Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

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

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

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

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

In my day, never was longer.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

People are complicated. Love is not.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Night Open Thread

Monday Night Open Thread

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I was checking the headlines and saw that the stock market had its worst month in some ungodly amount of time, and continue to think that things are going to get a whole lot worse and we might very well see stagflation for the first time since the 70’s. The job numbers are going to be released soon and they will reflect not only the government layoffs but the uncertainty in the economy. Add to it all the tariff damage, the destruction of agriculture in the midwest that is so bad that they are talking about bribing those rugged individualist farmers with another bailout, the brain drain, and the boycotts on American goods, and we are going to be potentially seeing stagflation for the first time since the 70’s, all while the GOP carves up the social safety net for tax cuts.

At any rate, that made me think- this is going to be very tough on poor people, because this might be the closest we have been to an entire generation of poor kids raised on prepared and packaged foods, with no culinary skillsets at all. Not only that, things ain’t the way they used to be with grocery stores- all the little ones got run out, all the big ones don’t fuck with small towns, so it’s dollar general, gas stations and what not. If yer lucky a weekly walmart run. Depressing to think about.

Somewhat related, I think a lot of people overseason their food, especially things like chicken. Obviously unseasoned chicken is terrible to the point of being the butt of many a meme, but there are just as many people who layer on three lbs of lemon salt or whatever and then drown it in condiments. Chicken actually does have a flavor, especially if you eat something other than the breast, and sometimes there is absolutely nothing wrong with a seared chicken breast with butter, salt, and pepper. It’s ok to eat green beans with just salt and pepper. And broccoli. And so many other veggies. I guess maybe a lot of people are traumatized by canned vegetables or maybe their parents were bad cooks.

Another food thing- the European population is so small down here that it is a royal pain in the ass just to find basic ass pickles in the grocery. They have the bougie ones like grillo’s and other stuff, but you can’t find just a basic ass Mt. Oliver or Vlasic to save your life. I told Joelle I am canning a bunch of pickles this year and bringing them back. This is bullshit.

That’s all for me. Hope you all are well.

Reader Interactions

125Comments

  1. 1.

    Melancholy Jaques

    sometimes there is absolutely nothing wrong with a seared chicken breast with butter, salt, and pepper.

    My cardiologist insists that I avoid two of those three. I use basil, thyme, rosemary, & sage in various combinations. Mix them into low fat Greek yogurt, sprinkle with panko & bake.

  2. 2.

    Trivia Man

    Poor people cookbooks will be a big hit. Potatoes are a peasant staple for a reason, time to dust off all the variants.

  3. 3.

    sab

    For things like chicken salad or chicken soup I always add a hint of curry powder. Not a lot, just a littlle.

    I grew up in a low salt household so we are always battling over the amount of salt in food. Amd I cook pretty much everything from scratch because processed food is so salty as to be inedible for me.

  4. 4.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    John, have you tried Clausen’s pickles? Not a “fancy” brand but really good. Usually in the fridge case.

    Your comments about chicken called to mind my dad, b. 1915, a Depression-era kid in bare-bones Central Wisconsin who, in his later years, used to love a broken-up piece of dry bread in a bowl of warm milk for dessert because it transported him to a luxury snack of his youth.

  5. 5.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Trivia Man: I certainly don’t mean to generalize, but from what I understand, a big problem for poor Americans, is that cooking takes preparation and organization, getting ingredients together, etc.  All that takes time and attention, and that’s something that poor people don’t have a lot of.  Which is why they go for cheap-and-easy prepared meals – unhealthy, but quick and filling.

    It’s a problem.

  6. 6.

    Eolirin

    The worst part of this whole tariff nonsense is that outside of tech IP and Hollywood, the US isn’t exactly an exclusive producer of anything that really matters to anyone. Retaliatory tariffs might hurt but they won’t be as bad as the boycotts of US made goods; our export sector is very likely going to go through some things.

    Similarly, the US may be a big market, but it’s not the only big market, and people importing into the country can find other purchasers for their goods. We do not have the infrastructure or people necessary to reshore those things. If this gets bad enough, we may find ourselves unable to get a lot of staple goods that we currently enjoy, even at inflated prices due to tariffs, and we won’t be able to make up for that in any meaningful way.

    That this potentially includes the staple good of any kind of car, is extra ridiculous.

  7. 7.

    RandomMonster

    Tail end boomer/Gen Xer, and I can attest that canned vegetables traumatized me as a kid. But as an adult I realized there are no bad vegetables, just poorly prepared vegetables. Now I eat everything “with gusto, damn you bet,” to quote St. Jonathan Richman.

  8. 8.

    SpaceUnit

    It will be the MAGA trash eating your pets in 2028.  But they will still want a third term for trump.

  10. 10.

    Lauryn11

    Why are there so many (whole) kosher dill brands on shelf compared to plain regular dills? When I can find non-kosher dills they always come in the giant glass jar that you have to be as strong as a bridge troll to lift. What’s going on inside the dill pickle industrial complex?

  17. 17.

    Chetan Murthy

    @sentient ai from the future: I useta bogart me the mango pickles with my meals on the regular.  On.  The.  Regular.  Then one day my doc said “your BP is so high I won’t let you leave unless you promise to go on BP meds -today- , -today- my friend.”  Since then, I can’t have any of ’em.  Snif.

  19. 19.

    Trivia Man

    @Wombat Probability Cloud: i used to work for the company that made those pickles. I learned that the brine is the secret ingredient in many bloody mary mixes. I suggested they sell 5 gallon pails of the brine to bars, or at least pints at specialty shops. They ignored my suggestion.

    Fun fact: they used to get the lengthwise slices by shooting them through a ring if blades using water jets. 100+mph, and after the blade water the other direction to slow them down. Plant was in Woodstock IL near the Groundhog Day town square.

  22. 22.

    sentient ai from the future

    @Chetan Murthy: i mean, sodium intake is a real input to BP but it takes an awful lot for it to be the primary one. you might want a second opinion, my dude

  24. 24.

    Soderbee

    One of the first things I missed when we moved from NC to Oregon was sweet cube pickles. The only thing offered here is sweet relish which has a similar taste profile but the texture makes a difference in many of my recipes. I didn’t realize until then how important pickles are to southern cooking.

    The other thing I missed was White Lily flour for biscuits.

    One thing I don’t miss is the humidity.

  26. 26.

    Trivia Man

    @Chetan Murthy: Absolutely a problem. But many people will try to find alternatives. Creativity like in the depression is coming back.
    Tip: buy a small chest freezer.
    Buy hamburger in big chunks and split it yourself. (Ziploc bags can be washed many times!).
    Make batches of soup or stew in advance and freeze portions.

    It takes effort but i am fearful it is going to get really bad for a lot more people very soon.

  27. 27.

    Martin

    Benefits of living in my high rent city – there’s 16 different grocery options within biking distance (2 miles) of me, one of which is an organic farm which offers about 30 different crops (they are part of a cooperative with 5 other organic farms in the area). They aren’t necessarily cheap, mind you, but you can find anything you need. The Persian market, to my surprise (perhaps shouldn’t be), has the best baking supplies I’ve ever seen. Indian market, Korean market, two Chinese markets, one Japanese one. The Mexican market is a little further, but still pretty close – and huge. Most of these aren’t big chains, ether.

    Lot of inequality out there.

  29. 29.

    sentient ai from the future

    @Soderbee: low protein flour can be had easily enough anywhere if you know what to look for. self-rising, too.

    now, camellia brand kidney beans, those are a crapshoot for importing to the pnw

  31. 31.

    Martin

    @Trivia Man: Save the freezer – you’ll spend a lot of money on energy with one. Swap out the hamburger for beans. Cheaper and better for you too. You can buy dried beans for $1/lb and they’ll last pretty much forever. More than enough protein.

  32. 32.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    @Trivia Man: Re: selling brine, seems like an excellent idea to me: A way to maximize profits. I recall some communities in Wisconsin spreading brine on roadways instead of rock salt for winter traction, so it wasn’t exactly valued like recycled emeralds or panda kidneys.

    Cool tech used to slice up the pickles. One of my HS classmates moved to Michigan in the 1970s and worked for Vlasic. Had stories that I won’t repeat here. Tangentially, that recalls how they used to grade cranberries where I grew up: Launch them out of a chute and if they bounced they were good but if they went splat they were discarded. Never saw the setup but it was very Rube Goldberg.

  34. 34.

    LeonS

    @RandomMonster: I remember at sme point in my childhood it was revealed in magazines and such (remember those?) that frozen food was superior to canned. So thus my side dishes improved … a little.

  35. 35.

    Marc

    @Ohio Mom: he had a Jonathan Richmond and The Modern Lovers cassette tape in his car.

    They played once at my college in Worcester in ’73 or ’74 on “Spree Day”, when beer trucks would show up on the quad unannounced. I drove Route 9 to get home every week or so, Roadrunner has always been a favorite.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    @sentient ai from the future

    As I bake all my breads in the super super bread machine I go through a lot of flour. Corn rye is my go-to for sammiches (½ cup corn meal, 1 cup rye flour, 2½ cups white flour) so buy multi-pound bags of rye flour via Amazon. Costco is great for 25 lb bags of regular bread flour at a minuscule price.

    Anyhoo, ordered a new 4 lb bag of rye flour from the usual source there just last week. While looking, noticed what was listed as King Arthur rye flour, priced significantly less expensive per pound. So clicked to investigate. That’s when confuddlement set in. Enlarging the picture of the package, which did say rye flour on the front, saw this on the back:

    Ingredients: Wheat

    Just that one word description standing alone. Wheat ain’t rye, Arthur.

  38. 38.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax: haha, I went and looked.  Their “Rye blend” flour, sure I expect wheat.  But their “Organic Rye Flour” ?  Yeah, in the back under ingredients it says “Organic Rye Flour”, and right under that, “Contains Wheat”.  WTF KA?  WTF?

  39. 39.

    ColoradoGuy

    The big hit is going to be in the arms-export industries. The export business is probably going away for good, because nobody trusts the USA not to put kill switches buried in the software. Good question if Boeing or Lockheed-Martin remain profitable with no arms exports. If the USA can elect Trump twice, why should any nation trust us ever again?

    Foreign students going to US colleges is another multi-billion profit center that will go away for quite a while.

  40. 40.

    Chetan Murthy

    @ColoradoGuy: Foreign students at US colleges as -undergrads- was a profit center.  As grad students, they’re the labor force that powers the modern research university, and they then go out into industry and are the backbone of America’s engineering workforce.  All that’s gonna get blown up too.

  41. 41.

    wjca

    The job numbers are going to be released soon and they will reflect not only the government layoffs but the uncertainty in the economy.

    Assumes facts not in evidence.  Will the jobs numbers actually get released?  If they are, will they be massaged first?

    Those questions apply to a lot of the statistics that the government provides.  And not just on the economy; health comes to mind.

  42. 42.

    prostratedragon

    I like much of my food well-seasoned, in some sense, but no Vlasic’s is a step too far! i like kosher dill.

  45. 45.

    NotMax

    @prostratedragon

    If not already included, when get home I open the jar of kosher dills and drop in a teaspoon of crushed garlic, then close it up tight again and give it a hefty shake before placing in the fridge.
    ;)

  47. 47.

    prostratedragon

    @Lauryn11:  What I have trouble finding is plain Monterey jack cheese. Always with the herbs and spices that I seldom want.

     

    @Chetan Murthy:  What are rollmops? The herring in cream sounds good for a cracker or (if you can find one;) bagel.

  48. 48.

    Chetan Murthy

    @prostratedragon: pickled herring filets, not cut into sections, and typically sold rolled up in jars.  No sour cream.  A classic thing you get in the Northeast.

    ETA: if I had a car, I could get out to a Wal-mart and I’ve seen on their website that they carry ’em.  So maybe there’d be one in the Bay Area that’d have ’em.  But no car, so no joy.  And I’ve never seen a store in SF that has ’em.

  50. 50.

    NotMax

    @frosty

    Due to my preferred browser settings I don’t have access to the edit window. Nor, for that matter, to the reply function.

    All the HTML stuff is typed by hand and sometimes the old eyes skim right over minor oopsies.
    ;)

  51. 51.

    am

    Mt Olive, my man. You are going to make Ollie Q. Cumber cry.

    As to not only nitpick, you are not wrong. I am more worried about the degree of dependence on a usable internet connection and a device to connect to it. I can cook, but a generation (or three) has come to depend on the internet fairly heavily, myself included.

  52. 52.

    frosty

    @NotMax: I empathize. More than half the time I have to comment in the Text window. I hate it. Then go back and forth randomly between visual and text to get it to look right, mostly from the paragraph breaks.
    I need to bug WG and see if there’s something I’m doing wrong. Like commenting, maybe!!​

    ETA: No edit window? No Reply function? I don’t know how you have your browser set up but I’d buy a cheap tablet or used laptop just for B-J to avoid that kind of frustration. And screw the security. Call it a burner computer.

  54. 54.

    John Revolta

    @Chetan Murthy: The “Contains: Wheat” is probably a legal stratagem. They get in big trouble if  they sell something with wheat in it to people with food allergies but they process all their stuff on the same machines and it’s difficult if not impossible to clean them out entirely, so.

  55. 55.

    NotMax

    When it comes to pickle chips, these are da bomb.

    Both sweetness and spiciness are subtle, just enough to lightly tickle the tastebuds.

  56. 56.

    sab

    @Chetan Murthy: I feel for you. When I control my sodium it does make a major difference in my BP, but my sodium intake is pretty low now (no thanks to spouse’s preferences)  but I still need BP medications. And those make me dizzy so I take them at night, after a fun-filled day of high BP stress at work (and commuting to and from work.)

    I miss grapefruit a lot. I love grapefruit. Cannot eat (or should not) eat it while taking atorvastatin. Also too no Earl Grey tea, and also probably not proper marmelade (made from bitter angry oranges.)

    I am planning to get back to my pre-old-people-drug-free life, per Zeke Emmanuel, at seventy five. My dad made it almost to 100, and I would not wish his last ten years on anyone, least of all a good person I loved.

  58. 58.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Sigh. The Gilded Age was the preamble to the Great Depression. History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

  59. 59.

    sab

    @NotMax: Thankfully I don’t do marmite because of the crazy salt levels.

    Do you actually like marmite?

    Also too, are vegemite and marmite the same thing under different labels, or actually different?

    Also, being in Hawaii, do you like spam and poi?

  60. 60.

    sab

    @NotMax: I am here awake at 2 am EDT and we have tiny little sweet pickles in the fridge. Husband is offended by them and all sweet pickles. I might wander over and eat a few.

  62. 62.

    sab

    @ColoradoGuy: And I bet every last single person in management in every one of those companies voted for Trump because asshole is the Republican brand these days.

  63. 63.

    NotMax

    @sab

    Poi is okay for what it is, can take it or leave it. When it comes to Spam, have never in my entire life allowed it anywhere in the vicinity of the mouth.

    Have never tasted marmite either. As for vegemite, the whole story.

  65. 65.

    Socolofi

    We’re rapidly coming to a point where GOP Senators and Reps stare into the abyss and decide if they’re going to blink or not. The angry, angry town halls — they’ll say one thing publicly but they know. The stock market (and I’m sure they’re hearing it from their donors and rich buds), the world’s dumbest trade war… starting to see Tillis, Collins, Paul get nervous, although given it’s Collins, feels more like a “safe” vote – they vote like sane people but nothing comes up in the House. Iowa farmers may have been willing to go along with Trump getting tough on China 4 years ago, but Canada?

    The House snuck in a vote to avoid the vote, and it’s getting some air time. The vote in the Senate will be interesting as it makes all the Senators pick sides.

    I also note that Canada’s new PM, Carney, seems to be moving the needle. Totally ignoring Trump, going straight to the EU (and I’m sure getting more support than published), and making Trump call him. Notice Trump did call him Prime Minister, ending the stupid Governor thing.

    Buckle up…

  67. 67.

    Quaker in a Basement

    the European population is so small down here that it is a royal pain in the ass just to find basic ass pickles in the grocery

    What about mustard? They have mustard, don’t they?

  70. 70.

    ColoradoGuy

    @sab: And Trump could have played golf for the next four years, given the business types their precious tax breaks, and retired a hero to the Republican base.

    But no. As his dementia progresses, he’s gotten more aggressive, more impulsive, far more vicious, and more stubborn. And surrounded himself with drug addicts and alcoholics, to the point it takes a Kremlinologist to puzzle out who’s in charge. As the Signal group chat revealed, the answer is … no one, just a floating group consensus. Definite parallels to the late Soviet era.

  71. 71.

    TS

    @Trivia Man:

    My mother taught me at least 6 ways to cook 1 lb of mince to make a meal for a family of 4. Add potatoes cooked many different ways & we have many family meals. Only problem is a number of them use eggs – not so easy to acquire at the minute.

  72. 72.

    sab

    OT : Some of you have been following my family tragedy. We did actually manage to have not just a showing but an actual funeral Sunday.  Very healing. I hadn’t realized how much we needed this.

    Huge complicated family, Mom has seven kids with several dads. Dad has many kids with multiple moms.

    Mom tried to be a good mother  but drugs intervened. Older kids understand. Younger kids are still babies.

    Dad is irresponsible. Producing kids proves virility, Raising them is someone elses’s resposibility.

    All the kids showed up. Heartbroken. Her role in their life was to be the big sister when all the adults had failed. She did that for years. She broke away this last year when she thought the others had grown up enough to take over.

    Absolutely the saddest funeral I have ever been to. The deceased came through as incandescent in her love of life and her hopes for her future,

  73. 73.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @NotMax: That’s black propaganda against vegemite. Put out by those with undiscerning palates.

    Vegemite is what the gods eat when the ambrosia runs out.

  75. 75.

    sab

    @sab: My husband, not an actual grandparent, who drove her to junior high school, senior high school, and several jobs afterwards, chatting all the way, is devastated. He loved this girl so much.

  76. 76.

    Martin

    @ColoradoGuy: I don’t think he’s gotten more aggressive due to that. I think he’s gotten more aggressive because that works. Not only does he know nobody will lock him up, but the Supreme Court gave him immunity to do whatever the fuck he wants.

  77. 77.

    sab

    @Viva BrisVegas: Salty but very bitter is better than salty but slightly sweet.

    Y’all down under are tougher than we are

    ETA Being American I am peanut butter all the way, even with jelly.

  82. 82.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    Nobody will be held accountable for this.

    Well, the Trump administration certainly won’t hold themselves accountable

  83. 83.

    sab

    @Martin: Yikes, wow, JFC. what kind of third or fifth rate country are we. Cannot retrieve our own because…records…we don’t care.

    My sister and my family have been here back to the 17th century. Her husband and his kids came here back twenty years ago. Loyalist Americans ever. Came here from the alternative. Get crosswise with a party guy and you are done for. They thought coming here they had escaped all that.

    I will never forgive MAGAs and limp Republicans.

  86. 86.

    Gretchen

    @sab: Really? My parents loved grapefruit and made me eat it too. I consider one of the major benefits of being an adult is never, ever having to eat grapefruit again. Or lima beans. Unseasoned, plain lime beans, with a grapefruit chaser. What a childhood.

  87. 87.

    Debbie(aussie)

    @sab:

    I am sorry. Not sure I have any words to console you. Glad you were able to have her funeral. As the BJ saying goes  ‘may her memory be a blessing’.   Deb🤗

  88. 88.

    Gretchen

    @John Revolta: That’s my guess. My daughters are celiac, and won’t buy anything that’s from a factory that processes things with wheat, even if the particular product doesn’t have wheat in it itself.

  90. 90.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @LeonS: I always use chicken thighs instead of breasts, no matter what the recipe specifies. For some reason (probably the higher fat content), it is almost impossible to overcook thighs, whereas breasts seem to overcook and dry out in seconds.  Stir-fries, whatever. I make a lot of Asian inspired dishes which are basically garlic and green onion sauteed, with sliced shitake mushrooms and pieces of chicken thighs, with a Kevin’s sauce from the local Coop (tonight was Lemongrass Basil), served over rice, with chopped peanuts or walnuts. It reheats well too.

    we have watched Top Chef for many seasons (this season: Destination Canada!!) and I vividly remember one challenge years ago when a cheftestant used chicken breasts in the dish and it was dry, and Tom ragged him unmercifully for the mistake. Apparently chicken breasts have a “diet” food stigma to them in chef circles.

  93. 93.

    prostratedragon

    @sab:  I’m so sorry. Hope that the solace of the ceremony and gathering can last for all of you while you need it.

  94. 94.

    p.a.

    Grillo’s is bougie?  I guess bougie is a synonym for awesome.  Great pickles.  Maybe French gherkins would be a bougie pickle, so slap a tariff on ’em!

  95. 95.

    Baud

    @Martin:

    Zero chance we waste time trying to rectify every Trump injustice. There’s no constituency that will reward that effort.

  98. 98.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Trivia Man: Except it’s getting too hot in much of the US to grow potatoes. Last year the Pennsylvania potato crop was off 90% thanks to hot weather. I know Idaho is the state that’s famous for potatoes but PA is a major producer.

  99. 99.

    patrick II

    For the billionaires desperate for lower taxes — good news.  They don’t have to pay taxes on stock market losses.. It was so brilliant of them to support Trump knowing of his skill at taking losses and avoiding taxes.

  100. 100.

    jonas

    @Chetan Murthy: Definitely part of it, though in generations past there were people who were dirt poor, but who could still take what little there was available and make good food out of it. The difference was 1. a lot of that they grew/raised themselves and 2. they knew how to cook (usually the women). Many poor people today live in food deserts and/or don’t have access to a kitchen equipped with pots, pans, utensils, a pantry, etc. needed to turn some collards and a hamhock or some beans and chicken thighs into a meal. And if knowing how to cook at all wasn’t something you learned growing up, then that’s just an additional hurdle.

  101. 101.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chetan Murthy: Breast meat is the tofu of poultry: it’s lower-fat than other parts of the bird (important for some diets), and takes on the flavor of whatever you cook with it. It’s easier to overcook than thigh meat and just eating it straight without creative seasoning is a problem, but it’s versatile. I use it a lot.

    Boneless skinless thighs can be used in most of the same recipes and have more of a flavor of their own, but that’s mostly because they have more fat. So there’s a tradeoff if you’re trying to control that.

    I do like just roasting thigh quarters with legs–they’re almost impossible to ruin. Whole chickens are harder and it’s mostly getting the breast meat cooked through enough to be safe while not drying out the outer portion that’s difficult.

  103. 103.

    p.a.

    @jonas: And if you need 2.5 jobs just to keep some kind of roof over your head while running the debt-shuffle treadmill, McDirtbag’s and the gas station crap food court are where you have to be.  Shopping well, cooking & eating clean take time (not to mention $$), if the stuff is even available where you are.

  104. 104.

    jonas

    @LeonS: Speaking of foods that used to be almost throw-away cheap and have gotten crazy expensive, wtf is up with oxtails these days? I love them curried, jerked, just about any way, but damn, it’s like $15 for a couple of dinky little ones at my local market.

  105. 105.

    jonas

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Good point. So much of the spike in grocery prices over the past couple of years had to do with supply disruptions caused by climate/weather issues, from beef to potatoes to cocoa and coffee. Over the next couple of decades, you’re not going to be able to grow or raise much of anything in the southern tier of the US.

  108. 108.

    AM in NC

    @sentient ai from the future: When Food Lion here in NC started carrying Camellia beans, we did a little jig in my family.  We can make real red beans and rice without needing my aunt to mail them from NOLA any longer!  Happy Monday to us!!!!!!!!!!

  109. 109.

    lowtechcyclist

    @wjca:

    Assumes facts not in evidence.  Will the jobs numbers actually get released?  If they are, will they be massaged first?

    Those questions apply to a lot of the statistics that the government provides.  And not just on the economy; health comes to mind.

    It’s possible that they won’t be released, but the Muskovites don’t have the knowledge it takes to massage them in anything less than a blatantly obvious manner.

    Also, they haven’t yet infiltrated the Census Bureau to the point where they could.  Regardless of which agency sponsors them, the Census Bureau does the actual work on both the Current Population Survey (Demographics Directorate; used to be able to throw a paper airplane into the cubicles of the people who worked on it) and the employment survey, which was done over in the Econ Directorate.

    Same thing for health surveys. I know the people over at the National Center for Health Statistics, I worked with them for fifteen years.  One of those guys would probably commit suicide before having anything to do with putting out dishonest numbers, and the rest would simply quit.

  110. 110.

    different-church-lady

    Chicken has flavor if you don’t overcook it.

    It’s also very easy to overcook.

  113. 113.

    Another Scott

    Chicken actually does have a flavor, especially if you eat something other than the breast, and sometimes there is absolutely nothing wrong with a seared chicken breast with butter, salt, and pepper.

    When we were first trying out our Ninja indoor grill thing, I got a package of organic chicken breasts with the skin still on. Rinsed them off, dried with paper towels. Poured some “extra light” (high smoke point) olive oil in a bowl, added some salt, sloshed the breasts around in that to coat them, then stuck them in the Ninja with the thermometer for the indicated time.

    OMG, they were so good! I forgot how good chicken could taste.

    I assume that Big Chicken found a way to sell chicken skin for $1000/kg in East Asia and that’s why it’s so hard to find on most US chicken these days…

    Hang in there, everyone.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  114. 114.

    JML

    Out here in a MAGA county there’s one bit of good grocery news: the brown organic free-range eggs are now the cheap ones (still like $6 for a dozen, but the regulars are $7-8). And they’re in plentiful supply, probably because the MAGA types won’t touch the brown eggs. :rolls eyes:

    I like both chicken breasts and thighs. Breasts do have the advantage of being larger pieces of meat, generally, even if you do need to be careful not to overcook. works great for making a parm, and the air fryer is a great way to cook them. thighs often require a little more work, but have great flavor. love them with a good marinade and then on the grill.

    (especially happy my lifting restriction came off this week so I can get a fresh propane tank for the grill and start cooking that way again)

  115. 115.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JML:

    probably because the MAGA types won’t touch the brown eggs.

    So, didn’t grow up in Massachusetts?

  116. 116.

    pluky

    @sab: “Similar products [to marmite] include the Australian Vegemite (whose name is derived from that of Marmite), the Swiss Cenovis, the Brazilian Cenovit, the long-extinct Argentinian Condibé, the French Viandox [fr], and the German Vitam-R. Marmite in New Zealand has been manufactured since 1919 under licence, but with a different recipe; it is the only one sold as Marmite in Australasia and the Pacific Islands, whereas elsewhere the British version predominates.

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

  117. 117.

    RevRick

    @Chetan Murthy: Poverty exacts a huge toll on cognitive abilities. It adds stresses which most of us don’t have to deal with. Paying the rent or facing eviction. Having utilities cut off. Stretching SNAP benefits so there’s enough food to last through the month.
    What that means is that everything becomes a matter of now. What is the problem I have to solve now? And if I can’t solve it now, then I’ll just cope with some magical thinking that it will somehow solve itself.

    For a number of years, I used to volunteer for an information and referral program of our local Council of Churches on Friday mornings. Evictions were often scheduled for a weekend. And sure enough, folks would show up just before we were to close at noon, seeking sources of money to pay the landlord so they wouldn’t end up on the street. Or they knew that they had staved off the inevitable as long as they could and now wanted emergency shelter. But the local shelters always had waiting lists. And it was too late to cobble together some financial assistance.
    My heart sank when I told them that ugly reality. But I understood that the only way they could deal with their problems was to shove them to the back burner while they took care of today’s problems. Which were never ending.

  118. 118.

    pluky

    @ColoradoGuy: “it takes a Kremlinologist to puzzle out who’s in charge.”

    One of the take aways from the Signal chat was that, in a meeting of nominal peers, Stephen Miller was first among equals as the
    Voice of the President. Intelligence gold.

  119. 119.

    Barry

    @p.a.:

    “And if you need 2.5 jobs just to keep some kind of roof over your head while running the debt-shuffle treadmill, McDirtbag’s and the gas station crap food court are where you have to be. Shopping well, cooking & eating clean take time (not to mention $$), if the stuff is even available where you are.”

     

    2.5 jobs + commuting by bus for 2 hours or more…..

  120. 120.

    RaflW

    @JML: “the brown organic free-range eggs are now the cheap ones (still like $6 for a dozen, but the regulars are $7-8). And they’re in plentiful supply”

    A friend of mine is co-owner of Locally Laid Eggs up near Duluth, MN. They’re not organic, but seasonally pasture-raised and definitely on the hippy-clean foods end of things.

    She posted a while back that for the 14 farms that market together under that name, cost of production hasn’t really changed (most of the farms are Amish. She’s not, but built relationships and a very smart business). So they’re not raising prices, even though of course they could.

    If feed or energy or packaging costs rise, I’d expect them to honestly pass that thru, but they just won’t gouge. What a weird form of captialism!

  121. 121.

    Pink Tie

    @RevRick: Add to that the effects of poor food quality on brain development and health, and the bodily harm of having high levels of cortisol flooding your system, and the breakdown in cognitive function from getting too little rest… Plus, with the rollback of consumer financial protections like overdraft fee caps, it’s even easier to find oneself in a hole. I imagine we are going to see a rise in crime rates as people are forced to do things like shoplift from grocery stores.

  123. 123.

    They Call Me Noni

    @sab: My heart goes out to you and your husband in this time of unbearable loss.  I hope you can find comfort in knowing that you and your husband provided her with love and some stability in her too short life.

  124. 124.

    Lawrence

    John, are you talking about Tempe having no white people? They have Safeway and Fry’s (Kroger). What are your main cross streets there? I have lived in Phoenix most of my life. I went to ASU a long ass time ago. Daughter goes there now. I have to make a miserable commute to work on Broadway and Priest three days a week.

  125. 125.

    chemiclord

    I’ll you right now, the vile sin against nature that is canned veggies ruined my palate for vegetables until I was in my 30s.​

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