No, not the Mountaineers, but my fraternity boys. The dorms are still closed and the caf is shut so I have three boys crashing here tonight, so they came for the Bama/Auburn and WVU games (followed by the Penguins), so I just picked up two of those pre-cooked roaster chickens from the grocery, some mashed potato packets (I’m lazy tonight), and some broccoli.
Told them they had to cook, and I even got the right pots out for them to steam the broccoli. Here is what happened.
One of them filled the steamer pot almost all the way to the top, instead of just an inch of water, so that when you dropped the steamer basket in, you were essentially boiling the broccoli. I was in the living room, and I kept yelling “It isn’t steaming yet?” without realizing what was going on. But wait, it gets better.
He decided he wanted broccoli and cheese, so, in his infinite wisdom, he dropped a half lb of shredded mozz INTO the boiling steaming concoction. Once he was convinced all the ingredients were completely dead, he then drained the mixture into a pot and went to work on the mashed potatoes.
This is a bag of mashed potatoes. You pour two cups of water into a pot, bring it to a boil, and add the buds. He did that, but then decided he wanted cheesy potatoes, and, of course, dumped the other half lb of shredded mozz into it. I told him once the water was boiling to add the buds and whisk it with a metal whisk, and so he did.
I now have a steamer that is completely clogged with mozz, a pot with a substance that rivals crazy glue and gum, and a whisk that is completely clogged with a cement like combination of cheese and mashed potatoes and more closely resembles a shillelagh. How did a country this obese manage to do so without any cooking skills. How do you get fat eating shit like that? I don’t even want a bite of it.
The frat boys have a wish list of things they want from the alums, and on the list (along with couches, pool table, etc.) are kitchen appliances. I’m taking them off the list before they hurt themselves.
Aji
Dude, you left them to do this unsupervised? Just give thanks (‘t’is the season, after all) that they didn’t burn your house down.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
That’s really funny. Easy for me to say since it’s not my kitchen equipment, of course. What they actually need from some alums are tutorials. Here are some basics of food prep, gentlemen. Watch and learn.
@Aji: Good point. That was, as Cole no doubt now understands, a serious mistake.
KG
Fast food and frozen dinners.
Bruuuuce
There has to be someplace local that will teach them Cooking 101. Not necessarily a highfalutin’ haut cuisine ecole, but an adult learning center, or something, where they can learn not to slice or scald themselves, and put edible food on the table. Give them THAT along with the cookware.
KG
in all seriousness, this is something that I don’t understand, by high school, I’d learned enough around the kitchen to keep myself fed should my parents decide to take a weekend trip to Vegas. and not just by ordering pizza or making sandwiches. really, really strange.
Gin & Tonic
@KG: ‘Zakly. If people could cook real food, they’d be less likely to be obese.
SiubhanDuinne
I’m thinking it’s finally time for Lily and Rosie to earn their keep.
Jay C
@KG:
And chain restaurants which have perfected the art of providing their patrons with vast thousands of calories per meal for desultory prices. Which would be impressive if it weren’t so damaging to the nations health….
gogol's wife
Okay, I just turned on TCM and The Searchers is on. So I laughed for 10 minutes about last night’s John Wayne joke. Then I checked in here and read this, and I’m laughing again. Shillelagh!
James E. Powell
a whisk that is completely clogged with a cement like combination of cheese and mashed potatoes and more closely resembles a shillelagh.
The best way to unclog that whisk is to strike it, gently but firmly, against the back of a fraternity brother’s apparently thick skull until all the cheesy goodness falls out.
Seriously, though, it’s not a good idea to allow people to cook in your house when you have no knowledge of their skills.
Yatsuno
@Bruuuuce:
There is. It’s called their advisor. Jeebus JC talk about a missed chance to teach them skills that will not only help them in life it will help them get laid. Women fall all over themselves for a man who can cook. Hell if I were straight the amount I could have gotten just after cooking alone…
IowaOldLady
On UP this morning, Steve Karnacki was trying to follow phone directions from Butterball on how to cook a turkey. It was astounding. She told him to look in the “cavity” and remove what he found there. He couldn’t even find the cavity without help. Talk about not being able to find your ass with both hands.
Alison
Hey California folks – anyone know the usual time frame for kids to hear back on college applications? Few weeks, few months…?
Aji
@James E. Powell: Falls out of the whisk, or out of the skull? One’s likely to require more clean-up than the other.
KG
@Alison: wish i could help, but it’s been way too long since i applied to college.
SiubhanDuinne
@IowaOldLady:
I dunno what program it was this afternoon, but I was listening to MSNBC on SiriusXM and I sweartogod I thought I had accidentally turned on Fox. They had a panel totally beating up on the White House for not providing sufficient photographic access to POTUS — “this Administration is the most hostile to the press EVAH in all of recorded history since the beginning of time” etc.
Nick
@Alison: Months, not weeks. Mid to late March if I remember correctly.
Yatsuno
@Alison: geg6 alert!
It depends a lot on the institution. So I can’t really give you much advice on that.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Bruuuuce: Cooking101? For me it was Cooking merit badge in Boy Scouts. I can’t recall a time when I couldn’t cook a meal.
Alison
@Nick: Ah, okay. I figured as much. Young friend just did hers and I wanted to know how long she’d be waiting. I know she’s eager :)
Joseph Nobles
Oh, I remember this dude who almost burned down a house by cooking a can of biscuits. How do you accomplish this, you ask? By not taking the biscuits out of the can. Yep, out of the fridge, onto a sheet pan, into the oven.
IowaOldLady
@SiubhanDuinne: This is why I listen to audio books instead of the radio. I have the newest Lindsey Davis on my nano right now.
Yatsuno
@Joseph Nobles:
This is…not uncommon.
namekarB
With many households having two working adults, perhaps the time has come for Colleges to require two courses (or workshops) for all students. (My thought is pass/fail – no grades).
“Tools for Fools” to learn the basics of how to approach everyday repairs and identify tools.
“Easy Eats” to learn some basic kitchen skills.
Best idea my baby brother ever had was to enroll in home economics in high school years ago. 1 guy, 30 girls and he learned a lot.
RosiesDad
Jesus Christ, Cole, a few years ago you would have done the same freaking thing. Do you think you left your mother’s womb with the combined skills of Mario Batali and Thomas Keller? I don’t think so. You have become more and more anal about your food and your cooking over the last decade. You just don’t remember.
So cut them some slack, get off your ass and teach them something. Then maybe they can cook for you.
NotMax
There’s an app for that.
Next time, think about making it a competition. You cook some your way, they cook some theirs.
Comparison tasting follows.
Although the frat now likely has handed down stories about John “Pedicure” Cole, so there’s no guarantee suggesting a home economics Head Start program wouldn’t be subject to misinterpretation.
Yatsuno
@efgoldman: Been there. Done that. Got that T-shirt.
Elly
Blame their parents: cooking is a life skill that everyone should be able to do (at least at a basic level). I taught both my son and daughter to cook when they were in their early/mid-teens. They’re in college now (living at home), and often cook for themselves when I’m off duty.
g
Sarah Palin’s brother posted a photo on his Facebook page of Sarah trying to carve a turkey. She’s got the bird upside down (instead of slicing the breast meat, she’s trying to slice the back!)
I laughed, of course, but this is a mistake that my own husband and son have done, too.
JMS
I’m a good cook now–despite being a 2 career, 2 kid family, we have home cooked meals nearly every night, so I’ve had plenty of practice–but when I was in college, I couldn’t do much more than breakfast and cookies. I still remember the time when my boyfriend explained to me that when you brown ground beef, you have to break up the clumps. The broccoli would have probably stymied me. There’s still hope. It just takes repetition and motivation, but I wouldn’t assume that college kids know how to cook without supervision. Maybe in addition to the appliances, they need some instructional material?
RosiesDad
@efgoldman:
My mother in law did the same thing about 12 years ago. That was the last time Thanksgiving was celebrated at my inlaws’ house. Now they all come here. I consider it a win. Food is always better, I don’t have to do the dishes and at the end of the day, I don’t have to drive 90 miles home.
SiubhanDuinne
@IowaOldLady: Well, I for one expected more of the Liberal MSNBC.
/snark, natch
Shana
@KG: Fast food, frozen dinners, and eating out.
Wonderful story from a friend of mine: her next door neighbor put her town house up for sale after living there for five years, as the original owner. My friend was going through the house during an open house, noticed the white smooth-topped cook surface and asked how she kept it looking so nice and clean after five years. The owner looked at my friend blankly and said “I’ve never used it.”
KG
@Yatsuno: I remember my sister, when we were in high school, decided to heat up some Hershey kisses, by putting them in the microwave… While still wrapped.
schrodinger's cat
Cooking is not that hard. I couldn’t cook at all when I lived at home, but thankfully for me two of my housemates were both good competent cooks and I learned a lot from them. I taught my self to cook, mostly through trial and error.
My mom is a wonderful cook but she would constantly hover and meddle whenever I tried my hand at cooking, her constant micromanaging turned me off cooking until I had no choice, i.e when I was on my own.
SiubhanDuinne
@namekarB:
Heh.
trollhattan
@ John Cole. Oh man, that’s a great story.
Didn’t pay nearly enough attention to the mom, growing up, but did retain some Scout campfire cookin’ skills for that first college apartment. Never burned anything down but did lose my eyebrows a couple times. One learns. Eventually.
To this day I can make a gazillion ramen-based meals. When the twelve-for-a-buck sales hit, one stocks up.
MTmofo
I suggest putting your gummed up gear in the freezer and then “chipping” the gunk out once it’s solidified.
Kinda like freezing gum to remove it from un-natural locations.
Xantar
Fast and Furious actor dies in a car crash.
Say what you will about the movies, he didn’t deserve to go that way. And even so, I can’t help noting the irony of how he went.
nineone
Kids.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Know someone who did the exact same thing with a turkey. Plus another.
Somewhere or another, we had gotten hold of a case of frozen, raw, stuffed chicken breasts. They each came in an individual little foil pan, and were foil-wrapped. If put into the oven, they came out fine.
So how did the same girl who botched the turkey decide to cook them? Dropped them, all the foil still there, into the deep fat fryer.
There was also a friend who had severe mental illness problems (justified, based on things in his life, but that’s another story – also extremely wealthy so didn’t need employment). Two of us who knew him moved into his huge, rambling farmstead, and had managed to get him from barely functioning (wandering around in bathrobe all day, burning furniture instead of logs in fireplace, etc.) to the point where he was getting dressed, going out, and interacting with the world.
So one day he decided he wantd to cook a meal for himself. Went out and bought a bee-yoo-tee-ful 2-inch thick Porterhouse steak.
And boiled it like it was pasta.
Eric S.
This is the best laugh I’ve had in a long time. I just read it to Mom. We are both crying from laughter.
John,I’m sorry for your cookware but thank you.
KG
@Xantar: I love the movies, even with the suspension of physics the last couple required. It sucks if it’s true
? Martin
So, your frat boys are to kitchen labor what you are to everything that isn’t kitchen labor.
Helen
I’m a little bit in love with those boys; cuz when I was 19 that’s exactly how I would cook. Took me an additional 30 years to realize that that whole cooking thing is not so hard. And by the by, Mr. Cole; you’re the cooking guy. Why didn’t you just cook for them?
seefleur
Having just returned home from our annual “Friends Thanksgiving” (where we are hang out with the people that we WANT to be with rather than the ones we HAVE to be with), and having raised 4 kids who can cook at least the rudiments of decent food; I am astounded by the inability of these young men to cook a simple meal. Apparently they are victims of the generation of the microwave-impaired. I weep and fear for the future… (Okay, so it took years for my kids to finally admit that Mom might actually have freakin’ clue as to how to stuff a pie-hole in a nutritionally and tasty sort of way that didn’t involve trans fats and other scary edible shit.)
But really – is this a sign that there are a lot of people out there who are totally clueless as to how to make food that tastes good and isn’t chock-full of crap??? And for what it’s worth, my youngest son is in a frat and they seem to be fully capable of cooking a meal that will pass muster for their parents and girlfriends. (I admit, I was astounded by this fact since in so many other ways they all make me wonder what the hell their parents were doing that would account for their offspring to be what they are… but in a good way… I think….)
But I digress – please John, for the love of godess, make sure that these young men learn how to feed themselves without destroying other peoples’ utensils. First it’s the utensils, and then the next thing you know, it’s an entire kitchen and the local fire department is involved…
Thor Heyerdahl
Thought this seemed appropriate to the post
Cooking with Sterling Archer & Alton Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy1vLBf4CqI
Helen
Also – 10 points for anyone on this here blog who knows what a shillelagh is without looking it up on Wikipedia. I do. But I’m a first generation mick.
Bill E Pilgrim
Ah, but that’s just it.
Given the diet of the average US citizen, people trying to make anything they cook resemble “Cheez Whiz” as closely as possible isn’t such a surprising outcome.
Aji
@Helen: Only 1/8 Irish, but I’ve always known. Come to think of it, I think my grandmother on that side had one when I was a kid. Wonder what the hell happened to it . . . .
Bill E Pilgrim
@Helen: Easy. But I’m second generation. Part of the club, as it were.
Gian
@Xantar:
If I recall correctly the pilot who was shot down over the USSR in a u2 under like (francis Gary powers) died in a helicopter crash working as a traffic reporter in LA
KG
@Helen: I only know because USC and Notre Dame play for one as a trophy… But my Irish roots, if any, are muddled.
Aji
@Bill E Pilgrim: [Snort]
Helen
@Aji: Good question. Last April I went to Dublin and my Dad (the non-Irish parent) asked me to bring him a shillelagh back. And in all of Dublin I could not find one. Not even in the tourist shops. I guess it’s not how people think of Ireland anymore. I guarantee , though, if I went into the country I could find one. Not because they signify Ireland, but because they are necessary in the “country”
Liquid
@efgoldman: “Hello McFly, anybody home?!” Or your name is Preston Brooks.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Gian:
One of the greatest typos yet.
I ike like!
schrodinger's cat
My first experience with the pressure cooker was a similar disaster, instead of dinner I had an inedible over cooked waxy mess that was a bear to clean. I am slightly afraid of the pressure cooker even today, I have never liked how it hisses back at you.
Dead Ernest
As a youth, some millions of years ago, The first time I wanted to bake a potato, I picked up the phone and dialed ‘0’ to get the Operator (like I said, dinosaurs still walked among us).
I asked her; what temp and for how long? It worked.
It was better than Siri.
schrodinger's cat
Caturday night thread needs, Splorts Illustrated Beach Babe
.
seefleur
@Helen:
My husband was always torn between whether to have one of those by the front door or a shotgun when our daughters got to dating age (he wanted that to be 50, he settled for 16 with a samurai sword in a very visible place)… He’s of Celtic background, I’m Asian. The combination can be scary according to all of our kids. Heh…
SiubhanDuinne
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Saw what you did…
Helen
@efgoldman: Really? I did not know about the violent part (and mom was born and raised in Belfast). Go figure. Sure you got that part right? ETA what do you win? 10 points – I told you that. Thanks for playing!!
schrodinger's cat
@efgoldman: Goldman Sachs stock.
Elmo
@Helen:
Second generation here – grandparents from County Tyrone (north) and County Mayo (south). I’ll let the sassenach have a go before I ruin it.
Aji
@Helen: That’s a shame. Never been, but from what I’ve heard about Dublin now from folks who have, I guess it’s not surprising.
So now I know – if I ever do get there, skip Dublin and go straight to the country, because I imagine that problem will apply to all sorts of traditional stuff.
MomSense
Oh my goodness!! Sorry about the cookware, John but that is some funny stuff right there.
StringOnAStick
A quick look at most shopping carts at Costco tells you everything you need to know about cooking in ‘Merica: most people don’t. The last time I was there the clerk told me I had “the healthiest cart” she’d seen all day, meaning it was mostly veggies and no processed food. Costco carries some organic veg and fruit, fresh and frozen, but it seems like the biggest sellers are processed insta-dinner without that tricksy foil to interfere with microwaving.
Paddy
@Elly: Amen. And I found the acorn don’t fall far from the… you get it it.
Babysat friend’s preteen to teen daughters one weekend and figured I’d make spag, easy peasy and leftovers. Got in the kitchen and asked where the garlic was and was handed a container of garlic salt. Went to store, got garlic, and the girls were GOBSMACKED, they had never seen real garlic before. Made a chunky veg & sausage sauce that they still talk about it to this day. They had been eating a watery gruel like sauce all their lives. Rethunk my friendship with their mother.
Bill E Pilgrim
@seefleur: You have a very French name for an Asian married to someone Celtic.
And of course, there’s a very famous painting of your mother.
different-church-lady
What would really make this story complete is if he tripped over Lilly and broke his shoulder.
trollhattan
@Helen:
My junior high vice principal had one for corporal-punishment purposes, although his Irishness was never established.
trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
Can’t hardly naked-mop around the frat boys, now can he?
Yatsuno
@trollhattan:
Not. Going. There…
@different-church-lady: You know you can make mashed potatoes look like ice cream.
different-church-lady
@Yatsuno: Or Devil’s Tower.
KG
@trollhattan: not since they banned hazing
Old Dan and Little Ann
I moved out to Colorado when I was 22 and I couldn’t figure out why my sandwiches did not taste as good as my mom’s. It took me awhile to realize I was not using mayonnaise. My roommate made tacos one night and I thought he was a God. Needless to say my folks did not teach me anything in the kitchen.
seefleur
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Thanks for noticing – this causes a LOT of “wth???” moments in many irl circles. I’m good with that. People tend to leave you alone if you confooze them enuf. That can have drawbacks, but the stories from it are usually pretty damn funny.
Helen
@Aji: Yeah but….go to Dublin. (By the by – I am a city girl) It is one of the secrets of Europe. A VERY cosmopolitan city, but half the price of all the others: London and Paris and Rome. And everyone is your friend. But yeah – if you want to know Ireland go to the West coast. Galway for sure.
Liquid
@Paddy: Everytime I do spaghetti (I use fettuccine) I make my own meatballs (“This cold meat reminds me of Winston.”) a .lb yields a dozen or so. Let them soak in the sauce for an hour or so and serve. Only complication is processing the fresh garlic. I’m reminded of that scene from “Goodfellas” using a razor blade and slicing it so thin it liquefies in the pan. Anyway.
Oh and Yatsuno -> http://deadspin.com/part-of-david-beckhams-rookie-hazing-was-being-forced-t-1473617609
KG
ASU up 20-0, just under 13 to play in the first half. Stanford may need to pack its bags for the Pac-12 title game.
mainmata
@Helen: I’m a second generation mick but I think even many non-Irish people have heard of a shillelagh at least in the northeast of the USA. As for the cooking thing, from personal experience and other acquaintances, at least, the more exposure you have to a wide variety of cuisines, the more you appreciate how they are made (e.g. not everything has to have tons of cheese on it – not that there is anything wrong with cheese mind you). Needless to say, the Intertubes groans under the weight of the multitude of YouTube cooking videos, cooking apps and websites available to teach you anything about cooking and baking. It’s all a matter of attitude and interest nowadays.
NotMax
@Yatsuno
True trivia.
In Germany, it is a ‘thing’ (Nacktputzservice) to hire students to do housework while they’re naked.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
You were never a latchkey kid, were you? Before I was 10- and this was just before microwave ovens were widespread- I was making my own lunch nearly every day of the summer. Not just cold cut or pb&j sandwiches, either. Grilled cheese, boxes of mac & cheese, the occasional scrambled egg and/or french toast…
Paddy
@Helen: My mother had one, from County Kildare.
Aji
@Paddy: This is not actually a modern phenomenon. My father’s first girlfriend, back around, oh, 1939 or -40 or so, was a white girl (scandal!) of Italian-American ancestry. Her father owned the local grocery (think general store). On dates, Dad used to take her for car rides in the country – alone, even (more scandal!). One day, they passed a cornfield, and she wondered aloud what those tall green stalks were. Talk about gobsmacked – I can just hear him now: “But your father owns the grocery store! You should know better!” Turns out she’d never seen corn growing before. She thought the kernels grew individually, and you just collected ’em and put ’em in cans.
I think that day might actually have sounded the death knell for their relationship.
Gian
@Bill E Pilgrim: phone auto mistake
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Latchkey kid through and through. lol…. Ah, the 80’s…..
Aji
@Helen: Okay, will do. If I can ever get there in the first place, I mean. I have heard that the West Coast is the place to go.
It’s funny – such a small amount of ancestry in me, and yet, it’s the one place in Europe that I really, really want to see in my lifetime.
Paddy
@Helen: Shillelagh as a weapon
Helen
@mainmata: Oh – please do not confuse both my posts. They are very different. I can’t cook because mom died when I was little an I was never taught how to cook.
I know Irish because her best stories were about “home’. Seriously, until I was (dunno how old) but very young I referred to Ireland as “home” even I though I did not set foot on it until I was 30. Two different memories and realties.
Bill E Pilgrim
Eh, back in Ireland we always made mashed potatoes using a shillelagh.
“Whisk”, luxury!
PurpleGirl
I’ve several male friends whose mothers taught them how to cook basic dishes, one watched his father who was chef; all of them had mothers or a father who thought the son should know all of the housekeeping arts (doing the wash, washing up in the kitchen, basic sewing skills of hems and buttons, etc.) I really like when a guy can do this stuff for themselves.
Paddy
@Aji: Dublin’s all about the historical landmarks and the pubs, the real Eire is out a ways.
My mom was born in a 4 mile area village called Kilkea about an hour and a half outside Dublin in Kildare. When I went in ’03, Jeff and I had a blast in Dublin for 2 days, but the real melding was staying in Kilkea in the B&B that was my mom’s old home (where she was born). Walking everywhere (Jeebus those folks walk a lot) and just hanging. It was magical.
The main thing I learned from my time in Ireland? Their showers are not made for tall people.
Helen
@Aji: This may sound stupid. — But for true. The one place I feel absolutely positively safe and true in my own skin is in Ireland. My favorite place on the face of the earth (and I have been everywhere) is in St Steven’s Green. A (relatively) small park in the middle of Dublin. Go there if you can.
Paddy
@Aji: Snort. Just shaking my head.
Tommy
That is funny (and sad) on like ten different levels John. I was in college and grad school in the mid to late 80s. I have to admit I couldn’t cook much of anything. Totally clueless. My first roommate after grad school had a girlfriend that was Korean. We were 23-24. She was 18. Started to live with us and became his wife.
She taught me most if not everything I know in the kitchen, and I fancy myself something of a foodie now. I’d like to say “those youngsters, when I was their age I could do anything in the kitchen ….”
But alas that would be an outright lie :).
Helen
@Bill E Pilgrim: BWA HA HA Thanks for the laugh
Bill E Pilgrim
@Gian: Oh funny, because it looked like an unconscious transposition of the “I Like Ike” slogan. Just a lucky accident then.
Belafon
@Xantar: He had a charity that was currently raising money for Philippine Relief.
Tommy
@PurpleGirl: I am 44. Never married. Iived with a few women for shorter periods of time, but for most of my adult life I’ve lived by myself. Had to teach myself a lot. Later in my life my mom taught me stuff (cause I asked for help) but most often I figured it out on my own. I often wonder if most males can do somethings more than the basics (if that). I mean I can iron a shirt and pants that look like they were dry cleaned.
Now as a funny aside, and I swear I am not making this up, my mom was in the hospital for almost a month earlier this year. Was at my dads place and he did know how to run the washing machine. He is 69.
I see how men my age, raised in the 70s and 80s, might not know these things if they got married at a early age. I mean in all my family the “women” did this stuff. Not sure how a male raised in the last decade or so could survive this way, but guess there are still “stay at home moms.”
Paddy
@Helen: My spot was at Kilkea Castle at the Pet Cemetery. It was just such a lovely spot, I could see the Castle and the impossibly green fields, all shrouded and cozy. I spent a lot of time there.
Aji
@Paddy: LOL – I had a friend tell me that once. For a woman, I’m kinda tall, so I might have an issue. Of course, I’m used to having to bend my head to enter low traditional structures, so maybe I wouldn’t even notice.
Sounds like it must have been a wonderful trip. Another place to add to that entry on my life’s to-do list – thanks!
Ash Can
Late to the party, haven’t read the thread, and am certain this has been said a quadrillion times already, but:
1) What the FUCK were you thinking, letting them cook all this stuff unsupervised, and
2) Never mind giving them appliances and/or implements for Christmas; drag their perky little asses into your kitchen and GIVE THEM COOKING LESSONS, for crap’s sake. It will probably be among the best gifts they’d have ever received, and they’d be thanking you for the rest of their lives.
Bill E Pilgrim
For some reason the mashed potatoes topic is making me think of this. This guy can be kind of stupid these days but I thought this clip from a few years back was just hilarious.
“I told you not to invite white people to the wedding!”
Aji
@Helen: And another place for my list – thanks!
And, no, it doesn’t sound stupid to me in the slightest. I get exactly what you mean. I have a couple of those, and they’re very much tied to the place in question, but beyond that, it’s the tradition and history going back forever. It’s like genetic memory.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My girlfriend (now wife) went to Ireland in 1999. 21 days and 17 included rain. Our favorite spot was Dingle. Clifden was also wonderful.
The Fat Kate Middleton
Now here is something I’d like to put forward … I have two sons, and they both do all (I mean ALL) the cooking for their families. I have many more siblings, and in at least two of them, the husbands cook all the meals. I’m a decent cook, my mother was as well and I have at least a couple of sisters who are more than decent. Obviously, I’ve taught my boys the basics of cooking, but what I’m wondering is, are my family’s cooking habits now common? In other words, are more families being fed food prepared by the men of the family?
Tommy
@Ash Can: Amen to your second point. I learn stuff by seeing it. Not reading it. And when my roommates girlfriend taught me to cook it was before YouTube and stuff (early 90s). When she would show me something, I’d think “yeah how else would you do it?” but I had to see it.
I will admit I did the same thing John mentioned the first time I used a steamer. Not sure I’d have done the cheese thing, but a few adult beverage and maybe :).
BTW: YouTube is my go to place for videos on how to do things. You can find a video on how to do anything and everything. And again if you are a visual person like myself, it is a god sent. Cause then I can see it a few times and them read how to perfect said thing.
KG
@Tommy: I was born in the late 70s, so growing up for me was mostly the 90s. My mom taught me and my sister how to wash our own clothes by junior high, and cooking the basics around the same time. It was mostly because she and my dad were/are self-employed and didn’t have time/energy/desire to do stuff we could do ourselves.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Dingle=heartsheartshearts. All of western Ireland is beyond wonderful. On the topic of cooking:When my mom (a pretty dam good cook) died, my sister prepared a pan of enchiladas for my dad to place in the oven. She left a post-it note telling him to simply place it in the oven. He did … with saran wrap and post-it note still on top.
Paddy
So, for this multi topic thread, I offer to you the Cool Things Annual Gift Guide, with a few BJ’rs contributing.
Holiday Cool Things 2013 Is Here!
If you have a charity, if you make art, books, stuff that would make a good holiday gift, send it all along and I’ll advertise it for you for the next month. Least we can do is support our fellow Whatevers.
BTW- Cole, I emailed you for info on MARC and you ignored me. Bassstard!!!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Helen:
1st level druid spell. Transmutation.
Tommy
@KG: Cooking I learned from somebody other than my mom. I was poor after college. My roommates where poor. We learned how to take fresh food and make them last. My brother nine years younger worked in the restaurant business.
Tonight we had our multiple family Thanksgiving meal and my brother and myself cooked most of the stuff. Honestly some of the younger women (not married) were asleep on the couches :). We cooked the turkey, ham, and the “bigger” dishes.
I am a little all over the place talking about cooking, but as a single dude I’ve found the way to a women’s heart is through her stomach, and I don’t mind for a second knowing how to cook.
Helen
@Paddy: The first time I landed in Ireland it was in Shannon. My first thought was: You know, everything in catalogues do not live up to what you see. but Ireland does. It is exactly as green as it is in the catalogues.
Paddy
@Helen: My first thought was “spray painted”. Unreal.
Helen
@Aji: Yes. Yes it is. Genetic memory. That is an awesome phrase. Thank you for that.
Darkrose
@Alison: For UCs, the decisions start being sent out in March. The November 30th deadline is for the main UC application; the individual schools won’t even get them for another couple of weeks, at least. Depending on the school, your kid should get an email in late December/early January saying “We received your application.” If you haven’t heard anything by the beginning of February, have your kid (NOT YOU) call the Admissions Office for that school.
Pro Tip: If your son/daugter applied to UC Davis, they should hear back around the beginning of January with an email that will include their student ID number and instructions for setting up an account. Despite what the email says, it is NOT necessary to set up the account immediately. It’s better to wait a week or so, since inevitably the ancient system chokes and dies when all 56,000 applicants try to create their accounts at once.
MikeJ
@Helen:
Washington is exactly as green for exactly the same reason. We get lots of rain.
debbie
@Alison:
My niece applied early decision to SMU, and her parents were told they’d let them know by mid-December. Some of my niece’s friends have already heard from a couple of colleges. I think it’s earlier than it used to be.
Aji
@Helen: You’re very welcome, although I can’t take credit for it. :-) I have no idea where I first stumbled on the concept – must’ve been 30 years ago or so . . . ? Anyway, I had the same reaction you just did – it was so apt for something I’d always felt but never been able to name.
Botsplainer
Buy them a few seasons of Chopped on DVD
Helen
@MikeJ: And I love it. I am retiring there. I think cool, wet weather is the best
Tommy
@debbie: My numbers don’t matter. Years and years ago. I applied to SMU and didn’t get accepted to late, late January. Other schools took me earlier. It was sports related and I choose another school. I later got a “letter” from them.
You should just throw out what I just said, cause it is totally dated and should relay on others with more current experience. I just saw/visited SMU and well my parents, grandparents, as Methodist wanted me to attend.
? Martin
@Alison:
From CA state universities – anywhere from mid-Feb to late March for freshmen. Late April for transfers. UC app deadline is in a few hours. Apps will start to be read in a few weeks, through end of Jan.
Private universities (and a few publics) do ‘early action’ or ‘early decision’. They have earlier application deadlines and earlier notices. Early decision is binding – if you apply to this program and are accepted, you have agreed to reject all other acceptances and go there. Ivies do this a lot – and a potential consequence of an early decision school is that you’ll get less generous scholarships (you’re giving up your right to shop). Early action is non binding, and just gives students an earlier shot at a given school. In both cases, decisions will go out in Nov/Dec.
Both early programs exist to let schools choose the student. Some schools will fill all of their seats with early decision students, shaping the pool to match their financial aid dollars (they’ll turn down more low income students), and then when the regular application pool comes in, they turn nearly everyone down because the seats are already filled. It’s a good way to get that 10% selectivity rate that the top schools like to brag about.
max
@Helen: Also – 10 points for anyone on this here blog who knows what a shillelagh is without looking it up on Wikipedia. I do. But I’m a first generation mick.
Unless I picked the wrong week to quit sniffin’ glue, a shillelagh is a club. Let me check – yeah.
max
[‘What an odd thing to check for.’]
mclaren
How the fuck do grown men in college not know how to cook?
I learned out of necessity. Money didn’t grown on trees. You save a shit-ton of bucks if you cook for yourself. Plus, with practice you can learn to make even better food than most restaurants serve.
Plus — who the hell makes mashed potatoes from crappy packets? You peel the potatoes, slice ’em up, dump ’em in a half gallon of water, boil, then drain the water and add butter and mash the hell out of ’em, add some milk and salt and there you are. Fresh-made mashed potatoes taste so much better than that packet crap that there’s no comparison. And it’s dead simple to make ’em.
Helen
@max: Hi Max Wow I am stunned by the answers I got here. My whole life I thought it was a “walking stick’ You know to help one to get up a hill. Apparently my mom who grew up in Belfast, kinda fibbed to me. Yeah it’s a walking stick, but also? club some asshole with it!!! Go figure. Live and learn.
danielx
Basic cooking knowledge is a survival skill. Although you can take it too far and become the house cook for oh, a couple of decades. But yeah, Cole, if you’re an advisor, advise these guys! It’s no great wonder they don’t know how to cook, they’re in a frat and have their meals prepared for them, mostly. Plus (going way out on a limb) I’d guess people in a frat are pretty much self-selecting insofar as having stuff like laundry and cooking done for them.
But it won’t last forever, and on that day they best be prepared by knowing at least how to do a FEW things…like reading a fucking recipe. Get them something like the Good Housekeeping cook book; full of basic stuff that tastes decent and isn’t all that hard if you follow instructions, plus it gives a pretty fair list of kitchen essential ingredients and utensils. Unlike some other lists of this nature *cough*by conservative twits with too much money*cough* it does not consider a Thermomix to be a “must have” item.
But before any of this, find out if any of them have the slightest idea of how to handle and use a good six inch utility knife without emulating the Saturday Night Live impression of Julia Child.
The Sailor
The Bahamas is the only place I’ve seen that looks like the travel posters.
++++++++++++++
I can fry, broil, bake meats.
I can crockpot the hell out of chili& (some soups). I’m best at white chili.
+++++++++++++
The kids didn’t have to know how to follow a recipe, they just need to follow simple instructions.
There may have been alcohol involved.
grishaxxx
O, I feel for your guys! Both of my grandmothers were splendid cooks, but I think that last thing on their minds was imparting their knowledge to one of the boys. My mom was an uninterested (and therefore, not very good) cook, and didn’t pass down much more than the desire to be better than she was.
When I went away to university, I thought the dorm food on my first-year meal contract was thrilling – I’d never had so much variety! Couldn’t figure why my classmates (from better-fed families, apparently) complained about it so much. Then, second year, I was on my own in a kitchen and explored the possibilities of (a) any pasta + (b) any condensed soup, as a sauce, plus something chunky. I actually served some of these to friends, as guests, and they would have been justified in shooting me to prevent criminal repetition.
I was still ambitious. I was listening to university people who had lived elsewhere, or who had cooks (even), and I was sampling new food in a very big city with a very diverse population. Even read some cookbooks (the more literary kind, that don’t actually tell you how to do anything). Very hit or miss, mostly miss.
Not until my first year out of school, and having decided that I had to learn how to take better care of myself, I picked up a paperback Fannie Farmer, and from that started to make bread. What had always been a mystery to me became a revelation, and gave confidence. A couple of friends steered me to Julia Child (only real teaching cookbook around, in 1970), and the revelations continued. Had the luck, soon after, of a household of 4 guys and the freedom to cook dinner for all of us 2 weeks out of every 4, and it was fucking awesome.
There was still some awful over-reaching, and some extremely primitive pizza efforts (but with weed and Creature Features, who cared?). Made a lot of poundcake, for some reason or another….
Anyway, I learned more and more, and never stopped, and my table widened, and the people around it grew in number and happiness. The more you know about food, the easier it gets. Your boys need more of that basic knowledge (and, god knows, it’s so much more available now than it was when I got started!), and they’ll be better off for it. Less likely to gunk up their/your pans, at least.
Hope everything gets cleaned up by the end of the weekend!
Ken_L
When I was 16, I went on a fishing trip with some mates. We caught some fish. Then we had to cook them.
“I think,” my friend said without conviction, “you boil lots of oil in a pot over the fire and then put the fish in it”.
So that’s what we did. And we’re all still alive, albeit with some pretty nasty scars.
Pogonip
@namekarB: I’ll bet he did. Did he learn how to cook, too?
Robert Sneddon
@mclaren: “Plus — who the hell makes mashed potatoes from crappy packets? You peel the potatoes, slice ‘em up, dump ‘em in a half gallon of water, boil, then drain the water and add butter and mash the hell out of ‘em, add some milk and salt and there you are.”
What sort of potatoes? How many? Slicing them up, into what sort of size pieces? Boil, for how long? How do you know they’re done properly, not under or overdone? Roiling boil or simmer? Add butter, how much? Milk and salt, how much?
Sure, after the fourteenth time you do it you just know how much and how long but there are always the thirteen previous attempts, all of which will have to be be eaten because there’s nothing else and it’s late and you’re short on cash this week which is why you’re messing around in the kitchen anyway. After the third attempt many folks just put the delivery pizza place on speed dial.
satby
Both of my son’s have been cooking since they were children of about 10, though it was simple things like heating soup and making grilled cheese at that age. Now they both are the primary cooks in their respective homes, neither of their girlfriends learned to cook. And my oldest son hosted Thanksgiving for the family this year.
amy c
I’ve been cooking for a lot of years. I’m still terrible at it.
My family owned restaurants when I was growing up – and actually worked in them, didn’t just own them from a distance – and real cooking was in the very air I breathed. All the time. My dad taught me things.
And still, only about 20% of what I cook today is edible. And this is after years of practice. You think it’s not hard to follow a recipe or a set of steps like, “throw it in water, boil, mash it up,” and in theory it’s not. I take those steps. But it just comes out….wrong. My relatives take what I swear are the very same steps and deliver forth heaven on a platter. Cooking is one of my least favorite things because of this.
That said, if I’m stymied, I grab my phone and google “how to steam broccoli.” Or whatever. Funniest part of what those boys did was assuming they knew!
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@mclaren:
Ed Snowden.
Barry
@Bruuuuce: Heck, hire somebody to come in an run a few evening classes. If there are 50 frat brothers, $20 each will cover a couple of classes (including dinner), and they’ll save that within the semester on non-destroyed kitchen equipment.
Pen
I always tell my family the only time in my life I ever had a six pack was when I was too poor to buy food. It’s Amazing How quickly you can learn to cook when your choices consist of the cheapest tsar soles from the bargain section of your local grocery store. 15 years later and now I’m, apparently, the guy everyone in the family wants to have cook our family meals. Not one of them so much as knows how to dress a chicken, and they all ask how I learned to cook. My answer? Survival.
Ann Marie
I took three trips to Ireland in the late 80’s early 90’s and love the country. The tours were organized by an Irish born musician who was living in Philadelphia at the time and emphasized music, folklore and history. We had some amazing experiences listening to live music — some were local sessions and others were private concerts with well-known traditional musicians. I agree with others who have said that the west is the best, but try to see some of the north too. The coast of Donegal has a wild, raw beauty. Also, if you like history, don’t neglect Dublin. Two warnings, however: Things may have changed since I went, but the hotels outside of Dublin weren’t big on heating and it can get chilly at night. Also, if, like my group, you want to see Bronze Age and medieval sites, bring along an inexpensive pair of rubber boots (that you won’t mind dumping before you get on the plane to go home). The fields where those sites can be found are full of sheep or cows or signs of their past presence.
Steeplejack
@Pen:
“Cheapest tsar soles”? WTF? I can’t even guess on that one.