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.
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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!"
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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.
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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.)
I promised you a post of food atrocities, and this is not it. This is a post all about our new digs. Deal with it.
This is my new office!
Notice anything green? Huh? Huh?
No more taking up half the dinner table with my projects and notes!! The Biker made me that hairpin-legged table too! using what was left (after the movers got done with it grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) of the desk his father made, which is really, really cool and looks so good.
Now as you can see, if you enlarge thisVVV image, duh, is my projects all organized to one side. That includes your upcoming (honestly, I promise!) food atrocity post:
And some mis-delivered mail. The excitement never ceases.
OK now OK OK check it out OMG so this is my favorite corner of the place!!! OMG IT IS SO COOL
All my reference books, the glass bricks (!!!!!) the old Heywood Wakefield double folding bench, my grandmothers' Japanese doll collection, and the wonderful, wonderful HOUSEPLANTS!
DO THE SNOOPY!!!!
We move on to the kitchen...
...where reigns this very large and unsettling picture of Tony Bourdain, our resident kitchen god. The Biker bought this (such is his devotion.) I am still learning to appreciate it. I mean, the eyes follow you 'n shit. And it is highly pink.
Still, it's Tony.
Do you have a kitchen god? Do tell!
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Four days ago we had a flash flood here.
During the last part of August and through September, everyone and all the news channels in this part of Idaho were freaking out because of all the little piddly, sad rain showers that were happening. I mean, five minutes of precip. Nothing but big fat drips and a little thunder in the distance. Pbbbbtht.
Newly arrived from the depths of the temperate rainforest, The Biker and I scoffed.
More irritating were the brief dust storms caused by the weather sweeping in - and I did a fuck of a lot of sweeping, let me tell you. Idaho is covered in sand, yellow dust, and this weird fine, white, fluffy crap, and it all blew into my house, and I was incensed. I went through some Swiffer sweeper pads, y'all.
And here I will pause to laud the Swiffer sweeper. Holy shit this thing is a miracle of design. It does EXACTLY what it promises, is EXACTLY what is needed to clean laminate, and is basically astounding and I love it. I can go over the whole shebang here in seven minutes and get every corner. My allergies are ZERO.
So anyway the flash flood.
The sky gets grey, a big storm shelf looms overhead, there's a few gusts of wind, and we go 'yeah, yeah, whatever' and ignore this. Some rain falls. We hear some thunder. Yawn.
Then the rain started BLASTING down. I mean propelled. Driven by the wind, y'all, not just falling, and that wind was coming in like punches from all over the compass.
You guys, I have never been through anything like this in my life. This shit was scary.
In a moment the gutters were overcome and our parking lot was a pond. The streets turned into creeks. The wind would sweep across the water and blow it up in sheets into the buildings! What the fuck! And all during this the rain is not just falling - it's driving down like it's being fired out of a machine gun!
Roads washed out. There were mudslides, dead cattle, car wrecks and everything all over this specific little Ontario/Fruitland/Nyssa area...all in the space of 45 minutes. I mean.... crap. Talk about feeling targeted. Apparently this is a weather phenomenon like they get over the ocean called a downburst.
Two or three hours later there wasn't a sign of it.
Dirt lots - dry. Streets and sidewalks - dry. Dry dusty breezes. Plants that had been hammered flat are once again standing tall and happy. Shredded leaves cover the ground and are already beginning to curl in the heat.
Jesus Christ. This place is so weird. I cannot wait to grow something outside next spring in this dirt and this climate yaaaaaaaaaaaaas.
