Cherry O!

No, this is not a repeat of the same pie. This is a Different Pie and it actually worked out a bit better than the last one. I stuck with Smitten Kitchen and I'm very glad I did, as most recipes out there call for sour or tart cherries and a bucket-load of sugar, but this called for actual edible cherries, a bit of lemon juice, and far less white-n-sweet. I even cut the sugar down from 2/3 to 1/2c just because I thought the strawberry-rhubarb pie was too sweet and figured it might be a schtick of Deb's--and as it was, I'm glad I did. It was just right.

I served it on the 4th of July to my British oppressors with plain ice cream. Everyone said they liked it, even the two people who didn't want to eat it because they don't like fruit. We then hiked up Blythe Hill and released some floating lanterns over the city. It was lovely.

Plants, Pies, and Little Neighbours

So, WindoPlant is looking happier than it has in months:

This rhubarb and strawberry pie (recipe courtesy of Smitten Kitchen, discovered thanks to my dear Kim is still cooling on the rack RIGHT NOW.




I came across this little fella sleeping in my garden when I came home from the shops yesterday afternoon (and yes, he was breathing--it's always a bit iffy when it comes to London foxes. They're not the healthiest of creatures.)


But These boys live next door and come over to say hi to me almost every day. That's Squidge in the front and Mooney standing behind. They're very sweet. Squidge is a bit simple (he's a fully-grown tom who still chases his tail) and Mooney can be a bit aloof but they both come around right after dinner for a head-scratch. (Before we met the new couple next door, but after the cats started coming around to say hi, we called them Ackee and Saltfish.)


That's all.

Southeast London Buttermilk Biscuits

My adapted recipe. Doing dry measures with a scale just makes so much more sense than with cups.

Start with a cup of milk. Add a tablespoon or so of chardonnay vinegar and let it sit for about five minutes. If you don't have chardonnay vinegar, use regular vinegar or a slightly larger amount of lemon juice, but chardonnay vinegar is best. Steer clear of balsamic or apple cider vinegar, and whatever you do, don't waste your time looking for buttermilk in London. It's not there. Then give it a quick stir—it should be thick.

Then:

Single recipe. Doubling may or may not require exactly the same amount of buttermilk, depending on whether or not Mars is in retrograde.

250 g plain flour
85 g butter—frozen, grated like cheese.
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Tools:
cheese grater
big bowl
sieve for flour. Sifters are dumb.
scale and other measuring devices
whatever baking pans your landlady left you
clean wooden counter-top. If you have Formica counter-tops, have your kitchen re-appointed before continuing.

See what I didn't include there? A spoon. Yeaaaah.

Preheat your crappy-ass oven to gas mark 8, otherwise known as the “who needs eyebrows?” setting. Due to the nature of your crappy-ass oven, you'll have to rotate your ungreased cookie sheets at least once to ensure the ones in the back don't burn and the ones in the front actually get cooked, so you'll let all the heat out and they won't rise properly. If your oven has a window, watch the ones in the back rise beautifully for the first five minutes, then start to fall when the temperature drops. How like life.

If you'd rather have biscuits that rise nicely, buy an electric oven, install it, and set it to 450 F, 230 C, or self-cleaning mode. Or try to jerry-rig some sort of lazy Susan type device on the top rack. Might work. Refrain from using duct tape or plastic components, particularly if you're baking at night, so as to avoid waking up the whole damn neighbourhood when you burn your kitchen down.

Working with your hands, mix the dry ingredients. Add the butter last, in small handfuls, breaking up any clumps that form as you go. Make sure the butter is nice and incorporated throughout the flour mixture before you add the faux buttermilk but pull your hands out while it's still cold. Add only as much buttermilk as necessary—this amount will change based on the humidity and the movements of Saturn—to make the dough stick together without becoming gloppy. Incorporate only as much as you have to. Do not knead. Scrape the biscuit-worth of dough off your fingers. Dump out on a hella well-floured countertop—use your sieve to snow out a nice even layer—and pat into something resembling a circle, a little over half an inch thick. Do not roll out or pat to less than a half inch in thickness, as the biscuits will come out flat and lame. Pressing straight down, use a 2 inch-diameter biscuit cutter to hack the dough into rough circles, or whatever shape they wind up as. Instead of re-forming the offcuts into another cut-able disc, just throw them on the pan. You're not gonna serve them to the f'ing queen and everybody loves offcuts. Bake for 10-20 minutes, depending on the lunar phase, and remove when most of them are golden brown on top.

Yields about 8 good-sized biscuits, plus another biscuit or two worth of offcuts. I promise this is preferable to 10 biscuits, 2 of which are puck-esque.

Serve with apricot jam, orange marmalade, mozzarella and sliced tomatoes, eggs, baked beans, black pudding, or whatever you have laying around. They'll probably go well.

If you get a chance, serve them alongside a basket of scones and thumb your nose at your friends and family by proving that no, they are not the same. There's nothing particularly wrong with scones, but biscuits they ain't.

Thanks-Fusion

This was my first Turkey day in my own home that I made myself. Well, Boy helped. A lot. But we did it ourselves, and it was exciting.

We did blend a little bit of British food in with our traditional American fare. Instead of mashed potatoes and a sweet potato casserole, for instance, we made a vegetable roast of potatoes, purple potatoes (nom, and colourful!) parsnips, carrots, and butternut squash, seasoned with fresh rosemary and sage from the garden.



The result was NOM.

I made buttermilk biscuits, not really out of respect for tradition, but because I've never really understood the point or intended flavour of stuffing. They were very tasty, but did not rise very well--I've noticed this trend in my gas oven.



Boy and Boy's Brother roasted a chicken and said it was delicious. I'll take their word for it.

I also made a green bean casserole. The mushroom soup and green beans came out of tins, but I French-fried my onions myself! The result was pretty tasty, and amazingly bad for you. I baked it in a terra-cotta dish I found stashed above a cabinet that looked like it'd seen the inside of its fair share of ovens. It did a beautiful job. The recipes I found were all American, and I think they expected the soup to have more salt, so it wasn't as salty as usual, but it was certainly edible. (We ate the other half today for lunch, on toast, with a garlic and habanero sauce, and it was Wonderful.)



We bought cranberry sauce from Tesco, and it was actually much tastier than similarly-priced American sauces. But alas, no slorping sound when it fell out of the tin. (It was in a jar.)

We set up some speakers in the dining room and listened to Skynyrd for its cultural value. We sliced into my second pumpkin pie in the space of a week and it was glorious. The crust worked, and was (remains) flaky and tasty. I wrung out the fresh pumpkin in an old t-shirt instead of squeezing handfuls and it made the process much faster. (Thanks, mom!) Whipped up more maple syrup and cream. For their cultural value.

I'm still full.

Wow.

Oof.

Aubergine

We ate my first eggplant last night--it had bright white flesh and a stripey purple and white skin. Very tasty, but quite small. I was proud of it though--I planted them out back in March and over half of the plants were eaten by snails, then we had a sudden freeze in late April that knocked out a few more, and then I found out that they usually don't do anything outside in the UK because it's not warm or humid enough for them. So I got 1, and there's another one that's still little...not too bad for a novice in London with the coldest, shortest summer on record.

I'm still bringing in about 30 tomatoes a week. We had a huge amount of rain lately and several of the most recent pickings have been big and bright but kinda tasteless. I think this is in part due to the water overload and partly because I haven't been willing to go out and fertilize them in the storms. ("There she goes again, with an umbrella, watering her plants..." "poor dear, she must be rather simple.")



Sorry for the image quality--I took these pictures with my phone before we sliced into the aubergine. Ben was a bit concerned that it wasn't ripe because it was white inside instead of that sort-of parchment colour you see in grocery-store varieties, but it was very good. I only wish I'd managed to grow more. Now that the weather is returning to normal I'd imagine that's all I'll get. Next year I think I'll invest in some bigger pots and just grow them in the attic.

TATERS!

my first harvest. MMMM tasty! We enjoyed a handful of them for dinner and they were just right--crisp and mud-scented before the pot, soft and flavourful on the plate. A few were afflicted with "scab" but I looked it up and its just a cosmetic thing from the soil going dry on occasion and does not affect their flavour or safety. So I've learned--keep 'em wet, silly girl, or they go a bit ugly.

My courgettes and spinach have officially failed. Well, a courgette plant is essentially alive, and I keep watering it, but I've given up hope. I composted the spinach after I realized it was more bolt than plant. I should take a class to learn the difference between "useful leafy plant" and "it is now a weed" and how to prevent this.

In other news, I've begun a course of Accutane, and am drying out like a dishcloth. I've also undertaken another lighting gig for classmates which should get started tomorrow at the People Show Studio, and have submitted proposals to several festivals and events for my own piece.

Garden Update

Three of my aubergine plants have been eaten down to the stalks. There's still several more so I'm not too upset, but I can't imagine what ate them. Several of the stakes in that bed have been uprooted and some of the plants have been banged about, so I can't help but think it was one of my neighbors' vile cats. They use my backyard as a town square/toilet and no amount of shouting or chasing after them has convinced them that they're not welcome. I need a super-soaker.

My courgette plant looks sick. It is flowering prettily and regularly but the leaves are not in good shape. I keep popping off the ugly ones, and it keeps having fewer leaves. Oof. It might have a disease. I'll see what the fruit looks like, if it produces any. It lives in a pot and has garden-center soil, and it was really big and happy until I put it outside. But there was no room inside--it got so big it blocked the skylight from the seedlings.

Tomatoes are looking healthy but not getting bigger, but it has been stupidly cold out--apparently this is the coldest, grayest May in 20 years. We actually caved and put the heat on tonight. This is ludicrous. I am very, very unhappy with the weather.

Spinach plants are growing and happy. They were getting eaten by bugs so I sadly had to invest in some anti-bug, which I didn't want to do, but it was either that or not have any for me. I hate bugs. And British weather. And my neighbors' cats.

I'm not sure if I like gardening.

idle musing of the hour

How do you like your coffee? _____: like I like my men.

Potential answers: rich, tall, smooth, black, hot, dark, white, Colombian, Irish, Mexican, Ethiopian, strong, effective... "Iced" has no place in this list unless you're a professional widow, so "iced" is not an appropriate way to have your coffee. This goes too for bitter, gritty, weak, tepid, and artificially-sweetened.

Oh Corona

I don't want you, I want your beach.

This is the first time I've watched ads in months.

Food Ad

I just witnessed an advert for Jell-o low-calorie pudding. the set up--"How does Jell-o fit all that rich chololatey taste into just 60 calories?" a beat, in which they showed the pudding squishing out of an extruder. My mind searched for answers that didn't end in, "they make it out of plastic." The excited female voice finally answered her own question with "Who Cares?! It'll add flavor to any diet!"

EEEEEEEW.

Don't ask, don't look under the hood, don't read the ingredient list, just eat it. And get addicted to it. and in a thousand years they'll find your preserved remains, still rubbery and clogged to the brim with artificial cholesterols.

Londres

My Christmas present to myself is 10 days in England. So there.

I have knitted 3 hats since I've been home. The process is exceptionally easy with a round knitting loom, and a delightful, mindless activity to keep my hands occupied.

I'd love to get into theatrical hair and make-up. Prosthetics and fake blood and bruises and wigs are just neat. Sadly I don't believe my work experience affords me much of a chance to get a job in this field without re-training. "Okay, what are your credentials?" "Well, gimme an hour and an angle grinder and I could probably make you some scissors..."

I got a little creative in the bar the other day and came up with a tasty new drink. If it already has a name I can't find it, but its an ounce of peach schnapps, two ounces of white wine (i used a chilled Pinot Grigio), two ounces of grapefruit juice, and a splash of club soda. It is very refreshing and not too sweet. I shook it and strained it into a balloon glass filled with ice. Garnish with a grapefruit slice.

Ow, I just burned my tongue on hot tea.

Fillie

Sigsbee will be heading up the Bay to Philadelphia beginning tomorrow morning. we expect to arrive on Sunday, but will not be sailing Saturday during what is expected to be gale-force winds and unpleasant precipitation. We'll be in Philly for just over a week running sails with a youth program. It should be an adventure. I've got my long underwear all clean and ready.

Today marked the annual shipboard Jack-o-Lantern contest, bumped up a bit on account of our iminent departure for the frozen north. Mildred Belle won hands-down, with a beautifully carved design of a white perch...on fire. In close second ran a delicately rendered hellcat, entered by Snow Goose of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. An attractive lighthouse scratched out by the Lady Maryland crew earned them a third place ranking, and Sigsbee's crew pulled fourth with a delightfully vindictive depiction of the Mildred Belle...on fire. And sinking. All pumpkins will be visible for the next little while on Pier 5 on their respective boats.


I am currently open to suggestions as to what I should go to grad school for. I'm not hugely interested in maths, sciences, arts, languages, medicine, law, or history. Unfortunately I can't find Small Engine Repair at the Ph D. level.

hot sauce, spider webs, and a gallon of coffee

So. I've been out of town.

Having a blast, by the way. Two weeks ago found me in St. Michaels, MD, running some day programs for Eastern Shore kids, which were a lot of fun (if fast!) My crew and I spent nights alternately weathering rain and enjoying brightly starlit skies from Sigsbee's deck after delicious meals cooked over a lead-melting burner. (a welcome backup after a propane tank attachment mix-up. Big Fire make Fast Dinner. And perhaps the most perfect popcorn i've ever tried.) The crew transit back, a trip of several hours, was passed enjoyably, if a bit noisily, thanks to the addition of four bottles of hot sauce and a box of crackers. Yeowza! (technically we only tried three--the fourth was saved to be shared with the captain of another vessel. After watching the reactions of tasters, I'm rather glad I wasn't tempted to try the fourth.)

Last Friday was spent in drink and revelry at the annual Maritime Magic gala, a large party/concert/auction/local restaurant sampler/boozeup to benefit the Living Classrooms Foundation. The music was great, the food was excellent, free, and largely vegetarian, the vendors were friendly, and nobody fell in during my M.O.B. watch. I'd call that a success.

This week found me on a 3-day trip to Kent Island, complete with an entire department-load of insurance agents on a team-building adventure. Also known as a lovely few days on boats, some lovely restaurants, and plenty of lovely beer. They were generally pleasant people, and though we flatly lost the sailboat race against Lady Maryland, no one was hugely surprised and it was a great day on the water in any case.

An odd thing occurred while we were crossing the bay toward Baltimore--in a rather nondescript area of open water we happened to pass through a giant cloud of bugs. I don't know what kind exactly--they looked like largeish flying ants, but with pointier aft ends. They may have been larval wasps or juvenile versions of any number of interesting critters, but needless to say I spent most of this time cowering behind one of my coworkers as the bugs whizzed past. Most of them passed by without even noticing Sigsbee, and the ones that did land on deck were easily shooed off it again. We passed through them in about twenty minutes at 5 knots, so do the math and tell me what the diameter of the bug-cloud was. Seriously. I'm pathetic at math.

Anyway, we got back to the dock and tidied up the boat, and in the process of tying off the gantline a member of my crew happened to look up and see that every line, every lazy jack and halyard was decorated with hundreds of delicate webs--the entire rig was covered in a filigree of arachnoid fibers. We assumed these had something to do with the bug-cloud, but we really have no idea--no one had heard of six-legged or winged insects with the ability to produce a web, and none of them appeared to be ballooning anyway. Some theories we proposed, but later shot down included:

-the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which marks the entrance to Baltimore's Outer Harbor, just doesn't have cargo ships passing under it like it used to get and is overrun with spiderwebs.
-the bugs were being attacked by minute ballooning spiders and we just interrupted, which led to all of the webs appearing to be over four feet long
-we were attacked by something at the dock overnight (this theory was dispelled when we saw the same webs covering the Lady Maryland's lines, and LM anchored out pretty far from land because the water gets too shallow for her)
-our captain is actually a spider and we've just never noticed.

Any ideas?

in any case, my crew has been rather busy lately and, on account of this, have managed to go through three bags of coffee beans in about three weeks. Is that normal for four people?

The Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race is coming up in a couple of days, and boats from up and down the eastern seaboard have been showing up in droves in the inner harbor. Its been a lot of fun to see. I hope to get a chance to schmooze with their crews.

One more thing. This piece of psychadellic art gave me pause to wonder--it looks hand-painted by a giddy stoner with no concept of life-like colors, patterns, or ratios. I think a new religion or at least emphatic cult should form around this clear proof that God trips on acid.

Warm Bread in the Morning, Warm Sugar in the Evening

Ah, the smells of Baltimore. Each morning as I begin work the scent of the nearby H&S Bakery wafts over the docks and we're all treated to the aroma of warm yeast and steamy baguettes. Until we remember that most of what they bake is buns for McDonald's hamburgers and that they're probably loaded with preservatives and garbage, just for the sake of being sold in McDonald's. But the smell is wonderful and invigorating, particularly after a hot breakfast on the Lady Maryland and a cup of coffee.

During the day the smell fades--often after a twenty-minute period of the smell of burnt toast--and for a while we smell diesel, brackish water, garbage, and ourselves. Marlin (a type of marine-grade twine) smells like a clean barn or a freshly-changed hamster's cage; pine tar smells like Worcestershire sauce. Epoxy smells bad.

In the evening the wind changes and we're treated to eau de Domino Sugar, whose factory is visible across the river. My brain has linked its pleasant aroma with the smell of hot fresh peanut butter cookies, but deep down I know they're actually different. Its just the brain has a limited number of receptors for olfactory memories and its doing its best to categorize it as it understands.

And the Taney has come up with some even weirder noises to startle and confuse me with--currently a pipe join near my mirror is making an eerie popping noise, which always gives me visions of all of my stuff suddenly being doused in rust-colored seawater. Oy vey, my housing-included lifestyle.

Farfalle and Purple Shrimp

Instead of pinot grigio, try adding a cup of pinot noir to your garlic sauce for a bold flavored, slightly disconcerting seafood dinner. (note: i pulled the dish out of the fridge for the photo. it looked more appetizing when it was hot. just as purple, though.)

gobble!

As a registered vegetarian, the concept of Thanksgiving comes as a bit of a challenge. How to not impose upon your family to make accommodations for your silly eating disorder, while not being caused to chow down on all that unappetizing mass-produced, hormone-packed animal flesh. Thankfully, a reasonable, easy solution came to me this morning, in the form of the breakfast drink of orange juice and champagne.

Of course! Replace every potential slice of turkey meat with a tasty mimosa. By the time people think its time for the bird to reach the table, they're so tanked they don't notice its absence. That way your money doesn't wind up supporting cruel, eco-unfriendly, disgusting mass-feeding operations, and your family can tuck in early after a short day of pleasant intoxication. I expect to doze off here around 5pm, full of green beans and good cheer. Now that's a happy, healthy holiday.

food mumblings

I think the only way you could truly be a chocoholic is if you were addicted to creme de cacao.

--

The difference between "made of" and "made with" is very subtle, and marketers use that to their advantage.

--

I stopped consuming corn syrup a long time ago. At first i thought it was for my health. After a while, though, i realized it was because i'm a food snob.

--

I like going to Starbucks and ordering a small black coffee. On some level I think this is an act of quiet rebellion.

--

There are many plants that, if i didn't see them in the grocery store, i would never imagine they were edible. Like bell peppers. I can only assume ancient man chomped into one of those on a dare. Why he kept eating after the first bite is anyone's guess. Honestly I think i'm wired to be more inclined to eat flowers than most vegetables. Like potatoes. When has the phrase "hey look at this brown lumpy thing I just dug up!" ever made you salivate?

piave vecchio

Everyone has their own quirky relationship with food. i was considering my own at the grocery store today and i decided that food makes me happy. but more than that, the very prospect of food makes me happy. i enjoy driving home with a trunkful of edible items, knowing that they are mine and i can eat them whenever i want. and that's not to say i then go home and gork out on everything i bought and lie around the rest of the day in a food coma--i put everything away, taste the dairy products to make sure they're good, and then typically walk away, safe in the knowledge that i will not starve for another week. i like Looking at the food. i'll spend any number of minutes looking at the grocery store displays of imported cheeses and gourmet olives...and buy neither. i'll compare the labels on two different types of pasta sauce and put both back. i could wander the aisles for days, without even bringing my wallet, and just appreciate what i see.

well, i could if i had access to a Trader Joe's or a store with an appreciable organic section. most of the time i spend reading labels its out of sheer curiosity--what kinds of chemistry went into this? how many ingredients can i pronounce? how much effort went into making this look, taste, and smell like tomatoes without actually using any tomatoes? what's the point?

i don't take comfort in eating, but for some reason, i really like groceries.

grapefruits, heatwaves, and giant flying things

Call out the Department of Redundancy Department. I've got dictional bone to pick with the citrus-growing industry in the shape of a big, round, yellow ball. Yes, the grapefruit. I love 'em--i peel them and eat 'em like oranges, and i noticed this afternoon that their oil has light anesthetic properties. (i carelessly licked it off my hand and discovered that my tongue went numb shortly afterward. fun!) They're tangy and sweet and ever so tasty, yet they share their name...with grapes. In case nobody else noticed...grapes are a fruit too. Yes they grow on vines and have a soft peel and are often purple or green, but that doesn't make them gourds. And if you go to a vineyard you'll occasionally hear the distinction between "fruit-grapes" and "wine-grapes" (no profitable Napa vineyard grows Concords, for instance). So a grape is a grape, a fruit-grape is a grape, but a grape-fruit is a massive, yellow citrus that grows on trees in coastal areas.

I discovered, thanks to trusty old Wikipedia, that grapefruits got their name from the formation in which they grow--apparently some dolt thought they looked like big, yellow clusters of grapes. (later that day, the same explorer looked up and said "wow, those fruits are really orange. Aha!") Other societies call them Shaddocks or Shattucks, which, interestingly, is the name of the main drag in my town. It makes me quite smug to know that i've walked down Grapefruit street. Just like I've vacationed in a town named Blackcurrant (Cassis.) What's wrong with Shattuck? or Pamplemousse? (c'mon, pamplemousse is funny.) Or Yellow? I'd be fine with calling a grapefruit a Yellow. Actually, since grapefruits can come in pink, maybe lemons should get that name. In any case. I refuse to recognize "grapefruit" as a legitimate name for a plant.

I'm really fine with pineapples, in case you were wondering--they're a pine cone-shaped fruit, and humans have an ages-old tendency to refer to apples as though they're the original fruit and name other foods as they relate to them. Whether its pommes de terre, crabapples, road apples, or that insufferable adage about doctors, we just like to put things in terms of apples.

----

So it got up to 93°F (33°C) in the shop today, low humidity, with a light breeze. Compared to home it was a friggin blizzard but somehow California has made me into a complete wimp when it comes to temperature. I was complainin' and dreaming of a cold beer right along with my cold-climate co-workers.

----

I smacked this bug today--it looked like a flying daddy long-legs except it was red with a stinger. I didn't really get to examine it before it was skeeter purée but it looked vicious.

----

I don't approve of the CRV--the California Redemption Value deposit added on to cans and bottles. First off, if you actually do return the bottles and cans, you don't get the full value of your deposit back. They only accept recyclables by the pound, and then the returns are trifling. Second, its not like we're going to take them to the recycling center by ourselves--the city collects them for you to try and prevent huge back-ups over there, but they do not pay you back for the deposits you've made. I've been to the recycling center in this area and its ridiculous trying to get in, get weighed, drop off the materials, and get your money. Takes hours, the lines are atrocious, you get harassed by tramps, and the people who work there look so disgruntled you want to hug them. Why charge people extra for cans when you don't want them to try to redeem their deposit? that's less like a recycling incentive and more like...theft.
MEANWHILE, the city never even gets the chance to collect your recyclables in the first place to take them to the center--the junkies do it first, in the middle of the night, making as much noise as possible in the process. Basically, we're paying a fairly sizable chunk of change on every purchase in order to be disturbed at 4 am by clinking and shouting coming from our own curbs. How perfectly preposterous.

on sports and sugar

I gotta say, I am so proud of myself for not dating a sports fan. I don't know how golf widows do it. So frequently I hear my friends' young men babbling excitedly about whatever sport is in season--how the player slammed the puck straight out of the court with the bases loaded with ten seconds left to score the winning touchdown. I see them running around, using furniture and pillows to re-enact the momentous scene, even going so far as to mimic the player's particular end-zone dance, to prove to their dearest loves that this is only the awesomest thing to happen in the history of the universe. I see my friends' eyes glaze over as soon as the word "basketball" is uttered, and I watch their default game-faces set in like a dose of Botox. You know the ones--the smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes, the frequent nod of understanding, the occasional "ooh, wow!", and the gradual development of a twitch in the right side of the face that worsens as time draws closer to the Superbowl. I listen as these patient ladies comfort their distraught mates when their teams lose in spite of everything--blame the refs, blame the weather, blame anything to keep the boy from crying. They hum the school's fight song like some grim travesty of a lullaby and stroke their greasy heads that reek of so much cheap beer.
I do not envy these women. I have no patience for sports and even less for the people who enjoy them. I do not understand people who's evenings are made or ruined according to the behaviors of people they do not know who get paid whether or not they win. I don't understand the joy or the grief of game watching. The last time I watched a football game the only thing I recall feeling was my ass going numb on the aluminium bleachers. It was not a joyous experience.

In other news, since I moved to California I've decided to eliminate corn syrup from my diet. It has gone well and i feel that i am eating more healthily than ever before. Moreover, it is very easy to avoid chemical foods out here--in fact, there are chains of grocery stores here that exist on the very premise that food should be healthful and inexpensive. What a concept. Unfortunately, when i went to the east coast this winter I was reminded that this is not the case for everyone. Entire areas of the country know nothing about the contents of their food, and have no other option for sustenance than the preservative-riddled, corn-sweetened, petroleum-based offal sold by Wal-Mart. WHEN DID AMERICA DECIDE PLASTIC COULD BE SOLD AS FOOD?

You wanna know why American children are overweight? Even the ones who don't have playstation threes? You're feeding them bright pink corn-syrupy garbage. Just because the advertisers can get away with calling Lucky Charms "part of a complete breakfast" doesn't mean its okay to feed to toddlers.

What's that? You say you don't feed your toddlers bright pink food but they're still fat, ADD, lethargic morons? READ THE INGREDIENTS. Most "whole wheat yes this is good for you" bread is full of high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, hard-to-pronounce sweeteners and bizarre chemical combinations that are not good for you. They sell it as "healthy" because its brown and the first ingredient is unbleached wheat flour. But read the rest of them. Yeah, all the rest of them. Get out your periodic table and figure out which lab-developed molecule you're eating today because Post or General Mills wanted to cut corners on raw ingredients.

General rule of thumb: If it ain't found in nature, its not food. That's not to say rocks and arsenic Are food, but let's be reasonable. Scientists invented trans fats because they thought they'd be better for you. Now they're killing people. Oops. Chances are, 20,000 years of species development has figured out a lot more about what's edible than 50 years of molecular science. I'm waiting to hear that Omega 3 fatty acids are a carcinogen or the inevitable "okay, we lied, there's no such thing as good or bad cholesterol." The country only started having pandemic obesity and obesity-related disease problems since we moved our jobs inside and started eating silicone. Somebody please pass a law. We must make healthy, chemical-free food readily available to the general masses if we don't want to watch our national IQ plummet even lower.