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Open Thread

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Just sort of sitting here doing not much of anything, but before I start to ramble, this:

novalox

Now I know I am a dumb hick from West Virginia and fully recognize that I do not know all the nuances of lox and smoked salmon and nova lox, but all this hillbilly can do is honestly report what is on the fucking package of the product he is eating. There is NO Jewish community around here, so a lot of foodstuffs you all take for granted (kosher dogs and pickles, bagels, etc.) just don’t exist in high quality here. I love the stuff when I can find it, but I deal with what I got here. So if you all want to have a big debate about what I actually ate and everything, fine, but I’m just reporting what was on the package. The only other option was Gravilux, and it was sold out. So I danced with the girl who brung me, and it tasted ok. I’m sure one of you will inform me it was farmed under slave labor and I just ate five years worth of mercury and PCB’s, but shit happens.

Also, fuck you for making me defensive about this.

At any rate, just sitting here with the piglets. I was watching a little Lilyhammer before I realized I could actually watch the Boise State game because it was in Hawaii and not on that god damned blue turf. Why is that allowed? It’s just criminal and hurtful on the eyes.

Whatever, get off my grass. Happy Holidays.

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Also, fuck you for making me defensive about this.

    The holiday cheer, John, is just blowing me away.

  4. 4.

    gbear

    I had Trader Joe’s lasagna for dinner tonight and I’ll have leftover Trader Joe’s Lasagna for dinner tomorrow. You’re doing A-OK by me. Hope you have a nice evening with the piglets.

  9. 9.

    mellowjohn

    if he’s anything like my cats, i hope steve is sharing the lox with cole.
    merry chrismahanukkwanzamas, everybody.

  13. 13.

    Alexandra

    You were nominated today as best blogger of all time by a handful of commentators over at Booman, along with Billmon, TBogg, Hilzoy, Kos, Digby, Pierce and a couple of others I can’t recall right now after a second glass of wine.

    Season’s Greetings, John.

  14. 14.

    dmsilev

    @schrodinger’s cat: I’m pretty sure that, supply and demand being what they are, the market value of used cat hair is rather low. Are you absolutely sure you don’t have any $8K wedding dresses in the back of your closet that you might have forgotten about?

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    The Sea Passion brand (including the wild, the farm-raised and the Nova style) was recalled this past May for Listeria contamination.

    Also it is processed with Sodium Nitrite, sugar and artificial coloring.

    /wet blanket

  23. 23.

    NotMax

    IIRC, you’re not a great distance from Pittsburgh. There’s almost gotta be a Jewish deli or kosher market there. Treat yourself to the Real Stuff next time you’re there.

  27. 27.

    Morbo

    I’m sure one of you will inform me it was farmed under slave labor and I just ate five years worth of mercury and PCB’s, but shit happens.

    You should ask Loomis at LGM; he’ll fill you in on those details.

  28. 28.

    RareSanity

    @raven:

    All that stuff to you too! :-)

    I’m hanging in there waiting for my son to go to sleep so I can finish wrapping his gifts and get them under the tree. My eyes are already getting heavy though, he needs to hurry up and go to bed.

    How you and the family doing this fine Christmas Eve?

  29. 29.

    Honus

    Hey, John cool off. There is a significant jewish community in West Virginia. You sound like Mel Gibson’s dad. Hell, right down the road in New Martinsville every year when I was growing up we went to midnight mass and had a big Christmas Eve party afterwards with Sam, Louie and Lyle Winer. Usually at my lebanese grandfather’s house. They had a clothing store a block down Main Street from ours. Gary Kappell can tell you all about it. And you’re old enough to recall places like L. S. Good & Co.

    Merry Christmas, and ask Gary about May Ann Espy’s Christmas Eve parties. I’m really missing her tonight.

  30. 30.

    Villago Delenda Est

    What drives me nuts is the people jumping up and down and screaming about the inclusion of a mark for halal is practically like having an Imam sitting in judgement of you and demanding you wear a veil.

  31. 31.

    tybee

    @NotMax:

    my neighbor has one of those but not as many lights.

    we’ve had freakin’ tour buses come by.

    one more week and he’ll take it down.

  34. 34.

    khead

    Merry Christmas
    Happy Holidays
    Fuck you for Festivus.
    That goes for everyone.

    :D

    Khead +3

    Christmas dinner with my only remaining parent (FIL) and his wife tomorrow. Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

  35. 35.

    Mike with a Mic

    You can make your own salmon goods. It’s actually easier to make lox the traditional way than it is to make smoked salmon.

  36. 36.

    PurpleGirl

    @NotMax: I think I’d be suing them if besides the lights they also played the music. Too much stimulation.

    Now there are a couple of places in NYC which do these super light shows but they are either outside (Saks Fifth Ave and their snowflakes on the building) or inside a lobby space (Time Warner Center has huge stars which change color to specially composed music in the lobby). But you can walk away from the light/music show, you’re not captive to it.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    @tybee

    That triggered memory of another Xmas cartoon from back when which I can’t readily find online

    An elderly couple standing on the sidewalk, staring a a house decorated with scads of lights and wreaths, on the roof Santa in his sleigh with all the reindeer, and the yard positively overflowing with kitschy snowmen, elves, candy canes and such.

    The caption: “They must be very religious.”

  38. 38.

    Paddy

    Freezing cold and lethargic. Leftovers tonite (spag) and tomorrow two stunning ribeyes, fresh green beans and melt in your mouth roasted red potatoes. Just the two of us here, so we do it simple.

  39. 39.

    dmsilev

    @PurpleGirl: The usual approach is to broadcast the music on a low-power radio transmitter; people driving by to see the lights can tune in to the music on their car radio, but it doesn’t add to the annoyance load on the neighbors.

    Hopefully there’s a curfew on the lights as well.

  41. 41.

    PurpleGirl

    @schrodinger’s cat: Yes, they are. The former controller of the organization I worked for told me that until the Islamic population of Long Island reached a certain concentration that could support Halal shops, they would buy their meats and other products at Kosher butcher shops.

  42. 42.

    NotMax

    @efgoldman

    Can’t date the second one, but the first is pre-WW2.

    “Lucky Strike green has gone to war” was the patriotic scampaign put out to explain the packaging change (which had been in the works already in order to try to make the product more attractive to women).

  44. 44.

    Yatsuno

    @schrodinger’s cat: Close enough that anything kosher is pretty much halal by default. Islam does not have a prohibition against meat and milk being combined, but that’s only a distinction that matters on packaging. There are many halal butchers with Jewish customers in fact.

  45. 45.

    Mary G

    Today is my birthday. I feel quite grumpy and bah-humbuggish, though. I just finished a tiny slice of Godiva cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory, and HBM is making shrimp fried rice for dinner, so I expect my mood to improve rapidly.

    What, don’t you eat dessert first?

    Merry Christmas Eve, everybody. And John Cole, you can buy pretty much any food you want over the internet thingy they have these days.

  46. 46.

    kdaug

    Go to hell, fat man.

    Over.

    (ETA: The music coming out of my music things right now is Louis Armstrong’s “When You’re Smiling”. So extra fuck-you.)

  47. 47.

    Ash Can

    So I come here after a long (but good) day of getting the house ready for Christmas and see…one of the front pagers posting an editorial cartoon with Obama drawn with chimpanzee features. And nobody gives a fuck.

    Really? Really?

  50. 50.

    Rosalita

    Home now with my kittehs after having dinner with my parents. We just got enough of a snow squall to make it festive. Merry, merry to John and all you Juicers.

  55. 55.

    gogol's wife

    Merry Christmas, John. I guess this “nova lox” thing is a neologism, like “swapping out” and “relatable.” In the old days, “nova” and “lox” were two different things that tasted quite different from each other (non-salty and too-salty). Oh well.

  57. 57.

    Bruuuuce

    @schrodinger’s cat: Close, but the direction matters. I’m told that kosher is produced under stricter limitations. My Orthodox friends will not eat halal, but my friends who keep halal will accept kosher.

  59. 59.

    billB

    chill out Cole, and remember Hillary is riding shotgun with Santa tonight. Keep it on the straight and narrow. FSM

  63. 63.

    Mike with a Mic

    The best part of Halal shops isn’t the meat, it’s all the spices. We have a fucking ton of them here and there are so many other ingredients that really boggle the mind. There’s no way they could be included in a proper caters-to-all store, so I often make a few trips during the week, but it’s worth it.

    The regular grocery stores seem just to sell really poor quality shit to “the help” in this area. But the ethnic shops have great food… provided you know how to make it and enjoy that sort of food, and the prices are right. Quality WASP food lands you in rather expensive places (Whole Foods, Dean and Deluca, good stuff at reasonable prices takes you way the fuck out into suburbia). So it’s either frozen dinners or you better have flexible tastes.

  64. 64.

    Yatsuno

    @schrodinger’s cat: I iz okay, needed the super drug dose after a particularly rough PT session today. It was good and productive, but oh man did it kill me. Tomorrow I get a bit of a break because of the holiday, then right back to it.

  66. 66.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @efgoldman:

    That happened to me last week — G spilled part of his dump cake in the oven and I didn’t know it until I turned the oven to 450 to roast some veggies.

    It took FOREVER to get the freakin’ smoke alarm to shut off. At least it’s So Cal so it was only about 40 degrees outside and not below zero.

  68. 68.

    j

    Just a follow up on that Lox you are eating:

    Check the codes on the label and the dates. The FDA issued a “voluntary recall” by the producers (because letting companies police themselves is the only way to run a government according to the GOP).

    Here is the list of items and lot numbers. Your brand is on it. I hope you don’t have some shit that was frozen last May.

    http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm354852.htm

    Season’s Greetings.

  69. 69.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @Ash Can:

    Hunh.

    I went straight to the text on that post, but now that you mention it….Yeah, there’s a Curious George thing going on there.

  71. 71.

    hamletta

    My late mother splurged on lox one Christmas morning back in the ’80s, and I pushed her into making it a tradition…a delicious tradition that I kept even away from home.

    Bought something called “nova snacks,” which is probably trimmings they swept off the floor, but it’s from Acme, so it’s probably OK.

    Jewish food can be hard to find; in Nashville, I had to go to either Donelson or Belle Meade to find cocktail rye or pickled herring. Here in MoCo, Md., it’s everywhere.

  75. 75.

    Mike in NC

    Three memorable things about our 1994 honeymoon in West Virginia: touring the battlefield at Antietam with very knowledgeable park rangers to explain the events that occurred; Harper’s Ferry National Historic Site; and staying at the fabulous Bavarian Inn. Otherwise a backwards shithole.

  78. 78.

    Thlayli

    … I could actually watch the Boise State game because it was in Hawaii and not on that god damned blue turf. Why is that allowed?

    As I heard it once, it’s blue because when the AD was ordering the rug he thought “Gee, for all this money we’re spending here it could at least look like we did something.”

  79. 79.

    Loufromhere

    I will speak with the proper authority. That lox looks mighty tasty. In Chicago, surrounded by love, but no saul food at the moment (not even a bagel) that package is proper. Mazel Tov, happy holidays, glad tidings of the season to you, the animals and all the page ones and everybody else. Eat that lox all yourself.

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