Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The willow is too close to the house.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Food / Random Food Prön Open Thread

Random Food Prön Open Thread

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This post is in: ,

Hey y’all.  Some mid-morning entertainment here.

I’m home today with a pair of bum knees (bursitis flying out of control) and — as I’ve compensated for my bad wheels — spasms around a bulging disk around L4 or L5.  I feel like a water heater with a ten year guarantee staring glumly at my eleventh birthday.

But it’s hard to complain (actually, it’s not) when these are actually minor and remediable dings.  So I’m getting on with things.  First task to do was to get a standing desk going.  I’ve got one of these at my office and it works fine, but at home it’s just the kitchen counter, which isn’t quite high enough.  So here’s my solution:

gourmet

For those straining to read my crap photo, that’s Vol. 2 of the Gourmet Cookbook from 1957.

My favorite recipe in this particular tome — and what I find to be something of a metaphor for this election? That would be his one:

Caneton

“Turn the pressure wheel and force the sauch and blood through the press…”  Sounds about right.

And finally, for a little bit of sheer madness, here’s something from Alain Ducasse’s Flavors of France.  I picked this up years ago at a used cookbook sale for something like five bucks.  I’ve yet to make anything out of it; I chose it for the utter decadence of both recipes and photos.  True “don’t know how to define it but know it when I see it” food prön from soup to nuts.  To keep within the bounds of my fowl obsession, here’s Ducasse’s ingredient list for boiled chicken:
Chix

I mean, whut?

What’s the most insane recipe you ever attempted (and what happened)?

Oh — and open thread.

Reader Interactions

246Comments

  2. 2.

    MattF

    I count… 35 ingredients. On that page. I don’t think that recipe is going to be done by one person.

  5. 5.

    MattF

    I did try a ’70’s NYT recipe for chocolate cake. This was back in the days when Valrhona chocolate wasn’t sold to just anyone walking in off the street– the recipe included instructions for getting the chocolate in other ways. It turned out rather nicely.

  6. 6.

    singfoom

    I still hold that Ortolan Bunting is the craziest recipe, and also French:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortolan_bunting

    The traditional way French gourmands eat ortolans is to cover their heads and face with a large napkin or towel while consuming the bird. The purpose of the towel is debated. Some claim it is to retain the maximum aroma with the flavour as they consume the entire bird at once, others have stated “Tradition dictates that this is to shield – from God’s eyes – the shame of such a decadent and disgraceful act”,[5] and others have suggested the towel hides the consumers spitting out bones.[6] This use of the towel was begun by a priest, a friend of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.[7]

    That’s right, a dish so decadent that you have to hide your face from god while you eat it. Crazy town.

  7. 7.

    Tom Levenson

    @Amir Khalid: Trump’s making feel the need for a more muscular variant spelling. And with that I think I’m going to drown this metaphor at birth.

  8. 8.

    raven

    Julia’s Gateau De Crepes and Prudhomme’s Boned, Stuffed Squabs with Spiced Fig Gravy! Both were swell.

  9. 9.

    lige

    There was an episode of Anthony Bourdain where you got to see that top recipe and the duck press in action.

  11. 11.

    Diana

    I have an ancient gifted copy of Larousse Gastronomique that somewhere includes a recipe by Antoine Careme (he was Tallyrand’s chef and one of the founders of haute cuisine) that included at least 24 separate steps, at least 12 of which would have had no effect that I could discern, or which would be undone by the next step. Not sure I could even find it again in the book, or I’d post it here tonight.

  12. 12.

    cleek

    there’s a pho recipe somewhere in my house that i looked at once and ran away from in terror.

    i’ve made a couple of pretty terrible Indian dishes: 187 spices, 85 steps, not even as good as the jarred stuff.

  14. 14.

    raven

    I’ve written about this book before but it’s worthwhile to get a copy

    Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices and one funny review”

    How to begin? This is possibly the most incoherent, bizarre, misinformed, misanthropic, and unintentionally hilarious cookbook ever written . . . insofar as it can be called a cookbook at all. Having written the last two sentences, I feel I have failed to invoke the truly awesome idiocy of this book. Perhaps a few quotes from the inimitable Mr. Herter will serve to clarify:

    “The flavor of truffles is about the same as that of the mushrooms raised here in North America commercially, in fact our mushrooms actually are much better tasting than truffles. To make a Pate De Foie Gras on some special occasion that is really much better than any made in France, proceed as follows.
    Buy a liver sausage made by some reliable maker. Cut it open and place the contents in a bowl. Buy a can of stems and pieces of mushrooms. Open and drain off the liquid …”

    “Italians used olive oil in Italy mainly because at one time it was plentiful and cheap. Today in Italy there is far more corn and soybean oil used then olive oil.”

    “Hollywood, thank goodness, is dead. Television has at least done incalculable good in destroying this evil group.”

    “For your convenience I will start with meats, fish, eggs, soups and sauces, sandwiches, vegetables, the art of French frying, desserts, how to dress game, how to properly sharpen a knife, how to make wines and beer, how to make French soap, and also what to do in case of hydrogen or cobalt bomb attacks, keeping as much in alphabetical order as possible.”

    As best as I can tell, all of this is written in pure sincerity. Mr. Herter seems to believe himself unquestioningly to be the world’s foremost authority on any given subject . . . an attitude which might be more off-putting if he were ever right about anything. As it stands, this book is a delight. Every time I open it I am reminded of perils of unearned confidence.

  15. 15.

    grumpy realist

    Most insane recipe? The one for chicken braised in black mole sauce. Tracking down the ingredients was one thing; doing the actual construction of the dish was something else entirely….especially since I had lost the bag containing half of the ingredients and had to substitute like mad to get everything ready in time.

    Discovered the hard way do NOT put more than 1 cup of the mole sauce into the blender at one time. Otherwise you end up with mole-spattered kitchen.

  16. 16.

    Mike J

    I’ve made a couple of multi day Keller recipes. His braised beef shortribs are incredible, but I usually use ATKs version. They started with Keller’s recipe and got it down from three days to eight hours.

    His chicken pot pie isn’t hard to do, but he is picky. Each veggie is boiled in its own pot to keep the colors bright, and each pot has a sprig of thyme, some crushed garlic, and nine peppercorns. Not eight. Not ten. Nine.

  20. 20.

    Emma

    My father’s (the family cook) rules for a recipe: No more than 10 ingredients, including sauce. No more than 5 steps. He makes some tasty dishes that way. The only problem is that he’s a great improviser, and often we can’t reproduce a particular version of a dish.

  21. 21.

    Poopyman

    @raven:

    “For your convenience I will start with meats, fish, eggs, soups and sauces, sandwiches, vegetables, the art of French frying, desserts, how to dress game, how to properly sharpen a knife, how to make wines and beer, how to make French soap, and also what to do in case of hydrogen or cobalt bomb attacks, keeping as much in alphabetical order as possible.”

    I think I’ve fallen in love with this sentence, possibly aided by my affinity for commas.

  22. 22.

    I'll be Frank

    It came from the Joy of Cooking and I drank so much after I don’t remember the dish, but the recipe included an ingredient with preparation instructions on a different page that turned out had to be prepared 24 hours in advance.

  24. 24.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    I still can hear the sound the duck press made in the French chef scene of “Who Is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe”, one of my favorite movies ever. RIP Robert Morley.

  25. 25.

    NotMax

    Not complicated, but one of the most time intensive cooking adventures was preparing spinach souffle.

    For 200.

    Also not really complicated (just requires patience) is Beef Wellington. Rarely make it, though, because everything has to be just so or else the end result is subpar. That and the fact that really, really quality beef is difficult to come by here. The hotels scoop up most of the top grade stuff.

    Somewhere in the back of a closet have a handwritten diary/cookbook from the early 1800s which I picked up somewhere or other over the years. The idea of consistently writing down measurements was still an alien concept.

    And then there’s the recipe for a famous cake served by Martha Washington, which begins “Take 40 eggs…”

  27. 27.

    donnah

    I have an old, old cookbook with a section that advises how to choose fresh foods. For Lamb, “The freshness of lamb is comparitively easy to distinguish, as, if the neck vein will be bright blue, the knuckles stiff, and the eyes bright and full.”

    urp

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    @Amir Khalid:
    Dr. Levenson classes up this blog whenever possible. Who doesn’t love umlauts?

    As to impossible recipes, l researched and ran away from chateau sauce. A summary.

    “chateau sauce“ made of white wine, tarragon and four gallons of veal stock reduced to a thimbleful and finished with a dollop of butter.

  31. 31.

    RandomMonster

    Most complex cooking adventure for me has been making Indian curries by hand. Ridiculous numbers of spices to grind up. I don’t even bother though anymore because you can get some pretty good ones that are pre-mixed these days.

  32. 32.

    Betty Cracker

    As was made famous in the “Julie & Julia” film, Julia Child had a negative reaction to Julie Powell’s “Julie & Julia Project” blog, which chronicled Powell’s attempt to cook every recipe in Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in one year. The most plausible explanation for Child’s reaction was that she was insulted that Powell went on so about the difficulty of executing Child’s recipes.

    But Julia shouldn’t have bristled so: The recipes in “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” are difficult. Worth it, for the most part? Oui (if one ignores the aspics). But not easy. I think the most insane recipes I’ve ever attempted all came from that book.

  36. 36.

    MomSense

    @cleek:

    I was going to say pho but it isn’t the number of ingredients–more the all day nature of the process.

    I used to make paella quite a bit and that has a number of steps and ingredients.

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    If you are looking for the opposite of complicated recipes, check out Keith Richard’s recipes for shepherd’s pie and bangers and mash.

  39. 39.

    Ken

    In retrospect, nougat. The recipe is simple enough – beaten egg whites and candy syrup – but my mixer was growling and running very hot by the end of it.

  40. 40.

    Ken

    @raven: I have a 1950s edition of The Joy of Cooking, and although it doesn’t have recipes for hydrogen and cobalt bombs, it does have a section on strontium-90 uptake by vegetables.

  41. 41.

    Gin & Tonic

    IIRC, there were two volumes of that Gourmet book, a burgundy one and a dark-blue one. I have both (inherited from my mother.) Can’t recall the last time I opened one.

  42. 42.

    John M. Burt

    @NotMax: Your reference to spinach souffle for 200 reminds me of a strip from Hank Ketcham’s other series, “Half Hitch” (set aboard an aircraft carrier).
    The diminutive Seaman Half Hitch finds the Chinese cook hard at work with pencil and paper.
    HH: Whatcha doin’ Cookie?
    Cookie: Translating one of my mother’s recipes.
    HH: Translating? It’s in Chinese?
    Cookie: No, I’m multiplying every ingredient by five thousand.

    And that, children, is why every old sailor will recommend that you try to get assigned to the smallest ship available.

  44. 44.

    p.a.

    I’m pretty lazy: if the ingredient list can’t fit on the front of a standard index card it’s highly unlikely I’ll do it. I prefer the whole recipe fits on the front; I can print fairly small.

    Also too, I’m a good-enough cook: people come when I invite them, but don’t hit me up to make anything when they’re having a party. Moderation in all things.

  45. 45.

    trollhattan

    @John M. Burt:
    Heh. My old man was on a CV and I can’t recall him bragging on the chow. OTOH he was very glad to not be on a tin can during a certain typhoon.

  47. 47.

    Gin & Tonic

    @NotMax:

    And then there’s the recipe for a famous cake served by Martha Washington, which begins “Take 40 eggs…”

    With Eastern-rite Easter coming up this Sunday, almost everyone who’s baking has old hand-me-down recipes for the rich bread called “Paska” that start with two to three dozen egg yolks. That will be for one bread. Current practice cuts it, usually, to less than a dozen.

  49. 49.

    JPL

    @schrodinger’s cat: Thanksgiving for twenty with two children under two and the youngest being six weeks was a tough one for me also. No one insisted that I follow recipes from Gourmet magazine, that was my own doing. Decades later a sister-in-law mentioned that she was so impressed with that meal. I mentioned that I was young and didn’t know better.

  50. 50.

    scav

    There was a recipe for totally home-made mole that took my mom and I all day once. I have memories of hand dusting /polishing maybe five -plus kinds of dried chilies and having to do so near anopen flame amd at some (much) later point having to process the hot (temperature) sauce in the food processor. half-way through the first batch we discovered the desparate need of towels to prevent a new wall-treatment. Later we discovered the face of jesus and Our Lady of Mole had appeared permanently in the dishtowels.

  52. 52.

    JPL

    @LAO: Governor Deal has already mentioned that he stands by his veto of the discrimination bill. It’s not often that GA can brag though.

  53. 53.

    schrodinger's cat

    @JPL: When is the wedding? Are you all set with the preparations and most importantly your dress?

    Another taxing cooking experience, volunteering to cater a fundraising dinner for the University Library. My partner in crime had to bail out at the last minute due to a family emergency and I had to rope in another friend at the nth hour. Between the two of us we cut up 20 pounds of onions! We were cooking for 2 days.

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    Also, Tom — I haven’t forgotten you asked about the mister’s old family recipe for cinnamon chicken. It’s just that I’ll have to write it down next time he makes it since he makes it from memory rather than a recipe. Been meaning to do that for posterity anyway…

  55. 55.

    D58826

    OT but looks like one more thing that the GOOPERS can blame on Obama, oh wait …….it’s good news, never mind

    Delta Force and Navy SEALs have crippled the group’s ability to recruit foreign fighters and put pressure on the network responsible for striking Europe and Africa.
    As the self-proclaimed Islamic State trumpets its global terrorist campaign, U.S. special operations forces have quietly killed more than three dozen key ISIS operatives blamed for plotting deadly attacks in Europe and beyond.
    Defense officials tell The Daily Beast that U.S. special operators have killed 40 “external operations leaders, planners, and facilitators” blamed for instigating, plotting, or funding ISIS’s attacks from Brussels and Paris to Egypt and Africa.

    Notr time to break out the bubbly but every little bit helps, esp. if it dents Daessh’s claim of devine destiny
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/28/u-s-kills-isis-operatives-linked-to-europe-attacks.html

  56. 56.

    redshirt

    @D58826: Well, by Repub logic, anything good that happens now can be attributed to the immanent arrival of President Trump.

    Gad, that feels so wrong even to type.

  58. 58.

    bemused senior

    Baking peach upside down cakes in box ovens with ~100 Girl Scouts, in groups of 20, after first making the camp “Bisquick”. Yay summer day camp badge workshops. (And then there was the time we made buddy burners, used them “safely” by setting them on the (traffic free) park road, and they set the road on fire).

    Nothing done in a kitchen rises to this level of hair raising difficulty.

  60. 60.

    low-tech cyclist

    “spasms around a bulging disk around L4 or L5” – Tom, you’ve got your own Lagrange points??

    You’ve gotta do something about that weight, friend!

  61. 61.

    Tom Levenson

    @trollhattan: My FIL was the skipper of an LST during the typhoon of ’45 (that’s the one you’re referring to, right). Bob was a true seaman, and he conned that ship through the whole storm. His successor landed the ship on the beach when the next (post VJ day) storm hit. Skill matters.

  62. 62.

    scav

    @trollhattan: I’ve done some of those stock reducing things and all they take is time and not forgetting there’s something on the stove. The beef one reduced down to somethong like shoe polish was bloody marvelous amd it would just sit on the back stove all a damp chilly winters day and smell marvelous. Read a chapter, check on it, potter with laundry, dusting, check again. And I was in absolute control of ingredients and salt.

  63. 63.

    JPL

    @schrodinger’s cat: The nuptials were the 9th. I ordered this online, http://www.tadashishoji.com/alx992ly-smkpl-corded-embroidery-on-tulle-3-4-sleeve-tulle-gown, and it fit perfectly. The color is a tad darker though which worked perfectly. The venue was a ballroom in the Biltmore in Atlanta . The Biltmore is no longer a hotel, but instead condos and offices. They rent out the ballrooms. The maid of honors fiance performed the ceremony, which was the fastest ceremony on record, but that left more time for eating and dancing. The happy couple dated for seven years and the wedding was their seven year itch, I guess.

  66. 66.

    p.a.

    A crime in Detroit, tangental food comment: New Red Wings arena (Replacing Joe Louis Arena) is Little Caesars Arena. Fbook comments overwhelmingly negative. Understand about corp sponsorships, but holy crap from an American icon to tomato-covered cardboard.

  68. 68.

    ? Martin

    The hardest is always wild yeast breads. If you bake frequently enough, there will be enough yeast just floating around your kitchen that you can make bread without explicitly adding yeast. Best case you are rising your bread for 24-48 hours. Worst case it doesn’t work at all. That’s why it’s hard. So if you go off on a baking spree – making some yeasty bread every day for maybe 2 weeks, it’s worth a try. The result is a very interesting loaf – definitely more rustic tasting and texture than your normal recipes that you can wrap up in a few hours.

    Hardest conventional recipe is probably our gumbo recipe. Getting roux to the right darkness without fucking it up is always difficult for me. I suspect candy making would be similar. I don’t find large ingredient recipes to be challenging – just break them down. Difficult for me recipes are those that have tight timing windows or are highly non-deterministic (like the yeast capture).

  69. 69.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    OT, but the Sanders campaign asked for a 45 day extension to file their personal financial disclosure forms with the FEC, which conveniently is after the CA primary.

    Between this and the failure to release past tax returns, something stinks. If Hillary did this, it would break the internet.

  74. 74.

    D58826

    @Tom Levenson: Halsey ran his fleet into two typhoons that year (or maybe during 44-45 time period). One of which was the basis for the novel/movie Caine Mutiny. Either way PTB’s, let alone the sailors, were not amused.

  77. 77.

    Djchefron

    Try to decipher the bible of cookbooks, Escoffier’s. Bought it when I was in Culinary school and was like WTF!!!

  81. 81.

    Mnemosyne

    I’m not sure if this is my most complicated recipe or the best recipe with a story, but I started getting really into cooking as an undergrad at USC and decided I wanted to make my own beef stock by roasting the bones, but I didn’t know where I could get beef bones. My roommate at the time took me to a butcher shop she knew down in the ‘hood that was run by a Vietnamese family. When I said I wanted beef bones, I swear they brought me an entire cow femur from the back of the store!

    When I explained that I was going to roast it for stock, they sliced it into manageable chunks and away we went. I think the stock turned out pretty well, but it was 20 years ago.

  82. 82.

    JPL

    It not surprising news, the former speaker of the house, who admitted to being a pedophile, has received scant coverage on the news. IOKIYR

  84. 84.

    J R in WV

    Last holiday season we were invited to a pot luck dinner for winter solstice. I decided to make a Black Forest Cake, using an original from scratch recipe. Whipping and beating eggs and batter, and heavy cream, etc. etc. The two chocolate cakes didn’t rise, at all. The icing was pretty tasty, and I soaked the cakes in brandy, kirschwasser mostly (a cherry-flavored brandy mostly used in cooking German, Bavarian and Swiss desserts) which helped the flavor, at least.

    No one complained about the 3 inch high cake, as it was rich and tasty. But it was also supposed to be 6 inches tall, and light and fluffy. Still not sure where I went wrong. The lift was supposed to be the beaten eggs, and I had great country free-range eggs, so, go figure.

    Many years ago when we kept chickens, and so had those eggs with really golden yolks, I set out to make a lemon meringue pie, to follow a somewhat fancy fresh veggie stir fry for dinner. It came out truly beautiful, a commercial model of a pie, with tall meringue perfectly browned, and a golden beautiful lemony looking custard filling.

    Wife and I sat down to eat, and simultaneously brought a fork-full of beautiful pie to our lips. Then we both said “Ewwwwewew!!!” I walked back to the kitchen, where the cup full of fresh squeezed lemon juice say unused. the pie was beautiful nothing sugar-pie.

    No kidding, the best looking pie I have ever made, and you could tell it was supposed to be lemon, from the zest I used in it, and the two drops of lemon extract. Just a really tiny hint of real flavor, to make it more certain how wrong it really was. So glad there wasn’t a bunch of company to all go “EWewee!” together.

    No one poisoned, though. So there’s that.

    ;-)

  85. 85.

    RandomMonster

    @schrodinger’s cat: Actually, I didn’t mean grinding by hand — I did use a coffee grinder — I just meant the process of taking 30 (or whatever) spice ingredients and having to mill and mix them.

  86. 86.

    Bodacious

    Food talk is great, but the bulging disk squelches my appetite. I feel ya on that one. Bulging disk in the C region kept me from lying down for >1 month. Tried everything – acupuncture, p.t., chiropractor (ok, bad call on the last one). Ended the torture by finally ceding to a pain management guy. Not meds, by spinal injections really, really, really helped. As close as I’ll be to all better now. Here’s hoping you find a path to better days!!

  87. 87.

    gene108

    MSNBC showed a clip of Cruz responding to Boehner’s comments. Cruz said he’s only spoken 50 words or less to Boehner, most of which are pleasantries like “hi, how are you today John”, which to me just reinforces how pathetic Cruz is at dealing with people.

    Or the title of his autobiography, “Ted Cruz: How to offend someone in fifty words or less.”

  88. 88.

    Lee

    I’ve got a question about the adjustable desk.

    I’ve been using a standing desk for 5 years as of 1 May. I’m probably going to have knee surgery in August and I’ll more than likely not be able to stand for long periods of time.

    How sturdy is that desk you have? Will it support to monitors? Does it jiggle a bit when raising/lowering?

    thanks!

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    Is the U.S. Ready for Post-Middle-Class Politics?

    …………………………………………………..
    In one sense, what had happened was obvious. The postwar suburbs in general had been a racial fortress, their homogeneity enforced by a web of government policies and unofficial restrictions making it difficult for nonwhites to own property in them, and few more so than Detroit’s. The white ex-­Democrats whom Greenberg’s team interviewed, he later wrote, “expressed a profound distaste for black Americans, a sentiment that pervaded almost everything they thought about government and politics. Blacks constituted the explanation for their vulnerability and for almost everything that had gone wrong in their lives; not being black was what constituted being middle class.”

    Still, Greenberg noted, Macomb voters had not defected en masse from the Democratic Party until after years of worsening economic circumstances — and until they perceived the Democrats as not only having taken up the banner of the urban poor and nonwhites but also having abandoned the white middle class. “These voters wondered why they weren’t the central drama of the Democratic Party,” Greenberg wrote. Greenberg suggested that Democrats offer a kind of grand bargain to the white middle-­class voters he called “Reagan Democrats”: The Democrats would reinstate the middle class as the gravitational center of the party’s economic policy if those voters accepted an expanded definition of who was included in the middle class.

    Among the Democrats who took Greenberg’s advice was Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who used the Macomb study as the playbook for his 1992 presidential campaign, which he built around the theme of “the forgotten middle class.” Speaking to voters in Macomb County in March 1992, he offered a near-­verbatim recitation of Greenberg’s proposal: “The one thing that it’s going to take to bring this country together is somebody’s got to come back to the so-­called Reagan Democratic area and say: ‘Look, I’ll give you your values back. I’ll restore the economic leadership, I’ll help you build the middle class back.’ But you’ve got to say, ‘O.K., let’s do it with everybody in this country.’ ”

  90. 90.

    scav

    @J R in WV: The (near) disasters are generally far more fun to talk about. Different (communal) effort had an attempt at some chicken liver mousse that failed utterly to fluff or stay flooffy. As the basic ingredients were good, after a long post-mortem and much wine we agreed they were unexpected, volunteer, paté.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne

    @RandomMonster:

    I’m also guessing that people who make Indian food all the time (like schroedinger’s cat) grind up reasonably large quantities of the spices and keep the resulting mix on hand to use for the next few months. Doing all that work for a one-time dish is … kind of insane.

  92. 92.

    narya

    The Timpano the NY Times published some number of years ago, as a “simplified” version of the one in “Big Night.” That’s the most elaborate dish, anyway.

    The most crazy meal was Thanksgiving dinner for 8 people, four of whom were gluten-free and at least a few of the gluten free were also dairy free. Luckily there weren’t any nut or egg allergies.

  93. 93.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, I may as well throw this in here — does anyone have a preferred meal planning/menu planning website, preferably one that lets you include leftovers without doubling the ingredients on your shopping list? I’ve had to pretty much give up on the WW website for any kind of pre-planning. I have Paprika, but it’s not quite doing what I want.

  94. 94.

    Keith P.

    What’s the most insane recipe you ever attempted (and what happened)?

    Turducken, from scratch, including making cornbread and bread from scratch (although at this point, I wasn’t grinding my own flour). My hands were FREEZING after deboning those birds, plus there were three different broths for three different stuffings.
    Second-most elaborate was Thomas Keller’s gazpacho recipe….all of his recipes have a ton of steps. The soup is delicious (perfectly seasoned), but takes tons of prep. I’ve always wanted to try his stuffed pig’s face, too…IIRC it’s his most complex recip.e

  95. 95.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mnemosyne: My old Indian (well, from New Jersey) roommate says his mom always grinds them fresh because it tastes better. That said, when I worked in an Indian restaurant, they definitely pre-made the spice mixes in big batches. Maybe it’s a volume or YMMV thing.

    I saw one of the Indian women from Top Chef (maybe the only Indian woman?) at a cooking thing with the Center for Asian-American Media do a spice blend in a coffee grinder in about five seconds.

  96. 96.

    Paul in KY

    @Tom Levenson: I knew a guy (was renting other half of a duplex on Emerald Isle, NC) who was on the USS Pennsylvania in that storm. Said you could walk on the walls at times, 1st one wall, then the opposite one.

  97. 97.

    schrodinger's cat

    @RandomMonster: 30 seems like a bit much. What were you making?

    These are the spices in my spice box
    Cayenne
    Turmeric
    Whole mustard
    Whole cumin
    Whole coriander seeds
    For garam masala
    Cardamom
    Cloves
    Whole black pepper
    Cinnamon
    Nutmeg

    Fresh aromatics in the fridge.
    Ginger
    Garlic
    Green chilies
    Cilantro

    Even if I add all of them up < 30 ingredients. Very few recipes need all of the above. You should try one of Madhur Jaffrey's cook books, she has many shortcuts for the busy chef (who isn't?)

  101. 101.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @rikyrah:

    …“expressed a profound distaste for black Americans, a sentiment that pervaded almost everything they thought about government and politics. Blacks constituted the explanation for their vulnerability and for almost everything that had gone wrong in their lives; not being black was what constituted being middle class…

    So when Sanders says that race is a distraction when talking about income inequality, it seems like he’s wrong.

  105. 105.

    Eric NNY

    macaroni a la forrestiere (loosely translated from the original French: 6 hour preparation macaroni and cheese)

    That duck dish from Julie & Julia. De-boning is gross.

  106. 106.

    D58826

    @Paul in KY: And for those not up on naval history, that is a battleship. Big sucker. She was in drydock at Pearl on 12/7/41 so didn’t suffer much damage

  107. 107.

    rikyrah

    Because, this is who they are.

    ……………………

    House Republicans Want to Diminish Number of Free and Reduced Lunches for Millions of Low-income Students
    April 28, 2016

    House Republicans are proposing legislation to increase eligibility criteria for schools with free and reduced lunch programs. Rep. Todd Rotika (R-IN), chairman of the subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, introduced The Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016 on April 20. If enacted, the bill could leave millions of students who rely on the program as their only source of nutrition without a daily meal.

    Black students in low-income areas are likely to suffer the biggest impact of the legislation.

    The new bill specifically restricts community eligibility, introduced in 2010 as an option for schools in extremely impoverished areas to bypass the long application process, getting meals to needy students as quickly as possible at no cost to families.

    Students in schools previously accepted through community eligibility will now have to reapply as individuals, reinstating the loads of paperwork schools sought to avoid.

  109. 109.

    Keith P.

    @schrodinger’s cat: I read somewhere about how after a certain point of adding spices, dishes start to taste like gingerbread cookies. It was an epiphany, since I had picked up the habit of throwing odd ratios of every spice I could grab when making dishes, not understanding their relationships to one another or what goes with what else. Hearing that flavor described as “gingerbread” made me go, “Oh, wow, I cook like crap!”
    Also, totally concur with fresh roasting and grinding spices in a (dedicated) grinder. It’s really not a lot of trouble at all, and at worst, you can have a warm fuzzy that you didn’t half-ass anything.

  110. 110.

    J R in WV

    @scav:

    I’ve been cooking for 50+ years, since my mom tried to maintain a relationship with my dad, who worked nights getting home often a 2 or 3 am, as well as minding two creative and over-active kids, she didn’t do mornings well. If I wanted something actually cooked, I had to do it, standing on a stool. Not dissing mom and dad, they were great, but she had to sleep sometime.

    I have baked pies for pie baking contest parties which won first place, but they aren’t as memorable as the lemon meringue which failed for lack of lemon juice. Fresh squeezed, sitting there by the stove. So funny. If I was afraid to laugh about my failures in the kitchen, I wouldn’t have funny stories to tell.

    But I have French cookbooks, and can do the “beouf le stew” [aka Beouf Bourguignon] recipe. If you take a couple of shortcuts, it won’t take all day, either; if you actually work 50 or 60 hours a week on software, you just can’t use a 12-hour recipe. Now I’m retired and could spend that much time, but I don’t care to spend my retirement cooking, much as I enjoy eating and cooking.

    Fried oysters don’t take very long, nor do broiled scallops. Yummm! I do raw oysters, but I have to be at the seaside where they grow. I intend to spend a couple of weeks in Brittany during the oyster season some time! They move the oysters from one bay to another like good cattle are moved from pasture to pasture as the season advances. For the best flavor, don’t you know!!

  112. 112.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Keith P.: How are you?

    Turducken by hand sounds like way too much effort. Says a woman who made a 6 hour meatloaf from Cook’s Illustrated.

  115. 115.

    D58826

    @rikyrah: The Clintons have been roundly criticized for ‘the third way’ and the policies they pursued in the 1990’s, here on this blog, in the media and by Bernie’s supporters. I’m not saying that everything they did was correct or that the analysis at the link was the best policy. On the other hand Bill wasn’t just off in a field picking daisy’s when he said and did the things he did. He had good reasons for doing them. Now maybe things would have turned out better if he was working with the GOP of Rockefeller from the 1960’s rather the initial incarnation of the rabid right wing that we see today. Newt might not be as crazy as Cruz/Trump but it’s a pretty straight line that connects them. It is of course possible that 400 years of racial divide will not be overcome as easily as Clinton’s comments that you highlighted.

  118. 118.

    J R in WV

    @raven:

    That’s an awesome amount of combat right there in one list. To survive that you had to be lucky and good, very good.

    Hell, just Okinawa…

    ETA… weren’t the converted four-stackers from WW I, rather than WW II ? just a typo I guess.

  119. 119.

    Brachiator

    From the Current issue of BBC History Magazine. This has got your turducken beat by a mile:

    Cockentrice
    A bird-pig combo that had royals salivating

    In an extravagant dinner to impress the king of France, Henry VIII spent the equivalent of £5m on a feast that included 2,000 sheep, 1,000 chickens and a dolphin. Many dishes were designed to amaze, of which some notable examples used the technique of ‘engastration’: a method of cooking in which the remains of one animal are stuffed inside those of another (similar to today’s ‘four-bird’ roasts).

    ‘Pandora’s cushion’, for instance, was a boned goose stuffed with a boned chicken, which was stuffed with a boned pheasant, which in turn was stuffed with a boned quail. ‘True love roast’ featured 12 birds – one for each day of Christmas – and contained turkey, goose, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon squab, Aylesbury duck, Barbary duck, poussin, guinea fowl, mallard and quail along with a herb and fruit stuffing. …

    But possibly the most famous concoction was the ‘cockentrice’ which called for a capon to be boiled, cut in half and sewn to the rear end of a young (suckling) pig. The other halves were used in a similar fashion, with the head of the pig sewn onto the rear end of the capon.

  120. 120.

    Mnemosyne

    @rikyrah:

    Although, along those lines, I’ve been liking the schools that make breakfasts and lunches free for EVERYONE and don’t make the kids jump through hoops. I’ve seen a lot of sad stories from people who came from effed-up families that would not have financially qualified for free meals at school, but whose parents neglected them or even abused them by withholding food.

  121. 121.

    rikyrah

    Trump wants to take ‘the woman card’ off the table
    04/28/16 12:49 PM
    By Steve Benen
    Following this week’s primaries, the 2016 presidential general election is, after more than a year of campaigning, coming into focus. It’s not yet a done deal in either party, but odds are, Donald Trump will face Hillary Clinton in the fall. What’s less clear is what Trump intends to do about it.

    In recent months, the Republican frontrunner has prioritized insulting labels for his rivals, hoping to define them quickly in voters’ eyes. Jeb Bush was “low energy”; Ted Cruz is “Lying Ted”; Marco Rubio became “Little Marco”; and so on. Trump’s message about the Democratic frontrunner is still taking shape, but he’s clearly begun trying out some lines of attack.

    “If Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote,” Trump declared Tuesday night. The “only card she has is the woman’s card,” the Republican frontrunner added. On NBC this morning, Trump stuck to the line.
    A day after his chief rival picked a woman as a running mate, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump defended comments he made about Hillary Clinton playing “the woman card” saying the Democrat couldn’t even win a local election if she were a man.

    “The primary thing that she has going is that she’s a woman and she’s playing that card like I have never seen anybody play it before,” he said Thursday on TODAY.
    Co-host Savannah Guthrie noted, “But Mr. Trump, for you to say, ‘If she were not a woman, she would be getting 5 percent’ suggests the only thing she has going for her is that she’s a woman – not that she was a former senator, a former Secretary of State and a lawyer. Do you understand why people find that to be a kind of demeaning comment?”

    Trump was unfazed. “No, I find it to be a true comment,” he replied. “I think the only thing she’s got going is the fact that she’s a woman.”

  122. 122.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Mnemosyne:

    Seriously, WTF is WRONG with these people?

    They’re genocidal racists. I don’t think that’s too strong a statement.

  123. 123.

    D58826

    This is going to hurt next year when it’s March Madness time and NC isn’t picked to host one of the rounds

    Citing the need to maintain a “safe, healthy” atmosphere for both the players and the public, the NCAA doubled down on its anti-discrimination stance on Wednesday, approving a new decree mandating that all sites that hope to host NCAA events “demonstrate how they will provide an environment … free of discrimination.”The decision comes in the aftermath of the highly controversial Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act (HB2), which, among other discriminatory measures, forces transgender people to use the bathroom that accords with the “biological sex” on their birth certificate, not the restroom that matches the gender with which they identify.

  124. 124.

    Origuy

    @Gin & Tonic: Since I’m trying to learn Russian, I happened upon this page about Easter greetings and customs. It mentioned that there is also a cheese dish called Paskha (Пасха) and another bread called Kulich (Кулич). Both look like more trouble than I’m likely to go to. I’m not a church-goer, but maybe I should hang around a local Russian Orthodox this Sunday.

  127. 127.

    raven

    @J R in WV: It was a typo. They were built for WW1 and, when that war ended. went into “red lead row” at San Diego and Philly. Many of them were given to the Brits as part of the “lend-lease ” program. Thirty-two were converted from flush deck-four pipers into two-stack APD’s. They took twe boilers out and replaced them with births for troops and used them to land troops. The Marines especially liked them because they could come in close to shore, had a bit of firepower and a small medical facility. The called them “The Green Dragons.”

  129. 129.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @J R in WV: Which reminds me, I have got to find raven’s link so I can look up my old man’s navy records.

    Also, too did folks in your neighborhood say plumb burned down/up or burned plumb down? I’ve not heard the latter except using “down,” and I’m not sure anyone in my family who’d have said any of them is still around.

  130. 130.

    Mel

    Marcel DeSaulniers has a recipe for a Chocolate Pecan Sour Mash Bash Cake. It’s a multi-layer cake with multiple fillings (mousses, ganaches), and making the cake layers themselves involves finely chopping an astonishingly intimidating amount of toasted pecans. Several decades ago, in a moment of holiday induced insanity, I decided that I should make it for a work-related gathering. Three days of cursing, weeping, fallen mousses and scorched pecans later, the ingredients for the behemoth finally were properly prepared and assembled.

    BEST.CAKE.EVER!!!!!!

    The errors were all mine – DeSaulniers’s instructions are excellent, but two novice bakers working in the middle of a kitchen renovation at 3 am equals some Titanic moments with even the best-written recipe.

    Takes a huge amount of work, but it is, hands-down, the best damned cake ever. Did I mention that it also includes a chocolate sauce VERY generously spiked with Sour Mash Whiskey? The sauce is ridiculously good. It took us a while to figure out why the huge tub of cake-related sauce was vanishing so quickly when our department consisted of only 12 people – turns out that university co-workers were surreptitiously filling bathroom Dixie Cups with it and pirating the stuff back to their department offices for a holiday tipple.

  133. 133.

    NotMax

    @J R in WV

    After successfully experimenting many years ago with poaching scallops in dry vermouth along with a spritz of lemon juice and a dash of salt and pepper (and maybe a bay leaf if feeling frisky), have never bothered nor been tempted into preparing them another way since.

  134. 134.

    Paul in KY

    @D58826: Should have mentioned that, ship about 700 feet long & 90 wide. Raven’s dad had a more intense ride, it appears.

  137. 137.

    JPL

    @NotMax: I have broiled scallops with a little butter and paprika before, but you really want to use a good quality paprika.

  139. 139.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Origuy: The cheese thing is usually specified, as “творожная пасха” in Russian or “сирна паска” in Ukrainian. My mother used to make it; she had a terra-cotta flower pot that was used as a mold. It wasn’t that much trouble, as I recall, but with the ingredients being basically cheese, heavy cream, butter, egg yolks and sugar it’s not exactly health food. The “кулич” (Russian) is usually called “бабка” (babka) in Ukrainian, and isn’t that much more difficult than any yeast-rising bread, just richer.

  140. 140.

    raven

    @Paul in KY: The big one’s would pitch and roll in high seas as well. Tin Can sailors always say they should have gotten flight pay and submarine pay because they were up in the air or under water as they steamed though those seas.

  143. 143.

    raven

    “Long Live the APD’s”

    T’was back in World War number one,
    they turned out “cans” 1200 ton;
    For rugged duty they couldn’t be beat,
    ne’r was a one that knew defeat.

    As time went by and the war was won,
    the job of the “Tin Cans” was rumored done;
    They scrapped a few, the rest just lay,
    as everyone said they’d seen their day.

    There was many a sailor way back then,
    who’d swear t’was the best days he had spend;
    Some said the Crosby couldn’t be beat,
    Others were bragging the Ward’s noble feats.

    There were others, of course, who lay there proud,
    The Dent and Kilty, their praises loud;
    Not to mention the Kane, Herbert and Schley,
    or Humphry’s and Brooks who never said die.

    You’ve heard of the Talbot, Stringham and Sands,
    and the Waters, McKean were hand in hand;
    Yes, those were the ships, the heroes of then,
    Besides many others not mentioned herein.

    Years slowly passed and times had changed,
    There was joy and sadness and prosperity reigned;
    The war was forgotten and the heroes too,
    Life is like that all the way through.

    The harbors were lighted, the ships the same,
    There was drone of streetcars and subway trains;
    But then it was quiet and quieter yet,
    For the day had arrived we’ll never forget.

    Soon there was shouting of war everywhere,
    the boys were ready to go over there;
    When war was official and loudly declared,
    songs were of victory and trumpets blared.

    We were slightly behind on tanks and guns,
    and ships and ammo weren’t ready to run;
    But remember the harbor where the old ones lay,
    Is it possible they could be used today?

    The question was answered and soon the rolled,
    Rusty and barnacled, but ready to go;
    They weren’t ultra-modern, those heroes of old,
    but everyone knew the stories they told.

    It wasn’t so long and the Navy yards found,
    the old “Tin Cans” were not very sound;
    They knocked out a boiler or rather two,
    the life of the “Four-Stacker” was nearly through.

    Hold on; There is more that I have to say,
    All of those ships are sailing today!
    They made “em Auxiliaries to sail the seas,
    and all of us “cobs” call the APD’s.

    The Ward, Crosby, Kilty and Schley,
    are fighting again; look at “em ride!
    The Herbert and others are in there too,
    Now it’s the Green Fleet Comin’ through.

    You’ve hear of “Guad” and fighting men,
    the Apd’s saw it beginning to end;
    But that isn’t all for the job wasn’t finished,
    Rendova and Bougainville and more to diminish!

    They went through the Solomons with plenty of pride,
    and finished New Guinea in the next few strides;
    Now who’d ever thought these old “Tin Cans”
    would help get the Philippines for Uncle Sam?

    We, that’s the story of the APD’s life,
    Perhaps you’re surprised there still in the fight;
    I might add a prayer for all those on the seas——-
    To bring back the boys and the APD’s

    ——-R.N. Tredinnick, Y1C,
    U.S.N.R.

  144. 144.

    rikyrah

    Jonathan ChaitVerified account
    ‏@jonathanchait
    Trump’s foreign policy speech wasn’t just empty bluster. It was a promise to cozy up with Putin.

  145. 145.

    D58826

    @raven: For those interested in a more detailed history of the time – Evan Thomas’s ‘Sea of Thunder’ and ‘The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour’
    James D. Hornfischer, Grover Gardner are well worthy reading. Thomas’s book covers a good bit more of the events leading up to the Battle of Leyte Gulf while the other book is about the three escort carrier groups Taffy 1, taffy 2 and Taffy 3

  146. 146.

    MomSense

    @Mnemosyne:

    leftovers

    What’s that? I could send three young males with seemingly endless appetites to your house. You will never have leftovers again.

  150. 150.

    raven

    @D58826: Kaiser Coffins! Both great books. Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal by Hornfisher is also very good.

  151. 151.

    Mike J

    Nate Silver ‏@NateSilver538 3h3 hours ago
    Oh sh*t found another anagram.
    CARLY FIORINA + TED CRUZ = LUCIFER RAN; TRY ZODIAC

  153. 153.

    D58826

    @Paul in KY: Never been to sea, but from what I’ve read a tin can can give a pretty good ride in a mill pond. And as to the old 4-pipers, some were part of the 1940 lend-lease deal with Britain. The Brits were a bit underwhelmed by their new ships however. Churchill told FDR:

    We have so far only been able to bring a few of your fifty destroyers into action on account of the many defects which they naturally develop when exposed to Atlantic weather after having been laid up so long.[4]

    Damning with faint phrase I believe is the term

  154. 154.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @redshirt:

    I’m not sure it would be quick. Whites are either willfully blind to, or fully support (same difference) the fact that Republicans are genocidal racists. I don’t know how many other ways to point out that until we understand the depth to which whites are racists and have kept a system in place that perpetuates white supremacy, we’ll never ever have another nice shiny big federal socialist program. The white part of Obama’s winning coalition showed us what the ceiling is for white buy-in – it’s less than 40%.

  157. 157.

    D58826

    @raven: The CV’s were built by Kaiser. Also one of the builders of the Liberty ships and after the war the Henry J Kaiser automobile line. When I was growing up a neighbor had one. The only one for miles around so we always knew when the Fry’s were arriving

  158. 158.

    Paul in KY

    @jeffreyw: How about one of those huge castle fireplaces that you can walk around in? Could have 12 serfs carry it in & load it on the spit holders.

  159. 159.

    raven

    @D58826: They still took em and they performed some crucial duty.

    The St Nazaire Raid or Operation Chariot was a successful British amphibious attack on the heavily defended Normandie dry dock at St Nazaire in German-occupied France during the Second World War. The operation was undertaken by the Royal Navy and British Commandos under the auspices of Combined Operations Headquarters on 28 March 1942. St Nazaire was targeted because the loss of its dry dock would force any large German warship in need of repairs, such as the Tirpitz, to return to home waters via either the English Channel or the GIUK gap, both of which were heavily defended by British units including the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet, rather than having a haven available on the Atlantic coast.

    The obsolete destroyer HMS Campbeltown, accompanied by 18 smaller craft, crossed the English Channel to the Atlantic coast of France and was rammed into the Normandie dock gates. The ship had been packed with delayed-action explosives, well hidden within a steel and concrete case, that detonated later that day, putting the dock out of service for the remainder of the war and up to five years after.

  162. 162.

    redshirt

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: Maybe. But I think the majority of people are good, if uninterested or uninformed. The “Both sides” crowd. If it were possible to peel away the lies and deceit and show the true stakes of the issues, I think most people would align for good. I hope so, at least.

  165. 165.

    cleek

    @Mel:
    on the (excellent) British Baking Show, they had the contestants make a schichttorte. it’s a layer cake with 20 layers. each layer is essentially a crepe, and they must alternate between light golden brown and dark golden brown (by cooking half of them slightly longer than the other half). they looked amazing, but also like they took wayyyy too much effort.

    http://www.pbs.org/food/recipes/schichttorte/

  166. 166.

    NotMax

    @D58826

    The Henry J model never caught on. At one point Kaiser cut a deal with Sears to attempt to sell excess inventory, rebranded as the Allstate.

    Met someone outside of Allentown, PA back when who was still tooling around in a really obscure vehicle – a Borg-Warner.

  170. 170.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @redshirt:

    I think we could hope for maybe half, at most. If we got 10% more of the white vote, that’s all we’d need to really make some progress.

  173. 173.

    rikyrah

    But but but…

    They LOVE him…right?

    ……………………

    Hispanic Voter Registration Spikes

    Registration among Hispanic voters is skyrocketing in a presidential election cycle dominated by Donald Trump and loud GOP cries to close the border.

    Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Elected and Appointed Officials, projects 13.1 million Hispanics will vote nationwide in 2016, compared to 11.2 million in 2012 and 9.7 million in 2008.

    Many of those new Hispanic voters are also expected to vote against Trump if he is the Republican nominee, something that appears much more likely after the front-runner’s sweeping primary victories Tuesday in five East Coast states.

    A whopping 80 percent of respondents in a poll of registered Hispanic voters in Colorado and Nevada said Trump’s views on immigration made them less likely to vote for Republicans in November. In Florida, that number was 68 percent.

  175. 175.

    D58826

    @raven: yep. My Dad served in Europe. The North Africa landings, then on to Sicily and Italy. He never mentioned being in Rick’s place while he was in Casablanca. He was in an air corp unit that supplied the fighter squadrons. Since he was usually within 50 miles of the front, he earned the same number of points as a grunt. Funny thing is he was blind as a bat, yet he had the only M1 in the unit. His job was to fire incendiary rounds into the gas dump if they were in danger of being overrun. Never had to do it but he did shoot up a car full of locals steal gas. He knew it was his shots since he also had the only amour piercing ammo in the group. Strange that at 31 and bad eyes he was one of the first to be drafted in 1941 but with his points he was also one of the first to come home. He did get to see a lot of Italy which he enjoyed especially since he was a history buff. So his war wasn’t as bad as many others.

  177. 177.

    D58826

    @NotMax: Yep and by 1954-55 only one mechanic in the neighborhood could keep it running. But Mr Fry and his Henry J were unique.

  178. 178.

    D58826

    @Paul in KY: Yep. I’m think something about the size of Long Island.

    On a storm related topic the NTSB has found the data recorders of thhe ship that sank last fall in the hurricane off of Bermuda.

  180. 180.

    gogol's wife

    @rikyrah:

    Yes, yes, GOTV, register, let’s do it.

    We must beat Trump. I can see the media already “pivoting” to fluff him. It’s going to be tough.

  183. 183.

    D58826

    ot. Another Obama failure

    The national teen birth rate has fallen to a record low, according to a new analysis released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
    From 2006 to 2014, the teen birth rate declined 41 percent. In 2014, there were 24.2 births for every 1,000 adolescent females — the lowest rate ever recorded

    And a job for Bristol Palin

    Many counties with the highest teen birth rates were located in the South and Southwest.

  184. 184.

    Tom Levenson

    @Trollhattan: Wow. My dad, my FIL, and my son’s best friends grand dad were all within a few miles of each other at Leyte. Dad on Kincaid’s flagship; FIL ferrying troops to the beach, friend’s grand dad flying a torpedo bomber off one of the jeep carriers that saved the day for all concerned. Hairy times.

  185. 185.

    raven

    @Tom Levenson: Near the end of the war they started letting guys out of the brig if they’d serve on the APD’s. Drove my old man nuts! “I’ve been out here 3+ years and now it’s considered WORSE than jail”!!!

  188. 188.

    D58826

    Rush Limbaugh has a prescription for America’s sexual frustration that’s better than Viagra: Donald Trump.
    During a segment of his Thursday radio show, the famed right-wing bloviator said that America is eagerly waiting for the Republican frontrunner to “unload” on Hillary Clinton.
    “If Trump’s the nominee, and if he does unload on Hillary Clinton, as he’s promising to do,” said the gasbag radio host, “let me just tell you something, you do not know how many gazillion Americans are going to be delirious and orgasmic with delight.”

    I can’t think of a single snarky thing to say, other than maybe gag/upchuck

  191. 191.

    raven

    @Tom Levenson: When I met my dad in New Orleans for the dedication of the Pacific Wing of what was then The D-Day (shit, I was in 25 d-days!) the had trucks where different groups of vets rode in the parade. I asked him what “Taffy III” was and he didn’t know. It all came down to the lack of emphasis on the Battle of Samar because Halsey left them vulnerable to the Japanese fleet when the went chasing after the feint.

    Shortly after 08:00, desperate messages calling for assistance began to come in from 7th Fleet. One from Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, sent in plain language, read, “My situation is critical. Fast battleships and support by airstrikes may be able to keep enemy from destroying CVEs and entering Leyte.”

    At 08:22, Kinkaid radioed: “Fast Battleships are Urgently Needed Immediately at Leyte Gulf”.[56]

    At 09:05: “Need Fast Battleships and Air Support”.

    At 09:07, Kinkaid broadcast what his mismatched fleet is up against: “4 Battleships, 8 Cruisers Attack Our Escort Carriers”.

    From 3,000 nmi (3,500 mi; 5,600 km) away in Pearl Harbor, Adm. Nimitz had monitored the desperate calls from Taffy 3, and sent Halsey a terse message, “Where is TF 34?”. The encrypted message was prefixed “Turkey trots to water” and suffixed with “The world wonders” to foil decryption. A radioman on Nimitz’s staff repeated the “where is” section of this message and then during decryption by Halsey’s staff the trailing phrase “the world wonders” was left in. So a simple query by a distant supervisor had, through the random actions of three sailors, become a stinging rebuke.

    Halsey was infuriated (not recognizing the final phrase as padding, possibly chosen for the anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade). He threw his hat to the deck and began to curse in anger.

    Halsey sent Task Group 38.1 (TG 38.1)—commanded by Vice Admiral John S. McCain—to assist.[57] Halsey recalled he did not receive this vital message from Kinkaid until around 10:00, and later claimed that he knew Kinkaid was in trouble, but had not dreamed of the seriousness of this crisis. McCain, by contrast, had monitored Sprague’s messages and turned TG 58[clarification needed] to aid Sprague even before Halsey’s orders arrived (after prodding from Nimitz), putting Halsey’s defense in question.

    At 10:05, Kinkaid complained: “Who is guarding the San Bernardino Strait?”

  195. 195.

    J R in WV

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    There’s a joke about accents in WV – Folks north of Charleston say “Their house burned down!” while folks south of Charleston say “Their house burned up!” Folks from along the Tug Fork River (border with Kentucky) say “Their house burnt plumb up!!”

    Mrs. J worked with a guy (Now a PhD professor) from Wayne County, who could imitate different accents from different parts of Wayne County. He was really funny with them, too. Since he himself spoke with quite an accent you couldn’t accuse him of dissing those with distinct accents at all.

    There are lots of “regional” accents distinct to neighborhoods, even. And elderly rural folks often spoke very old-fashioned English, in court testimony often almost needing translators for outsiders trying to follow the case. Like city lawyers.

  197. 197.

    Trollhattan

    @Tom Levenson:
    I’m fine not living through an event that effectively draws upon the entire nation and its resources to go overseas and either kill or be killed. World war was a concept better abandoned after the first one, not rebooted two decades later. My uncle-to-be was an officer on a cruiser in the same fleet as my dad, but it wasn’t until after the war that dad met my mom and made the connection. The tale-spinning generally stayed within families, when discussed at all. Most dads in my boyhood neighborhood had served and I know very little of their experiences; most of what I heard was via the kids, who tended to embellish as boys will. Now I wish I’d have asked more questions.

  199. 199.

    Trollhattan

    @Tom Levenson:
    Looks designed by the Volvo School of Aeronautics. :-) Keeping one square into the wind must have been phenomenally tricky. A terse typhoon description from a crewman on my dad’s ship.

    I was on the Main throttle of #1 main engine that morning it struck, a lot of people don’t realize we were running our
    starboard engines full astern and our port engines full ahead just to keep the island into the wind to keep from capsizing.
    The stress and strain in the engine and the vibrations was like standing on a vibrating machine.

    Bet that got old.

  200. 200.

    Ruckus

    @Tom Levenson:
    Skill is very important. However. A bit of luck never hurts making that skill look better. Or as has been said before, “Why is it that the most lucky sailors seem to know what they are doing?”

  201. 201.

    rikyrah

    Had never heard about this before:

    April 27, 2016 12:30 PM

    The “Grand Bargain” That Saved Detroit

    By Robin D. Ferriby

    On July 18, 2013, Detroit became the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy. Almost three months later, U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen, the chief mediator appointed to midwife a settlement between the city of Detroit and its creditors, was coming to grips with the magnitude of the city’s fiscal crisis.

    Without a massive infusion of cash or selling the city’s few assets, Detroit’s retirees faced a devastating loss of pension and health care benefits. Already the city’s emergency manager had engaged the auction firm Christie’s to appraise the most saleable masterpieces in the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). None of the museum’s city-owned treasures – not even the Van Goghs and Renoirs – were off the table.

    Judge Rosen saw a global settlement of stakeholders’ claims as the only alternative to a protracted courtroom battle that would further deplete the city’s resources. But devising a settlement that would also protect the city’s art and its workers’ pensions looked unlikely, unless Rosen and his team of mediators could locate additional funding.

    On a crisp afternoon in October 2013, Rosen ran into Mariam Noland, the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan’s president, at the nearby Gateway Deli where they were both grabbing a quick lunch. “If I can help in any way,” she said, “please let me know.”

    As a matter of fact, there was something she could do, he said, in a follow-up phone call. When Mariam arrived at his chambers in Detroit’s ornate federal courthouse, he outlined his plan.

    Later, back in our office across the street, Mariam related what Rosen needed: $500 million from foundations. “I’ve got to get a few people on the phone,” she said.

  202. 202.

    Tom Levenson

    @raven: I know. Just a complete Halsey CF. I was a real Leyte Gulf buff as a kid (even had the one book I saw that used Japanese records to reconstruct that side of the battle — I think the title was The Japanese at Leyte Gulf, which would make sense. My friend’s dad was career navy (retired as a captain) and carrier pilot. I don’t remember which Taffy group he was in — but he was part of that amazingly brave and lucky group that kept the Japanese battleships off of my dad and FIL. Probably the craziest of the whole lot were the DDs and DEs that made the torpedo runs on the Japanese battle group. A desperate day.

  205. 205.

    Trollhattan

    Mark me down on the “surprised” column.

    A former reserve deputy in Oklahoma who said he mistook his gun for his Taser when he shot and killed a suspect has been convicted of second-degree manslaughter. Robert Bates, 74, was a volunteer with the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office when he killed Eric Harris during a sting operation in April 2015.

    Tulsa World describes the incident, which began with Harris allegedly selling a gun to an undercover deputy, this way:

    “As multiple deputies struggled to restrain Harris on the ground after a short pursuit, Bates approached holding a nonlethal weapon in one hand and a lethal one in the other, [Assistant District Attorney John David] Luton reminded jurors.

    “Seeing a small area of Harris’ body where he wasn’t covered by deputies, Bates announced that he was going to use his Taser and shot a bullet that struck Harris inches from another deputy’s head, witnesses testified.”

    The jury recommended the maximum sentence of four years in prison; sentencing is scheduled for May 31. NPR’s Martin Kaste has reported that some people in law enforcement think the tradition of volunteer policing should end. “Law enforcement is one of the few professions that allows people to play at the profession,” Police Chief Ray Johnson of Chesterfield, Mo., told Martin.

  206. 206.

    Sasha

    Wow. Just wow:

    Bob Sutton, chairman of the Broward County GOP Executive Committee in Florida, voiced confidence that Clinton would be easy to defeat in a debate — with a comment not likely to endear him to some female voters.

    “I think when Donald Trump debates Hillary Clinton she’s going to go down like Monica Lewinsky,” he said.

  207. 207.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Tom Levenson: Just FTR I may well owe my existence to those Taffy groups: Dad was a diesel mechanic in a motor pool onshore at the time & I didn’t come along until well after his safe return home. (The same might be said, at a bit further remove, of the atom bombs–his unit was on Okinawa & probably would have been tapped for Olympic.)

  208. 208.

    Gelfling545

    @Betty Cracker: I’d say trying to bake a Baguette from her Volume 2 was as difficult as anything I’ve ever tried and I have been baking bread since childhood. Auto correct had me baking a “barge tote” which would no doubt be difficult as well. I had that thing turned off but it’s back.

  209. 209.

    raven

    @Tom Levenson: And the fact that Evans of the Johnston was Native American and had gone to the Naval Academy! He commanded a four piper at Singapore and, when steaming to meet the Japanese, broke down and missed the action. He told the Johnston crew if he ever got the chance again. . . . Of course there is some criticism that he just attacked the enemy without telling anyone, just charge!!!

  210. 210.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Sasha: Wow indeed.

    I’m still thinking about Trump’s claim that Clinton’s identification as a woman is all she has going for her. I think he’s trying out various attacks, and this one is not going to stick. The thing with “low energy Jeb” or “lying Ted” is that there’s enough truth there to reverberate. Clinton having no qualifications is so patently ridiculous that it won’t work with many people.

  211. 211.

    MomSense

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Well you will love Clinton’s discussion of Der Trump on Fallon. Epic shade. She’s handling him just the way I hoped–with humor and “the look” that she gave Gowdy and the other dolts from that 11 hour Benghazi hearing.

    You will love it.

  213. 213.

    D58826

    @raven: Earned the Medal Of Honor posthumously.

    commanded by Vice Admiral John S. McCain

    Seem to remember that his grandson ran for president or something.

  214. 214.

    singfoom

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    I’m still thinking about Trump’s claim that Clinton’s identification as a woman is all she has going for her. I think he’s trying out various attacks, and this one is not going to stick. The thing with “low energy Jeb” or “lying Ted” is that there’s enough truth there to reverberate. Clinton having no qualifications is so patently ridiculous that it won’t work with many people.

    The people that attack will work for don’t need that attack, they already believe it. Regardless of her qualifications or service as a Senator or Secretary of State. To me, what remains to be seen is if there are more voters that want a qualified leader over a macho man. I’m hoping (and betting due to demographics and his high negatives) that the former is true.

    It’ll be interesting to see how HRC handles Trump in a debate if he pulls that shit. I wonder what would work. I think she should play it cool and respond with “I’m sorry, the real world is run by adults, is that really how you’d talk to a foreign leader?” and so on….

    Not sure what the proper tactic is

  215. 215.

    Brachiator

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    I’m still thinking about Trump’s claim that Clinton’s identification as a woman is all she has going for her. I think he’s trying out various attacks, and this one is not going to stick.

    So far, Trump is being Trump. He’s not backing down on this.

    I also note that when he was in Indiana he said this: ‘All the tough guys endorse me.’

    I’m sure he’s got more coming, but this early feint reveals who he is, how he thinks about himself, and perhaps how he thinks about women to some degree.

    OT alert. Trump is coming to Southern California tonight

    Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is bringing his campaign to California and has picked the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa for a kickoff rally Thursday night.

    The 7 p.m. event comes as Trump gears up for California’s June 7 primary, which could determine whether he reaches the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the GOP nomination in advance of the Republican National Convention in July.

    Both backers and foes of the polarizing billionaire are expected at the 8,200-seat Pacific Amphitheatre, where the rally will take place.

  216. 216.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    Somewhere I have pics of us taking green water over the bridge on one Atlantic crossing. It took 4 extra days and we ended up around Maine rather than South Carolina. Didn’t get any pics of us towing a DE once. Without power that thing just bounced, rolled and bobbed around like a cork. Most unpleasant ride I’ve ever seen and the seas were only 15-20 feet.

  221. 221.

    grumpy realist

    @NotMax: Oooh, I’ll have to remember that one.

    My contribution to shellfish cookery is steaming mussels over white wine and with chopped garlic. Yum!

    (Most of my cookery either is quick and dirty or what I call “antagonism cookery”: Throw everything into a pot with a handful of spices and let it fight itself out on the back of the stove. About the only disaster I ever had with this method was trying beef + tomatoes + sauerkraut. DO NOT DO.)

  222. 222.

    Mel

    @cleek:
    That is an incredibly daring cake! I think that attempting that recipe would reduce me to curling into a ball and rocking silently in the nearest corner!

    TWENTY tortes and alternating, very specific shades of tort-ey golden taupe? Just, wow!

  223. 223.

    D58826

    And in the GOP universe Paul Ryan has talked about the bold new healthcare plan that the GOP is working on:

    After six years of the GOP failing to come up with a comprehensive alternative to the Affordable Care Act, what Ryan outlined during an appearance at Georgetown University on Wednesday was essentially another stab at a decades-old idea that’s never really worked — an idea that would involve allowing health insurance companies to resume charging sick people higher rates than healthy people.
    The cornerstone of Ryan’s approach is so-called high-risk pools, a form of health insurance designed for people with the most serious health conditions and highest costs, who were mostly locked out of the regular private market before the Affordable Care Act required insurers to accept all applicants.

    But this has to be one of the morre bizarre statements made by Ryan or anyother politican:

    We can and should and must fix that,” Ryan said in response to a question from a student who said his family had benefited from Obamacare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

    If the student’s family is covered exactly what is there to fix.

    I’m a democrat so I guess that is why I don’t understand.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-obamacare-replacement_us_57222c59e4b01a5ebde4b236

  224. 224.

    raven

    @Ruckus: Wow, closest I got was to the Brown Water Navy in the Delta! That and an LCM that took us out to Hon Tre island.

  225. 225.

    Ruckus

    @D58826:
    On that crossing that I noted, only about 4 or 5 of the 300 on board the DDG didn’t get sick. I was one of the lucky ones. Have to say that the chow line was never crowded for most of that trip. Of course the cooks were getting sick so……..

    ETA Forgot to add that the seas on that crossing were in the 40-50 mim foot range with winds of up to 70-80 knots.

  227. 227.

    redshirt

    @Ruckus: I went to a wedding on an island but the first day was cancelled due to hurricane. On the second day the captain suggested to cancel but the bride overruled. And so we all went on the ferry and the downstairs held a hundred people with about 50 people topside. The waves were epic, crashing over the bow. Everyone topside got soaked and it was quite scary, but when we finally got to the island we learned there was a mass vomiting down below – a few people started which led to eventually almost everyone vomiting. Glad I didn’t have to see it.

    What an auspicious start to a marriage!

  228. 228.

    Ruckus

    @D58826:

    If the student’s family is covered exactly what is there to fix.

    You have to look at this from their angle. Someone is getting health care. That someone is not a bigoted asshole who votes republican therefore that has to be changed. That there would be some of their own who lose is no matter. The gross injustice of someone benefiting from a government program can not stand.
    I think that about covers it. I have to now go wash off the stench of thinking and typing that. Anyone have any paint stripper?

  229. 229.

    MomSense

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    No I think it was a while ago but it’s making the rounds again. She deals with him so well. I honestly think she is the only person who could handle the Republican bluster this time. You can’t be married to the big dog all these years and not know a few tricks.

  230. 230.

    Ruckus

    @redshirt:
    At least they have a great story to tell. How many people get married and just have a regular old wedding to show pictures of?

  231. 231.

    Ruckus

    @Ruckus:
    I like Tom’s posts. They are fun! And notice how I managed to stick in a food related note in this comment? Sort of on topic and all that.

  233. 233.

    D58826

    @Ruckus: I figured that it was because I don’t think like a republican (FSM be praised and another drollop of marina sauce in his collection plate).

  234. 234.

    redshirt

    @Ruckus: I was the photographer, so I hope they still like the photos! True point though.

    What a beautiful wedding it turned out to be too – on Monhegan Island about 10 miles off the coast of Maine. It was like going back to the 1800’s. No cars, no streets, no streetlights.

  235. 235.

    Tom Levenson

    @Sasha: Yup. Special, huh? The only explanation I can think of is that they’re going for the Guinness Book of Records under the category “Biggest Gender Gap.”

  238. 238.

    D58826

    @raven: Another bit of trvia. Several of the battleships that took part in the early morning battle in the Surigao Strait were salvaged survivors of Pearl Harbor.

  240. 240.

    max

    @Betty Cracker: But Julia shouldn’t have bristled so: The recipes in “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” are difficult. Worth it, for the most part? Oui (if one ignores the aspics). But not easy. I think the most insane recipes I’ve ever attempted all came from that book.

    I did most of them before I’d ever heard of Julie or her blog. The recipe Tom posted is a doddle, if you keep in mind that poached hen sucks. No, you should get two hens, reduce one to stock and cook the other (cut up) hen in that stock.

    max
    [‘Now that’s properly decadent tasty.’]

    p.s. I think Julia’s rum and butter cream cake is pretty finicky, but very very tasty.

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