Comedy is when your social network sites are down.
Tragedy is when a legendary local barbecue joint catches fire.
Archive for the ‘Food’ Category
Tragedy versus comedy.
Saturday, August 26th, 2017Headline of the day.
Tuesday, August 15th, 2017This is ridiculous, and Costco should be ashamed.
Everybody knows that a beautiful bunch of ripe bananas hides the deadly black tarantula, not scorpions. Is this just cost-cutting on Costco’s part? Are scorpions cheaper than tarantulas?
(Sorry. I’m feeling a little punchy. You might even say me wanna go home.)
Headline of the day.
Monday, August 14th, 2017Fruitcake From Robert Scott Expedition Is ‘Almost’ Edible at 106 Years Old
“almost” edible. So pretty much the same as a regular fruitcake.
(Thank you. I’ll be here all week. Try your waitress and remember to tip the veal.)
Quote of the day.
Wednesday, August 9th, 2017Headline of the day.
Thursday, August 3rd, 2017
Administrative note.
Thursday, April 6th, 2017My birthday is coming up soon. As always, I do not expect any of my loyal readers to get me presents.
However, if someone felt inclined: please do not buy this book for me. Thank you.
(Seriously. I have nothing against Jesse Sublett: he seems like a pretty cool guy. But I don’t care much for the food at either Threadgill’s location. And one of the worst aspects of Austin culture is the incessant nostalgia: or, as Lawrence likes to put it, “the burned-out old hippies who constantly talk about how they went to the Armadillo, dropped acid, and saw Shiva’s Headband.” Said it before, I’ll say it again: if the Austin Chronicle and other people had their way, this town would be a 1970s music theme park.)
Obit watch: March 9, 2017.,
Thursday, March 9th, 2017Joseph Rogers, co-founder of Waffle House.
Silly season.
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017A few random items, some more silly than others.
- “I like pineapples, just not on pizza. I do not have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza. I am glad that I do not hold such power. Presidents should not have unlimited power. I would not want to hold this position if I could pass laws forbidding that which I don’t like. I would not want to live in such a country. For pizzas, I recommend seafood.”
(I don’t have strong feelings about pineapple on pizza, but I like this guy.) - Wayne Shaw is a backup goalkeeper for the Sutton United soccer team. “His own team referred to him as the Roly Poly Goalie. He is 46 years old, 6-foot-2 and somewhere around 322 pounds, or 23 stone as the British papers usually put it.” During their game against Arsenal on Monday, Mr. Shaw ate a meat pie on the sidelines. There was a spot bet that he’d do this, which paid off at 8-1.
Problem: Mr. Shaw admitted that he was aware of the spot bet; and, while he didn’t bet personally, he was aware of other people who had. This could be considered “spot fixing”.(For the record, it was a “meat and potato” pie. The paper of record does not report the pussy content of the meat pie. Also, note that this silly article already has two corrections appended.)
- I haven’t been following this story closely (the Atlanta newspapers aren’t part of my nutritious media breakfast) but the NYT has a rundown of the Atlanta city contracting scandal, which includes bricks through windows and dead rodents left on doorsteps.
We are eating Gamera….
Tuesday, February 14th, 2017The story you are about to hear is true.
Tuesday, October 11th, 2016Today was pretty much a write-off. You know how it is, one of those days where you end up feeling you got nothing productive done, and all you can do is give up on the day and tell yourself you’ll do better tomorrow.
I was at loose ends for dinner, so I went down to the Mandola’s Italian Market in Bee Cave. (They have some good happy hour appetizer specials, and a soup I like. I wasn’t really that hungry, having had a bowl of noodles from DFG Noodles (one of the few bright spots in the day) for lunch, so I figured a cup of soup and some cheese would do me.)
Anyway, guy behind the counter asks me how my day’s been. It’s slow (this is before the dinner rush on a weekday) so I tell him what I just told you about the whole day being a write-off, etc. I pay, they bring my food out to me, I eat…
…and as i’m sitting there sipping my drink, the guy from behind the counter, Jonathan (not 100% on the spelling there) walks up to me, hands me a chocolate eclair, and says, “Here. This is on me. I hope it makes your day a little better.”
Which it did. What can you say to that except, “Thanks, Jonathan.”? Which I did say, just for the hysterical record.
I’ll also be emailing Mandola’s tomorrow morning, but I wanted to get this up tonight.
Notes.
Friday, September 30th, 2016The Chicago Cubs have been eliminated from postseason contention.
Oh, wait. Did I say the Chicago Cubs? I’m sorry. I intended to say “the New York Yankees”. My bad.
Obit watch: The Carnegie Deli. I’m sad for the people who will be losing their jobs, but:
Now I want to spend one night in Bangkok and try her pastrami and cheesecake
Isn’t it interesting how everything is the ex-husband’s fault?
Quel frommage! Seriously, it seems like it would be kind of hard to stay in business in New York City when you have to stay closed for nine months. Even if you also own the building. The one with the janky gas hookup.
Like sand through the hourglass…
Wednesday, August 24th, 2016According to King Arthur Flour, today is National Waffle Day.
According to Knifecenter.com, today is National Knife Day.
Random notes: August 1, 2016.
Monday, August 1st, 2016I’ve observed that sometimes the NYT will run nice obituaries for people who weren’t famous – the type of person whose passing would usually escape the paper of record’s notice, except that they were a community figure in their neighborhood or something very much like that.
Another nice story from the NYT: Shannon Beydler and Kevin Hillery were married July 3rd. Ms. Beydler is a judicial clerk and a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps Inactive Ready Reserve. Mr. Hillery attended the Naval Academy.
But in the spring of 2011, during an off-road adventure race with three friends in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a storm blew in as he was biking down a hill; a tree hit his head and rolled down his back, crushing his spine. Mr. Hillery was airlifted to Charlottesville, Va., where he underwent surgery.
During months of rehabilitation, he wondered if he would ever be able to get back to the Naval Academy. Less than a year later, Mr. Hillery did just that, graduating with his class — the first paraplegic to do so in the school’s 170-year history.
See also, by way of Instapundit: “Can the New York Times Weddings Section Be Justified?”
Ace of Spades had a sidebar link over the weekend to the semi-finalists in the Texas State Fair fair food competition.
“Bacon Wrapped Pork Belly on a Stick”? Isn’t that just bacon-wrapped bacon on a stick? “Buffalo Chicken Jalapeno Poppers”? Can’t you get those at Chili’s? “Injectable Great Balls of BBQ”? Don’t know, don’t want to know, don’t believe the word “injectable” should ever be used with a food item. “Deep Fried Bacon Burger Dog Sliders on a Stick”? “Loaded Bacon Mashed Potato Egg Roll”? Okay, now these people are just stringing random words together; those last two sound like something that was auto-generated by a Perl script.
Historical note: today is the 50th anniversary of the UT Tower shootings. I haven’t written much about that, and won’t: other people have done it better, and this year’s anniversary is even more politically fraught than usual. (Today is also the day that the university’s new rules on campus concealed carry take effect.)
I haven’t gone through this, and am not sure if a login is required (or if you can get away with private browsing), but here’s the Statesman‘s 50th anniversary coverage. Noted: A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders by Gary Lavergne (the definitive book on the shootings) is available in a Kindle edition.
You know what Kentucky needs?
Wednesday, July 6th, 2016(Also strict knife control, but mostly burrito control.)
(I have no joke here, I just like saying “deadly assault burritos”.)
(Insert your own “deadly assault burrito” joke here.)
Random notes: June 24, 2016.
Friday, June 24th, 2016The Baltimore Sun recalls a time when terrapin was “the signature delicacy of Maryland cuisine”.
(Linked here because: my favorite chapter in The Old Man and the Boy is towards the end, where the Old Man takes The Boy up to his friend’s in Maryland. They stop off along the way and have a proper meal of canvasback duck, terrapin stew, and various kinds of “iced tea” – this being at the height of Prohibition. So, yeah, I have a vague desire to try terrapin stew sometime.)
I intended to link this earlier in the week, but forgot until the On Taking Pictures podcast reminded me: 20×24 Studio is closing down “by the end of next year”.
The significance of this is that 20×24 is the home of the largest Polaroid camera ever made:
But Polaroid no longer produces instant film: the company bought “hundreds of cases” of the 20×24 film, and hoped to reverse engineer it:
Pavel Dmitrichenko is hoping to rebuild his ballet career, after being out of the dance scene for about two and a half years.
Why was he out? Injury? No, actually, he was in prison.
And why was he in prison? He was convicted of plotting the acid attack against Bolshoi Ballet director Sergei Filin.
Mr. Dmitrichenko now labels the whole affair pure fiction. It was all a plot, he said, by Mr. Filin and his allies in the Bolshoi to remove him from the scene because he was vocal about their corrupt practices and would not be intimidated.
The revisions spill out in dizzying, not to say implausible, succession: He never spoke to Mr. Zarutsky about Mr. Filin. He denied that he admitted as much in court. Ms. Vorontsova was not his girlfriend. He even raises doubts that there was any acid attack since Mr. Filin has little noticeable scaring and can drive, despite the seeming lack of an iris in one eye that he keeps hidden behind sunglasses.