Lola at the Coffee House

I remember Kitchen Pete pretty well. I think he showed up recently:

ah yes, here - http://able2know.org/topic/35573-276#post-5192397

I almost hate to admit this considering the Brits posting here might think me mad...but one of my favorite meals is a play on a NAAFI creation that I used to love when I was stationed over there.

Hot dogs (boiled and sliced); baked beans (pork and beans with extra bacon, brown sugar, and mustard); some fried potatoes...and almost any kind of bread sliced and toasted.

Good grief, I loved it at the NAAFI...and I love the adjusted recipe I use here at home...although Nancy is not crazy about it and I only have it two or three times a year.

I know Wassau is great at concocting dishes from basic recipes...and maybe he can come up with something along these lines for "once in a while."

I loved the lamb sausages i got in Ireland, particularly the one's my landlady in Sligo made for breakfast--the butcher (a brother-in-law) delivered the sausages every morning, no doubt either made that morning or the day before. They were different from bangers, though, and you could definitely taste the "tallowly" taste of the lamb. I eventually convinced her she should serve American style burgers at lunch time. She and her husband had managed a hotel in New York for 15 years before returning to Ireland. She knew how to make them the right way, not like the crap one gets at Wimpys. She incorporated a trick many American cooks use, although not all of them, which was to mix diced onions in with the ground beef. The butchers delivered ground beef to her every day about half ten so she could get ready for lunch. The first delivery was for three pounds, and it didn't last at all. When the word got out, she was having ten pounds of ground beef delivered every day, and the pub was full for lunch every day. The freshly ground beef certainly made a big difference, but just getting a freshly cooked burger from quality beef makes a world of difference from the fast food places.

Give me a brandy. And a scotch. And some vermouth. We set the trap for a stray cat this morning. What we caught was meanest toughest raccoon I have ever been in contact with. Anything near the cage got shredded. My coworker's shoe got a rip. We drove to Burroughs Park and I backed up near a dumpster, to hide from park workers. We moved the trap to the end of the tailgate and explored ways to get it open without sustaining any injuries. We finally tied a rope to the section that moves and stood back while pulling the gate open. It pounced out and hit the pavement while we cowered in the bed of the truck. It went in the brush and we shut the tailgate and drove away. The boss told us we are never to mess with wildlife again, until we get the special animal handler's gloves. I am in agreement, so long as the company will pay for them. Another round of brandy, scotch and vermouth, please.

and a glass of rye, please.

You want a glass filled with rye bread?


(and to think, people say I'm weird)

a hardy annual grass (Secale cereale) that is widely grown for grain and as a cover crop. 2. : the seeds of rye. 3. : rye bread. 4. : rye whiskey ...

Only one fits in a glass.

Yeah. We called some wildlife rescue/move team at our gallery/studio to rescue us, as the raccoons were happy, what with a great restaurant across the alley from our back door and the whole upstairs of a couple of victorian buildings to themselves. The very smart woman from the rescue team came with a set of the biggest strongest gloves I've ever seen. Not sure it was both gloves, re my visual memory, but I also can't quite picture her just using one.

I called animal control first. They just deal with puddy tats and rovers.

Yeh - this was some special local agency - Humboldt county is fairly woodsy/rural, eco oriented folks there, pretty much.

I'm neither excited nor annoyed old boy. It's my sympathy for those who have to listen to the sort of stuff I commented on which motivates me. I feel, perhaps over-optimistically, that if I could cure you of this habit you have of referring to matters in a manner which implies your familiarity with them without you providing any evidence of it--the coffee-table book syndrome-- it would improve their lives no end and I am in favour of improving peoples lives and even those of cyber strangers.

It isn't very nice to remind listeners of their inferiority to your goodself because they are unable to gush at the prospect of perusing the latest science news and especially when there is no evidence that perusing the latest science news is not being pursued for perusing the latest science news' sake. The science being irrelevant.

If I am to be mortified at my scientific ignorance, as I am quite prepared to be, I expect it to be justified rather than having assertions standing in lieu. We do not even know whether you buy the rags or even that you read them let alone understand their contents.

What little I know about up-to-date science informs me that writers of the sort of higgle-de-piggly hotch-potch of indignant incoherence as you are wont to engage our sensibilities with are profoundly ill-equipped to deal with any minute corner of science, circa 1500 AD, when it was viewed with the gravest suspicion because it was felt that it might,in time, destroy the whole world, despite the temporary conveniences it promised, if not properly managed. Or comes as near to destroying the whole world as makes no difference to guzzling cardinals in the luxuries of their free accommodations.



Then why did you "bump" one of my posts?

Creativity cannot be altered. One has to make do with what one has of it and of the opportunities afforded for its exercise. Sometimes the opportunities are such, as with the materials art shops provide, to cover for its shortcomings which, of course, they never can. At other times the opportunities are limited, as with the cave painters, but that can't cover the fact that they were great artists.

If you will provide an example of the sort of creativity you approve of it might help me to see where I am going wrong. You might also provide an example of the latest science news. We can't discuss that you are reading it for all that long.

I can easily outdo my usual style but I fear to draw the ire of members here.


WAHT. Waits at hungry tables?

I think creativity is essentially play, and a sense of play can be taught. Or that play is innate, but sometimes quite buried, and can be brought out. I understand that some disagree with me on that.

Back when I lived in the woods in New Hampshire, raccoons coming around at night were a common occurrence. As long as they caused no serious damage, we had no problems co-existing. One evening, while sitting around the picnic table in the front yard, we saw a mamma raccoon bring her brood out of some bushes and arrange the babies in front of her where they could clearly see us sitting there. No more than 15 or 20 yards away. She was, apparently, introducing her family to the 'safe' humans, showing them that at this house, at least, they had nothing to fear. After a couple of minutes she shepherded them back into the bush, giving us a backward glance over her shoulder. I swear it looked as though she gave us a wink!

I coexisted with this raccoon for a years. It kept breaking into the storage shed and shitting in file boxes, but I was not really upset with it. Had it not strayed into the cat trap I would have left it alone.

You had rogue 'coon there, edgar.

Did you go to one? I think boys would have brought a competitive edge into the mix. Certainly would have made it less boring! And a master instead of a mistress - that would have been phenomenal!

I think you're spot on there, Ossobuco. Agree with that totally!

I did go to a single sex school. Taught by priests. I, like you, bolted as soon as the law allowed. I had no wish to be in the Sixth. The bulging satchels they carried put me off and I needed money. I enjoyed the sport and French was pretty good because Father Hall was easily diverted into tales of his missionary work. The Tuck Shop was great too. It was run by the fattest priest I've ever seen.

I never saw a female in the place except on Sport's Day. Although I daresay there were housekeepers in the Priory.

The views of parents were never considered. It was ace really. There were no scruples about informing parents that there sons were useless. B minus took some getting. The school was in demand. It wasn't that easy to get in.

We have some similarities, Vonny.
My mother was a stout Republican (Kefauver, Taft); however, my father was a lefto, early member of the film editors union, first person I'd even heard of against us in Vietnam. I went to a girls' academy with somewhat less than 400 students, run by one of the strictest orders of nuns in the U.S.
Being creative, or doing actual thinking, was not on the course menu. Well, slightly, they did mention poetry.

Spendius would just love the old me.

RACCOONS took ALL my chickens last year and we spent several weeks trapping the bastards. It was an entire family of the little crooks. We used several HAVAHART traps that I got from the state cops and we got en all (I think). weve since re-chickened and are back with the colored eggs.

Edgar your beverage request sounded like a song by George Thorogood. Remember him?