Hi, friends! Happy Sunday!
I hope your weekend went well. I learned how to easily bake brats in the oven back in December. It was so easy. I’m a very very lazy person when it comes to cooking meat. Mainly because I don’t want to have to pay attention to something being cooked enough without cooking to being chewy. Veggies are much more forgiving. Also I don’t really care super much about the flavor of meat, so all this combines to me making a lot of meat-free meals.
Like I need to chop tons of veggies for a big dish? Fine. But ehhh don’t ask me to cook a steak. I’ll stew some beans to eat with my veggies for my protein. 🙂
Do you have an area like this in your life? Like are you a neat freak except for dishes? Or you love doing outdoor stuff like using the riding lawn mower but absolutely refuse to fuss with leaves?
Brats! You know, they are usually pre-cooked, so you just need to heat them up. Unless you get them from a very traditional butcher or stuff the skins yourself. Which, I have actually seen done and helped out with, the grinding and spicing of the pork and stuffing the casings. The saying, “You don’t want to know how the sausage is made” exists for a reason.
Absolutely not, I don’t by precooked brats. My meat cutter grandfather would come out of his grave and smack me for that.
Atta girl! I have a very high-end (and very twee) butcher shop near me. The two guys who run it have sideburns and those “soul patch” little bits of facial hair on their chins. One used to sport a man-bun but I guess he wised up. It’s really astonishing that it exists in this neighborhood. But as I have mentioned before, we went from being a total food desert to high-end supermarket central, so there must be local demand.
Yesterday I sent Better Half off to hunt and gather. One of the things I asked him to pick up was a nice big hunk of smoked Gouda. That will chase the winter blues away. He came back and showed me his finds.
“That’s Jarlsberg. That’s not smoked Gouda.”
“The employee I spoke to told me that they’re the same thing.”
“Well, that employee is an idiot and they should hire me instead. In the first place…”
I wish I were more mobile. I loved going grocery shopping. All the markets are small by suburban standards and have a limited selection, but what they do have is so eccentric. I think for that reason the big food conglomerates don’t sell into them. So you’ll find very strange fruits and vegetables, for example. Or frozen desserts from brands you thought went out of business decades ago. And it’s all very “Now you see it/Now you don’t” so you have to stock up if something catches your eye because it probably won’t be there next week.
@matthewcrawley Mais c’n’est pas possible. Tu exagère! How could Jarlsberg ever be considered a substitute for gouda, let alone smoked gouda!? This story of weaponized incompetence is right up there with my dad coming home with cabbage instead of lettuce. I’m scandalized!
Oh, I’m not exaggerating at all. This is the same market where I asked BH to pick up…I forget what, and the employee, who didn’t seem to understand that she was actually working in the bakery aisle, snapped out of her reverie and gave him two chocolate-drenched cannolis. I wish I could remember what I really wanted. Anyway, the talent pool around here is not quite Cordon Bleu level.
Funny you should mention leaves. I absolutely will not rake. I use my lawnmower (electric) with the clipping bag on and just vacuum that shit. I also actually have a leaf vacuum that I’ll use on my atrium. But no raking whatsoever. I remember assembling mountains of leaves in my yard as a kid, and I hated it.
Same here. After getting leaf debris in my eye two Falls in a row, I figured the lawn mower has a mulch attachment… so why am I getting red puffy puss filled eyes for nothing?!?
Oh, in other news Florida Man drops out and debases himself before the Orange Overlord. What must it be like to have nothing resembling 1) a spine 2) a sense of self-worth 3) a particle of self-respect. Also, apparently in DeSantis Land “never back down” = “crawl back to Florida with my tail between my legs while using my tongue on Trump’s orange … Nope. Stay classy.”
DeSantis drops out and endorses Trump after losing to him by 30 points
He never had any plan. It was always nothing but the vaguest wishful thinking.
There are hilarious roundups of all of the pundits who were pumping him up. Ross Douthat has some groaners, but there are a lot of others. None of these people ever bothered to watch him or interact with him. It was just a couple of notes on the back of a cocktail napkin after a $50 double scotch in a Newark Airport bar. And they’ll be furious when anyone brings it up.
David Brooks! Like many of the best and worst of us he’s a native Canadian (he was born in Toronto) who dumped his long-suffering wife to marry his much younger “research assistant.” Oh I bet. When Better Half and I were younger we used to do all kinds of “research” on each other…
Thank you, Cousin Matty!!!!💖
I think I fiiiiinally figured out why I find Brooks *SO* incandescently annoying!😉
The man appears to have *NO* actual convictions of his own, merely *Observations* on Humanity.🙄🙄🙄
This quote, from a New Yorker article gets to the heart of it;
“One morning, passing through Penn Station at rush hour, Brooks was overcome by the feeling that he was moving in a sea of souls—not the hair and legs and sneakers but the moral part. ‘It was like suddenly everything was illuminated, and I became aware of an infinite depth on each of these thousands of people. They were living souls,’”
That Brooks was what–in his 50’s (😡🤬🤯🤯🤯?!?!?????) before he had the gorram *realization* that *ALL of Humanity*are living, breathing, *INTERCONNECTED Souls,* is just STUPID of him!!!!!
WHAT, *in the hell* was he “Observing!” for allllllthose DECADES of his writing & “Observations!”, *IF it wasn’t the HUMANITY of all the goddamn PEOPLE he was *supposedly* “Observing”?!?!??
The man is a shallow person *masquerading* as an “Intellectual!”, a goddamn DOLT, a louse, and an utter Nincompoop!!!!
He “observes” people, like an out of town Gawker, who decides to take a winding drive through a disaster zone, *or* the way a neurotypical four-year-old observes an ant farm…
With all the depth of feeling, attention to task, *AND* Intellectual *understanding* of the
people’sAnts’ lives that the typical four-year-old has, too…He’s a wishy-washy NINNY, who *wants* to be a part of the 1% so badly, that he gallivants about “Intellectualizing” the lives of
The Plebes“Lower-Economic Background Regular Americans(TM!),” like he’s studying insects, rather than taking to PEOPLE, with actual *lives* and feelings…And the fact that he *apparently* just realized, in his early 50’s, that *Other People are REAL,* they are ALL connected to me, and They have Souls, too!”
Is just ABSURD!!!!!
The fact that that man had *zero* clue about that–less understanding than a goddamn PRESCHOOLER for fuck’s sake!!!–is just mind boggling!
the New Yorker article in question;
https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/david-brooks-conversion-story
Eta–And I really DO need to apologize to the four-year-olds I know, too–because ALL of them are kinder, more empathetic, and of FAR greater moral & Intellectual standing, than David Brooks!
That’s the thing that I love about small children. They’re so guileless and playful and unintentionally funny. I’ve spent so much time around small children. I remember years ago I was invited to dinner and I was handed my goddaughter, who was maybe 2 years old. She had a cold or something. She cough/sneezed and blew out more snot than most adults could produce, all over this sweater I was wearing.
Her mother was horrified, but I thought this was kind of hilarious. Mom took the girl and I went into one of the bathrooms to do my best to remove the snot.
I also changed the diaper on my nephew/godson many times. He was a wonderful baby. So happy. Giggling or playing or watching TV or sleeping all the time. I’d get the diaper off and he would decide to urinate sometimes. Luckily I wear glasses, so I didn’t take it direct into the eyes. But his stream was admirably strong.
My current theory — and I’m not the only person who thinks this — is that his wife, Casey DeSantis, is the actual mastermind behind his “campaign.” She’s smarter than him, she’s an accomplished television broadcaster, and there are more and more stories about her calling the shots and trying to get his dumb, bovine ass to appear “likable” and … well, coherent. It will be interesting to see if she dumps him for someone with better political prospects.
Good theory
https://www.rawstory.com/furious-casey-desantis/
That’s what I always thought about Mel. Once Trump was finally booted out of office and on January 6th it was like Lenin arriving at the Finland Station to unleash a revolution, I figured she’d grab Barron and flee back to Slovenia. But no, she seems to have doubled down. When she was in the White House she always looked like she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her husband or her elder step-children. But now it seems like they couldn’t be chummier. She knows something we don’t. But imagine being Trump’s widow and untangling all the questionable (to put it mildly) financial ruses and shenanigans over the years.
It’s kind of a grim contest: of the frontrunners, who’ll shake off his mortal coil first, Donald Trump at 77 or Joe Biden at 81? Or both?
I will repeat that we have never elected a president younger than I am (over the years), and I’m 60. We came close with my fantasy boyfriend Barack Obama, who’s a year and a half older than I am, and in fact Mich is slightly younger than I am, but that was it. I really wish she’d run. She’s super-smart and scandal-free. The daughters might have gotten into hi-jinx, who didn’t, but it couldn’t be on Hunter Biden levels.
This is one of the reasons to ditch the right wing rags, because they launder the Melania-Donald dirt. A steady diet of them will keep you from learning what everyone else knows.
She’s not chummier than ever, she’s been dodging all of his court appearances and campaign rallies and making a point of not appearing with him for photos. He begged out of a court appearance on the grounds that he needed to go to her mother’s funeral, only to schedule a rally in New Hampshire instead, and only went to the funeral when prosecutors called him out.
At which point he was photographed shunning poor Barron’s attempt to pat his dad on the arm.
You’re missing out on a lot by reading outlets that prioritize politics over gossip.
I cannot tell you how many people whom I suspect to be closet Trump supporters. It’s why the polls are so unreliable. I think people are embarrassed to admit it. I still remember 2016. Hillary Clinton was going to win in a landslide. All the polls said so. And people showed up and voted for Trump. Not by much, but by enough to hand him the presidency. I have a horrible feeling that if both he and Biden are alive in November, 2016 history might repeat itself.
In my long lifetime the only presidential candidate I was really enthusiastic about who went on to win was Barack Obama in 2008. Otherwise…I mean, go back through the Democratic nominees or contenders. I love Bernie Sanders but he’s a little long in the tooth and cranky and Brooklyn Jew-y, and the DNC is never going to repeat their mistake from 2016, where they felt like they had to run someone against Clinton to preserve some semblance of participatory democracy and then, to their horror, Bernie Sanders started winning primaries.
And the leaked emails from John Podesta and that miserable Debbie Wasserman Shultz and the multiple failed Donna Brazile over at the DNC…
I think that’s enough.
It works the other way too, and that’s one of the big reasons for ditching the right wing rags.
The big outlets are a mess, but it’s possible to get some echo of the real gossip, and you’ll get more if you look for even better sources. The NY Sun and those weird outlets run by Tucker Carlson clones want to bury it or give you a single thin slice of spam and tell you it’s a whole leg of prosciutto.
They’re starving you of the good stuff, and they want you to go hungry while they tell you the hunger pains in your stomach are what happens after a good meal.
Mrs Macbeth?
This article made me chuckle, too!😉
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ron-desantis-campaign-quote-winston-churchill_n_65ad87efe4b006594e01e8a5
He can’t even drop out quoting someone correctly!😆😂🤣
Somebody has to write an autopsy of his campaign. I think he was a pretty successful governor when first elected. But then, to show his conservative chops, I guess, he didn’t wade into the culture wars, he cannonballed into them. Banning the books, the abortion bans, the anti-trans rules…Ron, hon, you kept Florida open during the pandemic and didn’t have a much worse outcome than we did, and we shut down for like two years, and we still haven’t recovered. Florida’s thriving. New Yorkers can’t move there fast enough. So what if a middle school library makes available something like “Heather Has Two Mommies” or a woman decides to terminate a pregnancy at seven weeks, instead of six. I’ve heard that some women don’t even realize that they’re pregnant at six weeks. You’re a governor of a wealthy, populous state. Stay in your lane, bro.
Good riddance to a living Howdy Doody.
I am fine with letting dishes soak in the sink, except for sharp knives which I’m careful about washing ASAP, drying, and putting away. I don’t trust others to avoid accidents.
Sharp Knives, Pans (Teflon and Enameled Cast Iron!), *and* wooden tools are all “Do NOT leave these soaking in water!” items for me.
I don’t *like* sticking my hands in gross food-water, but I don’t particularly *care* about it, unless it’s dangerous (the sharp stuff), or can ruin things that are good tools (the pans & wooden items)
Lately, because of exhaustion (STILL dealing with the aftereffects of the Burnout I hit last spring, tbh, annnnd with the roommate stuff I’m not *quite* out of yet), I’ve just been buying the Barilla Ready Pasta and various types of microwave ready-rice, when I want a meal that has those things.
Tbh, it was a habit I got into, when I had to go up to Dad’s with Lily every weekend/every other weekend, back in early 2022, to see him, and work on sorting through & packing up the apartment.
I realized that if I kept a jar of pasta sauce, some pre-cooked frozen meatballs, and a few pouches of ready-pasta around, along with a bag of cheap pre-cut “salad mix,” I could be SURE that I had a reasonably well-balanced and at least *slightly* healthy meal, as I was burning allllllll my energy on dealing with everything that took my attention.
And *with* that jar of sauce, the frozen meatballs, and the ready pasta, I can toss the lettuce in a bowl during the minute the pasta cooks, then pull out *another* bowl, dump the pasta, meatballs, and sauce in, pop *that* back into the microwave for the 2-3 minutes it takes for the meatballs to heat, and *finish* putting together my salad & dressing it, as that cooks.
So I have a *whole* “somewhat healthy,” meal that has a good l, diabetes-friendly mix of fats, protein and carbs, *and* some vegetables, all in right around five minutes!
Easy to toss together, if my carb counts start to go sideways, if I’m exhausted, or if I’m just out of energy & ideas, CHEAP, all things considered ($6.99 for the meatballs, less than $3 for the sauce, less than $2.50 for the noodles, and the salad fixing are less than $7.00 for DAYS worth of salad!), the meatballs, salad, and sauce last for the better part of a week’s worth of meals, and it’s EASY.😉💖
Hopefully,once I get out of here, and into a more stable living situation, I can get back into actually *boiling* my own pasta and rice!😉
But knowing that I have the fixins for a 5-minute “pasta” meal, or Ross Yoder’s Buzzfeed Pastina recipe, if I’m feeling inclined to eat *that* warm cheesy goodness instead, is really nice to have, when I’m feeling brain-fried & wiped out!
My local Pakistani/Indian grocery has dynamite precooked curries in pouches for cheap, a lot like MREs. A lot of them include some kind of legume so they tend to pack a lot of complex carbs and protein, plus a good kick of spice that only takes a few minutes to heat up.
Target even has a few really good Indian/Indian-ish foods, in their Good & Gather line!😉
I’ve definitely gotten the Chana Masala, to have on hand, because it’s all of about two bucks, really well-balanced (again, for that whole ‘beeuts thing!😁), and TASTY!
When I have it on hand, I usually microwave the packet, toss half of it over a bowl of ready-rice, or have it with *some* type of bread, having the other half for lunch the second day😉
I’m a big fan of opportunities to copy/paste/edit rather than typing from scratch. Much of the content I need to churn out has to reiterate the same key points, so it works.
As a copywriter, I’m with you. I’ve also found that ChatGPT is very helpful if you tell it to rewrite something and then feed it the copy. You get something that says the same thing but in different words.
Pro tip. If you want brats (and, Jesus Christ, Matt, you live in NYC. I promise you that there are fresh brats there. If nothing else you can get Johnsonville brats at the store) but don’t want to mind them, just throw them in a pot with a julienne onion and a few bottles of beer and let it cook until the onions turn clear. Mmm. Mmm.
I use the same dishes on the same day. If Mrs Butcher has dinner before I do, there’s no reason to use new plates. Anyone who thinks that’s gross has obviously never swapped body fluids with another human being.
I do the same thing with my husband… but only if I eat first. He doesn’t mind reusing a plate. I prefer not having to wash two if I don’t have to, especially when I have a dozen glasses and bowls to wash up because my kids are both picky and fickle at the witching hour.
Believe me, I did my time in Germany, I know every kind of “Wurst” imaginable. But Bratwurst, and all kinds of sausages around here, always come pre-cooked. Even that high-end butcher sells pre-cooked sausages. I don’t really know why. I think the people who can afford to shop in these places don’t really know how to cook. And no one wants food poisoning from uncooked Bratwurst.
OT my eldest brought home a science project last week. It’s a flowering plant whose roots can be observed in a glass jar. Everytime I get a whiff of it, I feel like puking. It smells like rotten onion. It’s been sitting on our dining table because there isn’t anywhere else to put it and my kid won’t let me throw it out. On top of it, the fucker keeps blooming! I just googled “rotten onion smelling white flower” and it’s called a three cornered leek. #stinkySTEM #fml
Oh no. When my younger sister and I were kids we used to assemble models at our kitchen table. Which, fine. But then we would paint them, and I’m sure the paints were lead-based and toxic. And when we were done we would all eat at that kitchen table.
It’s a wonder anyone survived the 1960s and 1970s.
i absolutely will not shovel show…….if anything im more likely to hiss at people for trampling my pretty pretty virgin snow and ruining it
no touchy my snow!