• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

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

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

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

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

I really should read my own blog.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

The revolution will be supervised.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread

Late Night Open Thread

by John Cole|  April 21, 20122:51 am| 30 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

FacebookTweetEmail

An atypically sedate Friday night turned into a party. I was just watching the Pens, and then Bill and Jill and Jen showed up, and then they left for another party, came back with a bunch of other people, so I did what I normally do. I cooked. Made a marinara from scratch, broke out the mixer and made some some baguettes, and made a late night spaghetti dinner for drunks.

I like having my house as party central. It’s perfect for someone who does not want to go out (EVER). I have company, people come over and drink and party, I get to cook for them, and it is all on my terms and not me dealing with a bunch of drunken idiots at a bar somewhere.

And my baguettes were fucking amazing. In short order, I’ve really taken control of baking bread and feel really confident. I always loved cooking and felt confident with that, but was afraid of baking for some reason, which I think is really much harder than cooking.

I’m off to bed, because I have a solid 8 hours of cooking ahead of me tomorrow, because Wiley’s book launch is being held here and I need to feed 30 people at the celebratory barbecue. Night!

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Academically Adrift‘s methodology
Next Post: Open Thread: Don’t Give Them Any More Ideas… »

Reader Interactions

30Comments

  1. 1.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    April 21, 2012 at 2:53 am

    Yowza!

  2. 2.

    Gaffa

    April 21, 2012 at 2:56 am

    Baking is harder than cooking, though. You mess around with cooking, worst that happens is that something is a bit over-burnt, or maybe under-cooked, or some flavors didn’t mesh well.

    You mess around with a baking recipe, and we’re not just talking “kinda weird tasting,” we’re talking outright disaster. No rising dough. Flattened cookies full of salt. Collapsed cakes. And so on.

    And grats on your party!

    I now return to my monthly lurking schedule.

  3. 3.

    aangus

    April 21, 2012 at 2:58 am

    I think that I ended up in the Spambulator.

    :(

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoWJFC_ock8

  4. 4.

    Genine

    April 21, 2012 at 2:58 am

    Yay, John! You’re socializing. :-)

  5. 5.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    April 21, 2012 at 3:01 am

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: My comment edit didn’t work, so I’ll repeat…

    If some people “left for another party, came back with a bunch of other people,” at my house, they’d be left looking at a closed front door.

  6. 6.

    aangus

    April 21, 2012 at 3:03 am

    @The prophet Nostradumbass:

    :P

  7. 7.

    satanicpanic

    April 21, 2012 at 3:21 am

    Hell yeah, party at JC’s! +3

  8. 8.

    noodler

    April 21, 2012 at 3:30 am

    JC,

    a late night spaghetti dinner for drunks

    should be henceforth included in the rotating taglines. If I don’t see it by tomorrow I am never coming back here.

    close second:

    It’s perfect for someone who does not want to go out (EVER).

    honorable mention:

    And my baguettes were fucking amazing

    fuck it, tagline them all.

    you are a good friend.

    you rock.

    Home at 3 am after an amazing cooking/catering prep night as well. oh, the stories I could tell. Working in a kitchen blows the doors off.

  9. 9.

    Yutsano

    April 21, 2012 at 4:08 am

    @Gaffa: This is exactly why I do not bake. If I am cooking, I can almost always manage to do something to resurrect the final product. Baking you hope you’ve done everything right and cast your lot into the void. I’m just too much of a control freak for that.

  10. 10.

    Joseph Nobles

    April 21, 2012 at 4:36 am

    My experience with baking is mixed. I finally have a white bread I can make well. Wheat breads are still eluding me. I made the most incredible tasting flat loaf of rye bread I ever had a month ago, though. As soon as I get that stand-up thing happening, my rye will bring all the boys to the yard.

    If I mix the wheat dough in the bread machine, the loaves are marginally better, but not enough. Practice, practice, practice. Maybe I can find a baking class at a local community college or whatnot.

  11. 11.

    isildur

    April 21, 2012 at 6:19 am

    Would-be bakers: My wife got The Bread Baker’s Apprentice and swears by it. Her bread is now really, really good, even though she’s kind of scatterbrained and cooks by the seat of her pants.

  12. 12.

    Groucho48

    April 21, 2012 at 6:33 am

    I picked up the latest book, by Robert Tannenbaum, in the Butch Karp series, Outrage, from the library, yesterday, and started reading it, today, in the hope that he had picked up a new ghost writer. (Wow, that is a lot of commas for one sentence.)

    My hope was quickly dashed, unless Pam Gellar is the new ghost writer. Yes, though I only got about a quarter of the way into it, it is just that bad.

    It’s a real pity, as, when Michael Gruber was collaborating (doing 95% of the writing), it was one of my favorite series.

  13. 13.

    BretH

    April 21, 2012 at 6:53 am

    Being a Caps fan only sharing your ups and downs with the Pens this year could make me do this, so…

    GO PENS!

    (About time we got back to some good ol’ Caps-Pens playoff animosity!)

  14. 14.

    Schlemizel

    April 21, 2012 at 7:26 am

    @Joseph Nobles:
    I have the exact opposite problem – I can make any kind of bread I have ever tried but plain white. Lately I have taken to tossing a cup of spent grain from my brewing into my whole wheat or rye bread & everyone raves about the texture.

  15. 15.

    Schlemizel

    April 21, 2012 at 7:31 am

    I’m intrested in how you managed to whip up an entire batch of bread in an evening John. Usually it takes a couple hours (at least) for rising and resting then baking and cooling enough that it does not smoosh when cut.

    Also – anybody here ever tried Julia Childs method for French bread? I keep thinking about it but its a day long process so I have not committed the time.

  16. 16.

    Chet

    April 21, 2012 at 7:58 am

    Levon Helm died? Aw, godmotherfuckingdamnit.

  17. 17.

    Joseph Nobles

    April 21, 2012 at 8:03 am

    @Schlemizel:

    This is the recipe I found for white bread that worked like a charm for me:

    http://allrecipes.com/recipe/grandma-vandorens-white-bread/

    It’s for 3 loaves, but I just did two by switching the servings to 24. I think the sponge is what helped. I’m doing a sourdough starter now, and looking forward to keeping that going.

    But wheat bread is my favorite bread from the store and I’ll get it right by hand eventually.

  18. 18.

    var

    April 21, 2012 at 8:05 am

    Of course baking is harder than cooking! You find out that your product is crappy the same time everyone else does. And there’s little you can do if you see it going wrong. Baking is science as much as art. Cooking means you get to taste, sample, adjust. There’s no adjusting when you bake. You are committed when you put it into the hot oven.

  19. 19.

    RedKitten

    April 21, 2012 at 8:48 am

    Good for you, John — that sounds like a lot of fun!!! Impromptu gatherings tend to be MUCH more fun than the parties you plan and sweat over.

  20. 20.

    WereBear

    April 21, 2012 at 8:51 am

    @Gaffa: You mess around with a baking recipe, and we’re not just talking “kinda weird tasting,” we’re talking outright disaster. No rising dough. Flattened cookies full of salt. Collapsed cakes. And so on.

    Very true. The violently purple plum bread I got when I was experimenting with my new breadmaker was so weird it was tossed out into the yard for the birds. Who wouldn’t eat it. To see it poking out of the snow the next spring like some kind of undead bread was a shock.

  21. 21.

    Montysano

    April 21, 2012 at 9:15 am

    “It’s perfect for someone who does not want to go out (EVER). ”

    Mrs. Monty and I live in an older part of our small-ish city in the Deep South. Within 1/4 mile, we have a grocery, a pharmacy, and many friends. There are weekends where we never start a car.

    It’s just too weird out there.

  22. 22.

    John Weiss

    April 21, 2012 at 12:45 pm

    @Yutsano: If you use weight instead of volume to measure ingredients, you can get it right every time!

    Get a copy of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. The book is an excellent start to the craft.

  23. 23.

    Linnaeus

    April 21, 2012 at 12:51 pm

    Dude, if I ever find myself in West Virginia, I’m totally partying at your house.

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne

    April 21, 2012 at 1:04 pm

    G is the baker in the family — I’m still waiting for him to crack open this book from a couple of Christmases ago. I can cook, but I get too impatient with baking.

    Though, from what I’ve heard, John Weiss is 100 percent right and weighing your dry ingredients is better than measuring them by volume because local conditions (humidity etc) makes more of a difference than you’d think.

    Also, too, I’ve had a surprising amount of luck using egg substitute instead of eggs in cake/cupcake recipes. I think it’s because the egg substitute is an exact measurement while the eggs can vary in size pretty considerably, so it’s more consistent. I made brownies out of a box using egg substitute that people freakin’ raved about.

  25. 25.

    karen marie

    April 21, 2012 at 1:41 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I do not understand making brownies out of a box. The ingredients are so simple: sugar, eggs, butter, chocolate, flour, nuts, and a smidgen of salt — all of which should be in your pantry already because you can’t make anything else without them. Want chocolate pudding? Get out the sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, and milk.

    Boxed mixes make me crazy! Especially because, in the case of puddings, it’s extraordinarily difficult to even find the non-instant kind. I’d rather stab myself repeatedly in the head and face with a fork than eat that crap.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    April 21, 2012 at 2:30 pm

    @karen marie:

    The ingredients are so simple: sugar, eggs, butter, chocolate, flour, nuts, and a smidgen of salt—all of which should be in your pantry already because you can’t make anything else without them.

    See, but I rarely cook and even more rarely bake, so I don’t usually have those things in my pantry (or, if I do, they’ve gone bad because I forgot they were there). So, for people like me, a boxed mix really is cheaper and more convenient than going out and buying a bunch of ingredients we’ll never use again.

    I’m not even going to tell you about the dump cakes G makes with boxed cake mix and canned pie filling because you’ll be even more horrified. ;-)

    ETA: My other defense of boxed mixes is that they let you try things out that you might not want to make from scratch. Sticky Fingers makes some good scone mixes that mean I can make scones every once in a great while without having to keep all of the ingredients on hand.

  27. 27.

    Irony Abounds

    April 21, 2012 at 2:45 pm

    Cole has been in a rather good mood lately. He must be getting laid or something.

  28. 28.

    Linkmeister

    April 21, 2012 at 3:53 pm

    @Joseph Nobles: Try Beth Hensperger’s bread machine cookbook. I’ve been using it for a year and haven’t had a failure so far.

  29. 29.

    Emdee

    April 21, 2012 at 5:26 pm

    I’ve been reading Wiley’s book. Enjoying it so far. Mysterious.

  30. 30.

    Jenny

    April 21, 2012 at 9:01 pm

    I make a couple loaves of sour dough bread every week and it is the easiest bread I’ve ever made.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

2023 Pet Calendars

Pet Calendar Preview: A
Pet Calendar Preview: B

*Calendars can not be ordered until Cafe Press gets their calendar paper in.

Recent Comments

  • Soprano2 on Le Clueless (Open Thread) (Feb 5, 2023 @ 4:05pm)
  • danielx on Sunday Afternoon Open Thread: Anybody Watching the Grammies? (Feb 5, 2023 @ 4:04pm)
  • livewyre on Le Clueless (Open Thread) (Feb 5, 2023 @ 4:03pm)
  • Yutsano on Sunday Afternoon Open Thread: Anybody Watching the Grammies? (Feb 5, 2023 @ 4:03pm)
  • Matt McIrvin on Le Clueless (Open Thread) (Feb 5, 2023 @ 4:01pm)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Favorite Dogs & Cats
Classified Documents: A Primer

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Front-pager Twitter

John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
ActualCitizensUnited

Shop Amazon via this link to support Balloon Juice   

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!