I’ve had a busy day that included eating at a “butter bar restaurant”. Bella La Crema had amazing food and the cutest decor. I’m sure no calories were involved. I’m actually attending a baking class there next week. There will be copious amounts of butter involved, I’ve been promised.
I’m not really sure if it was a crazy news day, but we could probably still use a nice, quiet thread to talk about the good things in life.
Besides, I have pet pictures and I’m going to use them.
Here is Watson, beloved companion to commenter Marigold:
This is Watson. He wants to be a good boy. Champion cuddle-bug and lover of all things ball, he is also the first dog I’ve ever had who could open my kitchen cabinets and dishwasher. But I think we’re coming to an understanding after a year.
Who could resist that face?
Non-politics open thread.
Mary G
Real butter is esssential for good baking. Watson is a cutie-pie.
TomatoQueen
Hello Watson, you are a handsome, clever lad. Your friend Luca has had two whole good days and is sleeping now. If you met him, he’d meow at you.
Keith P.
So, on the subject of Watson, I saw “Holmes and Watson” the other day and didn’t hate it. The anachronistic jokes got kind of old, but the casual use of hard drugs didn’t, and the plot was more intricate than I expected.
TaMara (HFG)
@Keith P.: This reminds me of two questions I had for people. Anyone watch What We Do In The Shadows on FX last night? And has anyone seen the CBS All Access Twilight Zone reboot?
Steeplejack
@Mary G:
Real butter is essential for everything. I don’t think I have bought margarine in decades.
WaterGirl
It was a very bad day when my cocker spaniel learned how to open the refrigerator.
After while, unless someone was at my house for the first time, after while I barely noticed the duct tape that held the fridge closed from that day forward.
Steeplejack
@TaMara (HFG):
The movie was good—so a good starting premise—and the promos looked good, but I completely forgot about it last night. D’oh!
The first episode will be on again at 1:33 a.m. EDT Sunday and (better) at 10:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, right before a rerun of Episode 2.
ETA: Referring to What We Do in the Shadows.
piratedan
spiky balls are awesome, our lab loves to leap into the pool and fetch them…. it’s “his thing”, he can’t hardly wait for it to get warmer.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: It’s real butter or olive oil at my house. Though I do feel like I need another oil for cooking at high temperature. Maybe peanut would be good?
I cannot eat canola oil or soybean oil. Tummy. Does. Not. Like.
WaterGirl
Who could resist that face? It’s the tongue that I can’t resist. So sweet!
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Grapeseed oil? Has a high smoke point and blends well.
Peanut oil might add too much “taste,” so maybe for Asian dishes?
Keith P.
@TaMara (HFG): I’m tempted to watch it, but my watch schedule is so loaded for the next few months it isn’t even funny. Just off the top of my head, there’s Happy!, Cobra Kai, Game of Thrones, American Gods, Barry, The Tick(!), and the OA.
TaMara (HFG)
@WaterGirl: EVOO or Butter here, too. I like peanut oil for high heat. And while I like coconut oil, the flavor doesn’t go with everything, but can’t beat it for high heat.
Mike in NC
@TaMara (HFG): “Shadows” was fun, much like the movie it was based on, but being about vampires too much of it takes place at night and/or in the dark. We’ll give it another try.
Yutsano
PUPPEH!!!
@Mary G: @Steeplejack: Once my mom learned how margarine was made way back in the late 80s, she shelled out for butter ever since. I think other than cheap restaurants I haven’t had it in forever. Heck I even pay for it especially when it’s on sale. Butter freezes beautifully.
ghost cat
I’ve always been a lurker here because I usually can’t read the comments in real time. I come here to learn and laugh and not go totally crazy because life. And you all are way smarter and wittier than I am. But there are few other places that are just as comforting as BJ, and maybe some of you would like to know about one of them. As long as there are people in the world like those who run TinyKittens, there may be hope for humans yet. I can watch their cams for a bit and have a few moments of peace away from our current nightmare.
Just two of their tiny miracles:
Grandpa Mason
This video was made a year and half ago ago, long after Mason was expected to die, and after yet another year and a half, he’s still teaching kittens how to cat.
Aura, a kitten born with a giant cleft palate, which was later repaired with a bone plate from a dog. The dog’s family donated it to a bone bank in Washington after their much loved pet died.
If we succeed in making the planet unlivable for humans, I’m sure the feral cats wouldn’t mind taking over. And insects. There will always be insects and other invertebrates.
Mike in NC
@Keith P.: Season 2 of “American Gods” got terrible reviews and after the first episode we bailed. We also bailed tonight on “Abby’s Place” which has too much lame laugh track garbage despite supposedly being filmed before a live outdoor audience.
Mike in NC
@Yutsano:We grew up on margarine in my family until my older brother joined the Navy around 1970 and insisted on butter at every meal when he got out.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Hi Watson, you’re such a cute boy! Good luck with your baking class TaMara
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: CloveGarden has a good page on cooking oils and fats (as well as just about any conceivable information on foods and cooking).
“Extra light” olive oils have higher smoke points. That’s what I use when I make popcorn. But there are many, many choices.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
chopper
@WaterGirl:
avocado oil is basically the best for high heat.
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
We ran out of navy butter on a North Atlantic NATO cruse once. Next port, Copenhagen. Thankfully there is no American military base within any reasonable distance so we had to get supplies from the local suppliers. I think guys were eating the Danish butter all by itself. It went real well on the bread many of us brought in the local bakeries. Real Food – Heaven.
Mike in NC
@Ruckus: True story: we ran out of coffee on our destroyer pretty early on during a deployment to the Persian Gulf in 1984. On a Navy ship!!! Then we ran out of toilet paper and had to buy some purfumed flowery stuff in Bahrain later on. Everyone laughed, but the idiot Supply Officer never was never troubled by it. Retired as a captain against all odds.
eemom
May I humbly recommend EVOO produced in Greece? My countryfolk know their olives, and they desperately need the money.
Mary G
@Ruckus: My college roommate and I spent a week in Copenhagen when we only meant to stay two days. The little store that sold six different butters and four different hams in any amount you wanted plus the breads and pastries from the bakery were to die for. It was heaven. You lucked out.
ThresherK
@ghost cat: TInyKittens is one of the better collection of animal lovers out there. I’m glad they’re 3000 miles away or else I’d be tempted to adopt (more) cats from them, and our cats-in-residence both consider our home to be full right now.
Sebastian
Good evening gang.
That is a great doggie. Who is a good boy?
Ruckus
@Mary G:
Yes, yes we did. Every port in Europe that I went to had amazing food. In Athens we, OK I ate gray meat on a stick from a little shop, was about a quarter a stick. It was great. I also had some amazing pastries from a sidewalk cafe outside a hotel that over looked a several hundred year old ruin. Amazing place. We did 2 NATO cruses and it was grand. Much better than any story I’ve heard about Vietnam. Four years of the navy was better than being shot at, in a war that never should have happened.
Of course, Fuck LBJ.
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
I’m one of the few I knew in the navy that didn’t drink coffee so it really wouldn’t have been a problem for me.
However.
We did run low on food and cook moral on one occasion when we were at sea in the Atlantic for 6 weeks straight. Dinner was supposed to be grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. I was about 10th in line and got one grilled cheese sandwich. There were a few discussions going on around me about breaking in the small arms locker and taking over the ship – mutiny in other words. Serious discussions. One lifer took his tray up to the wardroom and dropped it in front of the captain and said “This is my fucking dinner, this is all of my fucking dinner, what the fuck are you going to do about it?” (Had a steward friend who relayed this and heard it from one of the officers later) XO came to the mess and the chow line was closed and much yelling and swearing went on while we sat there. XO stormed off and the captain announced that the chow line would stay open until everyone had all the grilled cheese sandwiches they wanted, and that the food situation would change. It did. All of this was about 4 months after the chief retired with his 30 and there was no replacement. Fun times.
Procopius
@Ruckus: Minor quibble. I spent my time in Vietnam, in a rear area (Pleiku), but if you want to blame anyone for the war, blame first the Dulles Brothers, Alan and John Foster, and then the blockhead Dean Rusk. I guess you could go back even further to Dean [family blogging] Achesen and the Flying Monkeys at the French and Southeast Asian desks in the State Department in Truman’s first administration.
ghost cat
@ThresherK: That’s great–lucky for your two (spoiled?) cats! Adopting out their kittens is an important but small part of what they do. My impression is that educating people that feral and homeless cats are living invisibly everywhere, right under their noses, is a major goal, which will hopefully inspire people to act locally. Showing what cat rescue is really like and revealing their methods and philosophy are also their bigger missions. They have inspired a lot of people to contribute in some way to help reduce overpopulation in their area, whether that’s donations of some sort, helping with TNR, or even taking in a pregnant stray. Many people in the cam chats and FB have said that TK gave them the confidence and the know-how to help homeless cats where they live, so their messages are getting through to their audience. But yeah, those kittens sure are cute!
Marigold
This just made my Friday!! Watson is not a morning dog, so he is less impressed. After all the enjoyment I’ve had reading about the community’s pets, I’m glad to give back a little.
@WaterGirl: I seriously worry about that possibility, or even if he figured out how to get ice cubes from the front dispenser. We had a whole routine this winter of booby-trapping the house before we left for work, and it didn’t even register unless we went out to dinner with friends and they saw the sticky tape, mousetraps, and the DoggoShield 9001.
@piratedan: A lab and a pool sounds like heaven! We’ve had good luck with batting cage balls for outside (much more durable than tennis balls), but I don’t know if they float.
TaMara (HFG)
@Marigold: Yeah! He is a complete cutie!!
Bixby and Scout both love ice cubes – but luckily our dispenser locks so I don’t come home to cubes/water everywhere. If they ever learn how to open the refrigerator, well, that would be a bad day.
These hold up pretty well and are easy to throw:
https://www.petsmart.com/dog/toys/balls/jw-pet-hol-ee-roller-dog-toy-color-varies-10354.html
TerryC
I have a couple of great Cattle Dogs on my farm/disc golf course but Labs: Never! My neighbors with Labs are always having them run off. They don’t stay in place.
WaterGirl
Thanks, everyone, for all the tips on oils. Scott, love the photo the pig next to “Lard”, that was funny.
karen marie
@Mike in NC: Thank you! I loved the book American Gods, was supremely disappointed in the TV show. Casting Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon was completely wrong. I love me some Ian McShane but not even he could save it from the terrible casting choice.
I am hopeful about Good Omens but prepared to be disappointed given the botched casting of such an important role in American Gods.
Watson is adorable. I am jealous of anyone who has a ball dog. I used to but my current is decidely “meh” on balls. I tried training her to retrieve when she was little but she just doesn’t have the ball gene.
catclub
Is the understanding that Watson gets to open the cabinets and someone else closes them?
Miss Bianca
Watsons are good boys!
Marigold
@TaMara (HFG): Ooh, I will check it out! Thanks!
@catclub: Ha ha, basically. He used to explore all the cabinets, I think because he was bored, but now he only opens the one that has the cast iron skillet. (We have a plexiglas panel keeping him out of the garbage cabinet.)
@Miss Bianca: You’re the one who also has a Watson, right? My husband and I debated what to call him for days, and as soon as we had it settled, I saw your post. Must have been something in the collective unconscious. I’d love to see what he looks like now!
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
“Though I do feel like I need another oil for cooking at high temperature. Maybe peanut would be good?”
High temp oils I would prefer to peanut, which a few people are violently allergic to, would be Hollywood Safflower oil, Avocado Oil (pricy but good) or even corn oil. I fry Oysters and Scallops in Safflower Oil. Lard would work, also good for pie crusts. I do fry tortillas in bacon fat, and beans.
No margarine, ever for 40 years now.