I saw this ad in one of my fancy gourmet magazines and was taken aback:
My Granny always kept a coffee can of bacon grease next to her stove and used it to cook just about everything. She started life as a Georgia farm girl during the Great Depression, so she had a “waste not, want not” outlook.
I picked up most of my early cooking skills (such as they were) from Granny since my mom and her mom viewed cooking as a distraction to be endured as seldom as possible. Though I’ve expanded my repertoire considerably over the years, thanks mostly to cooking programs on TV and the internet, the effects of Granny’s tutelage remain. They earned me my internet handle from Bill.
I still believe in bacon grease, so much so that my kiddo once gave me a t-shirt that said “Praise the Lard” for Christmas. That said, I was delighted to discover as an adult that vegetables don’t have to be cooked to bacon-flavored mush in a sauce pan. These days, my go-to method is to toss veggies in salt, pepper and olive oil and roast them on a sheet pan.
But it’s good to see Granny and the entire universe of country cooks get their due in the glossy pages of Bon Appétit!
***
I like this campaign advice from Josh Marshall at TPM on how Dems can keep Trump’s felony convictions front and center from now to November:
The way to constantly inject Trump’s felony conviction into the campaign, other than remembering that “convicted felon” is now his first name, is to simply make his pathetic whining, excuses and demands for never-ending life mulligans the center of the campaign against him. He’s a disgrace but more than that an embarrassment. It won’t be hard because he’ll be making this claim non-stop through November, just a constant cue up for the same lethal mockery. It is the heart of his politics to always be jacking the conversation up to higher and higher levels of drama, even when the drama is his own menace, indeed especially when the drama is his own menace. That’s his power. What cuts him down is to zero in on the pathetic excuse-making and whining, a trait all of us associate with the most odious and pitiful people we’ve ever known. And let that pull the disgrace of his many crimes and prosecutions along with it.
Yes! It won’t matter to the cultists, but they aren’t the target audience here. Normal people tend to find whiny jerks off-putting. Let’s use that!
Open thread!
Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold Open Thread
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Every once in a while I make duck, which generates a huge amount of grease. I’ve read many articles swearing by duck fat for cooking, saying you should keep that stuff around for months and cook everything in it. I’m still grossed out by the idea and throw it out. Sue me.
Tony G
Trump, and his cult members, have always been whining little crybabies. At least among the people with whom I associate, that is considered to be a despicable, embarrassing personality trait. Given the results of the past two presidential elections (with Trump losing the popular vote both times) most voters agree with me about this.
steve g
Why is bacon fat for sale at Lowe’s and Ace Hardware? It’s a food and a lubricant? Lol.
Another Scott
“Honey, I need to run out to Lowe’s and get some plywood and some horse manure. Should I pick up some bacon grease for you while I’m there?”
???!
Cheers,
Scott.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Yeah, TCFG is an embarrassment and I suppose it’s on balance a good thing for normies to see him and be grossed out. But I still hate how much free air time he gets.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Another Scott: Maybe it’s a lubricant, like for sawing and drilling? Of course then all your projects smell like bacon, but is that a bad thing?
Quaker in a Basement
If my mother had written a cookbook, this would be rule #1. She used to look at the cooking directions on packages of frozen vegetables–DO NOT OVERCOOK–and just laugh.
opiejeanne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Potatoes cooked in duck fat are yummy. I have a package of duck fat in my freezer, courtesy of a son-in-law. Their condo in Seattle is leased out for several more months while they travel so we now have a lot of frozen crab cakes and various other delights that we probably ought to eat pretty soon.
Bupalos
Aha! The origin story of “Betty Cracker!”
Now it’s almost worth the “summer cold” that has me laying around indoors reading BJ on this glorious NEOhio Saturday.
So much of culinary history and culinary art is about availability. Taking the calories that are there in front of you, listening to these ingredients, and making them work. It’s how all the regional styles and the culinary cannon emerged. Hand to my heart for Grandma cracker and all those who trod her path, that we might be enriched!
dexwood
I used to be a Dapper Dan man, now I use Bacon Up.
mrmoshpotato
When we were kids, my mom’s mom would cook pancakes in bacon grease at their summer cabin downstate. They were soooo good.
Eyeroller
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: My local grocery store has jarred duck fat in the cooking oils and fats section, along with Crisco and ghee. I have not yet seen packaged bacon grease there, however. I don’t like duck so it’s not something I’d consider, but it does have a long history of use for frying.
geg6
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Send it to me! You haven’t eaten French fries until you’ve eaten them fried in duck fat!
CaseyL
I love bacon, but it’s very hard to overcome an adult lifetime of conditioning that cooking, and especially frying, in animal fat is Bad. I had a small jar of bacon fat collected from makin’ bacon, and eventually tossed it as I never used it. If I’m frying/saute-ing something, 99.9% of the time it’s in olive oil.
However, I will quite happily add bacon to things like baked beans (which I cook from scratch these days).
MattF
I like the idea of highlighting TFG’s whining. It’s notable that whining is now the default mode of political speech for Rs, so mocking it has a very broad reach.
ETA: I like to use peanut oil. Neutral flavour, doesn’t smoke.
zhena gogolia
That sounds like my mother.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
The cult’s cognitive dissonance is staggering.
On one hand they promote Dump as a “strong” leader who will make Mexico pay for a wall, yet at the same time they whine on top of their lungs that he’s a victim and loser who was robbed, bullied and pantsed by the big bad system.
opiejeanne
@Quaker in a Basement: My mom did that with fresh vegetables, being from Missouri, but she didn’t use bacon fat for any cooking, just boiled everything to death. We collected it in the big coffee cans and when full, dropped them off at the Methodist church, some sort of donation. This was in Los Angeles County in the 50s and 60s, and it was still a thing into the 80s when we lived in Riverside, CA. I never learned what happened to it, but our pastor’s wife who grew up in Mississippi said that poor people used it like butter on their bread. She didn’t say that’s what actually happened to the donated grease, though.
Bupalos
Is it wrong that this post has me also considering the right way to cook and secretly serve Donald Jessica Trump as a collection of long-pig meat pies, at a banquet attended by his family and political enablers? Titus Antrumpicus?
Different pies for different tables. What goes in to the Linsey Graham Table version? The JD Vance Table? Lauren Bobert and Friends? I’ll probably be at this for a while…at least until the meds wear off….
BruceJ
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
It’s all part of the kayfabe: TFG is the big strong hero pulled down by the cheating heels…
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Same. My mom, born on a Tennessee farm in 1930, kept a can of bacon grease by the stove and used it regularly but sparingly, as she became an increasingly adventurous cook in the ’60s. Pre-Internet, so her inspirations were magazines, Air Force wives’ cookbooks (similar to Junior League ones) and recipe swaps. She started out as a pretty good farm cook, and she told me once that the first time she went into a supermarket (probably early ’50s) she was overwhelmed. But she absorbed everything and added to her repertoire.
Every kid thinks their childhood is “normal,” which leads to various rude awakenings when they leave home. One of mine was to realize that not everybody was as good a cook as my mother.
She is still perking along at 94 but “retired” from cooking. I try to pick her brain for secrets and tips, but she resists even that. It’s maddening. I do have some of her old cookbooks and recipe boxes.
I think the secret ingredient in her excellent cornbread—which I learned as an adult was not a regular staple at everybody’s table!—was that she used bacon grease to lube the scorching hot cast-iron skillet. Yum!
ChrisSherbak
I always thought “There you go again” was a pretty lame excuse/whine by Reagan at the time, but it occurs to me that Biden (esp. ‘Dark Brandon’) could use it to great effect as he talks about Trumps whines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN7gDRjTNf4
MomSense
Both my grandmothers always had a coffee can with bacon grease in the kitchen. I think it is also really good for removing rust from iron.
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
There is a restaurant in Portland Maine called DuckFat. I had the best donuts I’ve ever tasted there – fried in duckfat. Everything there is delicious.
BruceJ
@steve g: Both stores have huge outdoor BBQ sections, I’ll bet it’s there with the smoking chips and pellet smoker supplies.
Prometheus Shrugged
@dexwood: You laugh, but my teenage son has been asking for some bacon scented deodorant that has been featuring prominently on his Tik Tok feed. (I’m pretty sure it’s also a joke, but he’s still in his naive gullible phase)
Jeffg166
On June 14th TFG turns 78. A 78 year old whiner.
There was a tin of bacon grease on the stove at home all my childhood. I can’t stand the smell of bacon now.
Bupalos
JD Vance’s Table is getting 5-way Skyline Long-Pig Pie.
Featuring 21 Lbs of Donald Jessica Trumpmeat, slowroasted on spite, pulled, shredded, and seasoned with the tears and saliva from the “weeping and speaking in tongues” part of a weird “Old-Fashioned Tent Revival” in the Cincinnati exurb of Mason.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack:
That’s so true it should be committed to needlepoint! I think mine was that other families have backup supplies of things like peanut butter and cokes and tape. We never did — if you ran out, you went to the store. We lived on the edge!
I also have recipe boxes and vintage cookbooks. Too many! My MIL is an antiques dealer and finds the most fascinating, obscure old church or civic group cookbooks. I can’t resist them!
Another Scott
@Bupalos:
CloveGarden.com – Cautions about long pig.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
We have far less bacon fat these days (as in none) since my husband got a stent inserted last summer and had a heart attack during the procedure when a bit of calcification broke off and pierced an artery. I mostly used it as the fat to pop popcorn, but still I miss it. I always kept it in a jar in the fridge though, even though my mom had kept it on the counter.
I love Biden’s tactic recently of pretty much always referring to Trump as a loser. The verdict adds one more loss. Yes, I’d like him to start mocking him for being a whiny loser. As in, he’s been a whiny loser since the ’80s when he, unlike every other casino owner, couldn’t make a go of it and went bankrupt. Just point out how he’s been a loser all his life, and been loudly whiny loser all that time.
bbleh
They’re ALL whiners. Grievance is THE driving force of their politics. Occasionally some of them will butch up, but mostly what they do is WHINE, about Teh Welfare and Teh Gheys and Teh Illeguls, and how people look DOWN on them (instead of them looking down on other people, as the Lord intended), and how prices are going up and traffic is getting worse and stoplights and tax forms and it’s all just so UNFAAAAIIIIRRRRRR!!
MAGA is a nation of whiners who lack the emotional maturity to function as adults in an even rudimentary society. It’s pathetic and embarrassing.
2liberal
the ghost of tony bourdain is going to haunt you for the rest of your days
mrmoshpotato
@Bupalos: Nice and clear around Cleveland.
OlFroth
For a few months, my local grocery was carrying a product. It was $9.00 for a 12 oz jar. It was , according to the label, “Rendered pork fat.” Meanwhile, in the same store, over by the bacon, were one pound blocks of LARD for $3.
2liberal
it’s a floor wax and a dessert topping
Bupalos
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)): It’s a high-risk tactic. I think more and more people in the United States feel like losers. A lot of the rightwing authoritarian push globally is about the paranoia surrounding feeling like a loser.
But I’m not really claiming to know what the right tactics are. Certainly fascism as generally understood rides on a weird kind of triumphalism.
mrmoshpotato
@2liberal: Haha, gross.
Jeffg166
@OlFroth: When I was a kid polenta was called fried mush.
Baud
@bbleh:
And effective.
WaterGirl
@steve g: I’m wondering if that is actually real bacon fat in a can, or if it’s some fake thing. Like crisco with a bacon scent.
Eyeroller
@zhena gogolia: My grandparents had a large garden every year at my great-uncle’s farm, and they grew a lot of green beans. My grandmother blanched them with bacon grease and then canned them. They glistened. She fried a lot of things in bacon grease, but I think used hydrogenated fats for things like fried chicken. She also saved bacon grease for her niece-in-law, who made lye soap. When we were cleaning out their house after their deaths, we found jar after jar after jar of rancid bacon grease (the niece-in-law had died several years earlier, plus my grandmother was demented and was just hoarding it).
Baud
@Bupalos:
He probably craves a spine.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Ginger snaps made with bacon grease were amazing – courtesy of my partner’s mom, who had a jar of it near her stove.
HinTN
@Baud: He wouldn’t know what to do with it.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Mom’s Air Force wives’ cookbooks are fascinating. There are a lot of the usual dreadful ’60s recipes, but then you’ll run across something like: “I got this from the French air attaché’s wife in Rome.”
TaMara
My ducks would like to have a word with few of you….
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
Oh yes! I used to beg my mom to make fried mush for breakfast. Fried in bacon fat, natch. I loved that stuff served with “maple” syrup. I don’t know if her version of maple syrup was from the depression or the war years, but it consisted of simple syrup with maple flavor added. I knew no better, so it tasted fine to me.
Betty Cracker
I like Marshall’s description of convicted felon Trump’s “demands for never-ending life mulligans.” So true! He’s been a whiny spoiled brat jerk all his life.
oldgold
Years ago, I started substituting bacon grease for motor oil. Unfortunately, subsequent there to, the engine was hard to start.
Threw an egg in there for good measure, now the engine turns over easy.
HumboldtBlue
@WaterGirl:
I used lard to make a chocolate cake last year, the crispy top was the best cake I had ever eaten.
geg6
@TaMara:
🤣🤣🤣
Ken
My parents kept the grease too, but it came out of the jar much slower than it went in. So every three months or so, they’d dump the jar. Sometimes the stuff at the bottom was pretty rancid.
WaterGirl
@Bupalos: Aren’t you the same commenter who found the “revenge” concept offensive, even though it was revenge as in living well is the best revenge.
And one post later, you are cooking up trump pies?
Hungry Joe
@Betty Cracker: Try replacing salt with garlic salt for your roasted veggies. Gives ‘em a little extra snap. Thyme works, too.
Villago Delenda Est
Speaking of jerks, Dean Phillips (Dumbass-MI) sez Kathy Hochul should pardon the 34 guilties guy. Of course, not knowing the laws of NY State concerning pardons and paroles. Also, action that removes the consequences of TIFG/PAB’s actions.
Minnesota, get busy, and send this guy back to his fucking millions and out of office.
Anyway
@Betty Cracker:
I wanted to gloat some more and looked in on MSNBC– they were taking a victory lap BUT their legal correspondent was all “victimless crime” — I’m sure I’ll hear this at the coffee machine at work on Monday.
Trump was so used to getting away with tax evasion and money laundering in his business life — this must be such a shock to him.
Bupalos
@2liberal: Wait, it literally is!!!
Whenever I heard that line I’ve thought of “Magic Shell,” the 1980’s cold-hardening chocolate topping that clearly had a lot of paraffin in it. My childhood neighbor-friend (who we nicknamed Matt Moo) used Magic Shell to create a kind of chocolate milk that left an oddly durable stain around his mouth. And an oddly durable memory for me. And that’s probably why that’s in my brain.
But now that I think of it, it’s bacon grease that should lay the claim here. Yorkshire pudding, and various other deserts…… and I’ve actually been in a cabin where the floor was treated with hot lard.
zhena gogolia
Interesting obit of Yael Dayan (daughter of Moshe) in the NYT. She was for a two-state solution and against the West Bank settlements.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: We should call trump (wait for it):
The Mulligan Man
WaterGirl
@oldgold: Groan. But my father would have definitely approved!
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: I was puzzled by that as well.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Thank you! I am not crazy.
Starfish
Can someone explain to me what happened in Kansas? Did their supreme court really say that the citizens don’t have the right to vote?
scav
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)): I was gen “real maple syrup” but the ones before were entirely Mapleine and I’ve actually found letters describing how best to make it. Take that family recipes! And our traditional Czech kolacky is the one from the back of the Solo can.
Cowgirl in the Sandi
I have a recipe for duck fat cookies – sort of like shortbread but using duck fat instead of butter. They are fabulous!
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: I googled:
What is BHA, you asked? Google:
divF
@dexwood: FTW!
But I would like to offer this musical accompaniment.
WaterGirl
@Starfish: WTF?
Emily68
@Bupalos: In the 9th grade, my friend and I actually made soda crackers. Well, we mixed up the dough, but after we rolled the it out, we didn’t cut it up into little squares. We just made one and called it the biggest cracker in the world. Then we entered it in the “Break a Record” contest our local top 40 radio station was having. We Won!! They sent us the top 40 records for that week and said our names multiple times on the radio!
No wonder I like crackers so much.
trollhattan
The aluminum canister sat alongside flour and sugar, with the lettering
G
R
E
A
S
E
In most Midwest kitchens, mom’s and granny’s too. Sieve insert placed on top caught the solid bits you do not want in your personal GREASE kit.
Not dissimilar to lard’s role in baking, i.e., pie crusts. Lived in the Valley a long while before learning what the town of Manteca is named after. An hour-plus drive away from Vacaville.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I assumed he or she objected to revenge being served cold. Trump pies would be served warm.
Bupalos
@WaterGirl: Yes. That is correct.
BUT IT’S A WHOLE POST LATER!!!
frosty fred
@opiejeanne: My mother (1930s in southern Maryland) said the poor kids in school used to bring bread and bacon grease sandwiches for lunch, and they would hold both hands up to their mouths to hide what they were eating, out of embarrassment.
CaseyL
@oldgold: {{Groan}}
@TaMara: …good thing none of us have pet cattle….
I stopped eating octopus years ago, because they’re intelligent creatures. But I am aware that cows are also intelligent, and pigs are highly intelligent. If I refuse to eat one, what about the others?
Trying to “eat ethically” – if one does happen to be a meat eater – is full of contradictions.
karen gail
I had to look it up to see if it was a real thing. To me bacon grease is a leftover not something to go out and purchase.
Though did buy lard for pie crusts and biscuits; since was no longer butchering own hogs.
Peke Daddy
@OlFroth: The blocks were probably hydrogenated, that chemical modification of fat is very unhealthy. Stuff in the jar may be leaf lard, from around the kidneys. Best grade.
TaMara
@Bupalos: LOL You so belong here.
TaMara
@CaseyL: Never name your food.
trollhattan
@Jeffg166: Semi-related Instant Pot observations:
-It makes amazing polenta with none of the endless stirring. So easy.
-It has a porridge button, as in “hey all you millions of porridge eaters, we gave you your own button!”
I had to look up porridge to even learn what it is, as opposed to just a thing people in 19th century books eat.
Doc Sardonic
My mom kept this miniature coffee pot on the stove for bacon grease. It stayed there and the grease was used for many things in our house up until the day my father had a heart attack, then it disappeared. I also have all of my mother’s cook books, ranging from put together school and church fundraiser books to a whole lot of years of Southern Living’s annual ones. But, my two most prized possessions of the cookbooks are the best up checkerboard cover Better Homes and Gardens cookbook she learned to cook with, and the one that my cousins got her to write after my father died.
TBone
We’re having BLTs for supper because I don’t feel like doing real cooking. Bought the really good, thick sliced local smoked bacon at the butcher shop this morning. On the way home driving down the main drag, we passed the County Democratic headquarters office and I shouted out a greeting, which was heartily returned. Both of us had fists in the air!
I used to save all my bacon grease before hubby’s heart troubles. Now, not so much. One of my favorite uses for bacon fat is in a warm salad dressing that goes over potatoes or wilts salad greens or green beans.
https://amish-heritage.org/pa-dutch-hot-bacon-dressing-recipe/
Also, for frying home fries!
Peke Daddy
@Bupalos: Ingredients in Magic Shell include coconut and sunflower oil. There’s your shell making stuff.
Delk
Fat Works for all your organic lard, tallow, and fat needs.
CaseyL
@TaMara: A farmer I watch on YT does name the steers who are destined for (as he puts it) Freezer Camp…but he names them after rock stars who died young. As a reminder not to get too attached.
BettyC – here people are reminiscing about how their families kept and used bacon fat, and it’s almost always in the context of not having much money. Which makes it hilarious that now, apparently, bacon fat is considered a must-have in the gourmet kitchen!
Bupalos
@Peke Daddy: I feel like in the 80’s it was the same wax my mom used for canning.
SiubhanDuinne
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)):
Oh man, I ADORED fried corn-meal mush! You have really brought back the memories!
divF
@Delk: Where else are you gong to find cage-free duck fat in one-gallon quantities?
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
That’s another good electoral issue.
“Democrats want your vote. Republicans want to take your vote away. In November you get to choose between them.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
I can accept it if Trump is just put on probation. I’d like to see consequences similar to those Michael Cohen or Alan Weiselberg faced, but I’m hoping for those bigger consequences from other cases
Bupalos
@zhena gogolia: Look the spirit of that was mostly “I don’t want revenge on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
It doesn’t preclude wanting some revenge on behalf of myself. My kids. The environment. The United States. The idea of democracy.
And not a LOT of revenge, just… you know… “hey guys, now that dinner is over, guess what you just ate?” It’s not the big deal you’re making it. Just a little light involuntary cannibalism alla Titus Andronicus. It’s Shakespeare. How bad could it be?
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl: also from their website:
Would they lie to you?
Bupalos
@Baud: To return to the spirit of the post: I used to watch “Chopped” where they’d give the contestants a basket of random challenging ingredients to cook with, and even there “spine” never seemed to appear. So I don’t deny you identified the right ingredient, but you’re really tossing out a challenge here.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeffg166:
So he was born on Flag Day. What a travesty. OTOH, I could fly the flag Alito-style on the day, and if anyone were to challenge it I’d simply say I was celebrating TCFFG’s birthday.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Ooh, I’ll bet. My secret ingredient in ginger snaps or molasses cookies is a hefty dash+ of cayenne pepper.
WereBear
I’ve been low carb since 2003, then moved to Carnivore (meat, seafood, dairy) since Jan 2019, for my autoimmune. Stopped a flare in its tracks.
Then, a year ago, Toxic Superfoods came out, which instructed me in what plants I can add without problems. And now, it all makes sense, and I can make progress.
I am doing so well, I am currently editing that thriller I wrote, 50,000 words in NINE days, because I’m an overachiever like that. Really enjoying how it is developing.
A long way of saying that now, most of the time, bacon IS my candy :)
Jeffro
From your lips to the FSM’s ears, BC!
One day…ONE DAY…I will get Mrs. Fro to try Brussels sprouts done right, aka, roasted w/ seasoning and olive oil. (I think she had them boiled, once, as a kid and has never gone back). Sad!
Bupalos
@Peke Daddy: Are you claiming if I mix up sunflower and coconut oils with cocoa and sugar I’m going to get something that is liquid in a bottle and hardens when poured over ice cream to where it cracks?
Actually now that I think about it, maybe. Sugar to say 225f and those oils…I can maybe see it. I think there might be some more “magic” there though.
Baud
@Bupalos:
Balloon Juice definitely needs to have more posts devoted to cannibalism.
Maybe we can combine it with Medium Cool. Wouldn’t even have to change the name.
bbleh
@Baud: it’s not too tough to bring out someone’s inner crybaby. Just like it’s easier to destroy than to build. It’s devolutionary politics, and other than vague notions of “tradition” and “common sense,” there’s nothing obvious in the way of it causing major parts of society to unravel. It’s certainly happened before…
Bupalos
They didn’t “lie.” They just created a really weird conglomeration of words they know humans cannot process. Three little sisters and their gramma’s tin can, and “the largest independent producer etc. etc.”
I’m fascinated by the word “independent” here. Can anyone comment on the distinction between the nation’s largest independent producer of “pork and bacon” and the nation’s largest dependent producer of “pork and bacon?”
Also bacon isn’t pork? what is it? I mean, aside from an environmental disaster?
Yutsano
Since the thread be open:
It’s entirely possible that Dolt45 won’t appear on the ballot in Washington state. There’s a law that keeps convicted felons for running for office on the books.
(The article is from the Seattle Times so could be paywalled. I couldn’t find a way to get a gift link.)
Scout211
My MIL always had a coffee can with bacon grease next to the stove. So Mr. Scout did the same thing when we were first together. That didn’t last long, though. We stopped using the fat to cook with and the fat tended to get nasty after sitting too long.
Speaking of cooking I just baked a blueberry cobbler. I used the blueberries from last year’s crop that were still in the freezer because the new crop is about ready for harvest.
I combined several different (but similar) recipes and it turned out so good. I needed to taste it first to see if it was okay. First with a small spoon and then with a large spoon and now I’m eyeing that serving spoon in the drawer for another taste. 😉
It turned out just fine. Yum!
NotMax
Now I’m craving gribenes* and schmaltz.
*grih-ben-ess
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: Correctly roasted Brussels sprouts are as tasty as French fries. I said what I said!
HumboldtBlue
@Delk:
Thank you, I do believe I am about to spend some money.
Bupalos
@Yutsano: They need to fix that. That’s just fodder for the civil unrest.
WereBear
@NotMax: We lost a great deli in the Pandemic.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Roasting lets them carmelize. Transforms any bitterness.
danielx
Yes! It cannot be pointed out too early or too often that
The Former President and Convicted Felon is a Whiny Little Bitch.
Bupalos
@Betty Cracker: Yo I heard that.
I do think most younguns have some kind of legit different chemistry going on that would make this statement insane to them. I think you have to be >30 before this statement is likely to make sense.
rmjohnston
Bacon grease is good, but if you take the time and effort to cleanly render and collect as much fat as possible from a roast duck or goose you’ll be a step up the ladder of animal fat collection.
Delk
@HumboldtBlue: a lot of options.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Regarding the post, I’ve always enjoyed saying, Now we’re cooking with grease! A few times I’ve been asked, don’t you mean cooking with gas? Uh……no!
Also, fuck drumph. He deserves every wretched thing that can possibly happen to him.
jimmiraybob
@Starfish:
Sounds like the rise of “we’re a republic and not a democracy.”
I will consult with one of the architects of our republic.
“The purest republican feature in the government of our own State, is the House of Representatives. The Senate is equally so the first year, less the second, and so on. The Executive still less, because not chosen by the people directly. The Judiciary seriously anti-republican, because for life; and the national arm wielded, as you observe, by military leaders irresponsible but to themselves.”
…
“Much, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require.”
…
“On this view of the import of the term republic, instead of saying, as has been said, ‘that it may mean anything or nothing,’ we may say with truth and meaning that governments are more or less republican as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition; and believing as I do that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights, and especially that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient.”
–Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor (1816)
That being said, is the Kansas Supreme Court really challenging the right of citizens to vote on affairs of the state? How Communist China.
https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-kansas-supreme-court-0a0b5eea5c57cf54a9597d8a6f8a300e
Bupalos
@rmjohnston: yeah. Chicken and turkey too. The bird be better. Rendered fat from fish is a better tasting fat too, just doesn’t come in quantity.
The reason people like bacon fat is because it’s also got the smoke. A fat-n-smoke (sometimes residual sugar) combo they don’t get elsewhere. Drippings from a fire-roasted turkey beat TF out of bacon fat.
Practically no one in the U.S. is rendering fat though. So it’s a discussion about what we get at the store.
Geminid
@Baud: Naah, Medium Cool is taken. Maybe title the series Medium Rare.
karen marie
@Eyeroller: Ghee is simply clarified butter. It is really easy to make, and my friend from Rajasthan says it is way better than store-bought. It keeps well for a long time, even at room temp but I keep mine in the fridge. Not a fan of duck, so I have no experience with duck fat. Does it make stuff fried in it taste like duck?
I keep bacon grease on hand for pancakes. It’s hard to beat.
HumboldtBlue
@Geminid:
Ba-dum-tssh!
TBone
A nice time xit, photo of man standing in front of the big sign for Rump’s golf hell site in Scotland, thoughtfully stroking his chin.
Now I need to see what Janey Godley is saying! But I’m not on xitter 😔
danielx
@Jeffro:
Yeah that would be me. My memory of mom’s Brussels Sprouts is growing mercifully dim, but they provoked epic battles of will between me and mom and pop. My viewpoint was simple – her Brussels sprouts turned my stomach to the point of gagging nausea. They once kept me sitting at the table until I ate one single disgusting sprout, and finally admitted defeat when I was still sitting there with jaws firmly clamped shut two hours later. One of denephews fixed them recently at a family do in olive oil with garlic and i admit the dish smelled delicious – if it wasn’t for the damned Brussels sprouts.
OlFroth
@Jeffg166: They have mush and polenta side by side in the refrigerator case, and at a substantial price difference!
Mr. Bemused Senior
Slowly. Over a low flame. Alas, what would you do with a Tory reduction? Much too bitter.
Bupalos
@karen marie: duck fat doesn’t have much residual taste at all. Just a richness. Think the richness of butter, but a little step further.
The fat drippings of any fowl that is fire-roasted is…. just miles beyond the salt-smoke-heaviness of bacon fat. Which is absolutely and potently delicious.
OlFroth
Scrapple for the win!
TBone
I have a roasted brussel sprouts recipe that uses balsamic vinegar and honey mixed with the oil before tossing and roasting. Char is important. Delightful.
TBone
@OlFroth: YEAH BABY!!!
only Habbersetts tho
I used to live near the factory in DelCo. The local scrapple here in central PA is inedible.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habbersett
Scout211
That would be my younger sister. The epic battles and buckets of tears finally stopped when [trigger warning!] our kitchen table turned into a scene from The Exorcist. 🤮
I like Brussels sprouts but not steamed like my mother used to make them. They do need to be dressed up a bit.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Josh Marshall via Betty Cracker @ Top:
A noun, a verb, and “Unfair!”
HumboldtBlue
@OlFroth:
My main Apple-scrapple!
Mr. Bemused Senior
Sauteed in duck fat. Mmmm.
lowtechcyclist
@TaMara:
And those jackals had better duck!
different-church-lady
I really think we shouldn’t forget to push that the GOP is now the party of puppy-cide.
TBone
@different-church-lady:
I…
Can’t…
Even 😡
Not even in a meat-related post
Harrison Wesley
Reading through the comments, I’m starting to get an urge to see Eating Raoul again.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Betty Cracker:
Better I think. And roasting brussel sprouts just past the point of caramelization, then refrigerating them for cold roasted brussel sprouts makes a really good salad addition, or even just on their own.
Miki
@NotMax: What a gorgeous video.
Deb at Smitten Kitchen has a recipe for Roast Chicken with Schmaltzy Cabbage that I really want to try.
TBone
@HumboldtBlue: we don’t call it “pig particles” for nothing. But it also has cornmeal mush & spices so it’s legit. Must be fried crispy on the outside and left tender on the inside like a hash brown. Schmaltz works good for that because scrapple will ruin your pan if you’re not careful.
Another Scott
@danielx: Aren’t they supposed to be different now? They bred the bitterness out of them or something?
I hated them as a kid as well…
Cheers,
Scott.
Jeffro
@TBone: hot bacon dressing brings me back to my restaurant days…I think it was available at the Bennigan’s that I worked at during high school/college?
At the time I was like “blech” but I’d probably give it another try these days if I saw it on a menu. =)
SFAW
@MomSense:
Good luck getting a seat there. One or two doors down is a restaurant called “East Ender.” Mrs. SFAW and I had dinner there a few years ago, we really enjoyed it. I don’t think it has the rep of DuckFat — few do, even in Portland — but we’d go there again. [Update: I just looked at their current menu. Looks like they’ve changed to an upscale/artisanal sandwich joint. Oh well.]
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
I will assume on the basis of personal experience that correctly roasted Brussels spouts are as rare as hens’ teeth.
The highest and best use of cooked Brussels sprouts is in a food fight.
TBone
@Lacuna Synecdoche: I watched the movie version of your last nym fairly recently and can’t help thinking of it whenever I see you. It was…an experience!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche,_New_York
JaySinWA
@TaMara:
Squawk… Feathers fly. Who gets the last bite?
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@steve g: I just showed this ad to my husband and it occurred to him that on farms that raised pigs, there would be a LOT of bacon grease available and made sense the farmers would use a lubricant which was free and that now it might be a tradition in some (Midwest?) areas.
SFAW
@OlFroth:
Seconded.
JMG
I microwave brussel sprouts for three to four minutes, then finish them in a frying pan with either bacon or duck fat, whichever I have on hand. They are good. TaMara, I hate to offend, but ducks are really good eating.
JaySinWA
@Lacuna Synecdoche: I think it should become his middle name.
Donald Felonious Trump, or Donald F. Trump for the sake of ambiguity.
wjca
Nonsense! As with beets or avocados, you make them edible by feeding them to pigs and making pork out of them.
Geminid
I wonder if anyone ever uses bacon drippings to make cannabis edibles. I know people use butter and coconut oil, but it seems like you could use bacon drippings too.
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA: LOL.
TBone
SO glad I looked, this is fabulous 😆😍
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24357058.mhairi-black-janey-godley-take-aim-donald-trump-hush/
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA:
If any of those couples get divorced are they still legally brother and sister?
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: My secret now is little pieces of actual ginger.
JaySinWA
@TBone: My wife does a simpler wilted lettuce (or spinach) salad, pretty much hot bacon fat and vinegar poured over the greens with sweetner added along with the bacon bits and salad onion.
WaterGirl
@danielx:
That is so tempting as a rotating tag. I might have to settle for it being a post title.
TBone
📢
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/stormy-daniels-breaks-silence-on-donald-trumps-guilty-verdict-and-says-lock-him-up/ar-BB1nstOw
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl: I’m pretty sure they aren’t in-laws, since they claim they grew up in the same house. Does that make them out-laws?
TBone
@JaySinWA: it’s so delicious! Dandelion greens go very well with it also.
The bacon grease is merely a substitute for the oil that goes in any salad dressing. But WHAT a substitute!
It’s truly the best dressing for spinach salad, hands down. Hard boiled eggs, onion, mushroom, bacon, fresh spinach. Now I’m hungry!
CaseyL
I grew up eating – well, not-eating, refusing-to-eat – the brussel sprouts that come in a frozen square that Mom would then boil to near-mush. Brussel sprouts were to me an abomination, a sick joke perpetrated on us by farmers desperate to get rid of an inedible weed or something.
Fast forward to, when was it? the mid-2000s? My foodie friend, Dylan, insisted I try them cooked properly. Had a vine of them in the kitchen, did the roasting thing, and it was a revelation. I went on a minor brussel sprouts binge after that, getting fresh ones at the grocery and making them myself.
Jackie
@Yutsano: Darn. I want to vote against him! Lol
karen gail
@Bupalos: Bacon can be any meat you want, but in my mind it is always pork. Someone brought turkey bacon (because it is healthy) on fishing trip; we ended up using it for catfish bait.
Mousebumples
@WaterGirl: so long as I see you in this thread and we’re talking about food and recipes… I need to email you about fall postcarding plans and possible recipe discussion in the same thread. Work has just been super busy on my end, so I haven’t done it yet… (and even when work is done, my brain is just done)
TBone
@TBone: ⚡⛈️ confirms my after-verdict diagnosis
Steeplejack
@trollhattan:
So do you use the porridge button for polenta?
Chris Johnson
@WaterGirl: I have some of that very branded product in my fridge! Got it in Pennsylvania a year ago.
It seems legit, in that it’s bacon fat. I don’t know if it’s different from probably much cheaper ‘lard’ or ‘snowcap manteca’ etc.
I’m not using it very quickly, but it seems to be what it says on the tin :)
Bupalos
OK apparently lamb-spine is a thing….and if I read the recipes right, it’s about stewing it apart to release collagen and marrow and whatnot to create a kind of congealed….you know…whatnot. This isn’t up my alley, I hate this aspic shit… but I agree that Lindsey Graham’s table is getting:
Spine-infused Confit of Long-pig in a light Cornmeal Crust
Remove spine from full slab of Trump
Dry-Rub and slow-roast remainder of trussed Trump slab in a spice mixture consisting of 12 tablespoons smoked paprika, 6 tablespoons salt, 6 tablespoons granulated sugar, 6 tablespoons brown sugar, 6 tablespoons ground Nebraska farmers, 6 tablespoons chili powder, 4 tablespoons ground black pepper, cayenne pepper to taste but take care NOT TO SCARE OFF WHITE EVANGELICALS WITH THE DEVIL’S PEPPER. Collect rendered fat and save.
While slab of Trump is roasting, chop removed spine into 6″ chunks and add to stock pot. Cover with at least 3 gallons of frack-water and simmer for 240 months, or however long it takes Merrick Garland to initiate a legal action that could potentially make people notice that he exists and draws a handsome salary that has to do with “justice.”
Pull the mummified, 20-year old meat from the trump-slab and mix with 3 Tbsp Powdered Whiskers of Abraham Lincoln’s Deepest Depression and Moments of Existential Doubt.
Strain the pot liquor of simmered spine through still-alive?! JD Vance’s beard in a rapid motion. If powdered whiskers and JD Vance’s beard mingle longer than 5 or 10 seconds, portals will open in the back of wardrobes everywhere, and no one knows where they go.
Add strained liquor to rendered Trump-meat mixture barely to cover.
Place in refrigerator overnight.
Kill yourself, but leave a note with the remainder of this recipe so someone else can finish the recipe the following day.
Remove tump-meat aspic from the refrigerator, carefully cut into slices in the shape of South Carolina. Dust with a 50/50 mixture of cornmeal and powdered orphan bone. Spritz surfaces of dusted aspic slices with rendered fat, and flash roast with a Nazi-memorabilia flamethrower. Serve on a bed of curiously straight-grained and curiously-white rice.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: yeah, I was wondering about that myself…
Glidwrith
@Bupalos: HOW many drugs are you on?
Spanish Moss
I grew up in Alabama, and I haven’t lived there since I left at 18, but it’s funny how some things stick with you. I always have a jar of bacon grease in the fridge. I don’t use it often, and never on vegetables, but every now and then it is incorporated into something. Now that I think about it, mostly in breads. One of my sons likes to use it to fry eggs when he stays over.
JaySinWA
@Jackie: It might make an interesting legal fight, but I’m pretty sure Donald F. Trump will be on Washington’s ballot. The Colorado ruling indicates the Supremes would be happy to intervene, and there are other precedents that could be argued about qualifications specified in the Constitution. We once recalled the then Speaker of the House, only to have the result overturned on US constitutional grounds. OTOH a person can dream, although state by state Lawfare about who’s on the ballot would be be ugly.
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: My brother, age 9, when visiting his friend Jim Burton Arnold at his house in our little town in Arkansas, noticed some odd things sticking up from a jar in the stove, “What’s that?” inquired my brother, “Green beans!” responded Jim Burton Arnold with enthusiasm. My brother demurred. They were in a vat of bacon grease. It was 88° outside and inside. Ptomaine or botulism seemed possible.
danielx
@WaterGirl:
By all means!
Eyeroller
@Bupalos: Good way to transmit scrapie from sheep to humans.
NotMax
re: above
Brussels sprouts brushed with a butter-maple syrup glaze and roasted are incredible
Eyeroller
@Chris Johnson: Bacon is a cured or otherwise treated product (“uncured” bacon is still cured, just with “natural” agents rather than nitrates and nitrites), so bacon grease has some “smokey” or “cured” flavor that uncured pork generally does not have. Lard is rendered from uncured pork.
NotMax
@trollhattan
In more recent times falls under gruel and unusual punishment.
;)
RSA
Not only meat eaters. Mother Nature may not care at all about our ethics.
Trewavas A. Awareness and integrated information theory identify plant meristems as sites of conscious activity. Protoplasma. 2021 May;258(3):673-679. doi: 10.1007/s00709-021-01633-1. Epub 2021 Mar 21. PMID: 33745091; PMCID: PMC8052216.
JaySinWA
@NotMax: Please sir, may I have some more?
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Trump is a first-time offender right now. He will NOT be a first-time offender when it comes time to sentence him in subsequent cases. Hehe.
Miss Bianca
@Bupalos: so, you go from tedious moral scolding on one end of the comment scale to gross-out cannibalistic fantasizing on the other. You got range, I guess. Of some sort.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@Jeffro: As a non lover (or even liker) of brussels sprouts, I can tell you that roasting with chopped bacon & a sifting of dark brown sugar is The Way.
lowtechcyclist
@wjca:
Nah, the return in pork from a serving of brussels sprouts is both small and far in the future. The satisfying >splat< of an overcooked Brussels sprout hitting the side of someone's head across the room is both nontrivial and immediate. :-D
Also, ripe avocados can be easily made into guacamole. I'm not gonna feed them to the pigs! But they're welcome to have the beets.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@MattF: Another thing to highlight is this: These people can’t seem to get it together to do anything useful! All they can do is complain that things don’t suit them and blame other people. Whatever happened to rolling up your sleeves and getting to work to make things better?
Not only does that seem to sympathize with the “things were better back when…” nostalgia, it aims it in a useful direction: “We would get to work and do stuff!” The sense of being a useful contributor and getting things done vs. someone who just sits around and complains about everything should be used to our advantage, and not left lying around for Fox et al. to grab for their ends.
Redshift
@Lacuna Synecdoche: I said pretty much the same thing as Josh Marshall here after the verdict! TCFG’s nonstop whining about how everything is unfair has always been loser talk. Let’s hope being adjudicated a loser will help that resonate with people.
lowtechcyclist
@karen gail:
I’ve had turkey bacon, and it just ain’t the same. I’d much rather have the real thing every now and then, than have turkey bacon every week.
JaySinWA
@JaySinWA: Sorry, memory recall failure, Speaker Foley overturned a term limit referendum, not a recall on constitutional grounds.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
There’s something insidious here as well. Trump gets a thrill, and vindication, from being above the law. He keeps pushing the boundaries of presidential immunity and has got a untrustworthy Supreme Court to weigh in on an issue that they should have avoided.
I’ve always said that Trump is psychologically stuck as an angry and vengeful child.
But his weird desire to bathe himself in infinite presidential power is like a demented Roman emperor declaring himself to be a god.
JaySinWA
@Brachiator:
He certainly tried to bring horse(s asses) into the Senate (and House).
TBone
@RSA: 👍
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
Take away his adulation.
Which is a big reason why his house arrest (if that’s his sentence) should be in NY (presumably at Trump Tower) and not at Mar-a-Lago, where the guests applaud him every time he comes down to dinner.
Cowgirl in the Sandi
Watergirl: maybe we should create a Balloon Juice cookbook. We could donate any sales to Four Directions.
Harrison Wesley
@Geminid: I used to fry seeds and stems in oil, then made curries with the infused oil. Worked very well, I guess, depending on what results one desired.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: That is how my mother made dandelion greens. The best !
Suzanne
Bacon grease grosses me out. I don’t get why people love it. Oh well. More for y’all.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@OlFroth: Love, love, love scrapple. It’s a very very close second to fried cornmeal mush. Very close.
karen marie
@lowtechcyclist: Sadly, I have to agree. I had them was at a friend’s for Thanksgiving, and they were fantastic. I subsequently tried to replicate them to disastrous effect. They were gross. But I do dream about the delicious ones.
One day I’ll try again.
jimax11767
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Every once in a while I make duck, which generates a huge amount of grease. I’ve read many articles swearing by duck fat for cooking, saying you should keep that stuff around for months and cook everything in it. I’m still grossed out by the idea and throw it out. Sue me.
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
sab
@lowtechcyclist: My autistic little granddaughter loves brussel sprouts. A lot.
I like brussels sprouts. I have an awesome summer salad recipe with cold cooked brussell sprouts and other ingredients (including swiss cheese, blue cheese dressing and avocado).
But my granddaughter loves them for themselves. You can get her to finish any meal course, main or dessert, if she can alternate the offending item with a few brussell sprouts. Weird but whatever works. It certainly can’t hurt if that is the food bribe.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: I’m of the opinion that anywhere that was good enough for a Michael Cohen stint in solitary confinement is just plain perfect for Donald Jessica.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: 💜
sab
@Cowgirl in the Sandi:All of us would absolutely hate with a passion half the recipes. The other half would hate the other half.
zhena gogolia
@karen marie: I can’t make them right at home, but we have a Spanish restaurant that makes them to perfection. Addictive.
TBone
@sab: that cold salad sounds bangin’!
Anoniminous
@sab: BJ as usual then.
zhena gogolia
I’m making roast cod with scallions and cucumber sauce from NYT. We’ll see.
Chief Oshkosh
@Tony Jay:
I’ve seen it put differently by a fellow jackal some days ago:
“Democrats want you to vote in every election, even if you’re not a Democrat. Republicans want to take your vote away. In November you get to choose between them.”
Eyeroller
@sab: I love Brussels sprouts, even or perhaps especially steamed. I like them roasted too, but I prefer softer ones. The “fresh” ones that are sold in supermarkets are usually old and tough and bitter. Frozen is the way to go. Unfortunately cole vegetables in general don’t like me as well; they have some side effects and Brussels sprouts are among the worst in that regard.
Not sure what this says about me other than that my food preferences are very different from average.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: TCFFG: “It’s my sincerely held religious belief that I did nothing wrong and can in fact do nothing wrong. Therefore any prosecution of my actions violates the First Amendment.”
SCOTUS6: “This is a novel and very interesting legal theory that must be thoroughly argued and considered before we can rule on the merits. All prosecutions in state, local, and federal courts are stayed. Filings are due no later than 1 April 2025. It is so ordered.”
[ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]
Grr…,
Scott.
trollhattan
The Brussels sprouts of you yoot are likely different than the Brussels sprouts of the 21st century (kitchen murderprep aside). Thank the Dutch.
TBone
Oh I saw two Biden campaign adverts on TV today, narrated by Robert DeNiro. Didn’t watch much today so that frequency (two within an hour) is good. Play it again, Sam!
wjca
Exactly right.
But, perhaps more to the point, take away his Internet access and TV. He probably gets at least as much total adulation there. Maybe not as big a bump as getting applauded at dinner. But total across 24 hours.
TBone
@TBone: that was a dead serious comment. Michael Cohen was left in solitary (“The Hole”) for weeks with no end in sight for him while everyone else was sent home because Covid. Bill Barr made it so.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I though that when I was looking at dumbass Donny’s reaction, this is just like when Criss Christie started blubbering when he was caught shutting that bridge down just to screw with someones commute.
Another Scott
@trollhattan: Thank you. I knew I read something about that a while ago.
“In my day, we ate brussels sprouts with asbestos and arsenic and lead and we didn’t like it, but we ate it anyway! And we learned to smoke by age 7! It built character! Kids these days…!!!1″
Cheers,
Scott.
NutmegAgain
So happy to see your byline! Yeah, growing up we always saved the bacon fat. Often in the little cardboard tubes that made orange juice in those days. Of course, my mother tended to be a German cook, so liver was cooked in the bacon fat for sure. And goose fat?? Oh, she thought that was yummy. Around Christmas she would smear a piece of hard brown bread with goose fat, and sprinkle with chopped onions. I ran away yelling, and she had a snack, delish for her.
sab
OT: my little neighborhood has a neighborhood organization that does nice stuff. I am wary because I don’t want to live in a HOA.
Today we had a yard sale. Sort of a surprise to us who don’t participate, but it had obviously been been well organized. We have a lot of new people, and all the young parents and kids got to run around and meet each other. Not much was bought or sold (nobody made much money) but many childish relationships were started. Next generation for this lovely neighborhood.
Being neighborly, we bought lemonade from the kids next door and also a lovely little throw rug we can use in our (hopefully “our”) new house. A woman down the street I don’t know had planned ahead and had a bunch of newish potted plants. Basically the herbs and tomatoes I should have started but didn’t. Brilliant. I bought a bunch.
Everyone says what didn’t sell is going to the Humane Society thrift store nearby. I look forward to buying a couple of lamps when I donate mine.
I still think that all the new kids and new parents from different schools met and had fun on the first day of summer vacation. Amazing.
Another Scott
@TBone:
Meanwhile, … TheHill.com:
The man has a good point.
He should be sent to solitary in a SuperMax.
Let’s see… NY doesn’t have the death penalty any more, does it? (Yes, outlawed in 2004.) Presumably the death row wing is empty??
Maybe.
FAFO, TCFFG…
Cheers,
Scott.
karen marie
@zhena gogolia: Speaking of fish … last month the grocery stores had sole, and I made it a number of times and it was so good – omg. A couple weeks ago I got a hankering to have it again but all the stores were out. I bought a piece of tilapia because it seems to be ubiquitous.
That shit is NASTY! It had an awful, rubbery texture with no taste at all.
Why is it so popular?
WaterGirl
@Mousebumples: Okay. Work super busy on my end, too!
I’ll see it when you send it.
sab
@sab: The neighborhood yard sale made me so sad to leave the neighborhood, but we are giving the house to our oldest stepson, who cannot afford to live here, but this is where he grew up. This is his home. He and his fiance are thrilled.
The neighbors like us but will be thrilled that Ponyo the dog-hating pitbull is gone. She has been a barky moron. Stepson’s dog moving in is a goofy friendly moron. The neighbors on both sides will be glad to see Ponyo gone although they actually like the barky nitwit.
Better new dog neighbors.
JaySinWA
@karen marie: It’s been a while since I’ve had tilapia, but I recall it being tender and flakey. Not particularly flavorful but not rubbery. Probably easy to overcook, since the filets were skinny. Maybe you got a bad batch?
Pennsylvanian
@bbleh: Yes, as I said to my better half today, these are the people that spend $50-60K on their arsenal and ammunition stores, and then go to the diner and complain about the price of eggs.
Anybody know where I can get a “Fuck Your Feelings” bumper sticker?
Jackie
@Another Scott: Out of curiosity, if TCFG was under house arrest, would a record of his visitors be logged – such as a foreign dictator or a Russian?
Geminid
@Harrison Wesley: I used butter. My friend Debbie forwarded me her recipe for caramels this winter:
Step 1- bake the weed in an iron pot with a lid for a couple hours at a low temperature. She has an appliance that does it, I just used what I had. The idea is to evaporate the water.
Step 2: crumble up the weed and sautée it in butter over a low heat for 2-4 hours, then pour it through a strainer.
The next steps involved a lot more work plus a candy thermometer, so I just poured the butter into a small coffee cup half full of turbinado sugar, mixed it up and called it good. After I licked the spoon.
TBone
@Another Scott: I saw that entire interview of Michael Cohen live. I gained a modicum of respect for him that had previously eluded me.
Kay
@Geminid:
lol. Make the candy! It’s fun. It gets as hot as LAVA, so be careful.
Jay
@karen marie:
it’s poo fish, (it can be raised in secondary sewage settlement ponds as both a living filter and a cash crop),
so it’s cheap and fast breeding.
Geminid
@Geminid: Oh yeah, the proportions are one quarter-pound stick of butter to a quarter ounce of weed. Don’t know how I could have forgotten that!
Pennsylvanian
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)): OMG. Scrapple.
The only label on which I have ever read the word “snouts”.
Hard pass.
Harrison Wesley
@Geminid: Sounds good! Only other food/drink thing I ever tried was dumping an ounce in a cheap bottle of vodka or rum and letting it sit for a couple weeks. That was for sure liquor you weren’t drinking for the taste. But you didn’t care, either.
WaterGirl
@Cowgirl in the Sandi: Something to think about in the winter, when everything slows down.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I still think he will serve time in a military prison for at least one of his cases, assuming he doesn’t win inn November and other cases move forward.
Ruckus
@Jeffg166:
Worse. He’ll be a 78 yr old pompous, arrogant, asshole, who thinks the world owes him everything. He’s been a jackass his entire life, his father was a slumlord and made a lot of money at it. But at least his father seemed to be just a tad bit smarter at, well everything.
shitforbrains is just a crappy example of a real world ignorant, worse than useless, pompous, arrogant, dipshit jackoff and the world would be a far better place without humans of his caliber living in it.
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
I think that Brussels Sprouts should be correctly roasted according to taste, and then thrown in the trash.
I wonder if there is some genetic component to finding Brussels Sprouts palatable, as seems to be the case with cilantro and some kinds of whiskey for some people.
I have always hated Brussels Sprouts. And also okra. I keep seeing people praise their special recipe or preparation technique, but I am not moved. There are so many other foods to enjoy and I don’t mind missing out on the joys of Brussels Sprouts.
Betty Cracker
@sab: LOL, I had the same thought. I edited a workplace cookbook once — volunteered for the project like a dumbass! So much work; I had to contact something like a third of the people who’d submitted recipes because the instructions were unclear or there were ingredients listed that were missing from the instructions, etc. Turned out to be a nice cookbook when we got it straightened out.
Geminid
@Harrison Wesley: Debbie uses the alcohol extraction method to make gummies. Virginia’s ABC stores are very stubborn about letting her buy high-proof alcohol though, so she picks it up in Maine when she visits her siblings in New Hampshire.
Debbie makes a lot of edibles and sells them at cost to her retired nurse friends. They all have a lot of aches and pains.
Betty Cracker
BTW, I’ve got two loaves of banana bread in the oven right now. I had a big bunch go hard ripe on me sooner than expected, so it had to be done!
ETA: ALSO, I’m so lazy I use binoculars to peer into the house from the porch to see how much time is on the oven timer. Instead of getting up and walking 15 feet. 🙄
Pennsylvanian
@Betty Cracker: A thankless task. I did one for my church.
Agree that, pain in the ass it was, it turned out great and contains some favorite recipes.
My BIL is a fire chief, so I’ve also got piles of firehouse cookbooks.
2liberal
reference to Saturday Night Live fake commercial , way back when. 1975-ish
zhena gogolia
@karen marie: I have no idea. It’s inedible.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
He’s been a whiny spoiled brat jerk all his life.
That requires repeating.
It is very true but would be even more informative with a few swear words added. I won’t add any, but I easily imagine everyone here could add quite a few.
Other MJS
@ChrisSherbak:
I assumed that Reagan’s speechwriters thought that this condescending phrase would draw blood and carefully coached Ronnie on choosing the proper moment to pull the trigger.
Timill
@Betty Cracker: Binoculars? Too much like hard work. “Alexa, how much time is left on the oven timer?”
Scout211
LOL. Or using your phone as a timer and taking it with you wherever you want to hang out. A trick that I learned from my granddaughter. “Grandma, why are you getting up and going to the kitchen to check the timer? It’s on my phone and we have 10 more minutes.”
Habits. They die hard.
MagdaInBlack
@Timill: I admire both of you and your laziness very much.
Harrison Wesley
@Geminid: A Godly mission, indeed.
Jackie
@Scout211: Ha! I actually asked my 40 yr old daughter why she didn’t use the timer on her phone after she kept checking the oven timer. The look on her face… PRICELESS!😂
CaseyL
@Scout211:
@Jackie:
Oh, for pity’s sake. It never even occurred to me to try using my phone as a timer.
I have a new stove-oven, with non-intuitive and semi-useless controls*: you can set the timer, but unless you leave it up on the little tiny screen, you can’t go back into “Timer” to see how much time is left. If you try, you just re-set the damn thing.
Good to know I can use my phone.
*Bit of a rant here: kitchen appliances, unless you’re willing to spend more than $1000 on each of them, are fucking awful nowadays. Dishwashers that don’t wash very well, ranges that have lousy controls. I’ve had to replace both over the last couple of years, and almost wish I had kept the old beat-up ones!
Liminal Owl
@Another Scott: Is it really likely, at his current stage of dementia, that TCFFG would remember any state secrets? Or be able to re-tell them with any degree of accuracy?
(That is, even assuming that he read the papers rather than having his handlers spoon-feed him digested bits…)
Jackie
@CaseyL: I learned accidentally; but learning to use the timer on my phone at least three years before my “knows everything about iPhones” daughter still makes my day to this day 😂
Life’s little treasures 😊
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: If you are on the porch, how can you tell when the banana bread is done?
I was raised to tell when something was done more by smell than by time.
JaneE
My dad wanted bacon and eggs for breakfast every day before he left for work. My mother’s grease can was a 3 lb coffee can. She used it to fry and season almost everything, and if she still had too much she would put it in the fridge and when there was enough she would make up a batch of lye soap with the excess. Not for us to bathe with but to grate into the washing machine instead of laundry soap.
wjca
Surely compost, rather than landfill.
Soapdish
I know I’m late to the game, but count me in as another duck fat fan. The greatest poutine I’ve ever had was with fries made in and gravy made with duck fat. But yes, getting it yourself is a bit of a pita since duck is not a common dish in the US. And that’s why I have a big container of bacon grease next to the stove. Also, I put it in the dog’s dry food. Oh, and my FIL (RIP) bought me a shirt with a pig on it that said, “The Lard Will Set You Free”. Dammit I miss him.
WereBear
@RSA: What will the vegans do now?
sempronia
@trollhattan: That’s because you aren’t one of 1+ billion Chinese people who eat porridge – congee – on the regular.
evodevo
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
In the Perigord (where the truffles are) area of France, evidently that is the go-to fryer substance…
evodevo
@Eyeroller:
Yep…my first thought…