Mean Starts With Me

Andrew catches up and explains why he has not been neglecting you, his beloved readers, and why you should never ever piss off a bear...or Andrew.

I can now finally say the $400 words I've been waiting to say for 9 months (the day I bought half price backcountry skiis, boots, and bindings): I am a skiier. It only took that obscene amount of time for more than 3 inches of snow to stick on the town of Bountiful for more than 3 minutes. It was lot of fun, and a lot harder than it seems. That is, after I stopped, that mile really burned- knees, legs, and arms. Great whole body workout because you use poles to propel yourself forward, though for gliding, it sure does feel rough on those knees...now I did go skiing once last year. I drove an hour to a cool flat zone right by a ski resort, the proceeded to land on my face for 2 hours, cursing loud enough (almost) to crack the hard ice I was attempted to ski on. That's a bad idea by the way. Though I did get good in a hurry, because it takes an extreme amount of skill simply to stand in one place on skiis on ice, let alone move or stop. I perfected a perfect high-speed hockey stop too, mere inches from trees at approximately the speed of a jumbo jet trying an emergency landing over the ocean. Plus I saw a fox jump out and run from its burrow in the snice (snowy ice stuff). With more storms due now that winter has finally arrived, late like the last 3 years- which I think now signifies that December is not winter in Utah anymore- and that winter starting in January should now be considered normal, I may get to ski a lot more. We have many trails, so let's hope.

My midnight exercise made me feel better, and not just because no bored Bountiful police officers surrounded me with 5 vehicles, lights blazing, to amuse themselves or tell me about good neighbor curfews. I am still on the mend from some food poisoning or a stomach virus I picked up visiting family in Illinois. I am unwilling to say I ate bad food as it is quite possible I merely ate things I do not normally eat and that made me sick. Three straight meals at restaurants is more than I normally get in a month. Now home and making my own food, I got mostly better quickly, and am getting all better now- I hope. I lost some weight by just not eating. Then today I got so starved suddenly that I started shoveling freshly roasted and still scalding red and purple potato wedges into my mouth with both hands the way Garfield windmills lasagna into his huge wide open mouth in comic strips, which drew mocking from the roomie. Then I went at the peanut butter with a large knife and kept it moving down with whole milk. And was still hungry.

Illinois made me realize a few things: one, restaurants are not healthy or very good. I am a better cook. Two, produce is very sad in the midwest in winter. I had a tomato that made me want to hug the whole state...and the toilet bowl. It was never ripe to start- that was clear even through hollandaise sauce- but travelling 3,000 miles did not help. In Utah, we are spoiled, because out of season produce is not that terrible. Though a better solution is still just to preserve in the fall- which is a Utah custom, I am proud to say. For instance, Teresa's gung ho too young and now a bit bummed her husband goes out with the boys and ditches her with the babies he helped make friend who has probably never been out of Utah (or the county?: another Utah specialty that Mrs Ben Franklin shared hundreds of years ago...) stopped by the roadside and bartered for an entire tree worth of apricots from some amused older people who hated the danged things for being in the way of the lawnmower each August. So she canned a whole tree of them with Teresa's help and took a few jars back over as a present. Third,and lastly, what I learned is that air quality in Utah really is terrible. We have brown air when snow is not falling- another reason to pray for snow. When we do not get regular storms, the pollution thickens. I've been joking with other depressed people at work, after my brown commute (air and mountains and grass) that I was taking a vacation to Beijing so I could get some fresh air. No one laughed. They just kind of made this pained sigh type of sound, like an old car's exhaust pipe as the engine warms up. Chicago has way more people and way less pollution. No one connects their complaints with their actions though. The idea the air might be bad because people idle in their cars for 15 minutes each day or have their heaters turned up to 81 degrees F, or leave on a TV for four hours while in another room...nope. That can't be the problem.

While wrapping up my last post, the lights began to flicker and the windows rattled. I thought nothing of it as I do not watch weather reports, and went to bed. Slept great. Woke up and my panicky roomate was being panicky. So nothing new. But turns out, the whole county was devastated by a massive level 2 dry hump (no rain) hurricane, which caused 20 million in damage, shut down the schools, knocked out power for 36 hours to like 400,000 homes, and blew over several thousand trees. Most of them pines. One lesson is that if you are going to terraform an ugly salt-plain desert, you might not want to put non-native tree species on man-made hills. Those fall down and go boom. Sometimes on houses. More on this later. Another lesson is that Utahnians are pansies of the highest order. There are more emergency essential store chains out here than burger joints. People have years of food in big cans, vats of water, Dr Pepper (all the essentials), and basement shelters, bicycle-powered florescenty lights, all kinds of crap. But one little wind storm makes people hyperventilate, call in the National Guard and boo hoo like a big bunch of diabetic babies. I had great fun with the whole thing. It broke up the routine of life. A new adventure. You don't know how funny life can be until with mountains of free firewood on every corner an old woman is buying a bundle of logs at the grocery store. McDonald's being closed- not an emergency. Your blender not working for a day and a half- not an emergency. Traffic lights blown over- not an emergency! Frustrated and chainsaw-wielding postal maniac just kicked in your door screaming, "you damned butterballs! Emergency this!" - that's an emergency. Final lesson: don't piss off Andrew. I have powers. I've mentioned them before. Magical powers. I'm what you might call a real bona-fidey warlock. You make me mad, I'll cut you. Or you'll sprain your ankle, break up with your long-term significant other, have a rock crack your radiator from a strange bounce off the road, or your entire country will be leveled by an 7.9 earthquake 30 minutes after my plane takes off- the last plane to leave the country for 3 days, might I add, Peru? Remember me down there? I bet you do. Don't mess with Andrew. Mean starts with- well you probably read the title.

Teresa also invited this windstorm by mocking it on facebook. People, this is an important message: God hates Facebook. He's on there all the time, wishing He wasn't. So don't provoke him by saying the promised windstorm will be puny like last year's fake blizzard that the forecasters promised days after the economic boom from flu shots fell through because nobody got extra flu shots when the news told them they'd better. Or your 85 year old apple tree planted by your grandma (maybe) will fall onto your carport, ripping it away from the house and down onto your cars, tearing the siding away from your room, leaving you cold and scared, and blaming Andrew and his powers for tempting Heaven.

The only bright side to that story is that due to the late (correction: typical) onset of winter, which became lingering summer snow, and then a late fall, harvest, and November apples still just ripening, your attractive and awesome boyfriend will get to harvest 75 pounds or so of apples and preserve them...the modern way...with a home dehydrator. Now it took me 10 days of cheapness and indecision to whittle my options down to the right one, during which time I lost about 15 pounds of apples to rot and mealiness. Apple pudding at the bottom of the bags anyone? Put on gloves before you reach in...really. So to save you all that time, I will now present some simple reviews:

According to the internet, and Google in particular, the Excalibur dehydrator is the best one ever invented and can outfly many modern flying saucers. Do not believe this. An astute researcher knows companies can simply register their website in ways that light Google up like a Christmas tree when people enter certain terms. Excalibur is good at this. I know not because I ordered one to test it ($200 and its made of plastic?) but because I read every consumer review on large corporate websites I could find. Don't trust vegans, they are used to eating unpleasant food so they are impressed by anything awful after a while- also, mom and pop organic stores can be bribed. But the general opinion of non-bribed people seemed to be that Excalibur builds a completely adequate product. But that is costs $200 and is made of plastic! Avoid too the several super cheap plastic models you can find out there without temperature settings, dials, and so on. Now I am the man who when shopping for a blender wondered why I could not find a single speed blender (think about it now: why do you need 17 speeds? All you need is the top speed- it encompasses everything else by definition; you can't go 99 miles an hour without going 66 miles an hour, can you?), and I do not think you need a timer to tell you when your apples have been drying 10 hours. Poke them. If they're done, they're done. But you will want to be able to control temperature, because jerkey needs to be done at 150+ degrees and that temp will light a leaf of basil on fire. If you want to be cheap, the only good option is the sun. Its free. The cons are that you need a sunroom or large windows, lots of space, your food is exposed to air and will take much longer to dry, and some foods never will. Also avoid any fan on bottom unit- any drip will get in there, overheat it, clog it, or smell bad at least.

So the winner is: Nesco brand. They make basic, simple, affordable plastic round models with a charming design: a base that is just thin plastic, and a top that is a fan and heater with 5 settings for: herbs, crafts, nuts/seeds, fruit/vegetable, and meat/jerkey. Easy right? Not even an on-off switch. Its plugged in or not. You stack it like a sandwhich: 2-8 trays on my model, 2-20 on some (though the trays will be thinner and not hold as thick of items). My model is "American Harvest". It cost me $70. The best seller is "Garden Master" but I prefer mine, for the thicker trays. You get a fruit leather tray, an instruction and recipe book, and several packs of seasonings. Best of all, if it breaks, and the chances are slight as the heater is in top, then you are only out $70. You can run through 3 of these before you will regret not having an Excalibur with its 10 year warranty.

So how does it work? Adequately. But at least I'm not out $200 to learn that. I've done apple slices, banana slices, cranberries, mushrooms, peppers, strawberries, and maybe a few other things I am forgetting. Flavors really do not mix. That is, you can do a mix of different items and they will not taste like one another. This is surprising as walking into an apartment with a load of jalapeno peppers drying will make your eyes water. There is nothing more delicious than the smell of warm apples. I miss it- though not chopping all those mealy bruised windfall terror apples. I am still eating bags of these slices and they are delicious. Much more flavorful than store-bought. And without preservatives. You can throw any dried food in the freezer and it does not get freezer burn or go bad (for all intents and purposes: I suppose on a long enough time line they would). Banana chips have addicted my roomie. He just plowed through 10 pounds of bananas (wet) in one week! That's disgusting, but if I were Nesco, I'd want him on my commercial. He had such a hang dog expression today asking if he could make some more and promising to make them last. At Costco, the store of the large portion size, the cashiers teased him about having a pet monkey because he was buying so many bushels of bananas. Now he's their hero because he explained about the drying process and how much he is saving. Which is true. 3 pounds of bananas cost $1.39 out here at Costco and turn into one quart of dried chips which would sell for about $5 at a health food store. And home made are much more flavorful. Teresa is all about apple chips now and she hates dried apples. Ours are just mouth watering. If I go more than one day without eating one, the next slice I eat makes my eyes go wide every time. So its been nice not to miss apples like I thought I would. Strawberries come out chalky and flavorless. Craisins do not turn out like they do in the store. Sour, crunchy, and pointless. They take 20 hours to finish! Dried mushrooms do not rehydrate so well. I've been putting them on pizzas and they taste good, but are more like gummy mushrooms.

Our electric bill did not jump at all, which is a relief. Apples or bananas take 10 hours, so I thought it would be a disaster power-wise. But no, it seems to be pretty efficient. Though the machine does put out a lot of heat, in our apartment it puts out enough to warm the place so that the furnace does not run at all, and its a net wash. As mentioned, the smell of apples is delicious and a real plus. You'll have to decide merits for yourself. It does use power, and there is something unspeakably vulgar to me about a man sitting on the couch eating piles of banana chips he just dried himself (number 1 they are a convenience food- like you take them on a road trip, and 2; why not just eat the bananas and save the world a bit?- also they come from Brazil to begin with, so bananas are not an environmental friendly choice and there is no such thing as "in season" or "local" to warrant preserving them at all) . As an aside, did you know the first boatloads of bananas to New York couldn't be given away? Carmen Miranda was hired to do banana propoganda radio spots with Bob Hope and to sing in her charming accent about how tasty bananas were and how healthy and then Bob Hope explained banana basics, like what color they should be and why they were delicious. I also have a vintage novelty song named "Bananas have no Bones" from the 1940s that sneakily explains to you why peaches and ham stink compared with bananas (they have stones and bones). I am sure this band was compensated handsomely for writing this song. Now, back to drying: foods have more flavor when dried, apple chips are even better than apples which are even more effective than toothbrushes at cleaning your teeth, and on my coming trip to Arizona for 2 weeks, I look forward to eating very healthy for very little money, with food I can trust not to make me sick.

Sorry to take so long since my last post. Hope you aren't too upset with me. If you are, then I've got a present just for you to make it all better... or fall down and go boom. Its a bright shiny, brand spanking new... Tornado!

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100 % All Rational (Even in this Economy)

Andrew answers the really tough and important questions, from the really tough and important fans. And he does it without any crazy fake numbers like the square root of negative 2.

Well bear with me for one sentence until I've worked in our quota of "even in this economy" phrases (there we go), as just mandated by act of Congress, and then I can get down to answering real questions that are really real and really questions from actual fans of this blog. Even in this economy. (Uh oh, its becoming a habit.)

What's the big deal with this Utah mayor who wrote fake letters to himself and then answered what a great job he was doing? His PR people suck. Why didn't he just say Ben Franklin did it? Did you know Ben Franklin wrote many of the letters to his Pennsylvania Gazette under names like Prudence Do-Good, Anthony After-Wit, and Amanda Adder-Tongue?
-Daniella, Toole, UT

Yes, I did know that. Fraud in journalism is a long and proud American tradition, right up there with reporting fraud through journalism. But I'm not sure why you're asking me this. Even in this economy.

How could Ben Franklin want the turkey to America's official animal? Those lazy things can barely walk and are so stupid, there is a whole phrase- don't be a turkey.
-Clovis, Ireland

Hey, don't sleep on the turkey. Those buggers used to be quite clever and agile for fat flightless birds, certainly they were more of a killer Monty Python rabbit than the common quail ever was. Haven't you ever seen the Looney Tunes turkey? Animals are vicious. If they get half the chance they will certainly shove a load of TNT down your pants and then ride a rocket beside you while taunting you with cool water...but remember Ben Franklin was a wry humorist. He was, if you really want to know, because I'm a reverse psychic and know all about the past, poking a little fun at some of his contemporaries for being more pot-bellied than the stove that bears that name.

And the turkey, it turns out, would have been the perfect choice for today's America. They are lazy, can barely walk, are morbidly obese, and smell bad. Okay, the last one was a stretch. No culture has ever been so obsessively over-clean. And the next time someone from PETA tells you how turkeys are sad because they are so over-fed they can hardly walk without breaking a leg, just sweep your arm to take in the whole of whatever street you are on, and say, and are all these people being forced to overeat? The turkey is probably proud of his girth. The animal brain covets salt, fat, and sugar. A child is a sucker for the stuff, and even as an adult, knowing you are being manipulated with most of the food out there, it still takes a lot of work to break those habits and get over the taste and smell of dripping pizza covered with churros (okay that was just in a dream of mine last night- but it does sound good doesn't it?). This is me being more understanding than usual, I know. It won't last. But in America where we have gollum anorexic actresses staying thin for the whole of us (women are secretly relieved these days if a man gets a celebrity crush for the same reason men have always been; they can pig out and during "relations", with the lights off, your partner can simply close their eyes and see that poster they love), 2/3 of people are still fat enough to disgust me, if not themselves. We don't have enough attractive people left to shame these tubbs into thinning down for their own good. They're here to stay, until the next food shortage, then well they're going to have a hard time. (You might think I and the thinnies would starve sooner, but I disagree; we'll be raiding, looting, hunting, and breaking and entering, using our athleticism to prey the way a snake does while all the chubbos are hiding in the basements like freightened, soft, delicious bunnies.) The fat population is being enabled, and getting bolder all the time. Pretty soon they'll figure out they can control the legislature, and then you'll see only big men getting elected. And brocolli taxes will abound. Luckily we have this obsessive shallow society to keep things in check. But turkeys have no such culture of shame, abuse, hypocrisy, or anything else. They simply feel satisfied in their puny birdish souls, thinking, I am big and beautiful, and I'm winning at life. No famine's ever gonna slow me down. I'm practically invincible. Not like these boney humans. Never figure this thing out. Always giving food away. Suckers. They'll never survive at this rate. And now wasting so much energy. Sharpening that axe, like he was actually gonna swing it, ha ha...

And what's will all the Ben Franklin questions?

Aren't you going to get in trouble for always bad mouthing the Post Office? Aren't you ashamed? They pay you. P.S. Did you know Ben Franklin discovered the Atlantic Current while travelling between England and America as the Post Master General?
-Katie, Kimball, TX

Yes and no. I won't get into trouble. As long as I remind you that all of my opinions are soley mine, and I just happen to be a postal employee. No statements, opinions, or recommendations about cheese, beer, or organic meats come from, or reflect in any way, official, or general Postal Policy, feeling, thought, or tradition. (The Post Office has none of the above. Ha ha, kidding- that is only my opinion about them, not theirs about themselves.) Yes I knew that about Ben Franklin. Is there a convention on right now?

I've only been buying food that says 100% natural on the label, so I'm eating healthy right?
-Chris, Portland, OR

Well, I hate to confuse you further, but probably not. I try to avoid foods that have that label, and I can tell you why with the following thought experiment: You are at a social gathering, talking with a beautiful girl/boy whom you are interested in, and then that interesting, attractive, completely sane-seeming person says in their top flirty voice, while leaning into you lustily, "I'm 100 % all girl/boy, if you know what I mean." What do you do?

I know exactly what I would do. Say, "I know just what you mean." Then nod suggestively. Then laugh heartily. Then wink, and excuse myself to go to the bathroom, which hopefully would have a window I could crawl out of to flee home because I would have no idea what she meant, but it would be ominous enough for me to decide to go back to looking for love the only reliable, dignified, civilized way: reading the personal ads of crazy people and practical jokesters on Craigslist, and maybe even posting my own with a headline like, "Must hate TV, glazed doughnuts, and sex change operations."

Frankly, if a food feels the need to poke me in the chest and say, hey bub, I'm food, then there's already too much doubt in that situation. I will say however, you are eating healthier than you would be buying foods that carried the label 88% all natural, if such a thing exists. What's next: 100% matter: Here at Giant Evil Polluting Corporation that Hires Illegal Immigrants Farms, we don't use cheap fillers or flavors or anti-matters, the way some other leading brands do, but adhere to strict quality guidelines using only the best real and measurable ingredients that obey the properties of Newtonian mechanics because we love you, the consumer... even in this economy.

Did you see this article about Chik-fil-A suing a man for stealing their "intellectual property" by using the phrase "eat more kale"?
-Xiops, Egypt, ID

That was the most disturbing story I read recently, other than the headline, "Norwegian serial killer found insane- unfit for prison." If killing 77 people can't get you into jail, then Western Civilization has failed. No more insanity defenses, unless we're going to let the psychologists free. Then there won't be any more phonies free-riding on easy street after their little spree- shopping, or murder. Ever read a book about early experiments? On animals. Babies. Here is a tidbit from Watson, the father of behaviorism, and his work with infants: Even at a few weeks old, babies will learn to stop reaching for items that cause pain such as a lit candle after 3 or 4 attempts. Um? I don't know what to say about that. Also Watson convinced everyone in America for 20 years that mothers were uneccessary because babies have no emotions or intelligence. Orphanages modeled themselves after this guy's ideas and all the kids died of lethargic, lonely comas. How about Landis's work with dogs: he severed the spinal connections to the brain in several dogs, then gave them nothing to eat except slaughtered dogs, and concluded that since the dogs still showed emotional distress at being offered only other dogs to eat, the emotions could not lie in the body but had to exist in the brain. Well you can't spell psychologist without psycho. Why do countries even torture anyone and risk U.N. Sanctions? Just make sure the state university has a well-funded pyschology program and that all of its professors have really really emphasized tenure. Let em loose. Send them anyone who annoys you. You won't see any political opponents come out alive again. Hey it protects the kids of these doctors too. You don't want a bored psychologist going home to play catch with his kids. Thinking of good experiments while stuck in rush hour...if only he had the subjects to try them on...

Oh yeah, Chik-fil-A- this guy is a patriot to fight back. Also cunning because he got in the paper and his actual company is lame. Apparently 30 companies surrendered at the slightest pressure and threat of bankrupting legal fees and stopped using the phrase "eat more" blank. Cowards! I don't think this fellow's PR people are good enough though, either. I would be really bold. I would go right at Chik-fil-A: the words "eat more" are not your or anyone else's property. Let this crap stand and Donald Trump will put a patent claim on the word "was" or the letter "e", and then where will we be? Also, "eat more chiken" is not intelligent. Its a bad and vaguely offensive ad campaign. I am a little uncomfortable with it, though I can't say why. Its hardly clever and the only thing worse than the "eat more chiken" commercials is the actual food they are promoting. I have some words for everyone in America, a free country: eat more everything but Chik-fil-A. They're evil and ridiculous. But hey at least they're closed Sundays so the minimum-wage workers they subjugate can go to their poor people churches for an hour and forget how crummy their life is, and how their clothes all reek of deep fried pickles even after a wash.

Have you ever seen the movie Soylent Green? Are we going to end up eating each other?
-Chris L (that kid who could put himself into a pretzel while sitting in his chair when the substitute teacher turned around but got more and more shy about this as I started noticing girls and realized they just thought I was a puny freak), Cary, IL

Probably. Because no congressmen has the stones to tell everyone, hey America, none of you are worth 1.2 million dollars, sorry. Its a fact. We don't spend that much on our soldiers, and we sure aren't going to spend it on you. So you'll just have to die of cancer. Yes I know you don't want to. Yes I understand you've been watching TV and eating frozen dinners the past 31 years and only just now discovered how much there is you haven't done and now won't have time to do, and that you want to live, really live. But actually that isn't helping your case. No its doing the exact opposite. I can tell you weren't on the debate team, America. That's why you're out there, and I'm up here at this podium...

Oh its an election year? Again? Man I hate this stinking country- I mean, more health care for all! Yeah America! You're all super!

We're in a war to the death with death. And especially cancer. This insidious foe is attacking our children, our old people, our serial killers on death row! It never sleeps. We need to stamp out dying, in all its hateful forms!

Yeah see the problem with Soylent Green is they went to the trouble of this elaborate conspiracy. Now I know governments like to that because bureaucrats have boring jobs and watch a lot of movies and think you know what would be fun...orchestrating a big elaborate cover up! But then the innate laziness takes over...it would be much simpler to simply propogandize cannibalism. Start running some campaigns about how flea-bitten savages in the dark ages were eating beef and didn't know the pleasures of human flesh. It'll catch right on, especially with kids. Buggers put anything in their mouth. Already eat their own boogers...stuff really writes itself. No animal is good enough for us. Look how easily we enslaved the cow, how poor a fight the wild mustang put up, how easy the blue whale was to eradicate even from the deepest and darkest depths! Only man is a worthy meat for man. Just read Leviticus 11:14. We'll all be on board, because there won't be any elbow room at all.

I'd think you were an 80 year old man if you weren't always reminding us all you are in your twenties. You know how people are wise beyond their years? You're cranky beyond yours. Most people slowly build up a list of pet peeves over say 9 decades, but you just grabbed them all at once didn't you?
-Doug, Phoenix, AZ

Why don't you do some complaining about people who rant about technology on their on-line blogs?
-Wayne, British Columbia

Shut-up that's why.

I can count the number of items I've eaten out of a vending machine in my entire life on my fingers! I produce very little trash and buy foods with as little packaging as possible and cook from scratch, and I can't feel my toes right now and can only keep my fingers warm by typing more and more and more because its December 1 and we still have not turned on our furnace. I sleep in just underwear anyway because I am a rugged wolverine-bear-mountain-goat-lion of a man. M.A.N. I aint no mannish boy. I listen to my Muddy Waters straight- no Paul Oakenfold hip-hop beat sped-up remixes. And I can see Russia from my back porch!

Ok. That was fun. Look, technology really makes no difference in our lives. Without reality TV, you would gossip more and peek out your windows at neighbors, praying for a fight. Without a smart phone, you would be unable to text to your idiot friends how bored you are, or ask "dude what's up?" So you would do what our ancestors did, roll your sleeves up, and go find a coworker or friend to tell how bored you are, or ask, "dude what's up?" In short, the only change Iphones have made, is that your life includes a lot more buttons. Anyone who tells you differently, either in a rant or a commercial, is a crackpot, or a sales man. Probably both. You aren't any happier or sadder than you would be without electronics, despite what you think. You really could live without that phone. In fact, your malleable, sheepish persona would adjust within 10 minutes if the grid went down for everyone at once. You could all complain about cell phone companies together. Doesn't that sound? Around a campfire? I bet it does. I have no reason to despise Iphones except that they are pointless, trendy, expensive, annoying, and that Steve Jobs did not make the world a better place. It does you no good to be able to listen to any song you want instantly any time any place. The soul needs some down time, if we're going to build things like subways we should have to listen to their rumblings as punishment, and also most of the songs you like are bad.

So I apologize to anyone I might have offended. Even though anyone who got offended is clearly too touchy and should work on that, and is a big baby, and also insulted my mother- probably. I can't be sure, because I don't have a smart phone and I'm not connected to all the mainstream chat lines and feeds to check. So I'll just have to assume. You jerks. Please know that I am not advocating that you leave your phone off six days a week like I do, or that you become a fusspot who won't sit in a room with a TV that is turned on like I have started working into my personality (disorder), or that you go and talk to your neighbor about inane and empty things. No, I'm a big believer in solitary confinement. Sometimes I think of committing terrible crimes just so I can get sent to a prison and thrown into solitary confinement. All of my fantasies about getting rich start off with me going to my high school reunion to walk up to various former cheerleaders and say, oh hey, aren't you- and didn't you once not go on a date with me- well I'm rich you- so there! But they quickly advance to the part where five seconds after I am rich I take a vow of silence, then go buy a cabin in the only forest left (and by forest I mean tree) in Utah, with no power and no running water, and sit there shivering through a cold winter laughing to myself creepily that no one knows where I am. If I ever run for president, it will be on a strong anti-neighbor agenda. And my number one policy will be to launch some Soylent Green factories to cut down on the dangerous overpopulation of neighbors preying upon our (your) children.

I'm dating a fan of the Steelers, Lakers and the Yankees, and some of my guy friends said I must have found a real jerk, but he's sensitive and a great guy. Are they just jealous? (I don't even care about sports but it seems to me only an idiot would cheer for bad teams. Shouldn't you want to cheer for winners? I just think this means I've found a man whose practical and has common sense.)
-Joana, Detroit, MI

Your friends could be jealous. I'll need you to send me some pictures to let you know with any kind of certainty. Until they arrive, I will say, that your guy friends are also right. I've never met this guy before and don't know him, but he's obviously a terrible human being. Love cannot exist with sports bigamists, or in places like Florida, where the weather is famously almost always nice. Ever hear of fair-weather fans? People move to warm climates so they don't have to deal with snow. They won't go watch a bad team play any sport and will turn on any team when it starts to hit the skids. A sports bigamist is worse, because he not only turns on a team as it ages or struggles through injuries, but he switches allegiances so he always has a winner to be on the bandwagon with. He doesn't just tune off, he actively cheats on his chosen favorite team. Do you really think a person who packs up and ditches their traditional familial turf because they hate shoveling snow is going to be there for you when you've got a cold? Or that a sports bigamist who says he likes successful, well-run franchises (the typical defense) is going to grind out the tough times with you? As long as you stay cute and the money is there, he'll be that great guy. But first wrinkle, complaint, sniffle, or crying kid, and whoosh, he'll be long gone, telling all his beer buddies what a horrible wife you were and eye-ing someone younger, thinner, and bubblier. You ladies don't think sports "translate" into every day life, but what they say about how a man treats his mother is how he'll treat his wife (and your kids), is true of sports too: know what kind of fan a man is, and you know what kind of partner he'll make. The more jerseys...the more affairs, and if he can't support a team he grew up with when it has some rough patches, do you really think he'll love a son unconditionally who isn't a star on the soccer team? Check. Mate. More men should have interventions to spread the word to their naive female friends in need. Sports bigamists are evil. Don't mate with them. And our next public service announcement not about food is...

Are you going to check in on this Penn State sex scandal like everyone else who isn't qualified to write about it?
-Ryan, College Town, PA

Thanks for the invite. That surely can't have been sarcasm. Yes, yes I am. First, its not a Penn State scandal. Its just a large and disturbing and sad sex scandal that happens to involve Penn State in one instance, out of many. Penn State should not really even be the story, but they seem to be taking more blame than the guy who was you know actually doing the raping, and also the university is standing in for the town on the whole, which is understandable, and defensible, as the town only exists because of the university and none of the townies have any sort of actual life and just live vicariously by screaming at the football team 12 Saturdays per year. The scoreboard provides joy and shame equivalencies: 48-12 win=getting married, 35-27 in double overtime= 1st time parents after a long and grueling labor, 21-20 loss on a missed extra point as time expires= divorce, or your father just died. So you can imagine the trauma of finding out all those old memories are tainted. And its being reported on sports pages like its a sports story. Its not a sports story. Selling it like a sports story with the morale: college football is evil, or: that we need to stop hero-worshipping athletes and sports figures, is crap. To do that means we are still doing it- I mean villainizing a football coach and saying, he should have stopped this...please. He's the only person who could have stopped it? An old, half-blind football coach? Or his boss? Not the local police? Anyone working at the charity where much of this happened? Someone in the accused's family? A parent? A neighbor? No one in the entire town, a small town, ever had any reason to be suspicious over all the years? The whole city is turning on the man they've been idolizing and now are throwing eggs at him, tearing him down- the polar opposite of idolizing. But its equal in magnitude. It means they're still idolizing him, now ascribing him powers of evil he doesn't deserve. And they think they've learned their lesson?

We're taking the wrong lessons from this, that's the lesson I'm taking from this. A truer lesson is that there is no such thing as a perfect little town or a safe haven where bad things don't happen. The people in that community watched evil news stories that were sad and tragic and thought, thank God we don't live there. That sort of thing will never happen to here. And people all over the country are watching this tragic and sad story and thinking, thank God we don't live there! They thought it couldn't happen to them, but they were wrong. Blind. But that sort of thing will never happen here. And they may be wrong too. A feeling of complacency, of safety, allows this sort of thing to happen maybe, but its still better than rampant fear and paranoia, and never letting your kids out of your sight. You have to be dilligent, and still, bad things may happen. It doesn't mean Catholicism is evil or college football is evil or Joe Paterno was just a lesser Hitler this whole time. Closing stories off, quarantining them, is too easy. Its cheap and its dangerous. But the idea that bad things happen and maybe no one can prevent them, or know about them until afterwards, is much less comforting isn't it? We want clear-cut morals to stories. So we can wipe our hands, forget about them, thinking, well that was bad, but it won't happen again. We've learned. Someday a person may come to you and say they just saw someone you know and trust doing something awful. And your first reaction will probably be, that can't be true. And your second reaction will be, That CAN'T be true! You won't want to believe it, you won't be able to believe it, and hopefully it won't be true, but remember to check into it anyway, though no one is guilty until proven so. Joe Paterno, I'll remember you fondly. Sincerely, that one guy not stoning you.

How often do you go to the grocery store?
-Talia, Laramie, WY

Well, I've been practicing not going to the grocery store lately. Whenever I think I am out of food and have nothing to eat, instead of going to the store like I used to, then coming home, and realizing as I move things around on the shelves to make room for the new goodies, that I already had a lot of this stuff and had just forgotten...I just don't go to the store. I make myself get creative for a few days. Bake a pizza with whatever you have on hand, make a quiche or cassarole or stir fry with whatever limp veggies are around. Poke into every corner of the freezer and fridge. Its a good way to become more resourceful, save some money, clean up your storage spaces, and pretend you live in a society where you have to rough it, just a bit. This week though I wimped out and rushed right to the store because I ran out of toilet paper. I admit it, I just haven't learned to live without that stuff yet. I'm addicted to it.

And finally...

Who is going to be our next president?
-Rupert Murdoch, FOX NEWS

Of the PTA? Oh you mean of the USA. Right. Forgot about that. Hardly hear a word about it.

Tina Fey. I know you weren't expecting that, but I will tell you how it shall come to pass: Listening to Newt Gingrich and biting their fingernails clean off at the thought of running a Mormon against a ni-nevermind, the old creepy racists who control Republicanism, will go and beg Sarah Palin to run so they don't have to run Mit Romney. Even though she's a chick, and an idiot. Then everyone will start to snicker thinking about what a good impression Tina Fey does, and how eager Tina Fey must be for Palin to run, so she can start impersonating her and make a million dollars. Then they all realize Tina Fey is a better Sarah Palin than Sarah Palin ever was- slightly funnier, and also, a little younger and cuter and with more policy ideas. So they decide to put her on the ticket as the VP, then just beg her to run instead- as Sarah Palin and leave the unreliable real Sarah Palin and all of her many ghost writers out of the whole deal. Its really the most likely scenario.

I am pro-Palin too, if she runs. Let's all hope she does. I am so tired of this pussy-footing, dip a toe in slow armageddon, and with loud-mouth idiots with shrill voices, bickering back and forth. Let's get this thing over with already! No presidential hopeful could make armageddon funnier than Sarah Palin. I've talked myself into bemused incredulity for 3 years since the menace first showed its face- like that teaser episode with the Borg on Star Trek the Next Generation where the last line was Guinan saying "be sure of this...they are coming." Man they don't make armaggedons like they used to. I like mine like a bandaid: right off! Go crazy, get freaky, have an orgy, raze the city of Tripoli, whatever. I just can't take the slow agony of any more molasses dripping from the stalactite slow armaggedoning. Let's do this thing and do it right. I'm still a young, strong, amoral, fit, fast, vicious, testosterone-fueled, ambitious male. But I am at the peak of my prime. If there's going to be a collapse to all of established Western society, it could not come at a better time for me. I'm losing a step America. Getting long in the tooth. I can't climb mountains like I used to, and I'm losing my edge. In 5 years I won't have nearly as much potential as a brutal gang leader or Robin Hood (style) highwayman. Let's do this thing now. Don't make me wait!

Fine you don't want to. Well, of course it won't matter who wins. I doubt any economy can work when 2 out of 3 people are in bad health, everyone wants white collar work supervising several of their lazy peers, and every single person has both a degree and the debt that usually comes with it. Everyone having a degree means the same thing as no one having a degree, just if no one was 4 years older, and a lot poorer. The universities are counting on this. Also none of grows our own food, and traditionally like what 70% of people on this earth grew their own food or more than their own share of food. So a lot more people are useless and looking for something to kill time doing. We can't all write software for the three companies left in existence can we?

And I am assuming Tina Fey would want to take a massive pay cut from being a comedian to become president, or would want to risk trying to get laughs in the much harder world of the Republican debate circuit, where every policy spouted by Herman Cain or Michelle Bachman could potently lead to explosive unstoppable hysterics (Oh RIP Whitey, we hardly knew ye. Will I ever live to see an election peopled by mildly mannered, mildly wealthy, white oldish men again? I miss those days. Oh wait, no I don't). I am also, alas, excluding the possibility of a Google Party candidate, or a Facebook Party candidate, or even the Walmart Party candidate. All of whom will be coming to your election in the year 2016, by the way, and that should spice things up a little. For now you are stuck with just the old Republicans and Democrats, who are really pretty similar tools in the hands of bloated, corrupt, international corporations holding America and every other nation hostage. When that corporation wants to deny a problem, they pull out a Republican who harangues on cew: "Global warming does not exist. My great grandpappy's grandpappy's grandpappy was there when the Glaciers attacked in the last great ice age. It was terrible! Frostbite everywhere. They came at our women! They came at our children! If a mother put her baby down near a glacier to pick chestnuts, the glacier would pounce with slow, methodical malevolence. And before that baby could turn 25, it had swallowed him whole! An "Encino Man" if you will. The glaciers devoured our territories ruthlessly. There was no turning them back. They came on and on, arrows bounced right off them. An inch this year, 2 inches the next. Until they had conquered the whole of the Earth! Do you want your children to be slaves to ice? Always cold? And shivering and you powerless to save them? Because if you think those glaciers have me fooled with their humble-pie act, you're a damned dirty communist ape! I will not rest. I am watching these glaciers! And also the Mexicans." And if they want to appease some protestors to make them go away they unsheath a Democrat who says forcefully, "You activists are the life-blood of the future, you are the jedi knights of change. We have heard your powerful, yet supple, melodious chanting voices. We admit, you are stronger than us, smarter than us, and gosh darn it, we just like you. Also you are much more beautiful than any of us. So we give in," then they announce some half-ass change that does more harm than good, because all the do-gooders wipe their hands and say, "we showed them. Problem solved." And they move on to their next cause assuming someone else will carry on the fight they didn't want to last past their coffee/commercial break anymore than their target did.

So trust this hearty reader, have no fear, no anxiety. Don't stress about voting for the right person. The winner of the next election, whoever he, or she, is will have no impact on climate change or the world in general. And am I still the only one who thinks there had to be some con job in getting Obama elected? The cynic in me was certain no black man could get elected and that John McCain would sneak out with a horrifying last second victory when millions of voters suddenly realized with cold sudden and final clarity: wait a second! This O'bama really is a ni-nevermind. But he won. At the worst possible time. His detractors are more vocal than ever but still offer no policy ideas of their own that could actually work. And the sheer zaniness the Republicans are spraying the field with tells me: they have no idea at all what they are going to do if they win this election, and might actually be better off throwing it. You can't lose, if you don't play. And I just can't shake that nagging feeling that some powerful racists thought, hey, if we let a black or a woman win now, they'll look so bad we'll never have to worry about another one becoming president...before the world ends in 50 years, muah hah hah hah hah! Am I a cynic?

Well, here is some cheer for you; a happy ending to global warming. Our increasing pollution causes ever more deadly natural disasters, including, a massive volcano, which will spit so much ash into the air that the sun will be blocked out and the temperature of the earth reduced to that of 1964, at which point all the Republicans and Muslim fundamentalists will join hands and sing songs of peace and love, shouting "thank the Lord that the Lord taught us to build combustion engines and lightweight polymers useful as stretchy grocery bags at just the perfect moment so we could start polluting and raise the temperature just enough to keep us from falling into another ice age when that volcano exploded, so we could defeat our true enemy and the friend of Satan: glaciers!" Though the celebration will be short-lived, as with all that ash up there the smoke from factories will have no place to go and we'll all be sick to our stomachs from black air almost immediately. And we all live happily ever after, but you know, the not very long kind of ever, because we'll all get lung cancer.

Well until next time, happy holidays!!! Get in the spirit. Send 50,000 letters and buy lots of forever stamps because the postage rates are going up in January and the Post Office needs money (to keep paying me) now! Though that's only my opinion, not the Post Office's. They do not care if you send letters or buy postage.

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Personality? What are you trying to pull?

Andrew explains why he is always disappointed by the end of a disaster movie.

I am not a big fan of people. I have learned this over the years about myself. Several roomates have helped. Several hundred coworkers, classmates. A couple dozen family parties. I enjoy my privacy. Which is a bad thing in a world ever more crowded. I have also noticed that in disaster movies and books, I cheer for the disaster. Its always a let down when the aliens about to nuke the earth are allergic to water (and directors keep using this as a surprise ending, even though it hasn't been a surprise since HG Wells), and reading "The Hot Zone", I found myself nodding vigorously and hypnotically when the retired Ebola expert who in cliche cinema style (though this was a true story) retired to fish in Montana after a couple of close calls with his deadly nemesis, Ebola Zaire, when he said, "90% less humans could be a good thing, from a species point of view." When I watch the Towering Inferno, all I can think is "Get O.J.! Catch him! Burn that O.J. Simpson!" Obviously this makes me a bad person. To be cheering for the fire? What did O.J. Simpson ever do to me? But my side always loses. Helen Hunt and one of her shoulder straps always stand over the vanquished twister at the end, bosom heaving...sigh. Another close call, but at the end of the day, man survives.

But do you know who will never be defeated? Iranians. Did you know they once made the wheel illegal during the 17th century because none of the religious experts could say for certain that a Christian had not invented it? Now that's dedication. Riding smelly, mal-tempered camels instead...no we can't beat these people. But before you write them off as mad for that little tidbit, consider that it is certainly less hypocritical than the Christian world teaching our babes in Sunday school that work and pain are the punishments for original sin, and then approving the use of machinery. You have to really raise an eyebrow at any man who would urge his wife to have a "natural" birth, sans pain killing medication, but who would approve such things as the tractor, riding lawn mower, or Iphone. Sure that smart phone is convenient, but if life is a test, and we are supposed to be working our way into Heaven by paying off the debt of original sin, then aren't you more likely to flunk out, the easier you make things on yourself? Ha, now think of that next time you download another app to remember things and organize things for you or turn on the driver's seat butt warming massager in your luxury sedan. One day a religious sect will declare anyone who uses something more advanced than an abacus or a meat grinder will be destined for Hell. You heard it here first.

Also I would like to add that anyone who has an Iphone cannot complain about Wallstreet or big business or big government. And rednecks who shop Walmart cannot vote Republican- you can't be for "small" government (I use small in the modern Republican sense that it is for the small proportion of the people who have billions), and big business. If you push for that than for all intents and purposes the biggest business IS the government. And it will be big. There is no symbol of assimilation, status quo, and servitude in today's earth like the Iphone. It would be pointless to explain why. Either you see that or you do not. Bomb something or shut up. That's my feeling about protestors. Don't occupy, raze. If you aren't prepared to do that, you might as well do nothing, because nobody will even take notice of you. Why would they? There's something much more stimulating happening on the internet...

If you are willing to blow things up, you won't have to. Because people will appease you before you do. Otherwise, I suggest protesting a culture you dislike by not serving it, by avoiding it. Don't buy the latest coolest stuff, don't use credit cards, go live in a van in the desert, that sort of thing. Keep a car until it falls apart. Cook for yourself. Wear clothes that are simple and solid colored. Do not watch ads or television. Does all this work? A little maybe. I've got a touch more sanity than many, but I do have the satisfaction of knowing I am doing more good than whining or whoring it up for news team cameras. If all those protestors stopped buying expensive electronics their voice would be heard more than it is by helping cops get rich by working overtime. I mean, if you hate the post office don't go into the post office and tie up three window clerks ranting and screaming- this idiot army man was doing that last time I had to send a package. He inconvenienced dozens of people, and was demanding the post office stop sending him junk mail and start sorting his important mail for him so he would not miss payments- he made a real jerk of himself and justified those people having salaries for the day, and they had a blast laughing at him. My advice: bub, if you hate the post office, sign up for automatic bill pay, paperless statements, and never buy another stamp. Starve them out. Save yourself some time.

Also, I feel the sudden need to say a few nice things about the post office. They do provide many thousands of Americans with a living wage, though they complain about having to do it- 80% of postal expenses are salaries! (Personally, I'd say if you lose a billion dollars or more 10 years in a row, you ought to stop wanting or trying to lay people off; the best protection the Postal Service has from being dissolved is that if it were dissolved 250,000 or more people would collect unemployment; but like airlines, employ enough un-educated slow-poke bums who will never find a better job and the government will keep bailing you out because nobody wants them on the job market gumming up the works) Also my checks have all been right for 10 straight weeks, which saves me the hassle of arguing with anyone, and no official has threatened me with ominous firing for over a month. What a job! What really made me remember why my job is so completely bearable though (other than not having been there for 3 days- how easy that monotonous typing seems when I am not presently doing it) is talking with someone who had an important sounding bank job. She works long hours, has lots of responsibility, and is paid more than $10,000 a year less than me. So I should complain less. Also I get to listen to many many audiobooks.

Do you ever wonder about supertasters? The people who counter-intuitively do not like anything. Is it not strange to consider that those who can taste foods best like them least? What does that say about eating in general? A dirty habit, a dependency even, like the Terminators will think once we build them...now there's a movie where we all cheered for the disaster: "kill him Arnold! Kill him and him and him- no wait, don't!" He made bad cool, and he knew it. And what I love best about those movies, you know, a series of movies about how building technology and machines that are too smart little by little that will ultimately outgrow and destroy us, is that all the kids who said "really makes you think" about that movie now own smart phones and complain they aren't smart enough...or became software engineers because robots are way cool. But having too many taste buds is a bad thing. Brocolli tastes really bitter. Peppers are overpowering. Teresa is a super taster and can really only stand very bland and very sweet food. Sugar is her best buddy. Me, I don't even notice when it isn't there. Your supertaster never used to worry about gout, or obesity. But today? The modern supermarket is a supertaster's fantasy come true that they never knew they had! Everything is crawling with sugar, and salt that burns off those excess taste buds. Everything tastes pretty similar and is artificially flavored, with few if any vegetables. Most flavors are synthesized the way a jelly belly brand blob of corn syrup can be made to taste like anything from blueberry cobbler to buttered popcorn. Blandness rules. And no one could be happier, except me.

I keep planning to cook less from scratch, so I will have more free time (though however much- or little- free time I have I seem to get the same amount done), but when I am reaching for that frozen mediocre pizza, I see a couple waddling towards me, unable to support themselves without a heavily-loaded shopping cart each to huddle over while panting, and I instead vow to cook more and do away with free time all together. Though I do get in a workout while in the kitchen while waiting for things to boil or bake and one can listen to music or audio books or even radio (I kid I kid)- would the women's right movement have ever taken place had mp3 players been available to the beatnik chicks- and I for my part believe that men were so horrified by the movement because it underlined for them how crazy women really were/are; you want to leave our comfortable home to come to the office and type? You're insane...do you think I work for fun? Or that selling copy machines and joshing with my seedy boss fulfills me?! Teresa loves all kinds of products that I can't even taste. Cereals, granola bars, snack mixes, and my food she often finds revolting. It has all kinds of textures and sensations in it. Yuck.

Flavor is a lot like personality. I told my friend once when she was lonely and depressed that if she wanted to find love she was going to have to be a lot less interesting. Personality never seems decent to those without much. And it is much harder to pair a strong beer with the right meal than a weak one- its why the most popular American beers, pizzas, television sitcoms, and everything, are predictable and mild. Your common human being finds a person like myself rather rough around the edges, in need of some sanding down. Pick up a personality and you might get a splinter in your finger. Take a bite out of a personality and you might have to spit it out. Now normal people- there's nothing to object to. You hardly even know they're there. Small price to pay for knowing you won't get shocked. Very easy to fall in love with, tolerate for a whole lot of years. Make ideal roomates. Personalities are always offending or impressing people. They have opinions, feelings, moods. Yuck.

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My Apologies, And The Joys of Excess...tricity

Andrew is even more coherent and organized than usual. Aren't you excited?

First, I must make some amendments to previous posts. We here at Young, Broke, and Clueless, do our best to bring you the journalistic and culinary standards you expect from a free and casual occassional blog, but some of our contributors are getting old and, well, are slipping as they age. I won't divest any names. Really, I've said too much already. But I must apologize for reviewing a cranberry wensleydale as a cranberry stilton. I feel foolish. I'm blushing, really. Also, for any reader who might have taken me at my word when I said it is not possible to make a bad hummus, I stand corrected. With my great skill and creativity I have discovered the world's worst hummus: it involves lots of basil. Basil does not play well with chickpeas, shall we say. However, if you independently discovered this in the past few weeks and the hummus is still sitting in your fridge because you cannot bear to throw good food away, nor to eat it, then know you can redeem your awful hummus with a good dose of Texas Champaigne. This is my preferred choice of hot sauce. For flavor, Tapatio is the way to go. But if you are mostly in the market for a hot sauce to use as a prop, or part of your home decor ensemble, then you simply must purchase a bottle of Texas Champaigne, the only pepper sauce which will make you smile at every passing. Tabasco Sauce is a distant third. It would not even exist anymore were it not for old Looney Tunes episodes with Sylvester the lisping cat who can't eat Tweety Birds without the proper seasonings. This blog is not brought to you by the fine makers of D.L. Jardine's Texas Champaigne, might I assure you? It is not in fact brought to you by anyone, and if you wanted to send me a donation or two, I might make fewer mistakes in the future...perhaps that has been my plan with typos and spelling errors all along- not to annoy Camila the editor- and I am only now springing it on you, at the perfect time...

Pumpkin Season was a real dud. I lost one giant gourd to pumpkin rot. Would not even risk cooking the seeds. And then my third and largest pumpkin was a thread pumpkin. I know of no way to discern a thread pumpkin from a standard pumpkin. Some pumpkins come apart in chunks and others in threads. Threaders cook slower and are less delectable. It did not help things that I made a wholly original fusion chile pretty much spontaneously with ground lamb, tart green apples, jalapeno and anaheim peppers, 6 kinds of beans, quinoa, tomatoes, potato shreds, and cooked it in my thread pumpkin. The dish was all right so far as my cooking goes. It might cut the mustard at some expensive restaurant where jerks go to be fashionable and their taste buds are burned off by Miller Light beer and intense quantities of salt from frozen dinners, but I did not have much desire to eat it as leftovers. I gave some away...and have not heard back yet. Maybe that is my answer. Well in any case, lamb is vile cold. Truly stomach turning. Hot I have to say this: I know what I hate...and I don't hate lamb...when it is not ground. Ground lamb is hereby downgraded to "cat food" on this blog, into perpetuity, and if I use the last pound of it in my freezer, I shall refer to it as such.

The seeds came out well. My new formula on pumpkin seeds is chile powder, garlic salt/season all, and cinammon. With a touch of olive oil. Delicious.

I have some really explosive hopes for a few books right now, and the reviews will come soon. I know we are all looking forward to my thoughts on "The Diaries of Samuel Pepys", known as history's greatest diarist, who also wrote of the joys of excess- a known gourmand who kept a divine and exotic table. And I cannot wait to crack open my copy of "How Carrots Won the Trojan War: Incredible (But True) Stories About Vegetables in History". Who doesn't want to know how turnips helped George Washington cross the Delaware? The person who just raised their hand is obviously mad. This is the seminal moment in American history as far as I am concerned. It is the moment when the first American (have I mentioned "Wasington's Expense Account?- an incredible book about the interest Washington billed Congress for eventually from all of his own money he used to pay the soldiers and so on?), had an inner Vince Lombardi "just win baby" moment, stood up on Christmas Eve and told his men, "Screw honor and all that. A win's a win. The Redcoats are kicking our butts, and unless we start cheating, we're royally boned. Now let's sneak over there tonight and catch them drunk tomorrow because it has been established custom in Europe for hundreds of years not to fight on holidays, and they still think of us as Europeans. Get your face paint," or something like that. It was the moment America was forged as the independent, mighty, hypocritical nation it was destined to be- after all, why fight toe to toe, and in lines, when the only battle the colonies had fared well in had been done with shady Indian guerilla tactics (Lexington and Concord), and you can always lie afterwards. Washington probably thought there would have to be an elaborate cover up to hide the fact that we turned the war with a sneak attack on a holiday (two no-no s for the time), but instead we are still praising him for it. Would the founding fathers have been mortified to think we would still be emulating them? I expect so. They planned on being replaced, forgotten or condemned for doing too little. They expected their children to be even more enlightened, and active, and to solve the slavery issue quickly for themselves...whoops. Well you know what they (I) say: building Utopia is good for the soul, inheriting it, will rot you. Everything's done: why not get drunk and debauch the girl next door...nobody paints in paradise.

I am still compiling my worst beers list, but Wasatch Brewery will hold a place of distinction. They are quite adept at being motley. Of the 4 beers I've tried, 2 earned single sip dumping status- that is, only swine could swallow more than once, and probably alcoholic swine at that. Polygamy Porter (why have just one?) is not disgusting, but then I've never had a bad porter. The flavor is frankly hard to mess up, if I remember the little I've read about the brewing process is correct. But it is like all Wasatch Beers, thin and weak, compared with others. I do appreciate this brewer for their rank reputation with the LDS Community (who believe marketing a beer as Polygamy Porter gives the LDS Church a bad name- I'd say the polygamy probably had more impact, wouldn't you?), but other than some mischievous marketing, not much is there. But I have reached 300 beers, making me the most expert beery I know.

For cheese, I must give a shout out to Butterkase, by C & W, a soft, smooth, mild, salty, creamy butter cheese of fine quality, and Beecher "Flagship", a potent, cheddery, well-aged, hard cheese with crumbly texture that is the double stout of cheeses- lots of flavor and body, and it will probably put hair on chest. So ladies, beware. But if you've been waiting for a cheese to really sock you in the stomach, this is the one. Supertasters, need not bother. You will hate it.

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More Beer, Cheese, and Books

October Fest ends in Utah in September. You can't make this up.

There are good beers in Utah, and believe me, no one is as surprised as I am. I thought the words "good", "beer", and "Utah" would never fit together. Actually, I never thought "good" and "Utah" could pair up. Ha ha. Nah, Utah, you're great. Love your brown air in winter and your brown air in summer, and the ugly overcrowded valley and the way your residents who have 8 children each, none of whom ever move more than 2 blocks away from home after marrying, blame Californians and Mexicans for the population issues, saying "the secret is out" as if everyone were about to move here.

Uintah Brewery has a few more hits with me. Baba Black Lager (Organic) was a fine standard style black lager. Imagine that. Also enjoyed Wasatch Pumpkin Ale. Second best pumpkin ale I have found. Dogfish Head out of Rhode Island is magnificent. Though I have yet to find a beer by Dogfish that was not excellent. Perhaps their IPA. Uintah misses with Punk, their Pumpkin Ale. Acidic swill piss, which I would not use for anyone even an enemy. Battery acid would be cheaper by the pint if I wanted to poison someone. I might be inclined to try their Polygamy Porter (Why Have Just One?), a Utah staple, which I assumed was just for jerks with no taste. Zion's Brewery has started off decently for me, though I find Stout Virgin to be a tasteless name, and the label has more animated cleavage than I need to see when drinking. I even had a good beer from Sierra Nevada, long considered by me to be one of the most consistently disappointing brewers in the West, despite their sterling reputation. "Tumbler", an Autumn brown ale is delicious. I am nearly up to 300 brews for my life. The next mixed six (pack) will get me there. I thought I would feel accomplished as a beery when I reached that number (and might I add "beery" is not marked by my spell checker but Uintah is- despite being a really and truly mountain range within the greater Rockies), but now I can only think 400 beers...now a man who has had 400 beers would really know his stuff. Out of all those brews I think less than 20 have been distinguishable from the rest, and I have only had about that many twice or more. The number of beers I have drunk 3 times would fit on one hand. Out of all those, the best commonly available brew for me is still "Samuel Adams' Cream Stout", and the beer I most often think about which I cannot find is "Petrus Original". Sweet ale aged 3 years in brandy oak casks. Also would cut a few throats for an "Old Engine Oil: Special Reserve, Extra Sludge"- I forget the brewer. A double dark and double thick stout that really is like syrup. "Guitts" was like an alcoholic soda out of Brazil. Never seen it in the States. Also love Raisin D'Etre by Dogfish. Maybe I will think up a worst beers list for next post. That would be harder. You know what they (my alter ego in the 3rd play I still mean to finish someday after 5 years) say: if you want a challenge don't try to write the Great American Novel. There are so many bad writers in this world. To stand out at stinking really takes skill. The character spends 20 years not publishing a thing after getting sort of big and one groupie who starts stalking him (a younger woman of course because every crush I have ends up being 18, looking 16, and so forth) thinks he needs to start writing again, but he reveals that all of his trash attempts just turn out too decent, so he starts over trying to complete the worst thing ever written and prove his true glorious greatness. I know what you are thinking right now: Andrew let me read these fragments of a play! No wait, actually that sounds truly awful- you're on the right track!

Thank you. I try. I found a terrible gourmet cheese finally. Mango ginger. Took a bite and threw it away. Almost spit it out. $15.99 per pound garbage. Now that's expensive trash bag liner. Sage cheese, bright green and dubious, was delicious. Love it for breakfast to counter some super duper yogurt (now cross bred with a third brand for even more live culture strains and of course, still goat-milk sharp) and sweet jam and organic butter on toast. But it is not as good or as sweet as a cranberry stilton. Tastes like low-sugar cheesecake. Blueberry stilton is only slightly better. I will get both again.

Try reading William Gaddiss sometime. My favorite author. Or "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes." Riveting, spellbinding joy. Can't put the thing down. I'm reading it on every break at work, even though there are piles of babes to flirt with and I have been without a Fake Work Girlfriend for all but 3 days since getting hired back by the Post Office 4 months (39,000 years in dog time or Postal Worker time- approximately) ago. No one even has a bad opinion of me for corrupting the youth right now. I've never been able to feel good about myself when people aren't saying bad things about me. I mean if the masses love McDonald's and Star Wars Sequels, then why would I want them to approve of my every doing? Here is a tip: if a person eats fast food often and says they love you or respect you or whatever, so what. Its like being told you are clever by someone who isn't clever. If they can't tell garbage when they taste it, then you can't feel good about them choosing you. Looking for love? Find a person who can make a pizza from scratch. First thing to look for. They put the time in to that, they'll put the time in to you. Massages and being there for you and blah blah blah.

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The Buckle Heard Round the World

AKA The Buckle of the Century.

This is a long overdue post. But what other kind would you expect from me anymore? I closed out Buckle Season, formerly and commonly designated "summer" in some backwoods regions, with a buckle to end all buckles. A peach and 2 berry sweet cornbread buckle. Wowie. That one was good. I did half corn meal (blue and gold mixed) with half wheat flour, and well, I did throw in some Bob's Mill 8 Grain Cereal Mix (wheatless) too, as I do in all my baking. Used the last of the season's peaches- end of October in Utah this year if you believe it, raspberries and blackberries. Half stick butter and a mere scant 1/8 cup brown sugar for the whole double buckle recipe. Which makes 2 standard pie trays. I do not personally even notice the absence of sugar, as I keep reducing it in all my baking. I go with brown, because it has more flavor and I prefer it. Don't even keep white anymore. Then compensate with vanilla and cinammon. Usually some nutmeg and allspice too. Works in apple crisps, oat bars, you name it. No one else has complained to me either. Buckles turned out to be the only bread/pie I baked all summer. My favorite combos are pear/blueberry, peach/blackberry, and plum/raspberry. But any 2 or three fruits will make for good eating.

I quickly transitioned into fall mode. Stocked up on winter melons as they were once called; spaghetti squash, acorn squash, pumpkins, and butternut squashes. And I whipped up one more apple crisp with honeycrisps and asian pears. I will miss apples, and will probably cheat and buy some "fresh" ones before next summer. Apples and potatoes are just too much a part of our lives. Though I did stock on spuds too. I love fall as well. I spent 2 weeks hiking through the best colors I have ever seen thanks to the late and heavy snowfall, and bought jugs of tangy tart cider, and lamented my lack of a food dehydrator. Would like to make preserves next fall. Really store up for winter like in the old days I never knew existed except in fiction until I was grown up.

Last week I cut into the first of my three huge eating pumpkins: not to the prospective buyer of pumpkin flesh- measure your oven first. I don't know quite how I will manage the last one. I cleaned off the seeds and got them roasting in a toaster oven while I roasted the hollowed out gourd in the big oven, with the rack sagging under the weight. Due to the size and thickness of my pumpkin and my own unusual lack of any economy of movement, I baked the pumpkin empty, then moved it to the top of the range before filling it and using it like a slow cooker. Secured the lid tight and walked away for 2 hours. When I came back the whole was still hot and everything inside was baked and blended. So what did I make? A "turkey" mole (moh-lay- I do not have the spanish tilda on my keyboard to go over the e), which must be put into quotations as my sophisticated palet can assure you that: turkey does not taste like turkey anymore, turkey has an odd spongey texture rather than the rough and dry texture turkey should have, and turkey is mostly flavored with sodium and chicken stock. Also turkeys are raised so fat their own legs break and they are miserable. Probably. But I am going to avoid turkey even more thourougly than I was already after this due to the poor quality of the general turkey flesh. More on flesh later. For now, let us say the turkey mole was good. This mole was seasoned with achiote, chiles, pepper, cocoa, cinammon, and other spices. I poured in 6 cans of butter beans, kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, and great northern beans, plus diced anaheim peppers, corn, peas, tomatoes, wild rice, and of course, the sides of the pumpkin scraped and shredded. Quite good, spicey and sweet and aromatic, aside from the disappointing calibre of the bird.

Okay, so, I have tested organic chicken, beef, 3 varieties of buffalo meat, milk, and yogurt, and I will now give you the rundown. Organic chicken tastes like chicken. I do not believe I could pick one out from the other blindfolded, despite my honed and attuned taste buds, and the "air chilled difference"- this organic chicken is not stored in vats of shit-filled water that spreads disease and inflates the weight of the poultry so you get less for your money- though I do appreciate the air chilling on principle. Organic beef on the other hand is spectacular. Great smell, taste, obvious flavor difference. You can recognize it too by differences in cooking: the ground patties I formed cooked more quickly and evenly, the fat clung to the pan less as it cooled and was easier to clean. On the whole, I am an organic beef man from here out. No doubt. It still though does not have as much flavor as bison, my meat of choice forever more. I have tried 2 brands of ground buffalo and one of hot dogs. The hot dogs are superior to standard dogs, smell wonderful, but on the whole, are still just ground up testicles and junk meat. High Plains Bison burgers come individually wrapped and pre-formed. I don't like them much. If you are into convenience and don't mind producing a lot of trash, go for them. The flavor though is very pepper and whatever they preserve these with, dulls the taste. Go instead if a connoisseur in hopes, for Great Range Bison, distributed by Rocky Mountain Natural Foods. My very special recipe is included later. Organic milk is magnificent. Shockingly good if you are not a super taster. I remember loving milk once, and now mainly drink it from habit. Its white water, full of protein. But organic is full of sweet, rolling gentle flavor. Teresa made a face and said it tastes like cheese. She was not a fan. But I am won over. You can taste the happy, and the omega 3s animals pick up when their feed is green (as in grass). It is healthier by far and tastier too. Watch for a sale or a clearance as it is about to expire. All of this leads me to believe birds are called "bird-brained" for a reason. They may not be happy, but even happy, how happy is a chicken exactly? You can't notice its misery in the meat. Now cows, they must be a bit clever. I can tell you from a burger if the animal led a good life or not. Pigs, which I do not mention are natural jerks. They would definitely eat you if they had the chance, and they are known to torture smaller live animals by eating them slowly and leaving them half eaten then coming back for more. I do not care if my pork is happy, though I would buy humane pork if I find it. But the guilt is not there. Cows don't hurt anyone, except with methane- and by the way, the next time someone of a Republican nature says to you that global warming is not man made because all the cow farts still account for more greenhouse gases than all our cars put together, counter by saying that the cow is really one of man's first machines; the feral cattle is not an animal that is social, docile, or which could be packed tightly. Steers were territorial brutes. Much tougher and stronger than even modern bulls. They fought like tigers and males did not meet often and both live after. So there would be few cows in the world to fart had they not happened to taste darn good. In fact much of the evil in history has taken place for beef, and wilderness areas are being mauled by livestock rights. Don't believe me? I can send pictures of a herd of cows that surprised the hell out of me by being in the middle of a mountain valley in August, and which nearly felt the need to stampede me. Didn't know they really did that. I can also send you pics of a herd of cows that stampeded for fear of me in another mountain range that is supposed to be "wild" in Utah's desert. Not eating beef would possibly do more good for the world than many hours volunteering for garbage organizations like United Way and Habitat for Humanity, of which I have insider experience and little faith. And to end my soapbox speech for now: giving money to charity is for chumps. Know your neighbors, and your community. Don't send $50 to Georgia, or Malaysia. Find someone who could use it near you. Give it to them. A kid, a mother, whatever. A loan or a present. You do more good in this world by loving a single person well than by getting involved with these giant organizations that get so big they lose sight of what they are doing and just become machines like every other corporation. Big is bad. (And just how do Republicans say big government is evil but shop at Walmart? If you allow big business, you need big government, otherwise the biggest business, is for all intents and purposes, the government. When I see Walmart as a third party, I will worry. Don't give them the idea. They'll get it on their own soon enough.)

Buffalo Burgers:
1 lb ground buffalo
1/4 cup italian seasoned bread crumbs
1/8 cup raisins
ginger, garlic, salt, paprika, (or ideally "Mongolian Ginger Barbecue" seasoning mix sold at World Market Stores and under the name "Urban Accents)

Also you could try lamb burgers, another animal that is not eaten in large enough numbers for it to have lost all flavor yet:

1 lb ground lamb
4 dry mint leaves ground
1/8 cup craisins or raspberries
garlic and other desired seasonings

I prefer buffalo by a lot. Lamb just makes me want stew. Lamb owns stew. Although beef stew is good too.

Well my cooking will stop for a while. I am itching to try my new breads of the world book too. But December is coming and I work for the Post Office. Time to make money so I can coast the rest of the year. I kid. We work, we work. Really. A little. And don't tell me how sweet of a gig I have, because while I'm doing very little, I'm getting psychologically damaged very badly. And I am master of psyching others out. Ask Camila. I'm an evil genius. I can tell you all about people faster than Microft Holmes. But the Post Office- man they make me wanna join the Marines or the SEALs so I can fly through boot camp and have some desperate, furious, exasperated drill sargaent ask me why nothing fazes me. I will say, bub, I worked 5 years for the Post Office. You are an amateur. And he will kiss my boots and weep and ask for pointers on how to arbitrarily break people it should be in your interest to make happy...I stocked up on dry pasta, oats, and Progresso Soups- my favorite "junk" food. Although its really rather healthy compared with fast food, and only has salt that can be held against it. But this is one brand I can crack open and eat straight from the can cold. If I'm ever on death row, a can of Progesso Soup might be my last meal. Wouldn't want to be a burden on the tax payers after eating on their dime through 9 or 16 years worth of pointless expensive appeals. We've gone soft, America. Too damn soft. Visit my last angry man political blog for more of this flavorless ranting.

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Whiskey-Banana Oatmeal

What's this, you say? Is this Camila, writing a post on the ostensible food blog? What madness! I must surely be hallucinating.

Well, my friend, you may be hallucinating, but not about me. This is indeed happening. I have been roused from my blogging slumber by a brilliant invention. An almost-Andrew level of brilliance. It is simple: take oatmeal, add whiskey.

Well, not quite that simple. You also need bananas, cinnamon and brown sugar. And it doesn't have to be whiskey - rum, brandy, pick yer poison. But that's it, and it's amazing. You could also, incidentally, call this breakfast Bananas Foster Oatmeal, but I think it's crucial that the description have the alcohol in question in the name. Truth in advertising and all that.


Here are two ways of making this really amazing cold-wintry-day breakfast:

1. Slice some bananas and throw them in a saucepan with a bit of butter, some brown sugar and some cinnamon. Look, if you wanted precise quantities, today just isn't your day.

2. Let those get nice and tasty and mushy and sweet and cinnamony. Meanwhile, make some oatmeal - for the love of mercy, don't use instant or quick oats. Real oatmeal takes like two minutes in the microwave. Sheesh.

3. Do the bananas look great? Awesome. Grab a bottle and add a couple good glugs. I used Virginia Gentleman, which I'm kind of in love with because it's really amazingly cheap... and totally not bad. It's even quite good. Also it's bourbon made in Virginia, so, state pride, whoohoo.

4. Sorry, got distracted. Let your bananas get to know your booze for a moment. Here's where you would set them on fire, except you just got up and your feet are cold and the coffee's still brewing and who are you trying to impress, anyway? It's 11 a.m. and you only just woke up, you haven't done anything with your life this weekend, you're not that cool, set down the barbecue lighter and look at your priorities. Who do you think you are, Emeril?

5. Dump the boozlicious bananas on top of your freshly prepared oatmeal, stir it up, sit down with your hot coffee and enjoy. Dang, Emeril can go BAM by himself; you just won at breakfast. Weekend already a success.


or you can be like camila and do this:

1. put frozen bananas in a pot. set the temperature too high. wonder for a moment at how you can manage to burn things that are frozen. admire your mad skills. turn down the burner.

2. stare at the melting bananas and think that they look totally unappetizing. Wish the coffee were ready. Wonder why you didn't clean the kitchen yesterday, or two days ago, or the day before that. Add brown sugar.

3. Cheer up when the kitchen starts to smell like brown sugar and bananas. Add cinnamon. Poke the bananas with a spoon; still frozen. Think, "you know what this needs? Whiskey." In the moment which you would normally spend pausing to check if that was a terrible idea, add some freaking whiskey.

4. Become much, much happier when the kitchen smells like brown sugar and bananas and whiskey. Start to get very, very hungry. Add a cup of water to the bananas.

5. Realize there was probably a better way to do this. Watch the bananas disintegrate and think that this looks incredibly unappetizing again. Break the bananas up with a spoon to amuse yourself.

6. Once the banana-sugar-whiskey-water mess is boiling - wasting all the whiskey, you think sorrowfully, add half a cup of oatmeal. Get distracted by emptying the dishwasher so you can look yourself in the mirror, you slob. Come back five minutes later to find the unappetizing mess turned into beautiful oatmeal with banana all mixed up throughout.

7. Add more whiskey.

8. Sit down, and enjoy winning at breakfast. Hey, at least we all got to the same place.



The craziest thing is that nobody seems to have thought of this before. No, wait. I did some more googling and guess who did? The Scottish. A great country, Scotland. Of course, they appear to eat oatmeal and brandy as a dessert, but everybody knows the Scottish are crazy.


Now, you might be thinking, "Camila, only a crazy person would have whiskey in the morning." I'm not disagreeing. But you just might be a crazy person, and you should probably try - just to find out.

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