Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

“Alexa, change the president.”

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Let there be snark.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Cooking / Open Thread: Thursday Night Menu

Open Thread: Thursday Night Menu

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Take it (us) away, TaMara:

Since it’s been such a crazy week I wanted something simple for the menu tonight. But, just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s not tasty. And we gotta get those last few weekends of grilling in before summer ends. If you’re up for adventure, you can try grilling the sweet potatoes on the grill, wrapped in foil or placed in a grilling basket. Also, for those who have requested it, I am working on a Tapas menu, just needs some testing before it goes up. Maybe in the next two weeks or so I’ll post it. Something to look forward to. If anyone else has other requests for menus, let me know, it’s always more fun if I have to go on a scavenger hunt to prep a menu. And a final update: my tomatoes are still not ripe. They sit there, abundant and green, mocking me.
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On the board tonight:
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1. Cheesy Burgers
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2. Kaiser Rolls
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3. Cajun Sweet Potato Fries
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4. Raw Vegetable Tray
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5. Plums

Recipes and shopping list can be found at the link.

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There are worse fates than ‘abundant and green’ tomatoes… After almost two months of not-officially-drought, we got 5 inches of rain over a 4-day period. So today I got to pick, and discard, a whole lot of split, mildewed, blighted tomatoes that were hard green balls last weekend. And some of the gro-bagged potatoes (my new experiment for this summer) seem to be dying back, which can’t be a good sign. Days like this, I’m very grateful that my grandparents had the sense to decamp from their ancestral farms in Connemara! — Anne Laurie

Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh32

    Hope this is not a downer, but I’ve had visitors for the past 2 – 3 weeks. My cuz was here last week, my sister is here til tomorrow.

    I planned to go home to NOLA tomorrow, cause my Aunts an Uncles are having a party. I was wishy-washy for a minute, but then I’m just now watching the HBO documentary by Spike Lee “If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise”. Being in DFW, away from Nola since Katrina, I missed all the damn corruption that occcurred. The documentary is 4 hours long, but it is worth your time to watch it. It’s illuminating! It seriously almost made we weep a number of times.

    All I can say is damn!!! It’s a truth, that many don’t wanna see now, and didn’t wan to see then.

    Spike Lee did good!

    I gonna go home after I drop off my little sister. I’m gonna drive home. I’m gonna pray and let God lead me back safely. But I’m going regardless.

    One guy on the doc, said, that people from New Orleans, who may now be living somewhere else, even if where they are now has less crime, less poverty, higher income, they would all still if they could, pick up and move back to NOLA, if they could keep all the good! That is definitely true.

  2. 2.

    Violet

    I grill sweet potatoes by slicing them in relatively thin diagonal slices, coating with a tiny bit of oil and placing on the grill. It’s sort of like sweet potato chips. You have to watch them or they’ll burn, but they’re easy to cook this way.

  3. 3.

    Sue

    I live in Alabama, and green “maters” are worth their weight in gold here,

    Two of my favorite ways to use the excess:

    1. Cut them into chunks, dress with salt, pepper, and olive oil, and roast on a sheet pan for about an hour at 350.

    2. Make green tomato relish. No need to post a recipe here because there are plenty available on the innertubes.

    I doubt you’ll have to preserve much once you make these recipes. I eat them with a spoon as they come from the oven or cool from the stove.

  4. 4.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Speaking of NOLA, I’m going there for a long weekend in October. We wanted to spend our limited vacation dollars somewhere that it might make a difference. And I’ve never been there before and I’ve always wanted to go. So any suggestions for food, music or sights to see are welcome.

    @lamh32:I hope your trip is everything you need it to be. Safe journey!

  6. 6.

    asdf

    “I planned to go home to NOLA tomorrow, cause my Aunts an Uncles are having a party.”

    Are you kidding me?

    “I gonna go home after I drop off my little sister. I’m gonna drive home.”

    lamh32, you’ve got folks, you have people in your corner.

  9. 9.

    Warren Terra

    Two things for the Open Thread:
    1) Apropos of last night’s Netflix Streaming Open Thread, Netflix released its WiFi streaming app for the Ipod and Ipad today.

    2) I posted this (off topic) in the last thread, the art thread, but William Donohue is being eminently mockable again – and doing so with a Religion In Lower Manhattan connection.

  13. 13.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @Anne Laurie – sorry to hear about your tomatoes, potatoes and Morning Glories. It is heartbreaking to watch all that work go to nothing. But somehow we plant again each spring, full of hope and expectation.

  14. 14.

    jacy

    @TaMara (BHF):

    The Aquarium of the Americas, Audubon Zoo, and the Insectarium are all great. You can walk from the Aquarium to the Insectarium in the French Quarter, and you can take a streetcar to the zoo. Make sure to check for local festivals, there is always something, and I mean always. City Park has ducks and a botanical garden, and the art museum is there. (Can you tell we have little kids?)

    If you like Middle Eastern food, there’s a swell place called Mona’s at the edge of the Quarter, very low key. Has a hookah bar next door. Ninja Sushi off Oak, and there’s also great little shops in that area. Magazine Street for shopping.

    There are enough restaurants in the Quarter alone that you can get anything, but if you want a real New Orleans unique experience go to Galatoire’s. It is an institution. Make sure you order the Oysters en Brochette.

    Lots of historical type stuff — my mother-in-law lives in the Quarter and volunteers as a tour guide at the Pontalba and St. Louis Cathedral. Suffice to say, you won’t get bored.

  15. 15.

    Kristine

    @Sue: Is there any such thing as “too green”? There’s the green that will ripen eventually, and the early green that will rot, not ripen. Does it matter which?

  16. 16.

    Warren Terra

    @arguingwithsignposts
    I guess only the iPod/iPhone compatability is new – I hadn’t known there was already and iPad version. Still, as I have an iPod and not an iPad, it’s nice for me.

  18. 18.

    Platonicspoof

    Hi Anne,
    Just speaking to gardeners generally, tomatoes and potatoes are both hosts for two common diseases.

    Alternaria solani , early blight of both, can survive overwinter in host refuse in the soil or potato tubers that don’t get dug. Infected soil requires rotating with nonhost plants for three to four years.

    Phytophthora infestans , late blight of both, usually doesn’tt overwinter in plant refuse, but can in tubers that get missed.

    Hope you let us know what yield you get with the bagged potatoes.

  19. 19.

    DougJ

    Days like this, I’m very grateful that my grandparents had the sense to decamp from their ancestral farms in Connemara!

    I almost wrote “how are things in Connemara” before I realized it was Glocca Morra.

  21. 21.

    James Hare

    @lamh32:
    Strange you mention New Orleans — I just read this:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/27racial.html?hp

    I don’t even know anymore. I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to be a part of this country anymore. I’ve lived in the Northern Virginia area almost my entire life and I just didn’t believe this kind of shit was America. I spent some time in Prince Edward county in college and thought “oh these are backward hicks — the rest of the country isn’t racist.” I was wrong as hell. The last 2 years have really made America feel like a foreign place.

  22. 22.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @TaMara (BHF): Coop’s Place, for good Cajun. Olivier’s, for good Creole. My wife and I absolutely loved Coop’s; it is sort of dive bar deep on Decatur. Good traditional Cajun, cheap, great bloody marys. Olivier’s is less expensive than many of the more famous places; it’s been in the same family for a few generations.

    Also too, go to Preservation Hall; stand in line as long as necessary.

    ETA: Coop’s has a house cat named Stella.

  23. 23.

    Comrade Kevin

    I just saw something surreal on Travel Channel. David Blaine doing magic tricks with some hillbillies.

  24. 24.

    ruemara

    Just poked my head into GOS. Good lord, it’s awash with slashed wrists and primary in 2012 and general abandonment issues. I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked as Obama has totally thrown all progressives and women under bus by not publicly firing Alan Simpson and also slapping him across the face. I’m only 40, are progressives always so emo?

  26. 26.

    Violet

    Oh, jeez. Firebagger alert. I just skimmed the diaries over at the GOS and there’s a diary at the top of the rec list by someone who is practically rending her garments and wailing at how much Obama has let her down. She’s calling for someone to primary him.

    I get that he isn’t perfect, but he’s a damn sight better than any Republican would be. WTF is wrong with these people? They really think a firebagger-approved candidate is going to win a primary against Obama? Honestly.

  29. 29.

    Yutsano

    @arguingwithsignposts: You could also opt for not patronizing the GOS at all. I find this increases my sanity greatly. Hell half the time I don’t even go there when linked. Firefox is such a blessing for things like that.

  30. 30.

    slag

    @Violet:

    They really think a firebagger-approved candidate is going to win a primary against Obama?

    Apparently, we haven’t learned enough from the 2000 election or the eight tragically long years subsequent to that. Time for another go-round, it seems. Maybe this time the lessons will stick. Ha!

  31. 31.

    ruemara

    @Violet:
    It wasn’t so much that they think they would win, it was that Obama is cutting their SS and the catfood commission is his sneaky way of back stabbing the elderly and he wouldn’t fire Alan Simpson, which means he hates the vagina and the olds and he didn’t include the public option, because he’s a corporatist. Ergo, he should be primaried because we need to challenge him, because, we just should. Not sure if he would see, so then there too! Maybe if we send flowers to ourselves, Obama will have the scales fall from his eyes, or if we got a new hairdo. He was also at fault for prop 8 in one of the comments and did you know he personally called for the firing of Sherrod? The diarist was certain
    It was like a bad breakup.

    I’m often more left than people, even on the left and I’m channeling Gibbs on this. What the hell are these people smoking?

  32. 32.

    burnspbesq

    Anybody seen Randinho? We need a Champions League thread tonight.

    I was pleased to see that Real got put in the group of death with AC Milan, Ajax, and Auxerre.

  35. 35.

    Little Boots

    Did I miss something? Has Obama started cutting Social Security? Really? Or is this the usual bedwetting?

  36. 36.

    Yutsano

    @Little Boots: Much ado about nothing. Alan Simpson acted like a major dumbdonkey and the professional left is engaging in the usual pantswetting because, well, it’s all Obama’s Fault!

  38. 38.

    Yutsano

    @arguingwithsignposts: That selection did strike me as rather…interesting. As far as I can remember he wasn’t any sort of expert on SS in the Senate beyond the whole ideological Republican objections. I’m not sure what the logic was behind that unless it involved some sort of lobbying on Simpson’s behalf.

  39. 39.

    Warren Terra

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    From the little I know George Mitchell is a perfectly nice guy, but he’s hopefully keeping busy in the Middle East, and he’s a Democrat; Obama’s goal was a bipartisan committee. Alan Simpson is a Republican who’s willing to be seen in public with Democrats and isn’t an unthinking goon (his ideas aren’t good ones, but at least they aren’t Palinesque reflexive empty slogans). Sadly, the number of Republicans who meet those criteria is pretty small, so there weren’t a lot of options.

    Mind you, I don’t think the Social Security Commission has any real chance of making good policy, and I doubt it’s even good politics, so I’m not enthused that anyone was named to the Commission seat he occupies – but if there’s going to be a Commission, someone like him will occupy that seat.

  40. 40.

    Comrade Kevin

    Would someone please explain where this strange “cat food commission” name comes from?

  43. 43.

    slag

    @Comrade Kevin: In a civilized society, we prefer not having our senior citizens live off cat food in their twilight years. So, we create this thing called Social Security to provide them with a bit of a living during that time. And the idiots in the idiotic Deficit Commission seem to have a thing against Social Security (What can I say? They’re idiots). Ergo, Cat Food Commission.

    Or really, what they said.

  47. 47.

    Little Boots

    A commission is just a commission, and one of the oldest tricks in the book. When it’s legislation, we should be worried, and come down on them like a ton of bricks. Til then, it is just a commission.

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