The best part of owning a dog is that no matter how long you are gone, whether it is an hour or eight hours, they are just as excited to see you:
Just making some home made marinara (tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil, salt and pepper) and pouring it over some fresh spinach and quinoa rotelle. Simple, but tasty.
cleek
i’m making jerk pork tenderloin with some Jamaican steamed cabbage. could be great, could be crap. i’ll know in an hour.
Punchy
I read that “home made marajuana”. whoops
Perry Como
Why must you abuse her by making her wear that collar?
General Winfield Stuck
Wow. What a regal pose from Lily. Wasn’t that long ago she looked like a lost soul. Nice work there Cole, nice work indeed.
linda
her posture is just so cool; she looks so confident and proud…. sitting on tunch’s couch. lol.
ya done a good job.
pika
Those are Properly Placed Paws™.
steve s
I predict the republicans will be howling about B-Rock the Black Panther soon:
http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/08/19/reid-spokesman-congress-will-pass-health-bill-by-any-legislative-means-necessary/
“The White House still prefers a bipartisan bill, and neither the White House nor the Democratic leadership has made a decision to pursue reconciliation…We will not make a decision to pursue reconciliation until we have exhausted efforts to produce a bipartisan bill. However, patience is not unlimited and we are determined to get something done this year by any legislative means necessary”
Oh noes! That New Yorker cover was not a joke! It’s for real!!11oneeleven
General Winfield Stuck
And I swear, Tweety must be trying to set some kind of record for bringing wingnuts on his show. Delay was his usual fascistic self. Why isn’t he in jail? Instead, going on teevee as some kind of dancin’ fool. what a country!
Anne Laurie
@Perry Como: Funnily enough, some rescue dogs are actually quite proud of their collars, presumably because they associate the state of no-collar-wearing with homelessness and general doggy grief. And since they can’t read, they’re spared any indignity related to a collar blazoned with ‘Spoiled B*tch’ or the ‘wrong’ sports team {grin}.
General Winfield Stuck
Hillbilly Caviar for meh tonight. Nothing better for the Colon and soul.
CaseyL
“Those are Properly Placed Paws™”
It’s amazing how she can look so regal and so dainty at the same time, isn’t it?
Cole, I’m starting to think The Futon of Photo Backdrop is the only non-TV piece of furniture in your living room.
Svensker
That is one gorgeous doggy. I hope you’re proud of yourself, Mr. Cole (except for that collar, but I’ve givin’ you passes on that one, just for today).
Is the marinara cooked or raw? I love all those ingredients that you just named chopped cold and raw, served with hot pasta. Deliciousness, thy name is summer.
It’s brutally hot here, so I’ve made fresh tabbouleh, hummus, and falafel, all to be served with grilled pita. And pickles. Mmmmm.
Walker
The same is true of my cat, but then I have the most dog-like cat I have ever seen. Marcus will up on the couch with me and rub himself against me for hours.
JenJen
John, just got off the phone with my mom, talking about her craaaaazy-eared little adopted mutt Sailor, and she told me, “Well, John Cole says he did this with Lily, so there!”
Thanks. Best argument with my mother that I ever lost. :-)
John Cole
@CaseyL: That is the couch in my home office. Whenever I am in the mood to take a picture and post it, I turn around and just take a picture of the beast du jour lounging there.
Incertus
Funny–what you love about dogs is what drives me nuts. I much prefer the cold disdain of my cats.
However, that doesn’t stop me from posting a dog picture if it’s a good example of going Galt.
John Cole
@JenJen: What was she doing with big ears?
JenJen
BTW, glad to see you’re back into food! I have a sauce simmering on the stove, and look forward to turning it into a Margherita pizza in the very-pretty-near future.
Yummy-delish! Mmmm. Backyard tomatoes are the shizz.
John Cole
@Svensker: Cooked. I like the flavor more when it is cooked.
ellaesther
I’m all up in Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography (William Lee Miller) these days, and man oh man oh man alive, if reading about the Mexican War and Polk’s reasoning, and the objections of a certain Illinois politician, and the complaints others made about that politician, and so on and so forth, doesn’t remind me of a rather more recent war and and rather more recent Illinois politician…! Not to mention the similarity of people who attempt to remain ideologically pure and wind up condemning the nation to bad leadership, by refusing to be honest about the options before them (cough-Bush/Gore-cough!). I continue to think that today’s politician from Illinois is (still) trying to lead from behind on this health care thinga-ma-hoozie, much in the spirit of that earlier fellow — and thus that the Sebelius comment was an effort to get the Progressive Democrats off their timid asses and force them to contribute a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to the damn conversation.
Oh, and it looks like Lily might be drilling into my soul with those incandescent blue eyes. Just sayin’.
JenJen
@John Cole: His name is Sailor, and on Friday afternoon, he will experience his first sailboat moment. I’m a little scared.
Hoping the wind-power his ears will provide will make my mom’s Sailing Club gawk in awe. Mom is pretty green, and shit. :-)
By the way, I thought she was letting Sailor out of the crate too early, and she responded with, “Well, John Cole said!”
Just so you know. You are causing pet-friction across this great nation of ours, and to you I say GOOD DAY SIR, good day!
donaquixote
That Lily is so cute. you “done” good. and the food sounds good, too. we’re grilling homegrown zucchini and tomatoes on the grill and having homegrown marinated cucumbers and onions. yum.
SGEW
@Walker:
Mine as well, no matter if I’ve been gone for 18 hours or 18 minutes. I’m pretty sure that she has no concept of time whatsoever.
ellaesther
@John Cole: I’m going to continue to choose to believe that you’re hiding something.
Untold wealth? Maybe.
Terrible taste in furniture? Possibly.
Or is it: DEAD BODIES?!?!
John Cole, when will you come clean about the dead bodies with which you decorate your house?! I have a Kenyan certificate right here that says that a Kenyan company recently established in the great port of Kenyastan shipped these bodies to your home!
Tell the truth! The American commenting public has a right to know!
Dreggas
@Punchy:
you and me both
Laura W
@Incertus:
Totally. My dog is so freaking needy and pathologically attached to my side since we moved (and the 11 years prior) I’ve started screaming at her “STAY! DAMNIT!” when I leave one room to go to another (usually just to pee).
Christ. If I wanted an appendage or something that never left me alone, I’d have had a kid or four by now.
I can safely say this is the last dog I’ll ever have.
Probably.
Kryptik
I think Carlin said it best in one of his earlier specials: Dogs have no concept of time. The only understanding they have of it is now…and FOREVER!. If you’re not here now, you’ve been gone FOREVER!, whether you took a week vacation or you just stepped out to take out the garbage.
Makes it funny though when you walk out, then turn back because you forgot your keys or something…and they start bouncing at you like you abandoned them for months. Whereas a cat will just stare at you like you should’ve been gone longer to keep from bothering them.
wobbly
The worst part of owning a dog is realizing that the dog will get old and die way before its owner, no matter what its owner tries to do about it.
demkat620
Why can’t I post?
demkat620
@General Winfield Stuck: What is Hillbilly Caviar?
MikeJ
Happy B-day to Bill Clinton, and to my mom!
General Winfield Stuck
@demkat620:
Soup Beans. Or, the elitist Pinto Beans/
steve s
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=letting_go_of_the_public_option
The public option is not very important, that guy argues.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Kryptik:
Ditto – I can walk out to the car, realize I have forgotten something, walk back in the house and the boxers go nutzoid, like I have been gone all day. I have to admit however that when we have been gone longer they do go MORE nutzoid, so perhaps they do have levels of time.
Lily caption “I’m ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille”
You really have done an incredible job with her John, all joking aside, that is one confident, happy, content, secure puppy right there. She knows she is in her forever home. Fuck it I am going to cry again.
HumboldtBlue
What a beautiful animal. I am convinced she and the newest addition around these parts, Nancy the Dog, would be bestest friends.
Dreggas
Speaking of food went to an italian place today where they kept the sauce hot, but it was just the tomato sauce base. Once you ordered the guy put some meatballs (fresh made) in a pan, added x-amount of tomato sauce, a bit of heavy cream and then tossed in fresh basil and garlic and pepper/salt and cooked it up right there, tossed in some spaghetti, tossed it all up and gave it to ya. I was amazed, for 8 bucks it was better than some of the fancier italian places I’ve been. It helped that the guy doin the cooking was some lil italian dude from back in NY. Even had photos up of events he catered for Bill Clinton and others. Was pretty awesome being it was a little whole in the wall joint.
MikeJ
The public option is important for keeping score.
No health care bill – republicans win
health care bill, no public option – blue dogs win
pubic option – America wins
JenJen
@Laura W: Don’t you HATE that? When your perfectly fine, recovering-from-knee-surgery dog won’t stop following you, from couch to door and beyond?
Pack animals suck ass, I say!! OK, I didn’t mean a word of that. But seriously, do dogs just have to follow you everywhere?
Jennifer
@ellaesther:
I think the “mixed messages” are part of the plan.
Gibbs goes out and insists that “nothing has changed” w/r/t public option or with bipartisan efforts. That’s his job – to put the spin on things that most helps the president. Meanwhile, Rahm’s been out there saying, “these guys aren’t interested in working on anything.”
Look what floating that “the public option’s not that important” accomplished: within 24 hours it had generated progressive support efforts and at the same time, flushed the Republicans out from behind their masks to reveal them as simply purely obstructionist, as they all rushed to attack the notion of co-ops.
The theme that is being repeated here over and over again is: we’ve done everything we can to work with these dickheads, and we’re still open to working with any of them who are interested in working to fix healthcare, but we can’t work with them because they don’t believe that health care needs any reform at all. That’s why they have offered no alternative approaches or any plan of their own – because they think it needs to stay the way it is now.
The final line in this story will be: we were elected to address this problem so we’ll have to move forward with fixing it without their support, despite making every effort to work with them in a bipartisan way.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Laura W:
Laura when I go to the bathroom to pee, Judy will sit outside the bathroom door and whine pitifully, Cueball however will shoulder-charge the door open, walk in the bathroom and then stand guard by me until I am done. He does this even if I lock the door. Reminds me of that internet thingy that circulated a couple of years ago “an open letter to my pets”
1. There is no emergency exit from the bathroom, I must exit through the same door that I entered, you do not need to sit outside worrying.
Litlebritdifrnt
For the sake of accuracy here is the complete quote:
“For the last time, there is not a secret exit from the bathroom. If by some miracle I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge and try to pull the door open. I must exit through the same door I entered. Also, I have been using the bathroom for years –canine or feline attendance is not mandatory.”
Dreggas
@Litlebritdifrnt:
My CAT does that. If i go in to use the bathroom he busts in the door since it never closes completely.
smiley
@Dreggas:
steve s
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Dial down the crazy a bit hon.
Third Eye Open
Just read the piece over at Digby’s about the political theatrics this week. Kind of gives me hope that the sausage making process is about to begin.
You have to admire the masochistic tendencies of a major American political party, such as the Dems. At this point, HCR seems like it has a couple of holes to duck into through the legislative brier patch, and might just escape conference with its head still attached. The “optics” of the entire affair seems horribly contrived, yet we will all pony up time, energy and money to play monkey in the middle…and we are ALWAYS the monkey. Tough-love and all that.
ellaesther
@Jennifer: This makes perfect sense to me and I am crossing my fingers that you and I have read the tea leaves/talking heads accurately! And that nobody shoots anybody in the meantime….
Third Eye Open
screwed the pooch, here’s the link: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/as-if-they-had-choice-by-dday-nyt.html
steve s
@smiley: “Um, that’s what restaurants do. You didn’t actually think that they cook up everything from scratch once it’s ordered, did you?”
People would be amazed how often food at restaurants comes to them from the microwave.
smiley
@smiley: Sure wish I could edit (and I know it’s coming soon).
James K. Polk, Esq.
John, how long since you rescued Lily?
GeneJockey
Lily has definitely become ‘Awww!” -inspiring. Love the Stillers collar.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Svensker:
My husband keeps asking me “but you like pasta why don’t you eat the same thing I eat” the answer is cause he likes a really heavy sauce, basically a vodka cream sauce, with italian sausage and mushrooms, with EXTRA cream. I prefer the simplest of marinaras, chopped tomatoes, a little garlic, some italian seasoning. That is it. If I served that to him he would look at me as if I was insane. The only time we eat pasta together is when I do my spinach Tagliatelle
with mushrooms, sour cream, heavy cream and Parmesan cheese, I lurve that stuff.
steve s
If ted kennedy can’t be there for a vote, shouldn’t he resign from the senate, so he can be replaced by someone who can serve? or is that a lengthy process which won’t matter in time for health care? Be ironic if health care was fillibustered to death because of him, no?
Litlebritdifrnt
@steve s:
Whut? I am not following you there.
Dreggas
@smiley:
It was from scratch. The meatballs were from scratch and so was the sauce. the only thing prepared so to speak was the sauce.
MikeJ
@Litlebritdifrnt: When I was a kid I never thought I’d be able to stand spag bol. Then I grew up and discovered that you didn’t have to make it the horrible way my parents (and your husband) do. Totally opened my eyes.
Tokyokie
Walker
The best part of owning a dog is that no matter how long you are gone, whether it is an hour or eight hours, they are just as excited to see you:
The same is true of my cat, but then I have the most dog-like cat I have ever seen. Marcus will up on the couch with me and rub himself against me for hours.
My little Balinese always greets me at the door when I come home. Heck, whenever the doorbell rings, he rushes to the front door, figuring somebody new has come to pet him.
Litlebritdifrnt
@steve s:
I agree with you, he should either be wheeled into the sentate on a gurney to vote yay or give up his seat and give it to someone who will vote yay. This is too important, and it has been his life’s work, if it fails because he was not there to vote yay and fails by one vote he will never forgive himself. Either make sure you are there, or give up your seat.
smiley
@steve s: Given how long food often sits waiting to be served, the microwave makes sense.
steve s
@smiley: Oh, I agree. I just think it’s something that would surprise many people.
freelancer
@steve s:
Damned Microwaves, concern trolling the hell out of my restaurant food!
Litlebritdifrnt
@MikeJ:
Mike when I was married to my first husband I made two types of spag bol, mine which was basically a marinara with ground beef, and my husband’s which was the same but adding ketchup, I kid you not, if his spag bol didn’t have ketchup in it he wouldn’t eat it. Current husband is also the “throw everything but the kitchen sink into the sauce” type. I cannot figure what is wrong with a simple chopped tomatoes, garlic and italian seasoning, apparently I am a freak.
Rey
I know people get all upset about Chris Matthews having DeLay on but, this dude is too looney to not have him on. Kinda like BoB here at Ballon Juice. Wingnuts- gotta love ’em.
Kirk Spencer
@Dreggas: No, you missed the point.
In every restaurant I’ve ever worked, every dish has a “hold point” where they are partially prepped, and it only takes 5-10 minutes to finish. Remember it takes an hour or two to make a lasagna, for example. Beef Wellington is NOT a 15 minute dish.
What Smiley is saying is that if you go to a fancy restaurant and order the spaghetti and meatballs, what they’re going to do in the back is pretty much what this guy did in the front. A seasoned tomato base is prepped (maybe even from scratch by the sous or prep chefs), meatballs are cooked just short of done so they don’t turn to rubber in the warmer – or they’re a bit shorter than that and they’ll get a fast turn in something hot to finish them. A LARGE pot of boiling water goes constantly from which some is dished and noodles are brought from almost done to al dente at the same time they’re heated.
He wasn’t really saying what you got wasn’t from scratch. He was saying it’s nothing special beyond seeing behind the curtain.
Dreggas
@Kirk Spencer:
DOH! yeah I see what you mean. I was just a bit surprised because in a lot of places it just sits on a warmer waiting.
steve s
@freelancer:
And those waitresses! Acting all _concerned_…
Litlebritdifrnt
@smiley:
Alot of restaurants use the “cook chill” method. They prepare the meals (especially those that include meat) and then “chill” them to a certain temperature, while not freezing them. It means that they can grab a portion, whack it in the microwave and serve it as “fresh”. It is obvious (speaking as a brit) that you simply cannot cook something like “Lancashire Hot Pot” from scratch once it is ordered and expect the customer to wait four hours. I once went to a pub in the moutains and they had “Irish Stew” on the menu, I ordered it, the chef came out and said “it will be another hour or so, we ran out and the latest batch has only been cooking for three hours” I was happy to wait.
demkat620
@General Winfield Stuck: Thanks!
I did not know that.
Laura W
I think this is a very opportune time to remind everyone here that
TOP CHEF COMES BACK TONIGHT FROM LAS VEGAS!!
Check out the bruisers in the Who’s Who section.
Yikes.
http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef
smiley
@Dreggas:
jemerson
John I make your marinara recipe a lot, except that I add a tablespoon or two of some good balsamic vinegar. And if you throw in some chopped cukes and one or two green onions, you have a rather tasty salad…
grumpy realist
John, at some point we should have another “post best recipes” thread. (As of right now I’m trying out all the recipes for Japanese buta-kaku-ni I can get my hands on; will post the one that tastes most authentic.)
Buta-kaku-ni: Literally, “pork cut into squares.” Slow-cooked braised pork in soy sauce. Absolutely delicious, period, and probably very bad for your arteries.
Dreggas
@jemerson:
i throw in a little merlot or cabernet depending on what i have in the house, just to change it up once in a while.
estraven
See, this is my problem with dogs. I can’t stand that they get excited to see their person … it’s like too much responsibility, and I say this as a person who has kids! The Dog Whisperer taught me something valuable, which is …
I AM NOT A PACK LEADER!
My cats are great. They are aloof, but they do want to be with me when they aren’t mad at me. They come around for affection, but I don’t have to walk them. I don’t have to clean up after them. I like that the affection etc. is on their terms. It cheers me.
Oh no I could never have a dog …
Dreggas
@smiley:
I guess what made this exceptional to me is that this place was at a strip mall food court that consisted of your usual fast-food chinese, a fish and chips place and a Blimpie. Unlike other fast italian joints (for instance S’Barro) this was thrown together on the spot which tasted a lot better since the ingredients were pretty fresh. Perhaps i should have clarified that I was talking about a place in the equivalent of a food court at the mall.
Plan on trying the linguini with clam sauce tomorrow.
smiley
@Kirk Spencer: Thanks. You explained it better than I could. (I’ve only been a life guard and a college professor).
Kirk Spencer
@Laura W: I don’t watch it. Not can’t, won’t.
Waaaay too much “reality TV”, far too little cooking. And what cooking there is tends to be … I think surrealistic is the closest label.
Now I do like some cooking shows – even some schlocky ones like Iron Chef America. (The Secret: the chefs are told three ingredients in advance of which one will be THE ingredient. That’s why some of the chefs ‘just happen’ to have the right special tool from their restaurant or have that particular, peculiar ingredient on their table. Just thought I’d spoil that for you all.) But I get to see the cooking – sorta, but moreso than any episode of Top Chef I ever watched.
Kirk Spencer
@smiley: heh – I am an information specialist (librarian), my job is information. And the fact I paid my way through graduate school working restaurants is just a coincidence.
Senyordave
I wonder if it comes down to it, will one of the Republicans vote to end a filibuster as a proxy for Kennedy. I believe at one time it was quite common in the Senate, when an issue could be affected by one vote and there was an ill Senator that a member of the other party would cast a vote against his/her party.
Can’t imagine Mitch McConnell allowing it. I could have seen a pre-Palin McCain doing that (I think I want to trademark that phrase – McCain’s political career should be divided into the pre-Palin and post-Palin phases).
ellaesther
OH! And when I was at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum the other day (easily the best museum I’ve ever been to), I saw a reproduction of an editorial cartoon in which President Lincoln was depicted as an African king. Hmmm…. One wonders if they had a birth certificate to back that up.
Laura W
@Kirk Spencer: pppppppffffffffftttttttttttt.
Bad Horse's Filly
I’m making commenter Kirk Spencer’s Squab in a Coffin (how could I resist with a name like that?).
Montysano
@General Winfield Stuck:
I hate to contradict a general, but hillbilly caviar is black eyed peas, sir.
Demo Woman
@Senyordave: It would be classy if Hatch would. They have been friends for a long time but under this environment, I doubt that it will happen.
Incertus
@Senyordave: I doubt it. I think that if that situation comes up, Kennedy will be rolled onto the floor on a damn stretcher to cast his vote. I think part of the reason he hasn’t resigned is because he’s determined to have a health care bill with his name on it somewhere.
steve s
@Senyordave:
Man. Think about that. Imagine if we got health care reform that would have been filibustered, but a Republican Senator voted to end the filibuster on behalf of Ted Kennedy. Holy Crap. Erick Erickson would lose his shit. He’d wind up taking hostages in a Wal-Mart or something.
Bad Horse's Filly
@RedKitten: John, if you’re looking for votes, I vote to put Redkitten’s Samuel on the front page again.
Bad Horse's Filly
@Kirk Spencer: Kirk, can I put your recipe (the way you wrote) on my blog. If yes, how would you like me to attribute it? Thanks, TaMara
shelley matheis
Oh, Lily!
“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Cole”
WereBear
I love the way my three cats hang around the door until I come home, and then flee elsewhere to see if I follow them for some petting and fussing.
And yes, I do.
John Cole
@James K. Polk, Esq.: 2 1/2 months or thereabouts.
ironranger
Gakk. I heard Tom Delay on Hardball from another room talking about Obama’s birth certificate. He sounded like he had had several cocktails. Any see if he looked drunk?
Violet
Lily is so beautiful. Makes my heart happy that you’ve found each other. You’ve done a good thing, John Cole.
Brick Oven Bill
So there I was waiting for an appointment, drinking my fountain diet soda ($1.89, free refills) at an acquaintance’s pizza place. Then the acquaintance comes in and says ‘Hi Bill’. Then ‘are you hungry?’ He had just catered some event and had leftovers. I have worked with this person out over the years. These leftovers were his wife’s own recipe, he informed me.
I said I was not really hungry, as I had eaten a bratwurst for lunch, but said ‘sure I’ll try some’. My acquaintance’s wife’s pasta dish was not so good. She puts zucchini in it, and summer squash, and artichokes. This amongst perfectly good noodles, tomato-based sauce, and cheese.
Following consumption, he asked how it was, and I said ‘it was pretty good’, being thankful that this friend had offered me a meal. But in reality, this meal showed the classic signs of female tampering. She tried to do too much. She tried to be too fancy. Why would any rational person put summer squash in a pasta dish?
The only non-tomato vegetables allowed in pasta dishes are onions, spinach (maybe), and mushrooms. Everybody knows this. Except women who try to be too fancy and mess with tried and proven recipes (Oh, how creative; Oh, how original; their friends say). This is why the best chefs are all male. This is also why there were so many leftovers from this catered event.
General Winfield Stuck
@Montysano:
Maybe for them yokels across the holler in West “by God” Virginny. The proper folk in east Kentucky know for dern sure, peas don’t have eyes. Black, blue, or otherwise. Get down and give me twenty trooper.
ironranger
Gakk. I heard Tom Delay on Hardball from another room talking about Obama’s birth certificate. He sounded like he had had several cocktails. Anyone see if he looked drunk?
Laura W
@Brick Oven Bill: You make me want to immediately change my handle to Tampering Female.
Or maybe name a band or CD Tampering Female.
Ahhh, Bill. It’s always a delight when you deliver me the best out loud laugh of my day.
Phew. What would we do here without you? Laugh less, for sure.
Origuy
@Kirk Spencer: Have you read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain? What did you think?
Montysano
@General Winfield Stuck:
The last time I was in Kentucky, I ordered sweet tea. I was served a glass of brown liquid and given a sugar bowl. Blasphemy, sir! The black eye bows to no other legume.
James K Polk, Esq.
@John Cole: Jobwell done, man! She is looking quite at home and comfortable, especially quickly.
Montysano
Having not seen it since it was in the theaters in 1984, let me say that the Talking Heads “Stop Making Sense” is the most wonderful, joyous concert movie ever. I’ve been busting David Byrne moves all week; it ain’t pretty, and my daughter is horrified.
shelley matheis
geg6
I’m with Laura W on the whole Top Chef thing. Love, love, love it. And, yes, I’ll say it, Tom Colicchio is a sexy man. As is John Cole, because any man good enough to transform that poor puppy into that beautiful and proud dog (even more gorgeous with that lovely collar) is obviously a very sexy man. That said, there is fun tv tonight with the finale of Top Chef Masters and the premiere of Top Chef Las Vegas immediately after. A Lily pic and Top Chef marathon. Life is good. Thank FSM, because tomorrow is move in day for freshmen, so I’ll have a miserable day.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brick Oven Bill:
So he’s a racist, sexist and a creepy stalker.
And for the record, pasta dishes with non-tomato-based pesto are the bomb. Especially for someone for whom too much tomato sauce causes the heartburn.
Is this why BoB is a virgin?
shelley matheis
arguingwithsignposts
@Montysano:
Wow, I thought Ky was in the “sweet tea” belt.
I love the black-eyed pea, and the baked beans with brown-sugar and bacon bits added, too.
All this food talk is making me hungry.
General Winfield Stuck
@Montysano:
Pea Shooters at dawn then.
steve s
http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/prairie-health-care-companion/?ref=global-home
Demo Woman
@General Winfield Stuck: lol
Take pictures!
Skepticat
Now, that proud, confident, secure, and beautiful animal bears only a passing resemblance to a certain frightened, bewildered rescue dog from the not-so-distant past. Of course Tunch always looks proud, confident, secure, and beautiful. Attaboy, John.
On a totally different tangent, has anyone else seen Earthbound Misfit’s information on Flash cookies? http://rpc.blogrolling.com/redirect.php?r=fede5a560033025a1e6613cac507d445&url=http%3A%2F%2Feb-misfit.blogspot.com%2F
I checked the deep, dark depths of my system and found more than 4,200 cookies hidden away. Firefox has an add-on and there’s a link to a program (called Flush, great name) that clears them.
Laura W
@geg6: “I’m sweating like a mountain goat at the beach.”
HA!
Where you gonna get dialogue like that, huh?
Kirk Spencer
@Bad Horse’s Filly: Sure. And Kirk Spencer really is my name – use that for the attrib.
While the description is my own, the dish itself is… gah, I don’t recall what nation’s “country dish” it is, not off hand.
Have at it.
Bad Horse's Filly
@Laura W: I need an opinion. John has asked me to post a menu again (which he may or may not post tomorrow). What do you think, chicken, fish or beef?
Okay, anyone can vote, LW is my jump sister, so I value her opinion.
Laura W
@Bad Horse’s Filly: Beef.
Deborah
It’s sweltering in Boston, too, so we had grilled corn gazpacho and spinach salad. My no-cook meals are getting a workout–last night was grilled corn with cold ham, tomorrow night is lettuce and beef wraps.
Lily is adorable. So pleased and proud of you she is.
Indylib
@Bad Horse’s Filly: I vote fish, plz.
Svensker
@Litlebritdifrnt:
My husband keeps asking me “but you like pasta why don’t you eat the same thing I eat” the answer is cause he likes a really heavy sauce, basically a vodka cream sauce, with italian sausage and mushrooms, with EXTRA cream.
Well, I like that, too, but not in New Jersey when it’s 95 degrees with 90% humidity. Then I want uncooked fresh picked tomatoes coarsely chopped with fresh garlic, fresh basil, salt, pepper and olive oil, preferably over spaghettini, because it cooks in just a few minutes and doesn’t hot up the kitchen too much. I might suffer a little freshly grated Parmesan over the top, but not enough to block the bright taste of fresh summer ‘maters. And a cool white wine along side.
Brick Oven Bill
Take, for instance, vintage Iron Chef, which is a pretty good show from Japan. All guys. So then the Food Network gets a hold of the rights and the pinheads from Food Network gasp that all the chefs are males and add a female Iron Chef to prove that they are not sexist for their friends and minders in New York.
In the case of the original Japanese Iron Chef, the challenger gets to make an individual decision as to who to challenge. There is a business aspect to this in modern America as the challengers, more often than not, are guys with restaurants. It is a bad business decision to be seen picking on a girl chef, and an even worse business decision to have the cards stacked against you with the Food Network’s ownership looking to create imagery, and get beat by a girl on national TV.
So the producers in the American version do not allow the challenger to select his Iron Chef at first, for an American challenger would surely select the toughest Iron Chef, either Bobby Flay, or Mario Batali. Nobody would pick Cat Cora, but this is not acceptable for a national audience.
So ownership now misrepresents things, and now pretends that the challenger can pick the Iron Chef. But it is all fake for TV. Iron Chef challenges are pre-determined per Wikipedia.
In reality, there probably is compensation if a restaurant owner is compelled by the minders to challenge Cat Cora instead of Bobby Flay.
Comrade Kevin
@Origuy: My brother, who is a chef, read it, and his opinion was that Bourdain was exaggerating about quite a bit of what is in the book. When I read it, I had no way of knowing about any of it.
shelley matheis
Ah, Bob, you must really be a hit with the ladies,
I watched the original Japanese episodes of ‘Iron Chef.’ And yes, there were female chefs competing. Suck it.
SiubhanDuinne
@ MikeJ / 6:16 pm. Pubic option?
Anne Laurie
@Litlebritdifrnt:
In their defense, canines being eternal optimists, there’s always the possibility that your hard heart has been melted and you decided to let them COME WITH ! in the CAR! ! which is practically the best thing evah! ! !
@JenJen:
It would be tragic if you dropped something edible, and your loving dog wasn’t there to snarf it up. Sure, humans think “not in the bathroom I won’t, silly dog,” but that’s what the cats told them, and the cats were wrong!
SiubhanDuinne
@ MikeJ / 6:36 pm
Damn, no preview and am on BlackBerry anyhow.
I was forced to LOL at “pubic option = America wins.” Because, yeah.
Brick Oven Bill
Those were female Japanese assistants Shelley. There is no point of discussing sexual prowess on the Internet. Let us just leave it at my observation that women find it attractive when men knead dough in their presence. It seems to work better than puppies.
Mike in NC
Maybe it’s brain damage from inhaling insecticide all those many years. That would actually explain a lot.
Kirk Spencer
@Brick Oven Bill: I think Kyoko Kagata would be offended to be called an “assistant”. So would Katsuyo Kobayashi, Fuyuko Kondō, Yoshie Urabe, Yoshiko Takemasa, Katsuko Nanao, Kumiko Kobayashi, and Miyoko Sakai, Gillian Hirst, Cui Yufen, and Lee Myong Suk.
In other words, once more you’ve been found to be mistaken.
I have got to quit wasting time on your posts.
arguingwithsignposts
WTF?
arguingwithsignposts
@Kirk Spencer:
Hey, why let facts get in the way of BoB’s sexism?
nicely played, sir.
Kirk Spencer
@Origuy: I thought it a fairly accurate reflection of what I saw of the industry.
Way, way back when I was in high school, I thought I was going to be a chef. I got lucky and went to work in a restaurant with an honest to goodness culinary artist. The man had won a LOT of awards for the dishes he’d prepared. I learned a lot working for him – for the six months the restaurant lasted. He couldn’t run a restaurant. He could barely manage being a line chef, much less properly manage the rest of the place.
Me, I learned just how frigging hard it is to be a professional cook, much less professional chef, and went into the army because it was easier. (Well, with a short time picking up my undergraduate college degree, first. But I’m not kidding about the ‘easier’ part- and I was airborne infantry.) Yes, I thought Burdain’s book worth reading if you’re seriously considering going into that part of the business.
steve s
Kirk, go to cleek’s site. There’s a script you can install which adds about 35 IQ points to BoB’s posts.
Brick Oven Bill
Those Japanese Iron Chefs in the link look pretty much like they are guys Kirk. I have seen the original Iron Chef, and they were all guys. This is the basis of my assertion.
Men are better cooks because cooking boils down to thermodynamics, a science that presented itself to mankind following the emergence of the seven liberal arts in the Middle Ages. This and biology. Those who can grasp the concepts of thermodynamics sub-consciously make better food. Mechanical engineers from good, honest schools are almost exclusively male. Thus the demographics of top chefs.
This is why people pay through the nose to advertize with Bobby Flay’s splinter show (Throw-Down), and Cat Cora is lucky to keep her birthright job at Iron Chef.
Kirk Spencer
@steve s: Yes it does. Except I use an old’n’slow computer. Turning on greasemonkey slows my computer noticeably (about 5-8%). I used to think I was pretty good with computers – have pretty pieces of paper laying along with a few paystubs that say so. I’ve learned more in the past year keeping a 5 year old low-end computer viable … Hmmm, I don’t need that. And that’s redundant. And if I tweak the priority of that it’ll free a few more cycles. PIE? Why does Pie take so bloody long to make?
Laura W
@Brick Oven Bill: Why are you not gracing us with your knowledge in the Top Chef Open Thread, Bill?
Skepticat
SGEW— I’m pretty sure that she has no concept of time whatsoever.
I had a cat who could read a calendar. When I was still working, the cats would greet me at the door when I came home. Except on Fridays in the summer. The white cat would be there, but the tortie was be nowhere to be found. On summer Fridays, I’d toss them in the car and head for the cottage. As this was on an island, the combination of the car ride and boat trip was too much for her and she’d make herself scarce in (futile) hopes I’d leave without her. All my cats have been good travelers, but not very enthusiastic about it. I can’t tell you how I miss that smart, brave, beautiful cat.
Skepticat
Rats, sorry, the ital was supposed to end after “Except.”
Anne Laurie
@steve s:
Believe me, if it comes down to that, Teddy will be wheeled onto the Senate floor in one of those portable ICU units. From a Realpolitik viewpoint, consider the optics of that, versus the opposition sneering “Chicago-pol Obama would rather force a dying old man out of a job he’s held for 30 years rather than risk his
DeathHealth Squad Task Force cutting the vote too fine.”Or, more pragmatically, one of the Blue Dogs or the not-completely-batshite Republicans will be shamed into switching sides as Kennedy’s proxy. I have a vague memory of this being done at the end of Clinton’s term, or the beginning of Bush the Lesser’s, when a down-to-the-wire vote balanced on a Dem whose mother was dying in a midwestern hospital. One of his fellow Repubs was going to vote “proxy” for him, and the other Rs tried to bully him out of it, and there was a lot of not-attractive publicity about forcing the Dem to leave his mamma’s deathbed, vote, and fly back for her funeral. The Repub caved, IIRC.
Comrade Kevin
It’s amazing how BoB can take any given subject and be 100% wrong about it.
asiangrrlMN
Lily looks like such a sweet princess. It’s so good to see her come out of her shell.
I, too, prefer the aloofness of cats. However, I have one cat who has to be by me all the time if I am home. In fact, he is by me right now. I, too, cannot go to the bathroom alone.
Anne Laurie
@Skepticat: Dogs can read calendars, too. When we started taking our first dog to training classes, it didn’t surprise us that he knew when Monday evening was coming and would get tremendously wired up waiting for us to come home from work & change. But when the classes were switched to Wednesday evenings, he was able to “re-schedule” his weekly anticipation rather more quickly than we were! In fact, one of our current dogs, Zevon, takes a class that’s on Monday evenings except after three-day weekends, when it’s switched to Wednesdays… and he can actually calculate that three-consecutive-people-home-days means he shouldn’t get pumped up for Dog Class until Wednesday. Once or twice we’ve taken a Friday off, which completely throws off his schedule, and it slays me to watch him decide whether his joy should outweigh his reproach of our slovenly behavior.
horatius
Reporting you for Animal Cruelty Mr. Cole.
A Squealer’s collar?
Skepticat
@Anne Laurie:
Perhaps I ought to take lessons from the animals–half the time I can’t keep track of what day it is.
Krissed Off
Lady Lily!
But seriously, folks, marinara on quinoa?
Whazzamatta you?
jnfr
She is so beautiful, and she obviously loves you so much. It does my heart good to see it.
Steeplejack
I love that trash hound Lily.
Late shift checking in late. Got home about 90 minutes ago, but I have been catching up on the threads and sucking down drinks that will ensure I never catch malaria.
I posted from my duh-phone (opposite of smart phone) this afternoon and was gratified to see that it went up okay. Really a hassle, though. Only for special occasions. But I do like to stick it to the Man occasionally at the part-time gig by reading Balloon Juice on company time on the duh-phone. Fight the power, people!
That is all for now.
P.S. @Laura W Cross-town moves are much worse than cross-country. Condolences.
P.P.S. Robert Palmer, “Every Kinda People.” Been thinking about your deep emotional connection to Joni and other music, pondering what is the male analogue (for me). Maybe the closest thing to Blue is Van Morrison’s Moondance. But I like a lot of Robert Palmer’s stuff. Couldn’t find a performance video of “Give Me an Inch.”
Lesley
Late to this party, but Lily is a QUEEN. Looks like she’s fattened up a bit, which is good.
Steeplejack
@Brick Oven Bill:
Let us just leave it at my observation that women find it attractive when men knead dough in their presence. It seems to work better than puppies.
I beg to disagree. I have found that kneading puppies has a much greater aphrodisiac effect on women. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Steeplejack
@Kirk Spencer:
What about Sum Yung Chik? She was my favorite. What she could do with kneaded puppies . . .
freelancer
You’ve done an admirable job convincing Lily that life is not only worth living, but embracing. It is because we cannot remember the future that we run toward it unflinchingly. Kudos to you, John Griffin Cole, ABD.
As for me, I haven’t been as cheery, though I have retained my dark sense of humor:
http://forgetthisnoise.blogspot.com/2009/08/meddling-with-primal-forces-of-nature.html
My ennui isn’t soul-crushing, merely jaw-dropping at this point. I promise to wake up tomorrow smiling. I just realized it’d probably be way more healthy if I stopped posting immediately before I went to bed. There’s the off-chance I’d be more honest and sober if I did that, plus I wouldn’t be perplexed as to what’s been added to my Netflix queue.
Anywho, this site is proof there are still politically mindful, yet intellectually honest people existing in America and the civilized world. As an empiricist and a young cynic, I’m grateful for that.
freelancer +6
Elizabelle
John: love tonight’s Lily photo.
It’s screensaver quality.
Years from now, you will wonder who saved who at the shelter.
RDarsie
Quinoa rotelle, eh? How very left-coast of you ;-)
Actually, I’m a left-coaster too, and last night I made the best pesto pasta dinner I have ever tasted. Recipe from “The Pesto Manifesto” (great cookbook) using homemade pesto from home-grown basil. To die for!
SFPhil
Oh dear. WordPress errors are back for viewing on Internet 7.
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I’m just posting test comment to see if I can clear this up and read the blog.
Gatsby
Lily looks like a happy and well-loved dog. Great job, John.
Ella in NM
Hey John: Lily’s expression while you take her picture says it all:
“I SO adore you, my wonderful human rescuer. I have never before been given so much affection, or have been so well exercised, fed and pampered.
Therefore, out of loyalty and devotion, I will proudly wear this ridiculous-looking neck ornamentation that you seem to find so amusing.
Pet me.”
Ellid
That beautiful, proud dog is living proof of the power of love.