Two thoughts I hold equally:
1. Go your own friggin’ way;
2. Wait your freaking turn, you line-cutting bastard!
That’s philosophy like the pros do it. Note: I want to be the first major leaguer to have a Pennzoil-sponsored Socratic Method sweat suit while my brain is batting .327.
After the blog moved to this location, 900-1000 unique visitors per day disappeared. I don’t mind as much as you’d think. It was like attending a party every day in a ballroom full of H.G. Wells characters and wondering if there was spinach between my teeth, but things change, you know? It was a total blast to fictionalize myself and everyone around me while I was single, miserable and uninspired. Once I lived with an actual human being who kept trying to talk to me while I was writing, blogging became a fight one word at a time. But you know what? I love a good fight – especially a food fight.
If you peek at the food sections of New York Times or the Huffington Post, you find them packed with the thoughts of foodies of above-average income and often odd concerns. Scan for yourself, you’ll get a certain funny feeling like you simply must and add this to your list and top ten wines beneath notice. You don’t need to be a trendmeister to see which way the aroma’s wafting. That kind of food writing may be socially useful – or not.
While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Sales of Cheese
Domino’s Pizza was hurting early last year. Domestic sales had fallen, and a survey of big pizza chain customers left the company tied for the worst tasting pies.
Then help arrived from an organization called Dairy Management. It teamed up with Domino’s to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign.
Consumers devoured the cheesier pizza, and sales soared by double digits. “This partnership is clearly working,” Brandon Solano, the Domino’s vice president for brand innovation, said in a statement to The New York Times.
But as healthy as this pizza has been for Domino’s, one slice contains as much as two-thirds of a day’s maximum recommended amount of saturated fat, which has been linked to heart disease and is high in calories.
Tom Monaghan, Domino’s founder, financially supports Operation Rescue and built his own fundamentalist Catholic town in Florida. For me to spend money in a Domino’s Pizza, I would have to be on the verge of starvation in a town without a single culinarily capable entrepeneur and absolutely nothing else separating me, my flimsy morals and sauteing someone else’s house pets. I absolutely do not care if Domino’s sells its customers a hunk of watery casein and a Ritz and calls it “pizza” for all the sustenance their products offer. Let me offer some excellent advice: DON’T EAT THAT. Problem: solved!
Lately, I want homemade, substantial, really real food. Last week, I noticed 100% of the oatmeal cookies in the whole world were at other people’s houses; today, I decided to fix their wagons by making some kickass whole wheat oatmeal cookies.
What? Pete's grandmother bought china!
Humble oatmeal cookies get the Lenox treatment.
What’s not to love? These cookies are so good you’d eat them off a hair brush and so good for you you wouldn’t mind the extra floss. Okay, don’t eat that, but make these cookies for yourself and write me a letter that doesn’t include pretentious wine pairings.
Friend of 20 years: not actually my friend. I won't forget that.
Possibly the last thing pried out of my cold, dead but awesomely manicured hands.
Carmello: What are you doing?
Tata: I remembered I can handle big projects with large staffs and multiple moving parts and someone offered me the project I wanted. Also: I’m ready for fresh hair.
Carmello: Fresh hair cuts off the old energy, too.
Tata: Exactly. Can you give me a haircut that says I kick ass?
Carmello: How did you lose weight?
Tata: I quit drinking.
Carmello: GET OUT!
Tata: It’s just temporary. Once I’ve lost a couple of Schnauzers, I might start drinking martinis again.
Carmello: Most people would eat a Beagle if they lost a Chihuahua.
Tata: I also started wearing makeup to work whenever I felt like it.
Carmello: Why would you quit wearing makeup?
Tata: Air gets gritty in my eyes and there’s nothing like rubbing inflamed eyes and smearing makeup across the bridge of the red nose, but I’ve decided not to have that problem anymore.
Carmello: Does that incantation work on in-laws?
Tata: Not without nail clippings. I love the cut, Carmello. I’ll make an appointment in December, and another in February, and by springtime, I’ll be a vision of capable loveliness.
Carmello: Right. How was Pee Wee Herman?
Obviously, change is in the air.
Last night, Pete and I took a bus into Manhattan and took in a show. I laughed so hard tears formed little crusts on both sides of my face. Tickets may still be available.
I don’t know what you’re scared of, but I’m a-scared of pie crust. Pie crust is my Achilles Heel, my bete noir, the monster under my bed. Who knows how these things get started? When I was a teenager, I baked apples in glittering, sugary crusts and skipped on my merry way, but somewhere along the line, I tripped over my own feet and fell face first into a twenty-year pie crust phobia. Let me tell you two somethings about that:
1. That is a real shame: just about any half-assed breakfast, lunch or dinner becomes 100% less half-assed when baked into a decent tender, flaky crust and that includes sushi;
2. Oh. My. God. What could be more uncool than a PIE CRUST PHOBIA?
Buy in bulk. Bake bigger pies.
Yesterday, I measured out some pastry flour, cut in butter and hydrated the whole mess with cold water, but because I can’t follow a recipe to save my life I also added lemon peel and ground ginger. The dough rested in my fridge for half an hour, then I made a tart out of fruit we’d jarred. After baking, I glazed the tart with lemon squash jam. Pete and I sampled slices of the tart dressed with homemade yogurt mixed with cinnamon and brown sugar. It was okay, but I don’t like tarts.
Sweet potato pies disguised as pie-shaped things.
Many actions have unintended consequences. I want to make things in pie crusts, even things I don’t actually want to eat. But I could and then what? And after that?
1776 tells you everything you need to know about 2010.
Pretty Buckwheat is smart, too.
Q: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at midday and three legs at twilight?
A: Wrong riddle. Try again.
Q: How much hip pain would keep me from working at the food pantry?
A: Mmmm, exactly as much as I have now.
– while making dinner for my Handsome Husband, and as I was rough-dicing sweet potatoes the power went out. The only light in my kitchen was the flame under an empty pan into which I dropped chopped onions and diced sweet potatoes and dinner turned out fine, but if you’re ever in need of a little heart-pounding excitement, give some thought to dicing root vegetables in the dark.
Speaking of Nature, when is Nature like sharing a room with your sister? Buckwheat knows: when giraffes fight over a blouse!
Buckwheat dislikes the monkey suit!
Thursday morning, I barked at my boss Gianna, who lives two blocks from me, “What did you do last night?” She looked at me quizzically. “Power failure from 6 to 9?” I hinted.
“We didn’t have a power failure last night,” she said, “but don’t feel bad. We have one every day. The power goes out and everything blinks. We stopped resetting our clocks years ago.”
Miss Sasha casually mentioned North Dakota was enjoying a blizzard yesterday, so it should come as no surprise that last night the power went out in the tiny New Jersey town just as I started dinner. I made dinner, then called Miss Sasha to tell her the depth of sympathy, which was insufficient. Panky had just tossed his dinner on the floor.
I’m jarring applesauce, while Topaz stares at me.
The vet says her weight is up and her symptoms have subsided for the time being, though I was prepared for news about surgeries and special diets.
My house is peaceful, and Topaz sang all afternoon.
Tomorrow, I’ll go back to work, but my heart’s not in it.
I’m very, very tired. Topaz blinks gently, gently, gently.
Poor Impulse Control 