Text 37262, 145 rader
Skriven 2013-05-25 19:26:58 av Ruth Haffly (1:396/45.28)
     Kommentar till en text av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: food network 596                                         [1]
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Hi Michael,

 ML> Huh, maybe those who said (before Websites) that I should have
 ML> a cooking show were right. Maybe those who said that I should
 ML> have had a Website were right, too. Too bad.
 RH> Coulda, shoulda, woulda. I've still not written The Great American
 RH> Novel either. (G)

 ML> In real life, not for a moment have I considered doing those
 ML> things, though a frequent thought that crosses my mind when
 ML> encountering them is "I could do that a lot better, and so

The old 20/20 hindsight, but it's not always 20/20. My life has taken
several different spins from what I'd thought it would be at various
times but I've not regretted them. Sometimes in the midst of them I've
wondered if I (we) was (were) pursuing the right course of action but
it's paid off in the long haul. Steve joining the Army, then deciding to
make a career of it was certainly unanticipated but lead to some
interesting experiences.


 ML> could my friends." I did have qualms when my sister was dying,
 ML> and we were having fun in the kitchen, and her commentary was
 ML> so erudite and pithy that I thought, this should have been
 ML> preserved for posterity; but it wasn't. Clean Dave and I used

In a way it's too bad you didn't get anything on tape for posterity but
again, it might have been a bit much at the time. We never recorded some
of our experiences that at time, I wish we had.

 ML> to joke about doing a show where we swilled beer and ate junk
 ML> food and made fun of Rachael or Sandra or Emeril.

Except for the junk food (and some of it is there), sounds like a
picnic. (G)

 ML> Some of the longest-lived people I have known have been
 ML> alcoholics. Of course, others have been teetotallers too.
 RH> And most have probably been somewhere in between the two ends

 ML> The most immoderate people I have known have also tended to be
 ML> the ones with extreme life spans as well. I'm wondering about
 ML> my friend whom I spent yesterday with, as he's coming up on 70
 ML> I think but has been a drug addict (bad ones) most of his life,
 ML> has bladder cancer and Hep C, was a severe alky (and now is more
 ML> censorious of alcohol intake than, say you would dream of being).
 ML> I've been waiting for him to keel over for 20 years but now am
 ML> resigned to his living longer than I will. He ascribes some of
 ML> this longevity and certainly his lack of discomfort to the medical
 ML> use of marijuana, which is now legal in his state.

Sometimes you think a person has one foot in the grave, the other on a
banana peel but then they end up living much longer than you thought
they would. Others go early and you wonder why.

 ML> Speaking of which, he gave me a half dose of brownie to help cure
 ML> my jet lag. Didn't work. Note to all: hemp seeds add an almost
 ML> pepperlike aroma and flavor to chocolate things. Note to self:
 ML> marijuana doesn't agree with me now any more than it ever did.

Never tried any, doubt I ever will.


 ML> Very few of my friends are or were more Martha Stewartish than
 ML> Erma Bombeckish.
 RH> I think she's too over the top for most people--but she does have her
 RH> devotees as witnessed by her comeback after spending time in prison.

 ML> The current Hemispheres magazine has an interview with Martha.
 ML> I don't like her any more from this than I do from her shows.

Somehow I don't think I'd get along that well with her either.


 ML> I had a friend who outdid Martha before Martha was Martha. This
 ML> friend (utterly gorgeous) was a cake baker who quoted Shakespeare,
 ML> if you know the type. Spotless house despite two boys and two dogs.
 ML> Cooked simply but well, moved like a cat, never a hair out of
 ML> place. A smile (utterly gorgeous) and a witty word for everyone

Not me, by a long shot.

 ML> always. Her secret: she had her husband build a secret room under
 ML> the staircase but that was about five times bigger than you would
 ML> think (it extended, of course, way past the stairwell). One day
 ML> she said, I want to show you something, and I half expected it to
 ML> be a pleasure palace with a giant waterbed, or a torture chamber,
 ML> or a library. Instead, it was maybe 400 square feet filled with
 ML> all the junk that you don't know what to do with, only it has to
 ML> go someplace, so she threw in whatever inconvenient or untidy items
 ML> were cluttering up her life, and the rest of the house was spotless,

Nice to have such a room, beats stuffing things into bags and then
stuffing the bags into nooks & crannies.

 ML> this room being its Dorian Gray portrait. I wonder if Martha and
 ML> Sandra have such rooms.

Could be, or have minions to do the pick up and hide stuff for them
routine.

 ML> I will hit you with one of the most interesting and
 ML> worst today, then it'll be mostly out of my system.
 RH> Now some have been fun to read, if only for the sheer incredulity of
 RH> how poor a lot of people cook. And even more incredible is that some
 RH> people make so much money putting out "recipies" for those non cook
 RH> cooks.

 ML> Those were the lessons I took from those recipes.

It's been interesting to see what some folks feel needs writing down and
preserving as a recipe. Then too, I can see people who would "cook" this
way and use that type of "recipe".


 ML> Gazpacho Monterey
 ML> categories: really astonishing, really bad, not kidding
 RH> You mean you actually have to tear up bread, peel garlic, chop up
 RH> cilantro and cut up limes into wedges? Is that within the reach of her
 RH> camp followers? Seriously, I'm mentally gagging on the imagined taste
 RH> too.

 ML> The Food Network site has a comment page on which some people
 ML> admit to having made this; their comments were in general not
 ML> favorable.

Are you not surprised?

 ML> Pork cutlet and spaetzle
 ML> categories: main, airline
 ML> servings: 6

Much better, but if you come across more of those "are you kidding?
recipies" it might be fun to read them, as well as good, real recipies.

---
Catch you later,
Ruth
rchaffly{at}earthlink{dot}net  FIDO 1:396/45.28


... Books are better than TV; they exercise your imagination.

--- PPoint 3.01
 * Origin: Sew! That's My Point (1:396/45.28)