Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

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

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Let there be snark.

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

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

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

We still have time to mess this up!

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

The revolution will be supervised.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread

Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread

by | 77 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Here’s one of my boxers basking on a sunlit sofa:

She’s gone so grey! (Probably says the same about me behind my back.)

Anyone got any interesting ideas about cooking yellow squash on the grill? Someone gave me a bunch of it, and I’m tired of cooking it in the way of my people, which is sautéing it to death with pig fat and butter.

Thoughts about how to cook it directly on the grill or in foil packets would be most welcome — please and thank you.

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  2. 2.

    dollared

    Slice rounds 3/4 inch thick. Cover in Olive oil, salt, crushed garlic, place directly on very hot grill for 2-3 minutes/side. Romesco sauce or hummus or aioli…..

  3. 3.

    geg6

    I like to make foil packets with it and throw in some cherry tomatoes, red peppers, mushrooms, green onions and chopped garlic. Drizzle some EVOO and balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Cook on indirect heat on the grill for about 15 minutes or so.

    Yum.

  4. 4.

    narya

    If by “yellow squash” you mean what looks roughly like zucchini, slice it relatively thinly. Butter some foil, then layer the slices in overlapping fashion on the foil. Add S&P, maybe some herbs (thyme works well, as does dill), then more buttered foil on top, and seal the packet by folding the edges together. Throw it on the grill.

  5. 5.

    schrodingers_cat

    Grill it. Slice it in half length wise, marinade with oil, lemon juice, garlic and oregano. I would also grill red onion and tomatoes. Then toss everything together with a dash of lime. Excellent accompaniment with tandoori chicken.

    Your doggie looks so thoughtful. She would make a better administrator than any one recently nominated for a cabinet post.

  7. 7.

    Mom Says I'm Handsome

    Grilling: Slice lengthwise into planks about 1/8″ thick. Brush with olive oil, dust with salt & pepper, and grill on a very hot grill until you get grill lines on both sides. Serve with balsamic or lemon juice.

    Squash and zucchini contain a lot of water, so you want to get it on and off the grill quickly before it steams itself to death.

    Bony appetite!

  9. 9.

    Lapassionara

    I do a dish with yellow squash for thanksgiving. I slice the squash thinly, also slice onions and tomatoes thinly. Then layer them in a casserole dish with fresh basil. I use more squash and less onion and tomato. Drizzle evoo over top, add grated Parmesan or similar cheese, and bake until the ingredients are hot and squash starts to get limp. Very tasty and healthy, unlike the over cooked squash dishes we always had at thanksgiving.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    Controversy of the day:

    Garfield’s a boy … right? How a cartoon cat’s gender identity launched a Wikipedia war

    Wikipedia had to put Garfield’s page on lockdown last week after a 60-hour editing war in which the character’s listed gender vacillated back and forth indeterminately like a cartoon version of Schrödinger’s cat: male one minute; not the next.

    “He may have been a boy in 1981, but he’s not now,” one editor argued.
    […]
    Garfield’s gender swapped 20 times over 2½ days (during which his religion was briefly listed as Shiite Muslim for some reason) before an administrator was forced to step in.

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    Man Trying To Leave Hateful Message At Local Synagogue Frustrated Phone Line Always Tied Up With Other Threats

    Still love The Onion

  15. 15.

    Patricia Kayden

    @dmsilev: lol at Shiite Muslim. Thanks for the laugh.

    P.S. Always assumed Garfield was a boy. Didn’t know this was up for debate.

  18. 18.

    JustRuss

    Good news everyone! Our prodigal Maine Coon has returned, after spending a few days trapped in a neighbor’s garage.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    @Patricia Kayden: Well, the article goes into the backstory, so to speak. Basically, cartoonist says something a bit weird (“By virtue of being a cat, really, he’s not really male or female or any particular race or nationality, young or old.”), satirist/troll takes statement literally and adds it to Wikipedia article, and away we go.

  23. 23.

    Yarrow

    You can slick the yellow squash any way you want. Rounds might fall through the grate more easily. I’ve sliced them lengthwise. Use olive oil and whatever seasonings you like. You can do a lime marinade with some kind of spice for a kick. Or just salt and pepper.

    Packets are easier to manage. Don’t have to worry about them falling through the grate but you don’t get the grill marks.

  26. 26.

    Betty Cracker

    Thanks for the recipe suggestions everyone — knew y’all would come through!

    @JustRuss: Woohoo! That’s wonderful news! Poor fellow, trapped in a garage…

  28. 28.

    Timurid

    Yellow squash and zucchini are basically tofu that grows on a vine. Nutritious but flavorless, a filler that takes on the taste of the other foods it’s cooked with. There’s a reason most stand-alone squash recipes call for nuking the things from orbit with massive amounts of butter, lard, spices, etc.

  32. 32.

    patroclus

    I’m glad that Oprah threw her hat into the ring today! I think she’d be a WAY better President than the one we currently have. She doesn’t have much governing experience but since when is that a qualification?

  36. 36.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @JustRuss: Great news!

    Thanks for the lovely boxer in a sunbeam photo, Betty. We miss our baby dog (who was 10 and had gotten gray, but as the youngest was always the “baby dog”) so much. I haven’t been dogless in over 20 years. So I’m loving seeing pictures, even when it’s very dusty. And your bird and bunny shots are terrific. Feral piglets are totally cute, also too, no matter how scary the adults get.

  37. 37.

    trollhattan

    Welcome to America, now what’s your jumpsuit size?

    Sardar Ahmad, a Canadian doctor from Afghanistan, was stopped at the U.S. border and was held for five hours for questioning before ultimately being denied entry into the country, the Sarnia Observer reported.

    Ahmad was born in Afghanistan but left more than a decade ago when he received a Fulbright scholarship and moved to the United States. In 2007, he moved to Canada and later became a citizen there. Ahmad made a trip to Michigan on Friday after realizing his Nexus card had been revoked. The Nexus program offers expedited border crossing between Canada and the U.S. for pre-approved individuals.

    When he arrived at the border crossing at Blue Water Bridge, where he explained the situation to border officials, Ahmad’s keys were taken away and he was held and questioned for over five hours about his life prior to leaving Afghanistan.

    He said he was asked about his “tribe” and the name of his “tribe chief” and whether he had seen “a lot of gunmen” growing up in Afghanistan.When Ahmad asked border officials to make a call to his clinic to cancel his patients he was told he could not touch the phone.

  40. 40.

    The Moar You Know

    Had it sliced lengthwise and grilled, with a touch of the ol’ pig fat brushed on top, at a now-closed Italian place in SF (goddamn techies ruined that city). Heavenly.

  41. 41.

    Elizabelle

    @patroclus: Oprah actually built her own empire and is a major actual jobs creator. Plus literacy advocate. I am good with her.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    T-minus 11 days and counting to my Disneyworld trip. Now is when I start making my lists of the things I need to do before I go, both at home and at work.

  44. 44.

    The Moar You Know

    Good news everyone! Our prodigal Maine Coon has returned, after spending a few days trapped in a neighbor’s garage.

    @JustRuss: That is excellent news! Here in SoCal, a missing kitty almost always means that your pet has become coyote chow. So I always tend to assume the worst when a feline goes missing. Glad yours is back and safe.

  46. 46.

    The Moar You Know

    I’m glad that Oprah threw her hat into the ring today! I think she’d be a WAY better President than the one we currently have. She doesn’t have much governing experience but since when is that a qualification?

    @patroclus: not since 2016.

  47. 47.

    jl

    Every time I see a pic of a Cracker dog, I see a noble heroic dog who is always dong good deeds, saving the world. True Lassies of the boxer world.

    Yet Cracker talks about them as if they were slothful layabouts who only wake up from endless naps to cause pointless trouble.

    Who am I going to believe, Cracker’s tall tales or my own lying eyes. Why does Cracker slander her own dogs? Why? Oh.. the dogmanity!

    Edit: will OK, Cracker doesn’t do malign her dogs in this particular post. Something about cooking squash or whatever. But I don’t forget.

  48. 48.

    p.a.

    Grill it in your preferred style. In a grillsafe saucepan/pot/container toast some curry powder (add cayenne to preferred heat level) in olive oil, add liquid of your choice. Curry acts as thickener- at least with my preferred liquid: skim milk. Works w any combo of grilled veggies; not really my fave with bell peps though.
    Don’t use an heirloom pot unless you want it yellow.

  49. 49.

    germy

    Oprah Winfrey appeared to suggest to Rubenstein that she was rethinking whether she could be elected president, after billionaire real-estate developer and TV personality Donald Trump won the White House with no prior government experience.

    “I never considered the question, even a possibility,” said Winfrey, 63. “I thought, ‘Oh gee, I don’t have the experience, I don’t know enough.'”

    “Now,” she said, “I’m thinking, ‘Oh.'”

    She and the audience laughed. Growing more serious, she added, “No, that won’t be happening.”

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Two reasons: I’m in charge of someone else’s kids without another adult to help me, and I’m still traumatized that I walked around Chicago all day last summer wearing two different sandals and didn’t notice until the end of the day that I had packed them that way.

    Plus the way Disneyworld is set up, it greatly enhances one’s OCD tendencies. If I wanted to, I could pre-plan online every minute and every meal of our days there, but I am trying REALLY hard not to. So that energy is going into other aspects of packing/planning.

  53. 53.

    zhena gogolia

    @JustRuss:

    Oh, I’m so glad! That happened once to one of my cats, and the garage had a kind of side room with a big window in it, we could see him silent meowing at us from behind the glass and had to wait for the neighbors to get home.

  54. 54.

    Aleta

    If you’re in the mood to fool around a little, try leaving it whole. Put a skewer or wooden chopstick through it lengthwise. Or, don’t, just lightly oil on the outside and put on grill.

    Either way, make a few cuts or a few holes in the sides. As it grills, the water inside will heat up, and escape through the holes as steam that cooks the inside.

    You’d need to play with the time on the grill, depending on the size. And just see what results taste good. If they are big, maybe the skin will get charred, so then just flake it off.

    They will end up being shrunken and dry on the inside. Cut in slices and dip in a dipping sauce and eat hot. The dryness will soak up the sauce as you dip it in. If they end up soft inside instead of dry, that tastes good too.

    For flavor, you can also moisten and salt the outsides before you grill.

    Or if you want to remove a lot of moisture and they are small, before grilling, cut off the ends of the whole squash and cover them in a bowl of salt for an hour. The longer they sit, the more moisture will draw out. Then press out the water, scrub them off hard under running water, and grill.

  56. 56.

    germy

    GOP lawmaker: ‘Poorly dressed’ Democratic women wore ‘bad-looking white pantsuits’

    A Republican congressman who is potentially eyeing a Senate run mocked Democratic women on Wednesday for wearing white at President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress.

    Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said the “poorly dressed” Democratic women wore “bad-looking white pantsuits” in solidarity with failed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

    http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/kevin-cramer-democratic-women-white-pantsuits-235578

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    If you think I’m bad here, spare a thought for poor G! ? He’s looking forward to having a vacation from my vacation.

    We’ve already been joking about the scripts he’s going to set up to auto-reply to all of my texts from WDW so he can have a little break.

  60. 60.

    Patricia Kayden

    @JustRuss: That’s sweet although I assume Maine Coon is awfully smelly right about now. Your cat bath story won’t be anywhere as dramatic as Cole’s though.

  61. 61.

    Patricia Kayden

    @germy: And did you see what he was wearing while criticizing Democratic women’s outfits? Not a lick of self awareness.

  62. 62.

    Patricia Kayden

    @trollhattan: Good to know that a de facto Muslim ban is still in full effect even though it was ruled against by the 9th Circuit. Looks like ICE/CBP agents were chomping at the bit to discriminate and Trump has allowed them to let their freak flags fly. Nice.

  67. 67.

    JustRuss

    @The Moar You Know:

    Here in SoCal, a missing kitty almost always means that your pet has become coyote chow. So I always tend to assume the worst when a feline goes missing. Glad yours is back and safe.

    Up here we get deer wandering around the neighborhood but never seen a coyote. Not sure one could catch him, I’ve never seen a cat that can move so fast. I call him the Fluffy Torpedo.

  68. 68.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Patricia Kayden: also, if we’re doing fashion critiques–which I usually avoid because it’s mostly gendered and I could make a $5000 suit look like it came from Trump’s closet, but– was Ivanka going clubbing after?

    I’ve seen people say Melania also looked like she was heading for Studio 54 but, perhaps tellingly, I’ve seen lots of pictures of Ivnaka from last night none of Melania.

  69. 69.

    mitzimuffin

    zucchini soup:
    qt. chicken or veg. soup stock
    lots of zucchini (5 very large ones would be minimum)
    2 T curry powder
    2 T ginger powder
    t powdered mustard
    7 T uncooked rice

    cook, cool, blend, add milk or cream. serve cold. easy peasy.

  70. 70.

    Pogonip

    @geg6: Yum. I have it, however, from a person of Italian descent that virgin olive oil is actually best. EV is 2nd best. Mangia!

  72. 72.

    Davebo

    Long slices (length wise) fairly thin (little over 1/4″ thick) with a little olive oil, garlic salt, pepper and maybe some thyme.

    Lay it right on the grill at whatever temp your cooking your meat at and leave it till cooked.

    I love squash and zucchini on the grill this way.

  73. 73.

    laura

    Slice it long-waysie. Brush with a light oil, s&p, grill and drizzle with balsamic. Try and stop eating.

  75. 75.

    tybee

    slice longways
    hollow it out as best you can
    grapefruit spoon works great
    put the innards with diced onion in a dish and microwave until soft
    mix with cheese and/or breadcrumbs and/or spices or whatever
    stuff back into squash
    shake some parmesan on top or lay a slice of cheddar on top or both
    grill with the lid down until toasty brown on top

  77. 77.

    Pete Mack

    Summer squash? Grill it with other veggies. Slice it lengthwise in quarters (or 8ths for a large zucchini), and marinate. Very, very good. But it’s best in a pile of grilled veggies, like onion and tomato. Charcoal works much better for this.

Comments are closed.