, who had a habit of sticking his head in the kitchen 45 minutes later to ask lamely if there was anything he could do. (Yes dear, 45 minutes ago there was. I blame his mother.)
On other other hand, I suppose I've been known to be dictatorial in the kitchen, though I call it having a discussion. I've a friend to whose house I sometimes bring my own knife because her knives suck. I'm told this might be obnoxious, but hey, chalk it up to a quirk of personality. She has a glass cutting board, for god's sake, and I've never said a word about that. Or about the aluminum pots and pans. Openly.
Not many self-described Greens these days, no. I'm still a registered Green party member, but only because I've been too lazy to take care of it. A slight embarrassment.
I think that it's generally agreed that large, firm, jiggly natural breasts are the only wifely quality of any importance.
I blame his mother.
Was she a single parent? That's too bad--he really should have learned to help out in that case.
Not to be on-topic or anything, but I don't buy Paisley's theory if "potential husbands" is supposed to mean men who might want to marry Megan and whom Megan might want to marry. Megan does a pretty damn good job of marketing herself
Oh, and contra Shearer: I'd say that the vast majority of my male friends, married and single, conservative and liberal, know their way around a kitchen. They've learned it's a good way to get chicks, and many of them find cooking to be relaxing and enjoyable.
The ones who aren't good at cooking tend not to be as picky about food. Guys who only eat Hot Pockets and ramen on their own, ime, tend not to expect their girlfriends to be talented cooks.
86: I'm one of those, but probably because if my kitchen were any tinier it would actually be in the living room. It's big enough for one person to be at the range, oven, and/or sink, and for one person to prep chop, but if the person prepping needs to get to the fridge there's going to need to be a third person in there directing traffic. If I'm cooking, get out from under my feet.
I'm also someone who can't stay out of the kitchen. You can see how this gets messy.
88: IIRC, the definitive work on the subject, Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, said that trust funds were also important.
Frankly, parsimon, I don't understand why you would bring good knives to the home of someone who had a glass cutting board. You want to dull them or something?
and whom Megan might want to marry
I took this to be Bridgeplate's point in 1. I figured I'd ignore it and hope that FUN broke out, but instead we got lard vs. crisco. I guess I have to have fun with the commenters I have...
Megan, I'm particularly impressed not only by the hearts in the letters, but by the tail of the "g." Beautiful.
I don't at all like cooking with people. The only person I can stand to have in the kitchen while I'm cooking is my sister. Anyone else just makes me snippy.
I make a pretty mean pie myself, or so they say.
Maybe if you'd bake for us, Ogged, we'd be more fun.
Megan should start posting photos of herself expertly preparing Old-Fashioneds.
90: Well, kind of, yeah. Anybody sane would be attracted to a possible source of pie, but I can't see Megan wanting to date anyone who didn't primarily come to the blog for the water policy posts. But I may be projecting.
I love cooking with people, but I hate people cooking with me.
I don't understand why you would bring good knives to the home of someone who had a glass cutting board
You do what you can to mitigate the pain. Using someone else's dull knives on a glass cutting board -- try chopping vegetables, or god forbid, mincing garlic. Shit skitters all over the counter. Absurd. It would be funny if you were drunk, maybe.
Hrm. Multiply pwned.
I have a sadly tiny kitchen. Two people really can't get anything done in it at the same time unless they're close enough to be physically entwined while they cook, which depending on the people involved is either unpleasant or distracting.
Taking your own knives to someone's house, unasked, is in the category of apparently reasonable but socially insane.
94: I believe you're right. Duly chastened, I'll go back to just sitting here wishing I had a nice warm piece of my mom's blackberry pie with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.
If you're planning to cook there, it's eccentric but not obnoxious, so long as you don't get unpleasant about how awful their knives are. The idea is that you're bringing the individualized tool you're attached to, not that you won't use their knives because they're shit. True as the latter may be.
If I'm cooking, I'm happy to have a sous-chef. If someone else is cooking, I'm happy to be the sous-chef. But I'm just as happy to leave someone alone in their kitchen or be left alone in mine. It drives me bats when I tell someone I don't need their help and they keep insisting I do.
Hey DaveL, thanks for the perceptive comment. I don't mind portraying myself as domestic, because I really am quite domestic. But you're exactly right; I'm wary of men to find that and a nice picture more appealing than my usual making fun of something or dorkiness.
(Not taken in a negative way. I've said that I'm using the blog as a personal ad.)
by the tail of the "g." Beautiful.
Ali's doing. She's the collegiate champion swimmer, btw.
I can't see Megan wanting to date anyone who didn't primarily come to the blog for the water policy posts.
Or for making fun of things. Some of my best friends aren't into water policy. But they're all into making fun of things.
Can people recommend a good make of knives, or a good source of information about how to pick knives? I would like nice knives, but since I know jackshit about knives, I don't even know where to start googling.
Actually that most recent levee policy post was freakin' awesome. Trying to think of a frame so I can post about it.
No, the idea is that you're bringing your knives because theirs are shit. There's nothing insulting about that; some people get by with the knives they own (hard as that may be to fathom—maybe they just don't cook a lot, or don't know from knives).
110: I know that's what you're thinking -- I'm trying to tell you how to be polite about it.
Here you go, Cala.
The knife I use most often I picked up from a box of free stuff that someone who was moving out of my building left for the taking. Sharpened up fine.
103: I think it's an either/or situation. Or pair of situations. If it's someone you know well, who the fuck cares? Take your own pots, if you want (if cooks would take pots). If it's someone you don't know very well, it strikes me as not obviously apparently reasonable. (But, then, why would you be cooking with someone you don't know very well?)
B: It drives me bats when
Like Mad Libs, except that it's kind of humorless because anything you plug in will fit.
I don't see why it's impolite to tell someone frankly and respectfully that their knives are shit.
Real knife advice would be to try to go to a knife store place that will let you handle the models, since you want something comfortable.
Cala, you want carbon steel. And a good sharpener, because even good knives will get dull if you don't keep them sharp. I admit that I have good, but horribly abused knives. I suck.
apparently reasonable but socially insane
She's a friend of a decade or so. She and her husband can't come to my house because he's desperately allergic to cats. So we must always go to their house, and roughly half the time the plan is that I'll bring makings for food, or some of the food. So you see, it's known that I'll be cooking there.
Admittedly, the first time I brought my own knife, I suspect they eyed each other knowingly but said nothing. Then I forgot the freakin' knife there, which sort of sucked.
In any case, I'd never do that with people who weren't already accustomed to my eccentricities.
115: Probably for roughly the same reason that it would be impolite of them to mention that your manners are the same.
I have a friend who takes great pleasure in bringing his own knives and sharpening stone to people's houses and proceeding to openly mock the host's knives. He manages to make it reasonably winning, but I think that's because he's usually also providing the value add of some kickass barbecue.
114: Oh please. I like lots of things: good bras, kittycats, my kid, sunny weather. So there.
Cala, the good widely available knives are either the high-end models of the German knives like Wusthof/Henckels, or the Japanese knives, like Global. The best way to figure out which you want is to go to your local Crate & Barrell / Williams & Sonoma / Sur la Table and hold them and try them. I have a couple of these and love them.
Oh, Beefo Meaty, you'll just encourage me. Then I'll never get a husband.
Comfortable how? To put this in its proper context, people would be debating whether they should bring their knives to my apartment to cook (though I don't have a glass cutting board.) The knife set I have is some piece of crap my parents got 30 years ago.
Am I looking for weight? Balance? The ones you link could also skin things. Is that important?
This is a pretty sweet knife, and can be got for much less than that place is selling it.
122: droughts don't last forever.
120: Yeah, my wife didn't exactly like it when I burst out laughing at the sentence that started "If there's one thing I hate...", either. (No, I haven't a clue how to punctuate that.)
The ones I linked above were jokes; those aren't kitchen knives. Contra ogged, there was an article in a recent Cook's Illustrated giving very high marks to a cheapo $20 knife; I have it at home and can look it up for you if you like.
Comfortable as in hold it as you would hold it when using it, move it as you would move it when using it, observe how it feels in your hand (the handle, the top part of the knife itself if you hold it like that), how moving it feels in your wrist, the balance, all that jazz.
The issue people complain about when they talk about shit knives is the edge. If you have and use a steel, and sharpen them properly on occasion, you can get an acceptable edge on almost anything that's for sale. On weight and balance and so forth, there's no objective good or bad, it's what feels good to you.
123: You want a good 8- or 9-inch chef's knife and a paring knife, at least. And yeah, you want something that feels okay in your own particular hand: not too heavy, well balanced.
I don't use knives. I cut things with my mind.
115: Probably for roughly the same reason that it would be impolite of them to mention that your manners are the same.
So this is impolite too? Christ.
Feel free to get a crap paring knife. They're cheap and you probably won't be doing a whole lot of decorative cutting of things, I assume.
129: Nowadays you can get magnetic sharpeners, which I'd rather use than a steel, since I don't really know *how* to use a steel. (Hence my abused knives.)
The ones I linked above were jokes; those aren't kitchen knives.
I was joking; I may not have nice knives, but I know what the kitchen was looking. But the ad said suitable for many purposes!
shivbunny is always bitching about my knives. I hate them, too, which is why I make him chop.
A steel isn't really a sharpener.
Perhaps if she posted a picture of herself doing laundry with a big smile on her face, and then a picture of herself scrubbing the floor ecstatically (but not too ecstatically, just reasonably so) she could snag a husband.
I've also heard that there are a lot of mail-order husbands in the Ukraine.
I have a reasonable choice of knives, some of them pretty nice, but the one I always used is a cheapo 4" serrated stainless steel knife. I am kitchen trash.
137: hanging laundry in a sundress. Hot! Maybe she could borrow some tow-headed runts to hang off her skirts, and hire a male model with a suit and pipe; later she can photoshop "THIS COULD BE YOU!" over his face.
134: A steel isn't for sharpening, it's to straighten out the edge when it bends, and it's much easier to use than anything that really sharpens. It's maintenance between sharpening.
135: this works wonderfully for chopping vegetables.
121: I have a Culinar 8" cook's knife too. It's awesome.
This is a pretty good intro to the differences between the Japanese and German knives. But again, I was all hot to get a Global knife, but it really didn't feel right in my hand, so try them out.
A skillfully grinded cutting edge? Oh, my.
So it's unacceptably impolite to go into someone's home and yell "Knives out, motherfuckers!" and then take out the knives you brought with you?
Should someone issue a humorless alert for 90? JMPP's comment was obviously tongue-in-cheeck. I took ogged's post to be the same.
Hee. I do hang laundry, like the hippie I am.
Hey, Beefo Meaty, is there an email address I can use to email you? Or could you please email me at the email address under my name?
JMPP's comment was obviously tongue-in-cheeck
More kidding-on-the-square, I'd think.
is "kidding on the square" equivalent to "ha ha only serious"?
JMPP's comment was obviously tongue-in-cheek.
I am completely sure that she was not joking.
139: A sundress and a sunhat, like Anita O'Day. Internet husbands value kookiness as well as domesticity.
Yeah, Paisley was not joking. My intentions are shrouded in mystery.
I do hang laundry, like the hippie I am.
I contend that anyone in California with a yard who *doesn't* hang their laundry is an asshole.
I'm sure she was joking. It's impossible that she wasn't. Maybe she didn't realize she was joking, but she was.
"I have no sense of humor, and I must joke"
I personally would not want to be beaten off with a stick. JPP must run toward the kinky.
ST, if that was a secret code that would lead me to your email address, I didn't understand it.
156: Anyone hanging laundry outside in our area of L.A. is either an idiot or looking to manufacture cheap urban camo outfits for terrorists. We have to floss after any deep inhaling.
156 was to 153, via Standpipe's blog.
B-libs, take 2: I contend that anyone in [place] with a [thing] who *doesn't* [action] is an asshole.
160: ah, the luxurious layer of crud that would accumulate on my car after, oh, one day of street parking in my old neighborhood in LA.
Thanks! Weird. My email account thought that Beefo Meaty was spam.
Yeah, I shouldn't have dropped that plug for Cialis in there.
LB's 10 disregards that JMPP said Megan would be beating her suitors back, not off -- though both are of course idiomatic.
I contend that DaveL and Sifu are mean.
I contend that anyone on Unfogged who has a sharp-witted line to use in making fun of B. and fails to do so is an asshole.
I have some half-baked plans for an article on kidding on the square. Eventually I'll get around to it. I'm kind of crummy at making pie crusts, alas.
Oh, and I'm pretty bad at sharpening knives as well. I can't use a whetstone properly at all and fail to own a steel. Go team.
I took this to be Bridgeplate's point in 1
This is fantastic. That was, in fact, my point; but more importantly, I have you trained to attribute maximum intelligence to my gnomic little transmissions. With some luck I'll be able to reduce the Bridgeplate syndicate's workweek to a mere 60 hours without loss of productivity.
173 -- me too. Well I have a steel and I seem to be getting better at using it after years of trying; but I'm awful at sharpening cutting tools on a stone. This really interferes with my attempts at becoming a skilled woodworker.
B is finally revealed as ogged! DaveL, our plan worked!
When life gives you gripes, make woin.
Megan doesnt have guys beating down her door?
She is athletic, bakes, likes interesting and different things, and is funny. She plays Ultimate. Who doesnt love that??!?!!
Single guys should be chasing her around.
FYI: I love my knives. A great knife makes cooking so much more fun.
I discovered how easy it is to make meatballs less than an hour ago.
178: not whine?
Oh, duh. Obviously.
When life gives you gripes, make whine.
I'll split the royalties with you 60/40.
James Shearer appears to be a robotic envoy from 1954. Why is he here? To warn us? To love us?
Lots of people don't love Ultimate. But I love Ultimate, or loved it, when I had the chance. And I love James Shearer, Megan, Paisley, and all of you.
184: fair enough. A gripe in the whine is worth two on the...
w-lfs-n?
I love you, Miss Jimmy B. Shearstico.
185 made me acutely and intensely happy.
189:
Every time I see Redtailfoxshrub, I get hungry.
If I participate in your group hug, are you going to eat me?
"Every time I see Redtailfoxshrub, I get hungry."
You must be wasting away, then.
Hugging first, cannibalism later.
I look forward to the new Neko Case album, "The Widower of the Fox Devoured". Sniff.
redfoxtailshrub:
plutonic hugs, no sex acts.
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's plutonian hug!
199: devouring ∉ sex acts
Who among us, having accepted Pluto's cthonian embrace, would deny those still living the pleasure of our succulent flesh?
Plutonia is often used as the fissile component of dirty hugs.
204: Undead Americans have rights, too, Sifu.
"Chthonian," dammit. How could I have been so stupid?
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even hugs may die.
Ia! Hug-Niggurath! Star-goat of a hugs!
91
"Oh, and contra Shearer: I'd say that the vast majority of my male friends, married and single, conservative and liberal, know their way around a kitchen. They've learned it's a good way to get chicks, and many of them find cooking to be relaxing and enjoyable."
Where did I say that most men don't know how to cook? Apparently you think cooking is an attractive quality ("a good way to get chicks") in a man. So what's so offensive about saying it is an attractive quality in a woman?
"The ones who aren't good at cooking tend not to be as picky about food. Guys who only eat Hot Pockets and ramen on their own, ime, tend not to expect their girlfriends to be talented cooks."
Who said anything about talented?
Is that some code for the recipe for a delicious dessert?
The famed Black Forest Hug-niggurath?
Hug-Sothoth knows the pie. Hug-Sothoth is the pie. Hug-Sothoth is the crust and filling of the pie.
So what's so offensive about saying it is an attractive quality in a woman?
With Brahma On Demand, create the world anew at your convenience.
Be the shoggoth you want to see in the world.
Electric sharpeners aren't cheap but aren't crazy expensive & much easier to use than a whetstone...I've heard that steels just align, they don't actually sharpen.
I'm a good cook; my husband's better. It does mean he's very cranky about take out too often or really easy stuff. But overall it's great.
Not so much on the baking--there're 6-8 recipes I can execute very well, but when it comes to pastry dough, or yeast bread, it gets dicey.
That supposedly idiot proof NY Times slow rise low-yeast bread recipe is NOT idiot proof.
HAHA i just figured out why Garace-Franke Rute comes off weird to me, she has like the EXACT same 'talk quickly and with extra lip movement' thing my sister has.
We are T-minus one week and counting away from my biggest pie-baking season here. First the sour cherries get picked from our trees (usually 2-3 pies worth) then the blueberries for my cornmeal blueberry pie. (generally only 1-2 pies; the birds get everything after the first big picking off the blueberry bushes). Now this year I might have to do something with the peaches from the peach trees I planted--quite a lot of fruit coming this year from what I can see.
Pie is as may be, but one of the things that first drew me to my wife (38 or so years ago) was her Boeuf Bourginon. There were complications along the way - e.g., I actually encountered the dish while at dinner at the house of her and her then-husband - but dragons were slain and it has proved a good marriage over the past 37 years. Cooking helps. (And, yes, I cook too, and that also helps. But I don't bake. A man has to draw the line somewhere.)
(In trying to think of just what to say about our marriage, I can't help but think of the construction boss who berated the underling responsible for painting the lines down the middle of a long stretch of road. Some, he said were too wide, some were too narrow; they drifted left and right; they were double when they should have been single; unbroken when they should have been broken; etc. Finally the underling asked, "How is it for length?")
On another topic - lactose intolerance (which I've been diagnosed with for about 15 years, probably had it long before):
- Cooking does NOT remove the lactose, as I know to my sorrow. Cheese-making does, to some extent, but only really if the cheese is well-aged, preferably hard, which means I can enjoy a vintage cheddar as much as the next man, but no brie or mozzarella (without taking plentiful pills). Yogurt with live culture is fine; without, is dodgy.
- Lactose intolerance will not cause a big reaction from a small amount of milk (lactose). As I understand it, it's almost entirely based on volume consumed. Your (= my) body won't process lactose properly, so it turns to gas in the gut: a lot of lactose, a lot of gas (and painful contortions); a little, a little. Pills can provide the essential lactase that my body doesn't produce and thus can allow for some flexibility of consumption, especially when eating out, provided you (= I) remember to bring the damn things along.
Milk allergies, OTOH, are very different. They are like any other allergies, in that in the wrong person/circumstances, a little bit can trigger a huge reaction. Not the same thing - and potentially much nastier.
I'm told that a new or infrequent commenter here has to placate the mob by insulting its leader.
So (taking a deep breath) here goes:
Ogged, Your Mother Wears Combat Boots.
(Runs and hides)
Nobody reads comments that long, ngo.
I would have if the parentheticals were all indexed, numbered footnotes.
I read the whole comment and thought it was interesting.
I would have if
…it had indexed, numbered footnotes in loco parenthesis.
First the sour cherries get picked from our trees
I hate you, deeply.
So... What... There's a pie baking contest in Sacramento and nobody told me about it? I had no idea. Or is it a pie eating contest? Big difference.
Froz, you're in Sacramento? (Or near it.) You're going to the Bay Area meetup thingy, right?
Oddly, my Taiwanese relatives didn't seem to know what lactose intolerance was; as far as I could tell (I don't speak mandarin, but my American relatives translated) they thought it was something like a milk allergy. I forgot to pack my pills and avoided dairy to be on the safe side. Occasionally this worked out to my advantage because it gave me an excuse to turn down some foods without having to come up with other reasons.
Hate you deeply, right or wrong
Sounds like the judges banged the gong
But since you eat pies, I thought you'd realize
I hate you, hate you deeply
My obsession with gong imagery fills me up like a zombie fungus.
In relation to the Cthulu-themed self-helpisms above, coming across this (a result of googling for "alles, was besteht, ist wert", in an attempt to find out the origin of the phrase (which is completed "dass es zugrunde geht")) filled me with a really righteous Nietzschean disgust for people who think that they should believe what makes them happy instead of the truth.
How does a zombie fungus fill you up, SB (stands for "Sad Bastard")?
A zombifying fungus. I miswrote.
I blame the fungongus.
Keep this up and you're a gonger.
You're going to the Bay Area meetup thingy, right?
Gonna be any pie-baking chicks there?
Really, I hope so
Stanley ate too much Paiste in art class as a kid.
Most of the copper in Falun is all gong.
Yeah, but there'll be Tamanough to replace it later.
You're going to the Bay Area meetup thingy, right?
Gonna be any pie-baking chicks there?
I'm planning to be there and I can tell you all about my annual Pie Contest. It is a baking contest, but everyone is a judge, so everyone tastes every pie. It is in Sacramento (in July this year) and all are welcome. We usually get about thirty or forty pies.
Gonna be any pie-baking chicks there?
Ben, I assume.
Rings out clear when I get a clean hit
vibrato clunky, my funky tongs transmit
Sing my song
Play with my dong
As I take hits from the gong
Keep this up and you're a gonger.
Your use of "gong" for "gone", so soon after eb's, has something ingongruous about it.
I didn't use "gong" for "gone"; I used "gonger" for "goner". Really, SB, your analysis couldn't be gonger.
It is a baking contest, but everyone is a judge
I shall bring my special Key Lime Calamari!
You're not even gong.
Today I sing; yesterday I sang; I have sung a song.
Today I ging; yesterday I gang; I have gung a gong.
A guy by the name of Leonidas once told me a story of a pie contest in which one guy cheated by putting quail shot in his competitors' pies.
I have not yet begung to fight.
254 would work better without the first line.
Is it possible to buy fresh sour cherries? I'm not sure I've ever seen them. Is that what those sort of whitish ones are?
And then, as he walked past the scene of pie-y carnage, overcome by morbid curiosity which he could not master, he cried out, "go ahead, eyes, get your fill!" and then stuck his face in the pies?
I've seen them in farmers' markets in Chicago, Katherine.
The one in Daley Plaza, I remember, had them.
pie-y
This gongstruction grates so frightfully on the ear.
So, wait, is good cooking extra sexy or regular sexy? Cause if it's just regular, I'm going back to ramen and paste.
Ring a gong of fivepence,
pocket full of lye,
Four and twenty bullfrogs
Baked in a pie.
Why must you always remoŋstrate with me so, SB?
266: Because two gongs don't make a Grice.
SB is right though, surely there must be a more euphonious word for "pie-y"?
No vexation without remoŋstration.
267 is an abomination, and the correct word is pieful, I think.
[coelacanth ~ 11:02:12]$ chsh
Changing the login shell for w-lfs-n
Enter the new value, or press return for the default
Login Shell [/bin/bash]: /bin/pish
/bin/pish is an invalid shell.
The French insert a "t" between erstwhile forbidden vowel sex. Thus "piety".
Oh! "Humble piety"! That's clever.
between … sex
It's late.
How do you like the quiche, M. Desailly?
Disappointing: too pie-y.
You can get at it, or any other greek letter, in html contexts, thus: &LETTERNAME;. Thus ο -> ο. For a capital such letter, capitalize the first letter of its name. Thus Ω -> Ω.
If you want a word-final sigma, that's ς (ς).
Oh! "Humble piety"! That's clever.
Have a little priest...
For a capital such letter
How indexterous of you.
I thought the indexical adjective "such" was well-placed.
I'm sorry that my frank expression of emotion has discomfited you, Standpipe. I hope we can work through this, together.
Hug me long cuz I been gong
too far without no π
282: w-lfs-n is nothing if not sinister.
Pies are inherently superfluous. To make a pie of x says that I have sufficient x that I may eat x with many such embuttered elaborations.
Not to mention rhubarbigans and quincigans.
Jesus,wtf? Ignore the above. If it makes sense to you, please email me w/ your insights.
To make a pie of x says that I have sufficient x that I may eat x with many such embuttered elaborations.
That's how I feel about blueberries, of which I cannot imagine having so many that the next best thing to do with them is put them in a pie. Stonefruit, strawberries, apples, walnuts, on the other hand, are not in short supply.
Blueberries go in pancakes, obviously. Or directly in my mouth. Or into cocktails. Or... yeah, actually, I see your point on that. Pecans or pumpkins are headed for a pie, though.
Rhubarb I enjoy raw, because I am a goddamn weirdo.
re: 271
Pish [pronounced /pɪʃ/ or sometimes /pʌʃ/]is already a commonly used Scottish word. You really don't want it used to describe your pie.
Pish is used in this country, too, although I dunno if it has the same meaning. Here it's a vague dismissive: "oh, pish, you know that isn't true."
302: just when things were getting... well, interesting is sort of the wrong word, isn't it?
It was supposed to be 301. Just when things were getting big round number.
Sifu, do you remember what Encyclopedia Brown's first name was?
re: 301
The Scottish word is cognate with the word 'piss' and just like 'piss' can be used as a noun or an adjective.
The adjective 'of a poor quality, lit. of a quality comparable with urine'.
"Encyclopaedia."
"Encyclopedia" was a nickname.
Huh, Leroy. I had forgotten that. Guess things went downhill for him later in life.
Leroy Brown had learned a lesson bout a-messin
with the wife of BUGS MEANY. Indeed.
pɪʃing off now.
christ the August slump on this blog has come early this year. let's all talk about our kitchen knives, shall we? it's the office barbecue from hell.
Dsquared: race relations in Harry Potter, any thoughts?
The way I eat I don't need knives anyhow.
re: 311
I'd imagine that it's a fucking stupid thing for grown-ups to worry about.
Although I wouldn't want to put words into the mouth of the Right Honourable Member for Wrexham.
I have only the dimmest conception of what Harry Potter is. I know it's incredibly important to the profits of Bloomsbury Group plc because I have read about a dozen research notes telling me so, but other than that nothing - I think it's a book, isn't it? Or possibly a board game. It's one of my cultural blind spots; like how I was 22 before I discovered that the Jews were a race as well as a religion.
311: Ai! Don't drag that filthy thing into the kitchen!
307: "pish" (or "pishy") is also used for "piss" in this country, at least the region of it in which I live, at least by the ethnic group of which I'm a member-in-law. I'm not sure what the phonetic symbols you used in 299 for the vowel sound mean -- Jews of my acquaintance pronounce the "i" in "pish" exactly like the "i" in "piss".
"I'm planning to be there and I can tell you all about my annual Pie Contest. It is a baking contest, but everyone is a judge, so everyone tastes every pie. It is in Sacramento (in July this year) and all are welcome. We usually get about thirty or forty pies."
That would be a tempting Unfogged meet to attend.
I want to know when the Pie Contest makes its Eastern stop.
264: Good cooking is a nice plus. Phenomenal cooking, a powerful, powerful aphrodisiac. Simply knowing where to find phenomenal food is a worthy alternative. But if the food is good enough to have the proper effect, having it prepared and served at home rather than a snazzy restaurant would seem to have its advantages...
Guess things went downhill for him later in life.
Defective Yeti notes:
Check out the dates. The first Encyclopedia Brown book ("Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective") was published in 1963, with "America's Sherlock in sneakers" aged about 10 or so; "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," meanwhile, was released in 1974. So, conceivably, they could be about the same person. At some point in Encyclopedia's teens, Bugs Meany might have convinced him to join The Tigers, and after that it would have he abandoned his career of do-gooding for the rough-and-tumble life on the streets. Maybe by the age of 21 he was six foot four, had moved to the 'ole south side Chicago, carried a .32 gun in his pocket for fun, and was called "Treetop Lover" by all those downtown ladies.
Also, Wikipaedia Brown and the Case of the Captured Koala.
"Good cooking is a nice plus. Phenomenal cooking, a powerful, powerful aphrodisiac. Simply knowing where to find phenomenal food is a worthy alternative. But if the food is good enough to have the proper effect, having it prepared and served at home rather than a snazzy restaurant would seem to have its advantages..."
Di is a smart woman. Of course, watching someone do something exceptionally well is a powerful aphrodisiac, whether it is cooking or other things.
I love the Tao of Steve.
Is there a piemaker here who wants 20 lb. of frozen rhubarb? I've got it. Sifu?
I'm sure 319 is true, but I would think not very common. Allowing for different values of phenomenal, it's obvious by lots of evidence—I'll just mention Queer Eye for the Straight Guy as an example—that it has become an expected, looked-for accomplishment for men.
And probably brings with it the usual accompaniment: performance anxiety and a sense of feeling false, like some sort of faker even when lucky enough to have done well.
I would think the secret as always is to know yourself, present honestly, and follow and develop your genuine interests. But that's always easy to say, isn't it?
"I would think the secret as always is to know yourself, present honestly, and follow and develop your genuine interests. But that's always easy to say, isn't it?"
Sounds like a solid recipe for long-term contentment. If you don't have a genuine interest in really good food, killing yourself trying to learn how to make some phenomenal 9-course meal probably would just wind up frustrating. But for those who truly appreciate the epicurean delights, the pleasures of good food -- the aroma, the flavors, the mouthfeel -- appeal to a sensual sensibility that works nicely to evoke attraction. Someone with a genuine interest can pull off the effect with something as simply as a bar of really good chocolate and a well-paired wine.
Or maybe that's just the oral-fixation talking.
322,6 -- the "donuts" plot twist turned a cute idea into an inspired, hilarious story.
32&: I think it's more than that; I have "a genuine interest in really good food" yet don't cook at more than a rudimentary level for myself, which is where I would expect you do your practicing. Were I alone, I'm sure I would eat out cheaply practically every night, just to be in company, as I did when I was single.
But if you have a genuine interest in really good food and yet were to eat out cheaply practically every night, wouldn't you be violating your prescription to develop your genuine interests?
I like food. Alot. Which doesn't mean I won't eat chips and salsa for dinner far too often, or some mealy protein bar at my desk for lunch. My kitchen skills are fairly described as rudimentary and my baking skills atrophied. But if a handsome young lad were to happen by with a few choice victuals... It's not really about any kind of fancy technique so much as the shared appreciation of the indulgence.
I had an interview this morning, and have just got to work.
When I was single, the cheap restaurant meals I lived on were at least as good as what I got at home when growing up. I think I told the story not long ago of how, when pulling KP in the army, I was impressed by the care and skill of the cooks, who were preparing the same "American Country" cousine I grew up on, but from fresh ingredients and with knowledge and pride. I later read a lyrical, even purple passage in From Here To Eternity describing the exact same experience, and Pruitt's reaction there, of wonder and admiration, was my own.
I think my standards are much higher today, and I am more adventurous. My wife's cooking is very good, and very well-informed, but there's no question that between us she cares a great deal more about food and its preparation. I've learned from her, but not every consequence is good. She can often be hard on herself, to the extent that I can see she's self-critical, upset and just plain mad when something doesn't turn out right, or the timing is off, sometimes because she gets a phone call or something comes up. It shouldn't matter but it does. And her standard has an inhibiting effect, certainly on me. When I do cook, despite my efforts, I'm altogether too aware of how miserable the result must be, and I can't sometimes help feeling a bit humiliated. And this will be a simple meal better by far than 90% of the meals I grew up on.
It is possible to eat very well, cheaply, in a big city. I am, I have become, aware of the flavors and pleasures of small ethnic places, and how to find them.
You know, I was so lucky to finish learning how to cook at a co-op full of hungry students. Anything you made would be eaten by someone. Cake is too heavy, more like brownies? Gone by morning. Rice all sticky, too much salt? Someone will add tomato and work it into an omelet. Things turn out, or turn into something different and it's all good. I don't try precise cooking, but I also don't get upset if something goes wrong. That just means it was a good night for Vietnamese food after all.
334: it's never actually a bad night for Vietnamese foood, I've learned.
333: Ah, but then we are on the same page here, no? It's not per se the ability to prepare phenomenal food that is appealing, but the ability to recognize and produce it (with "production" including knowing where to call for take-out or make reservations).
But Megan has the right attitude in 334 -- cooking shouldn't be about giving a masterful performance every time, but about exploring, having fun, and collecting new ideas from your successes and not-so-successes.
334 and 337 are also exactly right. Cut it out!
