Sleep Deprivation And The Ozzy Solution

 We just can't catch a break.  Once again, we have noisy upstairs neighbors. 

Both of them work nights. Both of them are in their early twenties, in their first apartment, in their first serious relationship. Neither of them seem to have any real idea that we can hear every word of every fight, every video game, every party and every session of hot donkey sex.  They entertain visitors starting at 11:pm - noisy, drunk visitors - and they all squash into the little room right above my bedroom and spend hours there, hotboxing, falling down, coughing, throwing game controllers at the walls and PISSING ME OFF. Apparently that little room is the only room with a WiFi access, and Junior can't be bothered to run wires up to the front of the building where their huge living room and spacious balcony are. NOOOOOOOO. THAT WOULD B E PRACTICAL. WE MUST GATHER IN THE TINY ROOM AND VAPE AND AND SAY 'FUCK' EVERY OTHER WORD LIKE (profane, meth-addled) AUCTONEERS.

Honestly, last night? it sounded like they had a giraffe upstairs last night, and it was pregnant, and it was pacing up and down the hallway, stopping only to deliver a calf from a height of six feet KA-THUD on the floor RIGHT OVER MY HEAD AT 1:AM IN THE MORNING.  It continued doing this shit until 4:am. Every ten fucking minutes BAM. KAWUMPATHUMP. BAM. 

This has to be a giraffe record. 

Now, previously, I had gone upstairs to request gently that they keep the noise down and move their escapades to the front of the building where they cannot be heard. 

I visited at 3:am.  And you figure, seeing a tousled old lady at your door at 3:am would be enough to drive home the fact that one's ass has been WAY TOO FUCKING LOUD, but apparently it did not.

And so this morning at 4:am, the Biker set his JBL's up underneath their bedroom, facing the ceiling, adjusted the bass to Ragnarok, and cranked the Black Sabbath.

They'd just gone to bed.

We hope this served as an object lesson.  

If not, we have PRIMUS.

                      AND WE KNOW HOW TO USE IT.

4 Pictures

 I might be late to the game, but I can Four Picture with the best of them:

A wonderful old embroidery piece, from a kit, c.1912 - 1923?  It measures 20 by 20.

I got it for a buck at a garage sale recently.

A lovely old Knights of Pythias temple in Weiser, Idaho. This picture does no justice to the place.  Someday I'm going to take the tour, and you bet I'll be snapping away!

A nice shot of the Snake river, taken from one of the multitudes of old bridges that cross it.  Upon the railing of this bridge someone left their regrets...

I would love to meet this woman and find out all about her failed romance with Louis.  I have this whole scene in mind where she's seventeen and has snuck out one night to stand here looking at the water, smoking a purloined cigarette, thinking about Louis....

...that's three and a half.

Yes, it's a real coffin! 

Seen at a recent outlaw car meet in Ontario, Oregon.  Out here, hot rodders are seriously shady characters, not just old fat retired dudes zipping around on motorized barstools. We thought we could just rock on in, oh look, hon! Let's go check it out! but man, we got some serious stinkeye.  Too bad. We played the old people card and limped around and took it all in. Man, the open carry going on, people. BIG guns. Guys with one ass cheek hanging out because that hand cannon was pulling down the sag. Not butts you'd want to see, either. Yikes.

Well there that is. I'm gonna go count Republicans now.

EXPOSED: Stuff

 

Well I finally went and did it.  Here are my cookbook favorites, and things I bought because they were cool.  I'm sorry if you came here expecting whatever you were expecting, but no. This isn't that kind of place. 

OK fine it is that kind of place but still.

COOKSBOOKS, PEOPLE.   Talkin' bout cookbooks.  My cookbooks.  There should be a little something to please everybody!

All right, settle down.

We all knew that was going to happen. You did, I did, and yes, it did happen. 

OK. Now for cookbooks.

                                 SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111 hahahahahahaa!

What?  It's Halloween! See, and that's ^^^ scary, right?  Ha ha! Oh my!

OK it was Halloween a couple of days ago.

OK fine fine fine cookbooks.

Fine.

   Whenever I am really interested in something, I like to have one central reference book, something well-organized and well-researched, that opens the door to the whole subject. Joy has been my core reference since 1979. It has never let me down.  

The Joy of Cooking isn't just recipes, it's an introductory course as well- I learned the basics from this book.  I doubt that one in fifty people ever give this the reading it deserves. 

I own the 1976 edition.  I also own a 1945 edition, and the differences between the two are incredibly interesting. 

If you're me.    

Two have gone on before, used to rags. This is my third copy.  I've got decades of weirdness saved in the pages

...including this picture of a butt that my grandson drew.

The Art of Italian Cooking

My first Italian cookbook (1975?) and one that I still use.

This is the first recipe I ever made out of it, and it is the only ravioli recipe you'll ever need.

Of course I have the Alice B. Toklas cookbook. 

Of course I've made the 'Hashish Fudge'.

Tell you what, that shit is tasty, too.

It'll fuck you up.

  The ABTC is more than a collection of recipes, though.  It's the story of how life was in pre-WWII France, what home was like, and friends, and survival.  Plus you get 'take no prisoners' - level recipes.  Do please give it a read. It is wonderful!

-oh and lets get it straight for the last time - she didn't make pot brownies. She made HASHISH FUDGE. Damn kids and their jungle music.  

Got Escoffier.  

The whole tone of this book is one of absolute authority.  I found that offputting, but I soldiered onward. I'm glad I took the trouble:

  

  These three paragraphs on stock ^^^ changed the way I cook. I've spent hours and hours of my life perfecting this one basic thing, using the information and techniques here, and it's been one of the most worthwhile things I've ever learned in my life.  

I have made a few of the sauces, the terrines and pate's, and also the chicken galantine, which is SO AWESOME.  It is not easy. I seldom come close. But I LEARN SO MUCH. This whole book is absolute, solid gold.  Get a copy. Or you can read it online at the Internet Archive.

Go. Do it.   

Now.

   

I love my Larousse!

Excellent rainy day reading. Just let it fall open to any page and settle in. Ahh!

"... and if you're not careful you might learn something!" 

-not said in Bill Cosby's voice at all.

You can learn how to deal with weird fish!

You can check out what your ancestors did to amuse themselves!

NATURALLY. 

OF COURSE. 

The thing people don't understand about Mastering The Art Of French Cooking is that these books are simplicity itself. Clear as a bell, easy to understand, pictures, diagrams, all that. If it were still 1965 I would not hesitate to give these to a new bride (of the auld American bridal stripe - dumb as a bag of hammers, never been near a kitchen, was playing with Barbies the morning of the ceremony.)

Of course the word 'French' is frightening all on it's own to most Americans 

           OH MY GOD NO SAUTEEING HOW IS THAT PRONOUNCED NO GOD RUN EEK

and I think that's why more people don't turn to these when they look for a good basic cookbook. 

Yes! Julia! These are good, basic cookbooks!  So what if the woman uses a lot of French words?  She explains them! Go on, give her a chance!  

                                                    

                                                        You gotta figure, they cook in space.

But no, you cannot see inside.  It's CLASSIFIED.

This is arguably the most important cooking collection I have:  It was owned by my father-in-law, The Playboy of the Western World, and it is the work of his lifetime.

   The Bikers' father was a professional chef for, shit...40 years, I think. This box of recipes was originally his grandmothers. She died and passed it to her daughter, who added to it, and passed it to her son, the Playboy, who added to it and passed it to his son, my husband.  The Playboy had a Master's degree in food biology but he never took a cooking class in his life.  His mother taught him how to cook when he was a little kid out on the farm, on a wood-fired stove.

Imagine that.

The contents of this little box supported his family, paid for his bills, his house, his cars, his worldwide travels and etc., and made him a famous and respected man in his corner of the world, in his time.   

Now this I had to own. 

No I do not use it. 

I own it. 

OMG look at it. You want it too. You know what I mean.

 

   Whu-haaaaaaay back in the day, my aunt Winnie had a rooty-toot, no expense spared Westinghouse kitchen c.1940, and I mean top of the line chrome and enamel and style and all.  Seriously, check out that link. It has a picture of that very kitchen. Anyway, this is the cookbook that they gave you with the installation, and isn't it a honey!  It's in a polished aluminum case!  It had its own little nook by the stove, too! I remember her making sugar cookies with this lying open on the table.  So when it came up online, SWOOPABUNGA I nabbed the sapsucker.        

IT IS SO TUFF OMG.

                                                    

That Super Chicken cookbook? Also one of my first cookbooks c1976.  Just something off the 'impulse purchase' rack by the checkstand in a Thriftways supermarket.  It has a recipe for vermouth chicken that I cannot live without. 

Not just one, but TWO, PEOPLE, TWO Iona Blender cookbooks, just because I can.  

(You get it?  Iona = I Own A?  Huh?  Huh?)

Yes, I bought the blender, and so now IONA-BLENDER too.  

But it was busted ass, so the Biker turned it into a lamp for me, and

I do.

Tell you what, it IS fun to fondue!  Just not with the fondue set on the cover. 

 Now with the cold weather setting in, this book is out ready to be used, and I'm planning on fon-doing a pot the first day it snows!  YUM.

Now the cover of this one is hard to make out. See it more clearly here: linkie

It is the foot of a duck.

It is The Web-Foot Cookbook. Yes indeedy.

-well it's a facsimile copy. Fine.

I only got this one recently, after having lusted for it for literal decades.  It claims to be the first cookbook published in Portland, Oregon, back in the days of jackleg races, bicycle girls, shanghai tunnels and cheap household labor.  All the leading ladies of the day contributed. You can practically hear their voices as you read. You feel kind of sorry for their servants too. Some of this stuff had to be murder to make in the days before electricity and refrigeration.

Indiana Herbs the Herb Doctor and Medicine Man.

 

Not a cookbook, strictly speaking, although it gives recipes for all kinds of concoctions.

I've owned this little booklet for-freakin'-ever and I love it.  This is a catalogue that was sent primarily to doctors and pharmacists, small enough to carry in your pocket.  

    You could buy herbs in bulk for dying, manufacturing, cooking, for remedies, for veterinary purposes, and for...OTHER...purposes. 

Ahem. 

Cough.    

    .....I'm talking about getting high, and 'easing the torment of the terminally ill' and abortifacients and syphillis 'cures' and shit like that. Geeze, catch up.    

OK here is my guilty secret.

  

How to know if someone grew up on the West Coast during the 1960s:

Do they have a copy of Hi Protein Meatless Health Recipes falling to pieces on their shelf?  If yes, then pull up a bowl of lentils and I don't know where I was going with that thought. 

Sit in it? Sure.

Paul Bragg was... well, here we go, in his own words:

   Yes, well.  

And he was sincere in the beginning, I do believe. But then he got famous, and moved to Hawaii, and stopped giving much of a fuck.

But nobody cared.  Somehow along the way he had managed to hook into the West Coast Counterculture group mind and stick there like a paisley amyloid plaque. This cookbook was being passed around everywhere for a few years. I saw it in waiting rooms. I saw it in the library on the 'free' table.  People were leaving it in public places like a religious tract. 

I think half the reason he garnered so much credibility is the fact that the line of products he was pushing were, and still are, really, really good .*   

Here is a little gem from it's pages:

Folks, he means a quesadilla.

OMG SO ADORABLE SQUEEEEEEEE

Until you read

...this nonsense,

...which lets you know that by this time he was pretty firmly in the pocket of Big Grocery, far from his idealistic roots in the early physical culture scene and all it's attendant woo. 

The first couple of years after I moved out, this is how I ate. Strictly, mind. This is how 3/4 of Portland was eating, too.  And in fact this is how I prefer to eat to this day, wonderful big heaps of glorious, glorious produce, baby, only with bacon and fried chicken because I'm not an idiot. 

OK WOW that was fun, right?  Yes it was! And now you know all about my favorite cookbooks, or at least most of my favorite cookbooks.  I left out a few because this was getting long.  

I hope you're happy.  I feel pretty good about it. 

_______________________________________________

*Braggs Liquid Aminos - that's him.  Well not now, he's dead and Katy Perry owns the company. And I guess the apple cider vinegars taste different now.

FRUITLAND AFTER DARK

 Up until the nineteen eighties, when the FBI swept Idaho in a vice crackdown that lasted all of three months, most of the small towns and cities in Idaho ran wide open. It wasn't publicized, I certainly never knew about it, but yeah, most of the older population here grew up in towns where there were locally acknowledged cathouses dotted around.  Nothing sly or sneaky about it.

  Now it was absolutely not legal in any way.  It's just that in Idaho, all the towns were very small towns, separated by lots of howling nothingness, 

'Howling Nothingness' taken by your intrepid FN just one mile out of *ahem* town

... far, far away from federal authority.  These tiny, isolated towns made up their own rules, and what they wanted was a way to pay for new cop cars and the high schools' band uniforms (true.*) If you have a surplus of transient single men running around, which Idaho definitely did, working the harvests, the mines, timber, cattle, it was felt that the way to keep them in line was to channel them toward an established red light district and make sure they spent well while they were there. 

One such about 25 miles from here. 

Of course, the businesswomen in that industry paid hefty licensing fees, various taxes, fines and so on, the frequency and amounts varying according to the towns need for police cars and band uniforms.

There is a subtle but important difference in the mindset involved.  Where I grew up, everybody knew there were such things, and did a lot of wailing and gnashing and condemning.  Here, everybody knows about it - and butter wouldn't melt. It's kind of like how nobody says a word about the Japanese internment camp that used to be down the road.  

Anyway, here are a couple of cribs left over from about WWI. They open on the alley behind my building (which, as in all good pioneer towns, was known as 'The Line.')

Each unit is about 10 x 11

     

   

These days they're rented out to a pair of migrant workers who are heavily into the local car culture. 

               All men in their forties + who are awfully, awfully, awfully serious despite their club name. 

Of course, if you are me, this begs the question 'which one of the historic buildings here on Main in Fruitland used to host a cathouse?' I know I'm not living in it because this place was built in the 1960s.  I have been multitasking, looking for garage sales AND driving around looking for windows and doorways spaced way too closely all in a row. This has not been successful so far. More research is necessary.  I'll letcha know. 

     

__________________________________________________

* book 'Selling Sex In The Silver Valley - A Business Doing Pleasure' by Dr. Heather Branstetter. 

NOTE:  All the towns in Idaho are very small towns, except for Boise, which is a town the size of Bellingham WA, only with taller buildings and more railroad tracks.  Each day I live here I am newly amazed by the Old West culture that still survives.  I mean I have the living memory of my hometown in Oregon back when it was still farms, tractors on the roadways, and kids riding horses around - but it grew and changed.  This place did not.  They just got cars.  Some got indoor plumbing.  Most  moved to Oregon.

Idaho Again *yawn*

 

Yeah I suck. You thought I was going to post up the Food Atrocities but no.

ACTUALLY HA HA ON YOU HERE THEY ARE.  I just said that to mess with the people who have that 'first few sentences' thing enabled on their blog. 

I'm not making much sense this morning.

______________________________________

In America there were a number of small-market radio shows like 'Your Neighbor Lady' back in the 1920s and onward...a nice, friendly female voice talking about homey, farm-y things for 45 minutes or so as you took a break from, I don't know...beating wheat with a stick? and lived your life way, way in the fuck out in the lonely Dakotas and other Midwest flatnesses. 

Each year this particular Neighbor Lady would put out a cookbook full of readers recipes.

Your Neighbor Lady did not say they were good recipes.  

Fine, it was the 1940's. I don't care. Mrs. Grimmius was out there in Minnesota just high as fuck, because there is no other explanation for whatever this is.

This is not Chow Mein.  Seriously. It's not.

Just as this is not Chop Suey.  

Seriously, emphatically NOT chop suey. 

WTF Mrs. Chambers.

Stirs long-buried childhood trauma.

Fine, I know these are poverty meals, but come on people you all live on farms for fucks' sake. If you have no better food options than this at hand, then GIVE UP FARMING FFS. 

I mean sauerkraut pie?

SAUERKRAUT PIE?????

Nobody needs to eat sauerkraut pie. 

 

"Dammit you little bastards don't run over the cake! That's  for the elk!"

____________________________

In all fairness I have to say that most of what ourt Neighbor Lady printed was at least edible, and sometimes really intriguing. Diggez-vous vvv

                                         I would make a nice apple pie with this for Mr. Mago.

_______________________________

SPECIAL TREAT OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because I have been remiss and truant and not a good Blogger but instead a rotten crappy Blogger who smells like a big hairy butt, let me attempt to make amends to you all with this 1973 publication. 

The whoooooole damn thing!

Yes, it counts; these are cocktail recipes! 

Yes indeed, you get the entire booklet! Here! At whatever I'm calling my blog these days!

You see our three there on the cover?  They go through a whole little drama of alcoholism, spousal abuse and marital infidelity in the following pages. Let's go see!!!

OO look we opened to the first page and we have an ad for Schlitz Malt Liquor. 

This is foreshadowing.

See, I told you it was gonna be the whole damn thing didn't I.

  The little slip of paper on the left is the receipt. $2.50 with a ten cent tax back in 1976 for this booklet. Mr. Internet tells us that's $14.23 today before tax.

Anyway, take time to read the copy as you go along. It's got a wonderful 'fuck you' quality not found in, say, Betty Crocker.  

  Our author isn't screwing around, either. Most of the drinks in here will put you on your ass, if they don't cause your pancreas to commit suicide first.  

Underwater demolition team?

So after spending some time being catshit drunk our protagonist passes out in the underbrush, only to wake up and start creeping on this mini-skirted hiker who happens along. I mean ew, his tongue is out and everything. 

Please. I get it. 

We all get it.

 

In case you didn't get it.

Somehow the guy, his wife and the wahine all end up having dinner together. This isn't explained.  It just happens.

Why is there so much wiggling going on?  No look, see all the wiggle lines?  What's that about? Is there an earthquake? Does this denote intensity of emotion?  A fraught atmosphere around the ol' table?  THE TENSION BUILDS!

See, I don't blame this woman one bit.

Let's take a closer look -

"I am woman, hear me roar!  In numbers too big to ignore!  As I spread my feathered arms across the laaaaand!"  Can't you just hear it rising in the background?

Liquor fixes everything.  

"Here, baby, try this.  I roofed it. You're welcome."

Uh - oh.

Yow, she's shook, dad!

AND ALL OF A SUDDEN WE HAVE HO TI with a straw sticking out of his gut.

It's not Buddha. It's Ho Ti.

Did she have some kind of...South Seas - inspired religious event?

Once again I have no idea what's supposed to have happened.

She had some'pin.

Our gal is off to the races.   And holy shit check out the recipe for Beachcombers Punch.

Think that's vile?

Oh but wait.

That's exactly what I'd do with  most of the stuff in here. I'd dump it out on someone and then I'd ride them like a horsie.

Whatever it is, it fuckin' melted his hat.

Now truly, carefully study the recipe for the 'Suffering Bastard'. 

Aren't you sorry you did now?

I thought you needed to see the nice coaster I was using to hold the page down.  It'll distract you from the 'Skull and Bones' concoction. Or not.

Kind of interesting!

You are not children. You know that the real name of that cocktail is the 'Motherfucker'.

 - you did, right?

I love his take on the Don Ho floorshow.  My parents spent the first years of their marriage in Hawaii and they said the same thing - ol' Don was ossified solid for every show, and it was excruciating.  Maybe that's why they served three different kinds of Mai Tai. That way you could relate to the performance.

Man, this is NOT the Tequila Sunrise I'm used to  (the one that comes with a sinker of horse hormones.)

Interesting little throwaway comment there at the end of the Tequila Sundown intro.  Hmm.

EW DAQUIRIS EW EW EW EW EW

EW EW EW EW EW

WHO IS YOUR GOD NOW MR. TOURIST? 

WHO IS YOUR GOD NOW?

Shit yeah, that's why we go to Hawaii!  Gotta eat that hot pastrami sandwich!!!!!

"Barkeep!  Shoot me a little Tropical Itch would you my good sir?"

"I'm sorry, you'll have to ask the day bartender for that."

Man, she is partying. She should ditch her bummer of a husband and go surfing or catch a marlin or something. (Me assuming you catch marlins in Hawaii.)

The only one of these cocktails I'd be the least bit interested in trying.

OK, pad out the content. I get it. 

Priceless copy. And a good Bloody Mary recipe to boot!

Dear God though skip over the ulcer thing.

I do not get the 'Okole' comment and I am too lazy to look it up.

OK fine I did.

...this guy was walking an interesting line way back in 1976. 

...and this page

I wonder if any of these places are still around?

...and this one, which might come in handy if you're craving a liver transplant.

Cool ad, I thought.

Back cover, nice flowers, and wacky madcap holiday vibes.

WELL THERE  YOU GO KIDS!

Now I'm going to the dentist. At least I feel like I should.

You should go find a boisterous beachboy.