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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Spring Open Thread

Spring Open Thread

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I was sworn to secrecy so I can not divulge who my dealer is, but tomorrow I will be feasting on an omelet made from farm fresh eggs, ramp pesto, and morels.

I had a long post mentally composed that I wanted to make about how we remember things, but now I am too tired to write it all, so we’ll have to wait until I am in stream of consciousness mode again.

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  3. 3.

    Mary G

    Happy thread:

    I'd like to tell a short story about America. It begins with me listing a necktie on Ebay. It was this tie. I used to wear it on the 4th of July, but I've been downsizing so I decided to sell it. pic.twitter.com/uvoWHAbmJE— ?? ???? ?. ??????? مارک (@BlogGuero) April 30, 2019

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Gasp. That picture. Think of the children!

    :)

    an omelet made from farm fresh eggs, ramp pesto, and morels
    Beats the heck out of an omelet made from farm fresh eggs, ramp pesto, and moray eels.

  6. 6.

    Nicole

    I was talking on the phone with a friend from grade school, and the subject of my incredible talent for mishearing song lyrics came up. She remembered me at a Girl Scout meeting insisting, INSISTING, that “Little Red Corvette,” was, in fact, “Pay Your Rent Collect.”

    I have no memory of this, but it totally sounds like me. Plus, it made me laugh.

    Pay your rent collect!
    Baby, it’s too damn high…

  12. 12.

    gene108

    I resigned from my job. I will be starting a new job on Monday. I’ve been with my current employer a little over 22 years, or pretty much half the years I have lived.

    It’s going to take some time to fully let go.

  14. 14.

    Dan B

    @JR: Our local brewpub put Impossible Burger on its menu. Then they couldn’t get any so I don’t know how Burger King will manage. One of the owners said it was just okay so we were happy with our BBQ and Cubano.

  17. 17.

    MagdaInBlack

    I haven’t had morels in years. My father and I used to hunt them every spring, in our timber on our farm along the Fox River, north of Ottawa, Illinois ?

  19. 19.

    TenguPhule

    @NotMax:

    Beats the heck out of an omelet made from farm fresh eggs, ramp pesto, and moray eels.

    I dunno, those eels can be pretty tasty.

  20. 20.

    TenguPhule

    @gene108:

    I resigned from my job. I will be starting a new job on Monday

    As long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters.

    Good luck.

  21. 21.

    gene108

    @JR:

    BK’s had veggie burgers on the menu for years. I’m vegetarian and if I have to go to fast food place, it’s the only place that has something for me, other than fries or a baked potato at Wendy’s.

    What I will never get is fake meat. It tastes like meat, has the texture of meat, but it’s not meat. I find that sort of fake meat repulsive. If I wanted the flavor and texture of meat, I’d order meat.

  25. 25.

    Nicole

    @JR: Egads, if Burger King does this, it may get me back in there for the first time in… holy cow, over a decade, I bet. I like Impossible Burgers.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    @gene108

    Wendy’s (here, at least) used to offer a modest-sized salad bar.

    Of course, as a vegetarian you can confidently order anything at Taco Bell.

    :)

  27. 27.

    TenguPhule

    @NotMax:

    Of course, as a vegetarian you can confidently order anything at Taco Bell.

    I’m not sure the beans there qualify as a vegetable.

    Or edible.

  28. 28.

    Amir Khalid

    @Dan B:
    I’m guessing they won’t want to stiff a high-profile and strategcally important customer like The King on supplies.

  29. 29.

    MagdaInBlack

    @TenguPhule:
    If you go looking for things that are hard to find, you’re hunting.
    Then you find them. As in “hunting for your car keys in the laundry.”

    ☺️?☺️

    ETA: see also “Stalking the Wild Asparagus”

  30. 30.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    Not so bad. The last month felt like I was in high school or middle school, when the school year’s about to end you’re totally checked out.

    @TenguPhule:

    I am quite happy with the move. I had sort of burned out on the old job. Did the same thing for too many years.

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Thank you. Looking forward to the new job

  31. 31.

    Ohio Mom

    @JR: Nope, White Castle got there first (BIL is a food writer and wrote an article on Impossible Burgers).

  32. 32.

    gene108

    @NotMax:

    I used to eat a lot of Taco Bell, when I was in undergrad. I went some days living off of their bean burritos. I think those fond old memories are the only reason, I can still tolerate the food.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    @Nicole

    One of the places here (forget which) included taro burgers on the menu board. Also used to be a woman who came around to businesses, hawking frozen taro burger patties from styrofoam coolers in the back of her pick-up.

  34. 34.

    Ninedragonspot

    Those look amazing. I covet them. I covet your ramp pesto. I covet your morels.

    Will this be a morel-majority omelet?

  35. 35.

    Nicole

    @TenguPhule:

    I’m not sure the beans there qualify as a vegetable.

    Or edible.

    Don’t tell my 8-year-old. It’s one of the few fast-food places he’ll eat at.

  36. 36.

    Nicole

    @NotMax: I would eat taro root burgers, too.

    I was strict vegetarian for six years, and while I eat meat now occasionally, I still prefer a meat substitute burger to the real thing. And I like vegan pastries, go figure that one.

  38. 38.

    zhena gogolia

    I had never heard of ramps until I was in grad school and was friends with a guy from WV. His father came to visit and was talking about putting on his over-the-knee boots to crawl through the woods and pick ramps. I thought it was an SNL sketch.

    I’ve still never eaten them. Fiddlehead ferns, yes; ramps, no. I’d like to try them but the opportunity hasn’t arisen.

  39. 39.

    eemom

    @gene108:

    I resigned from my job. I will be starting a new job on Monday.

    Same here.

    I’ve been with my current employer a little over 22 years, or pretty much half the years I have lived.

    12 and half years here, roughly 22% of my lived years.

    It’s going to take some time to fully let go.

    That is where we part company. My attitude

  40. 40.

    Uncle Omar

    @MagdaInBlack: That’s nice. In Michigan Morel-knowledge was super valuable…my father died without showing me where in the woods on our farm he found his. Oh, he gave me vague directions “just the other side of the downed oak just over the ridge…” but that was it. He at least told me how to keep from having to share them with the squeamish, “Just call them ‘dog peckers.'”

  43. 43.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @SiubhanDuinne: Moi aussi! I thought it was quite clever to spell your first name in a different style, then tried to imagine raven wearing the tie and figured: different guy.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Since it’s an open thread, I just need to vent a little bit.

    Last week, on my return drive from Boston back to Atlanta, I stopped for a couple of days in Hampton, VA to see my baby brother.

    I still love him, but Holy Fuck! Okay, I knew he was a devoted Trumpist — and I wasn’t even terribly surprised to learn that he is an evangelical, born-again, true-believer, waiting-for-the-rapture Jesus nut — but what gobsmacked me is that he has completely bought into Flat Earth Theory. Counter with science and he says it’s a huge global conspiracy. How does one even deal with that? I am incredibly sad and angry and frustrated about this, but I love my little bro and I’m incapable of just cutting ties with him. Can’t do it.

  45. 45.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Uncle Omar:
    Well ? never heard them called that!
    We never found them in the same place. One year found buckets full, next year nothing
    (Because we “found” them all? )

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    Never really read anything of the ramifications but like to imagine a lot of heads rolled over the ‘creepy King’ ad campaign.

    So old can remember the “The bigger the burger the better the burger; the burgers are bigger at Burger King!” jingle.

  48. 48.

    Dan B

    Nancy P reports the House had the first hearing on the ERA in 36 years!

    Women as equals? Wait til Beer Bart and Pubic Thomas hear about this!

  50. 50.

    joel hanes

    ramps pesto may be a very fine thing, but IMHO it’s a shame to obscure any slightest bit of the taste of morels with some other taste.

    fry in salted butter, the tiniest touch of black pepper …

    Around 1980, when the Iowa woods were full of elms that had died over the previous decade, we picked two grocery bags full in a wooded pasture, and we didn’t take half of them.

  52. 52.

    eemom

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Hampton, VA

    eedad grew up there. As far as southern towns go, it has some positive qualities, in particular that it’s a truly integrated place, due to the Norfolk naval base being the primary employer.

    Very sorry about your little bro, though.

  53. 53.

    Nicole

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’m sorry. I’ve had a few people near and dear to me really go down that right-wing rabbit hole and it’s hard. And he’s your brother; I totally get needing and wanting him in your life. But yeah, very emotionally hard to deal with.

  56. 56.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Nicole:

    I was strict vegetarian for six years

    My vegetarianism came to an abrupt halt* when I attended a professional banquet held at a Hilton in Melbourne, Florida, about 25-30 years ago. Most of the attendees got standing rib; I handed the server my “V” card, and after an interminable wait — some of my tablemates were already on dessert — she finally brought me my “vegetarian” meal: a white crockery plate with three items on it: mashed potatoes, rice, and egg noodles.

    I had a burger the next day. Because fuck that shit.

    * (I generally only have red meat about once a month these days. But I’m not rigid about food preferences.)

  58. 58.

    Gin & Tonic

    Apparently media darling Pete Buttigieg is OK with “personal belief” exemptions from vaccinations, according to BuzzFeed.

    Thanks, next…

  60. 60.

    Dan B

    @SiubhanDuinne: Sorry to hear about your brother. We’ve got family like that but different, not religious right but conspiracy and Islamophobic. We have Muslim, black, and multiple asian friends and neighbors so it’s tough to even get a hint of the racism and conspirscy. You’re not alone.

  61. 61.

    Humdog

    @SiubhanDuinne: Where I had to draw the line was I could not face the people in my life who have been hurt or badly threatened by the consequences of my family’s votes. While not trumpers, they are evangelicals who somehow found themselves reading their Bible as telling them to treat the vulnerable with cruelty. Poor people should not have government funded health care because they will worship government instead of god. How can I chat pleasantly with them about non political subjects when I know that my coworker Carla will die if the lawsuit undoing the ACA goes the wrong way? They voted for the AGs who brought this lawsuit, support the undoing of the ACA, the mistreatment of migrants, driving gays back out of society. They are family and we love each other, but I personally cannot deal pleasantly with them when they would literally hurt others I care for.
    Not that I feel great about it, but I can sleep at night and face my friends and coworkers.

    Sorry your have to deal with this.

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    What, no cooked to a mush peas and carrots? Must have been the only place at that time in the U.S. that didn’t serve those in bulk.

    ;)

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @eemom:
    @Nicole:

    It’s a nice area. I stayed with my former sister-in-law (baby bro’s ex). She’s an engineer, incredibly bright and accomplished, recently retired from a fairly senior position at NASA/Langley. (She actually used to have that bumper sticker on her car that said “As a matter of fact, I AM a rocket scientist!”) She’s still good friends with Rick, but is equally horrified as I am into his embrace of the cray-cray.

  66. 66.

    Aleta

    @SiubhanDuinne: I know that stunned feeling. Two sisters, both successful scientists, both climate change deniers for years. Raised by solid Dem. voting parents, both increasingly paranoid and illogical. It’s deeply painful. Sincere sympathy!

  68. 68.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    What, no cooked to a mush peas and carrots?

    Nope, not so much as a boiled Brussels sprout. Just three white starchy things on a white plate. So appetizing :-)

  71. 71.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @delk:

    Ooh, one of my most wonderful childhood memories is of Starved Rock! Would love to visit again the next time I’m in Illinois — likely next year for my 60th HS reunion.

  72. 72.

    JR

    @Another Scott: traveling north or south and seeing that the length of the day changes

    There are literally thousands of ways to know, which is why everyone really *did* know and the myth that Columbus had to prove the earth is round is just that, a myth

  73. 73.

    Wapiti

    @SiubhanDuinne: I think that in this crazy world, people want to have some fixed truths in their lives.

    But… I think there’s also a side effect when one decides to take something like the Bible as literal truth, rather than a history, or philosophy, or a metaphor (which was my mother’s dodge). Once one decides to accept as total truth some things that can’t be explained, or are outright contradictory, then it’s a slippery slope. There’s a whole universe of nonsense that one can believe if one sets one’s mind to it.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SiubhanDuinne: My father’s saying about Norwegian-American cuisine comes to mind: Cook it until it is gray. If It won’t turn gray, put a white sauce over it.

  77. 77.

    Amir Khalid

    @Ohio Mom:
    Sliders aren’t big enough to count as actual burgers. This is the consensus view in the culture of my people, and is the reason White Castle failed here, whereas McDonalds and KFC have thrived.

  78. 78.

    MoCA Ace

    Can’t wait for morel season. Here in the great white north we have at least three more weeks to wait. Funny thing is I have never tried ramps and tramped through acres of them for years without knowing what they were or giving it a second thought. Got a wild edibles book last year and now I’ll be harvesting all I could want. The ramps should be coming up any day now.

  79. 79.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Wapiti:

    He can believe whatever he wants, though I don’t take kindly to being proselytized and badgered about whether I have a close personal relationship with Jesus. And he knows this.

    But the Flat Earth thing just caught me way off guard. I understand the desire for philosophical certainty, but why choose that hill to die on, FFS?

  83. 83.

    Ohio Mom

    I wonder if some of the people who become conspiracy nuts in their older years don’t have something physical, subtle but real, going on in their brains. That their brains are wearing out and misfiring.

    Because how do you suddenly decide after a lifetime that the world is flat? That’s not logic speaking, it’s a kind of paranoia that nothing you’ve ever been taught can be trusted, that “they” are out to deceive you.

    Like many others, I am related to people with “diverse” political opinions. It’s hard work keeping the conversation steered toward non-provocative subjects. I often wonder if it is worth it, frankly.

  85. 85.

    John Revolta

    @SiubhanDuinne: I don’t dare go down the rabbit hole to find out, but I am a
    bit curious………………..if there’s a conspiracy to make us believe that the Earth is round when it actually isn’t……………………WHAT’S THE POINT?? I mean who’s getting rich, or controlling the weather, or picking up girls or whatever, by foisting this huge lie off on 99.999% of humanity? Cui fucking bono, y’know?

  87. 87.

    Ohio Mom

    @Amir Khalid: After I wrote that comment, I thought that many people might not be familiar with White Castle and not know what I was talking about.

    They are not in every US state, I don’t think there are any in the West. I had no idea they had any overseas outposts. I would never have guessed Malaysia, and it looks like Malaysians didn’t either.

  92. 92.

    Currants

    Ramps and morels! You are one lucky guy. I started a patch on my place 4 years ago and they’re doing well—well enough that I think next year I will be able to harvest some bulbs and not just leaves. But morels—I’ve never seen one in the wild, though a friend of mine in Wisconsin picks them every year. IIRC, he said they grow where chestnut trees used to be.

  93. 93.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @mvr:

    Thanks. I’m not sure it’s “loyalty” as much as it is 73 years of shared experience and family ties. It’s hard to let that go, no matter the provocation!

  95. 95.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @John Revolta:

    Yeah, that’s a whole separate set of questions. I have no idea who benefits, or what’s in it for whom. The entire thing makes less than no sense to me.

  96. 96.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    down here we call it “Krystal”. And god help you if you ever eat it sober.

    Ain’t that just the bitchin truth. Many long-ago memories of Krystals followed by fried pie (“frahd pah”) at the Varsity topped off by freshly-glazed donuts from the Krispy Kreme on Ponce. Good times.

  97. 97.

    LivinginExile

    @SiubhanDuinne: One of the few childhood trips I took with my parents was to Starved Rock. Wasn’t it (the facility) built during the depression by the CCC or WPA?

  100. 100.

    NotMax

    @Ohio Mom

    White Castle. “Buy ’em by the bagful!” was posted everywhere. At the older locations, was a part of the exterior tile work. One could get a bag of a dozen for a buck.

    What made them special were the fried onions, in abundance.

  104. 104.

    Another Scott

    @Omnes Omnibus: OT – You Cheeseheads did good today. Twitter:

    Jon @JonMIPol

    Jon Retweeted Aaron Booth

    Pretty good overperformance by Dems in Wisconsin today Jon added,

    Aaron Booth@ActorAaronBooth

    Racine just reported. Now with all wards reporting, the final margin for #AD64 is 62.38%-37.53% in favor of @Tip4WI. This is a Democratic hold. This is a margin of 24.85. The Clinton 2016 margin was 10.4 and the Obama 2012 margin was 18.79.

    6:29 PM – 30 Apr 2019

    Good, good. More, please.

    (via LOLGOP)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Life is unfair. Than you die.

    ETA: I am 16 months older than Keith. And I am neither self-delusional nor fishing for compliments when I note that I look at least a decade younger.

  107. 107.

    Emma

    @Nicole: Ah. A synapse relapse, as one of my friends calls it — unfortunately on me. I don’t mishear lyrics — I mishear conversations. Once I quite clearly heard someone who was sitting two tables away in a crowded, noisy restaurant “don’t worry, my father is a hereditary ambulance.” I still haven’t lived that down.

  108. 108.

    Keith P.

    For any Texans here HEB Central Market has fresh morels…$60 lb. I made morel fritters last year that would have been perfect but for some grit.

  109. 109.

    Bill Arnold

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Nope, not so much as a boiled Brussels sprout. Just three white starchy things on a white plate. So appetizing :-)

    That was done to me at a professional dinner in Vegas similar time-frame. It was, IIRC, steamed potatoes, turnips and onions. Maybe something green like okra or peas. Should have gone into the kitchen afterwords and quietly called the asshole chef an asshole to his face, but didn’t. Still a vegetarian though.

  110. 110.

    Bill Arnold

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    he says it’s a huge global conspiracy.

    Did he really say that?
    Trip to Australia brought it fully real to me:
    A Beginner’s Guide to the Southern Hemisphere Sky (Jamie Carter, March 2, 2018) (bold mine)

    The first thing you’ll notice after dusk south of the equator is that the northern constellations appear upside down. The North Star, Polaris, isn’t visible and the circumpolar northern constellations, such as the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Draco, and Cepheus become seasonal.
    Finding the constellations and asterisms you thought you knew so well can be difficult: The Summer Triangle becomes the Winter Triangle down south, with Altair on top, and Deneb and Vega sinking as the night wears on. Low on the northern horizon in the southern hemisphere summer, Orion’s sword points up toward Rigel, while brilliant Sirius is overhead at zenith.

  111. 111.

    Jerzy Russian

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    he has completely bought into Flat Earth Theory. Counter with science and he says it’s a huge global conspiracy.

    He needs a substitute word for “global” here.

  112. 112.

    Mart

    @SiubhanDuinne: Twenty five year cheese and dairy vegetarian. Mostly vegan when not on the road. The way banquet halls prepare food for vegetarians is criminal. Realize some must be scarred from strict vegans attacking them for serving cheese, butter, or honey; but they could still make a nice vegan meal instead of unseasoned baked potato, rice, and broccoli. Years ago I called ahead of an iron and steel engineer dinner near Gary, IN to ask for a vegetarian meal and my manhood was mocked.

    Morels are in season for another week around STL. Tried a pasta dinner Saturday that was fair. Planning on going to another joint that has knocked in season morel pasta out of the park in the past. Expensive, but well worth it when done right.

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