Hello, I'll go get everyone.

Hey, frosty, I'm here!

Wonder how much of this overconsumption of food could be converted into fuel?

It took a great deal of effort, but I finally have Frostdottir and Mr.F trained to consider splitting meals. There was the "Will people think we're cheap?" factor at first,but as a former food service pro I tip generously when table service is provided.

That first departure from Chipotle without having to loosen the trousers was most liberating.

slyness-eew, just conjured up visions of fat,actual lyposuctioned fat, being used for fuel.

Fifth.

and...

Treasure Island
The Deerslayer
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Waiting for Godot
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Destination: Void
The Jesus Incident
The Lazarus Effect
The Ascension Factor

Samuel Taylor Coleridge for poetry

Still not first!

:-)

The ideal condiment for meat is more meat. The bacon cheeseburger was genius. We ate at LargeChainPlaceForRibs this weekend and my son had a cheeseburger with pulled pork on it. Perfect.

JA quotes Chipotle "The first half is fun. The second half is masochism."

I had to read that last work three times, looking for the syllable breaks. My brain wanted to make it the Spanish term for manly men.

masochism -- the seeking of suffering to inflict upon the self.

machismo -- real guys eat big burritos

At least NPR had reported Panda pooh is good for Poopyrus this morning.

ScottyNuke -- I saw the paper-doll hair comic-style Style piece and thought of boodlers.

Nowadays, some long-haired boys during swim meets will submit to the giggling ministrations of teen girls who braid boylocks into the Snoop-look. One very secure young man also consented to blue fingernail polish and blue-sparkle ribbons in the braids. Natch, the team's color is blue.

Note: Son of CP did not submit to parts two and three.

The teen girls were transported back to My Little Pony days, which are sold on the possiblity of hair styles coupled with the girls-horses-thingie.

Food comment: In Saturday's WaPo Source section, state societies were featured. The Montana State Society noted its April "Testicle Fest" where you too, can eat the clipped after parts.

Joel discovers:
During the colonial period, the elite of Mexico preferred mutton, and only poor people ate beef.

Wonder how these fun-fact folks define colonial period? Could their culinary preference have something to do with the French House of Bourbon in Spain, starting in 1700?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_monarchs

It was in 1723, under Philip V, that the first Canary Islanders straggled into San Antone, set up a small pueblo, built San Fernando Cathedral, and so on. Then Philip's young son, Louis I, took the throne for less than a year before dying of smallpox. And later in the history of Spain, you have the first and second restoration of the House of Bourbon.

Bourbons, bourbons everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Local women in New Berlin (pronounced New Burr-lin, rather that the more Germanic New Behr-lean) in these parts, to our east, make a devilishly delicious red tomato jelly. Lots of red pepper jellies abound in all directions, too.

Doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me to combine tart and sweet in jello, like the local jam, and throw in a few crunchy veggies.

And this is gross food? *laughing at your foolishness* Pardner, you just gotta git yerself to Texas.

Martooni,
We will keep the light on, back door unlocked, and forbid others from taking over your Lazy-Boy chair.

Prayer, purest form, is simply to give over to being yourself before [insert your least difficult/most loving icon here].

Steady. Go through that door.

I read labels on grocery packaging just like anything else. Pick a canned product. Check out the portion size and then look at the number of grams in a can. More than 2, less than 3. Its almost always that way.

When makers of processed foods start labeling by the amount people eat rather than a desired calorie amount to enhance a sale, consumers will start thinking.

When shopping, fill your cart with highly unprocessed foods. Like legumes.

Deja vu

Loomis, I thought that too. What, no one eat jelly salads out east? Its a feature at fine dinners everywhere. Someone always does the jelly salad.

Anybody remember tomatoe aspic? It was big in the 70's about the same time as guacamole, and then dispappeared from tables ne'er to return. Thankfully guacamole is back.

My mom made something she called "perfection salad" in the 70's, no tomato in it, though. It had celery, shredded cabbage and pimentos in a lemon-lime jello with vinegar added. It was simply awful and no one would eat it.

Everything you would want to know about the history of mutton in Mexico...

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/109.4/horowitz.html

In colonial Mexico City, beef was considered the meat of the poor, while the rich consumed mutton. Therefore, the police allowed no price differential for different cuts; all had to be sold at the same fixed price. Despite the class-based distinctions in consumption, wealthy Mexicans nevertheless shared many cultural preferences with their plebeian countrymen. Mutton, like beef, was commonly stewed or pit roasted, often with chiles in marinade (adobo). The Mexico City Council maintained a close surveillance over meat markets through magistrates of the fiel ejecutoria (market court). When shortages became common at the end of the eighteenth century, the mayor (alcalde) toured the markets to demonstrate the government's concern for the meat supply. Nevertheless, consumers had trouble obtaining even subsistence levels of meat, as prices rose to about five pounds for a real [ray-all] (an eighth of a peso) in the final decades of the colonial period. According to the best estimates, urban artisans may have earned about 72 pesos a year, but a family of four spent more than half of that amount, nearly 47 pesos, on the staple maize, so even small rises in the price of meat could make the difference between an occasional dish of mole con carne (beef in chile sauce) and puros frijoles (nothing but beans). In Mexico City, fresh meat consumption was largely for the upper and middle classes.

Loomis, are you referring to New Berlin PA? I live right up the road a piece, in Lewisburg. I loves me some hot pepper jelly. Tomato though? Not so much...

The atmosphere at school today is rather subdued. Within a couple of minutes after I left the school, one of our former staff in the cafeteria was broadsided by a logging truck after picking up four children. Two of them were hers, two from another family. One child from each family didn't survive the accident. The kids attended the elementary school adjacent to our building. My wife left the building just after I did and spent a bit of time frantically trying to raise me on the phone, as she couldn't tell if my vehicle was involved or not. I was just up the road to take care of our oldest daughter and crossed to the other side of the highway to pick up some Advil for her; my vehicle wasn't where it was supposed to be when my wife passed. I heard almost immediately upon getting back to the middle school that a van was involved in a bad accident and panicked, as that is our other vehicle, but hearing the mention of the van's marque was the assurance I needed that my wife was ok. It took twenty minutes or so for my wife to contact me, but I was ok. Keep these folks in your thoughts, and please drive safely.

CP,
My son got his fingernails painted on a band trip once. He's never had the dreadbraids. He wants to dye his hair some shade of anime, but my wife won't let him.

Meg in PA, you live in Lewisburg. I went to Bucknell. Beautiful area, I really enjoyed it there.

The Onion anticipated yellojkt("If that is your real name")'s dictum that "the ideal condiment for meat is more meat" back in August with "Report: Meat Now America's No. 2 Condiment":

http://origin.theonion.com/content/node/51139

(Says the guy who's going to Tessaro's in Bloomfield for a bacon cheeseburger at lunch...)

Funny that I read this kit just after I laughed at the "100% Natural Flavors" 7-Up banner ad on the previous page.

I guess high-fructose corn syrup isn't used for flavor? What IS it used for, then?

Geez, jack, that's awful news...

jack, I saw the news report on that accident. What a shame. With the death of the UNC mascot yesterday, it's been a bad week for losing young people in vehicle wrecks. I'm keeping them all in my prayers.

jack;

Horrible, simply horrible. My thoughts are with all of you.

jack.. such terrible news.

My son will be making his first solo drive to Charlotte on Friday and don't think I haven't already pictured those huge trucks vs his little car.

Of course, he's probably more likely to be in a horrible accident just a few miles from school or home -- just like your friend.

*Calmly reminding myself that letting them grow up is good... good... good.*

TBG;

It's also inevitable... the growing up, of course. *SIGH*

jack, sorry to hear about that. That's an awful tragedy.

I thought The Onion was satire. Somehow a straight news story slipped in. I can't wait to try a ham brulee. And yes, yellojkt is my real name. Go ahead and Google it. I dare you.

jack, what a tragic accident.

Thanks for all of the good vibes. Hug your kids and significant others.

Jack and Slyness -- in a instant, a world is changed. So sorry. Not deserved, just the risk of living. But such a hell.

TBG -- Boy is subwaying by himself these days and the new strategy is "I'll call if I have problems...." I rather liked the "call when you get there strategy." But, letting go gradually makes the bigger letting go easier. You are about to experience the special heart-tugs about "off to college."

Have pie ready, tissues, and your other comforts. Do not be a helicopter parent....which will be easy for you, since you are "practically perfect in every way." I think that Mary Poppins says that....

looking back to nellie's request for some numbers I just first want to say that my efforts were not perfect. I didn't just list books that were in lists, but also single books that people posted as a favorite or honorable mention or just really good. I figure I got about 95% of all books posted yesterday. The numbers: In all there were about 439 different books mentioned. 372 mentioned once, 36 books mentioned twice, 21 books mentioned thrice, 10 books got four mentions, 4 books got five mentions and 1 book got six...

4 Brave New World
4 Dune
4 Motherless Brooklyn
4 The Foundation Trilogy
4 The Odyssey
4 The Tin Drum
4 War and Peace
5 Catch-22
5 Ender's Game
5 To Kill a Mockingbird
5 Watership Down
6 The Great Gatsby

So as you can see from Motherless Brooklyn my methodology is flawed in that only two times was this mentioned as a good book, the other two mentions were a question and answer mentions.

Jack, I'm so sorry to hear that news.

CP and TBG - my son is getting his driver's license in a couple of weeks. I literally have awakened a few nights recently in a moment of panic. I, of course, haven't let him see that. I used to work in a trauma unit and I can very clearly remember so many families in just the hell that Jack's neighbors are in now. So far I've been fairly successful at keeping the coptering at bay, but it's hard.

Speaking of fun food factoids--and also speaking of the previous kit on the delights of sauteed octopuppy--check out this new restaurant--the world's first all-glass underwater restaurant, at http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/154000437/4022883.search?query=ithaa+and+restaurant+and+hilton

This thing floats on the surface, where diners, wait staff and food are taken aboard. Then the whole thing is lowered to the sea floor. And then while you dine, the undersea world of Jacques Cousteau swims by your window.

This particular gimmick is located in the Maldives, which means you probably aren't going to go there next Saturday night, nor is it conveniently located for Prom night. But one can forecast the day when these things pop up (so to speak) in many major cities. I'd love to see one in, say, New York harbor, where the view from the bottom of the East River is probably a little...welll...industrial? Brown? Murky? Unsanitary and unappetizing? And god only knows what would drift by your window. Luca Brazzi, most likely.

OK, forget that idea.

Joel raises an excellent point at the very bottom of his kit: this isn't an obesity epidemic, it is capitalism. Or to put it even more succintly, it is marketing and Madison Avenue and "the bottom line," all teaming together to continue the long slow subversion of culture.

Consider this line, the one that made me see red: "too hungry to settle for chick food." There's about six things wrong with this phrase, and the one that bugs me first and foremost is the reverse snobbery of it. There's the implication that eating in a nice upscale restaurant (with fancy-schmancy things like, oh, tablecloths and cloth napkins, nevermind that REALLY fancy-schmancy stuff like two different kinds of forks, being shown to your table and seated, being waited upon by a person who probably has a high school diploma and whose skin condition has finally cleared up, being able to order a cocktail and/or an actual bottle of wine)--that all this is somehow part and parcel of the "chick food" concept just makes me insane with rage. (And Loomis or somebody can deal with the whole sexism aspect, and I'll be happy to hold her coat while she does so.)

All my life -- indeed, I think I can speak for the overwhelming majority of the boodle --has been a general effort to do what I would call "upgrade"-- get a good education (possibly and hopefully including a college degree), get a good job, find a nice spouse, raise a family, have a nice home, drive a decent car, vacation in nice places, and eat in good restaurants -- in short, learn how to do and have a hundred small, medium and large aspects of an upscale life, the pinnacle of which is to be able to walk into a nice fording restaurant, be knowledgeable enough and comfortable enough to order a bottle of wine, order a nice piece of meat or fish or poultry that I don't have to eat with ketchup slathered on it, eat with the right fork, talk with a waitperson who doesn't call me "Hon," enjoy conversation with fellow civilized people over coffee and dessert (one dessert, two, three, or four spoons), calculate a proper tip, and pay for the meal with my credit card without thinking to myself, "Jeez, now we have to eat beans and franks for three weeks to pay for this." And do all this without embarrassing myself, my wife or my friends.

To me, that experience, and that capability, is symbolic of everything I ever worked for in my life, and everything I ever wanted. There is nothing especially beyond that I ever need or want to do.

And then for some glassbowl to come along and put that entire lifestyle, and everything it symbolizes and stands for, into the dismissive phrase of "chick food," as something "beneath" his manly status, just makes me freaking nuts. It is symbolic of the overall degredation of society, of all the trash tabloid TV and the "lowest common denominator" mentality of the culture.

He's too effing hungry to eat chick food, is he? Well, I am damn glad I am not that guy. I don't want to even know that guy. I don't want to work in the cubicle next to him, I don't want him dating (or god forbid, marrying) my daughter, I don't want him living next door to me (although in fact he actually does). That guy is a jerk, It isn't because of what he eats; I don't give a damn what he eats. It's about his state of sophistication, his social class, his behavior, his running his mouth, his blind sexism, his downscale tastes, his disdain for what I would regard as upper middle-class mores, everything about him, which is everything I've ever tried hard NOT to be. (We talk on the boodle about manfood and chick food, but we're only messing around, as I'm sure [most] everyone knows. But that guy doesn't realize there's a joke, and that's what's wrong with him.)

And that's the kind of guy Madison Avenue markets to. That's the kind of guy who buys Budweiser and watches professional wrestling. And I'm not that guy, and don't wanna be.

The simple fact is, most of us are NOT in that portion of the culture that Madison Avenue and the big corporations are marketing to. And at some subconscious level we understand that, but don't like it, but don't know how to deal with it.

BIG SSC:OH, demmit I meesed up the number:

mentions 1 for 372 books
mentions 2 for 35 books
mentions 3 for 20 books
mentions 4 for 7 books
mentions 5 for 4 books
mentions 6 for 1 book

Now on this list I'm better than the kit list (4 for 10), in that on this list (more than four mentions) I'm 8 for 12.

"Gross food" is in the eye of the beholder. A recent example: octopups. The Boy considers many of my favorites "gross", if he thinks of them as food at all: oatmeal or kasha; grits; any starch topped with sauteed spinach and garlic; okra with tomato gravy. I did eat chicken feet once. My definition includes beef jerky, sea urchin, and jello salad (sorry Midwesterners), except a kind made with cream cheese, pretzels & purple Jello. I don't think Lunchables are food at all.

Regarding yesterday's discussion of names: Ivansmom IS my name. I often wear it on my nametag at family-style events, because everyone knows the Boy.

Amen, Mudge, amen!

Virtual hugs and kisses to Mudge.

Larks tongues in aspic.

Kim,

We admit we are powerless before our fierce love of our children.

Keep the image of Norman Bates and his mummy before you. This keeps me from 'coptering. Besides, I can be motherly in a mentor-teacher way to OTHER PEOPLES' children....may our children find kindness and example from others.

omni, you could post the tallies over at the boodle wiki:

http://boodle.wetpaint.com/page/Book+Recommendations

Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick Moby-Dick

Sorry, omni. I just like to screw with people's numbers.

Mostlylurking |Patrick White is a fine Australian author.
He won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1973. My favourite is "Riders in the Chariot"

A few years ago here in Texas, the state's Department of Agriculture put out a list of rules that schools and teachers must follow. These rules (not laws, but rules, mind you) involved something known as FMNVs (Foods of Minimal Nutritional Value). Teachers could no longer use anything from this list (candy, chocolate, etc.) in class either as manipulatives or as rewards. Apparently, teachers' rewards to the students were making them obese.

At the same time, lobbyists from Aramark (my school district's cafeteria provider)and other food service companies made themselves heard at the legislature and got laws passed that prohibited schools from competing with the cafeteria. This meant that bake sales, vending machines, and many other fundraising efforts were not allowed until after the last lunch, when the cafeteria was finished serving its healthy fare.

What does the cafeteria serve, you ask? Do they have a salad bar? A sushi line? Well, there is the pizza and french fries line, always a long one. Next to this is the soyburger line, also with french fries, and banana pudding as dessert. Both lines have cream gravy as a vegetable side order, though they are serving nothing that would go with gravy. Chips, cheetos, and candy bars are available for purchase, even for breakfast. I saw a 300-pound sixth grader buy cheetos and a candy bar from the school cafeteria every day for breakfast.

And there are rules and laws to protect these kids from my Jolly Rancher reward?

I believe the term is "bass-ackward."

I'm liking the Smithsonian's interim secretary. I hope he gets the permanent job; him, or someone like him. My goodness, a man who rises to a position of prominence and responsibility because of his intellectual vigor and rigor. If he weren't a foreign national, I'd vote for him for President.

But he's younger than me. Dang.

I moved from SoCal to MD when I was 19. I discovered the gross food gold standard at that time. Scrapple. As my daughter would say, *nasty*

Thanks, Mudge, for the well-expressed rant. I am so not the target of the Madison Avenue-created pitches that I usually miss them entirely. I don't notice newspaper and magazine ads and don't see the television commercials, even when I'm watching the machine. [Yes, it is a machine, even though I used to think a little orchestra lived inside to play the background music.] As you mention, the sexist implications of that commercial are stunning, but I'll leave it to someone else to dissect it with the vigor it deserves. I have a hard time paying attention to commercials, even to eviscerate them.

Thanks also to omni for the Boodle book tally. It was really fun to see so many recommendations. Some made me nod in recognition and wonder where my copy of that was, and some made me put a new book on my "to read" list.

I keep messing up the manfood and chick food categories; I like bourbon and hearty dark beers.

Don't hold back, mudge. tell us how you really feel.

Some of the schmanciest places I've eaten sell steaks by the pound. A porterhouse for two is definitely not chick food.

What qualifies as "chick" food?

I agree that part of the obesity problem stems from marketing. Oklahoma has a terrible problem with obesity. Although the state is remedying this flaw, traditionally we have not emphasized nutrition and exercise in education. We also have a problem with poverty. Our poor tend to be able to afford carbohydrates over fresh fruit and vegetables, prefer processed foods, and eat the large portions available at the inexpensive SuperSizeFastFoods or AllYouCanEatBuffets popylar here. In addition, an astonishing number of people from all economic classes eat out on a regular basis, usually at ThemedChainRestaurant or its upscale cousin, ThemedChainRestaurante. I can't remember the figure but we have a very high percentage of meals eaten out per week. Our health officials and state leaders are rightly, if a trifle belatedly, alarmed by this trend, given the serious health problems faced by many Oklahomans which are exacerbated by obesity. However, it is hard to change a food culture wholesale.

I say good luck to TGIF, and if Ivansdad and the Boy succeed in dragging me there I will gladly order a Just Right portion.

EF move over, as 'Mudge is making a play for el Presidente.

'Mudge -- I found sour cherries in water at an ethnic grocery store. We MUST have a friendly sour cherry pie match up.

Would sour cherry pie be chick or man food?

Of course, 'Mudge your pie sounded like a faux sour cherry pie, in a good way.

Sorry omni, I mentioned The Tin Drum three times. 'Mudge just conceded that is a bona fide, real live, rootin' tootin' masterpiece once. I suppose that's why he's called Curmudgeon. Faint praise, grudging given, infrequently bestowed.
At least you know he means it.

The cynic in me was thinking that by downsizing portions, Friday's was going to serve 30% less food for the same price, thereby increasing their profit margin.

That cynic was slapped upside the head by the fact that they will be offering these items at a lower price.

The thing that gets me about the obesity epidemic is that you cannot go ANYWHERE these days where food is not served. Every event has to have refreshments. One of the big complaints about the national mall is that there are few food vendors!

When I was a child, I ate as a child, and I did go to Emerson's Steak House and I did order the all-you-can-eat steak, and I did eat 7 consecutive 1-lb. steaks. And I did put them out of business. But when I became a man, I put away childish things, and I did develop a heart condition. And lo, I do now order moderate portions, and I do select food and restaurants for quality rather than quantity. And it is my goal to outlive you all, yes, even you, Tangent. And I do say to you, "So, there." And I do eat the food of rabbits, and I do like it, except for pizza on Friday nights.

ivansmom,

Is Arkansas doing better than the Sooner State in the obesity department, with the leadership of Governor Huckabee? I've heard about his initiatives, but haven't seen the reports that show how much progress has been made.

This reminds me of a remark our Superintendent of Schools made years ago, (at a school district outside Tulsa)--he said, people talk about the quality of our schools--are we keeping up with Germany, are we keeping up with Japan. Forget about that. We can't even keep up with Arkansas!

If everyone only ate pizza on Friday nights, how would Domino's stay in business?

kbertocci, I don't have any information on Arkansas's obesity initiatives. I wish them luck.

RighteousEatingTim, you can get rabbit food on pizza.

Mudge says...

//And that's the kind of guy Madison Avenue markets to. That's the kind of guy who buys Budweiser and watches professional wrestling. And I'm not that guy, and don't wanna be.

The simple fact is, most of us are NOT in that portion of the culture that Madison Avenue and the big corporations are marketing to.//

Unfortunately, Mudge... that's how George W Bush got to be our president. Because a slight majority of the US *is* that portion of the culture.

Can't you just picture Dubya saying "Don't give me that chick food" and garnering a few more votes?

Finally — an anti-intellectual topic I feel qualified to comment on:

"Perfection Salad"

Yep, Wheezy, your mom and mine used the same recipe book:

o Lileks, James, ed. "Jell-O." _Gallery of Regrettable Food_. 7 Aug. 2005. 27 Mar. 2007 < http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/jello/11.html >.

Perfection salad *was inedible*, but that didn't stop cooks all around the country from preparing it.

Raysmom, the supersizing epidemic began because some smart cookie noticed that the cost of materials in the restaurant business, particularly in the not-very-good-food restaurant business, is only a tiny part of the cost of serving the customer. If you sell the customer a $1 "upgrade" that costs you only $0.10 to produce, then you have substantially increased your profit margin on the things that cost real money -- land, building construction, facility maintenance, staff, insurance, and so forth. In a McD's with 5 employees (my vague eyeball estimate), you would need to sell five adult meals per hour in order to break even on staff costs (my vague meal-price estimate). Easy at lunch time, not so easy at 3:00 in the afternoon. I would estimate that you need to pull in something like $30/hr (roughly 6 meals) in order to make enough money to pay mortgage on the facility. Double that, for maintenance and utilities. Thus, you need to average sales of 17 adult meals per hour per day in order to make your nut. These are inaccurate figures, of course, but I suspect that I'm within a factor of two. And I doubt that I have OVER-estimated the costs.

So, if I'm selling 17 adult meals, at about $5 each, in order to make the costs of operating for that hour, then that's $85/hr. If I can get you to give me an additional $1 in profit on each meal, then I just made $17 profit per hour, with no actual work on my part beyond what I have to pay for, anyway.

Thus, TGIF (not a fast-food place, but surely similar economics apply) makes almost no increase in profit by selling you a smaller meal, and in fact, it costs them the significant additional profit that would come from being able to "upgrade" your meal. So let's cut them some slack, they're really trying to do well by doing good.

Talk about kicking a guy when he's down...

30 minutes to make my appointment at the nut house and we have a flat tire (not technically flat, just picked up a nail in the Home Depot parking lot, so it's more of a "leak").

Since I can't be trusted with mechanical issues right now and time is of the essence, Mrs. Martooni volunteered (well, she had no choice) to run the grocery getter over to the neighborhood Goodyear to see if they can stick a plug in it.

And to kick me further, the doors that were on sale at Home Depot are not the six-panel wooden doors pictured in the Sunday supplement, but the "molded" white things. Still nice and a good price (about $50/door) but not what we wanted (real wood, $159/door). To top it off, I hadn't touched a drop since about 6am, so right there in the middle of Home Depot at 11am the freaking shakes and cold sweats started.

On my way to rehab and here I am swigging the crappy watered down bourbon they sell at the grocery store so I don't have a heart attack or go into seizures. Take away a functional drunk's booze and you got something just below quivering bowl of jelly.

Signing off for real for a few days... thanks for all the encouraging words. btw... I'm bringing my WaPo Sunday Crossword Omnibus (Vol. 3) with me, so you'll all be in my thoughts.

later...

I do have to confess to having experienced being "too hungry for..." One day while on vacation I made the mistake of a light breakfast and skipping lunch. At 4:00, famished, we arrived in town, only to find that restaurants in this town did not serve dinner until 5:00. While awaiting that hour at our chosen restaurant, I looked at the menu. It was all small plates of little delicacies. I dragged Raysdad out of that place and up the street to a place where I could ingest suitable quantities of mac and cheese, or french fries, or whatever it was they had in quantity.

Anyone with a stomach for intelligence knows that Kevin Bacon is the terrorist leader of a radical group of ham sandwiches who seek to destroy America with deadly ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise squirt bombs. Everything else is just potted blog meat and bureaucratic bologna.

0.00 Siddhartha
0.01 Big Phil's Kid
0.21 White Fang
0.32 Fahrenheit 451
0.452 Rendezvous With Rama.
0.666 The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge???
3.14159265 The Koran
4.0 Google
5.1 Wikipedia
6.25 Spiderman
7.0 Doonesbury
*8 Pogo
9 Peanuts
10 The U.S. Constitution

The End.

Mmmmmm Hmmmmmmmmm.

Oh my, I forgot The Far Side... sorry.

Moi moi... long time no see!

Tim, I probably didn't say it well, but after reading the article, I did conclude that TGIFs was trying to do good. I can truly understand their dilemma.

I think that I will have to buy the Gallery of Regrettable Foods in the dead-tree edition. That's pretty funny.

On the naming thing, as several people have noted, there is the issue of privacy vs. the benefits of anonymity.

I agree that there would probably be a lot fewer boodlers, and different comments, if we all signed with real names.

There is an interesting dynamic in the continued use of the same handle, though. The fact that all the regulars either keep the same handle or announce a change keeps the tone moderate, since there is more of a sense of community.

On food, I have to say that one of the brighter ideas I've seen recently is the chocolate 100 cal "thins". Probably smart from the purely bean counter perspective, but also for consumers.

Boko, I counted four mentions by you and one by Mudge, so one of those mentions didn't make it in. Also I noticed three variations on spelling Hitchhiker's Guide, for a total of four mentions. Also, the are a number of books mentioned that are missing the word 'The' in the title. So basically I probably got 95% of all the books mentioned, but my counter was flawed. And there are probably other instances where there are spelling differences.

Jamie Oliver, Britain's 'Naked Chef' has started a crusade to improve the meals served in the schools there. He wanted to replace the processed crap dished out with real food. The TV show produced about his effort chronicled the unbelievable resistance he encountered from school officials and staff and the believable resistance from the kids (eww, broccoli).
He won the kids over with cooking lessons and showing them where real food comes from.
The officials and staff were harder nuts to crack. He had to devise low cost menus and convince the school kitchen staff that everything needn't be boiled or deep-fried.

Church potlucks tended to be the Gallery of Regrettable Foods: red Jello-O with fruit cocktail, green bean casserole, beet salad.

Hi Raysmom. Regarding your 12:22 and 11:52 -- I saw that you concluded that TGIF actually is trying to do good. I was just cruelly and unfairly beating you up, anyway, because I'm a bad person in my heart of hearts.

Truthfully, it just seemed like an inspiring opportunity to exercise the value of a back-of-the-envelope calculation. I'm afraid that I simply used you (cruelly! heartlessly!) as a jumping-off point. I apologize (buwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! No, I don't! My apology is insincere and not heartfelt! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!).

Okay, I think that that's quite enough of that.

Tim, the said thing is that TGIF is probably going to take a pounding economically for their experiment, as your calculations make sense. And since they're probably publicly-traded, they will have to resume business as usual.

SCC: "sad" thing

Howdy TBG,

Yes, I was pretty far gone for awhile but I refuse to play the blame game and I accept full responsibility for my absence.

Did I miss anything?

School cafeterias nationwide are, in spots, trying to substitute healthy foods for the usual slop (as the Boy would have it). Kids, of course, are one pocket of resistance, but the little beasts are not first on the complaint food chain (so to speak) because they don't really get a vote; at least in elementary school, they're trapped in the cafeteria. Besides, kids are malleable: give them a good reason to like something, force them to try it enough, take away their preferred choice, and they'll not only eat the new food but request it. In theory, anyway.

More important are the school officials and food service workers, who resist mightily. Part of this is cost, part is the weird funding & sourcing which has food services ordering supplies a year in advance, part is the heavy reliance on gummint-subsidized products (kegs of cheese & peanut butter, anyone?). A significant problem is that many districts are so reliant on processed food from a central kitchen that individual school kitchens have little or no actual cooking equipment. Some successful programs hook up with local farms for fresh produce. People are trying, but it requires lots of baby steps to get something healthy on the table.

The effort to substitute "healthy" snacks and drinks in school vending machines has fared much better. Granola bars and juice-based drinks are still calorie-laden, and may contain the evil high fructose corn syrup, but they're marginally better than chips & soda. Of course, food corporate suppliers realized this is a profit gold mine. Since they're not losing money, it pays to get the points for good corporate citizenship.

omni | I trust your counting more than my memory. I'm sorry I mentioned "The Tin Drum" so many times. It's just that "The Tin Drum" is my favourite book. I've read "The Tin Drum" eight times and will read "The Tim Drum" again. As a matter of fact after posting about "The Tin Drum" a while back I read "The Tin Drum" again.

Thanks, omni, interesting list! My immediate thought was that good writing won over good story. (What the heck happened to Daisy?) But "To Kill a Mocking Bird" had both plot and poetry, so I quit my analysis.

It's just that I keep confusing Cheetos with peeled baby-cut carrots when I am shopping at Safeway and I figured this was the best online community to seek help for that problem.

I once went to the grand opening of a very hoity toity new restaraunt for my girlfriend's birthday. Had the $80 rack of lamb (this was in '84 or so) and when I left, all I could think of was going to McDonald's for a cheeseburger.

So while I might not generally take the low road (all things being equal) there sure are times when it seems like the thing to do.

Also since I prefer Gilligan's Island to quite a few critically-acclaimed movies, I'd guess the same principle applies to food. I don't like sushi, I don't care how good the establishment is. I would prefer a cheeseburger, thanks.

If that makes me a cretin, fine.

The overwhelming fact is, we are singly and collective unable to move or influence the culture and its giant economic engines so much as a fraction of a nano-milimeter. We cannot change or even influence Madison Avenue, we cannot change or even influence the food and/or the restaurant industry, we cannot change or even influence the health care industry that attempts to deal with obesity, and we cannot influence the culture itself. We are just kidding ourselves, and pi$$ing into the wind.

(Which is why I have approximately ZERO hope for a worldwide solution to global warming.)

I ahte to sound like a REALLY old fart, but ask yourselves these questions:

1) Why are there soda machines in schools? For 150 years there didn't used to be any. The only soda machine in my high school was in the teacher's lounge, a room so far off-limits that I never saw the inside of it. Why are there other kinds of vending machines? If there is one single piece of society where we seem to have something close to universal authoritarian control, it's the schools. So why? So we can raise funds for the band? Gimme a break.

2) Given that there HAVE to be soda machines in schools (a premise I don't even REMOTELY accept, but just for argument's sake), why does it have to be stocked with "regular" sodas instead of diet sodas? If every single soda in those machines was diet, the kids would have no choice but to drink diet, or go without. Does anyone here believe they'd go without? And if they did, their only alternative would be to drink water. And the down side is? Sure, there'd be yelling and screaming and protests for a while. But that's why Maxim invented machine guns. Are people going to get serious about things or not?

3) Why do schools serve pizza, and other unhealthy food? I went to public school for 12 years in the 1950s and 1960s, and never ate a single damn slice of pizza in school in my life. Not one. Because it wasn't allowed. Yes, we ate what our dreadful cafeteria ladies cooked, and yes, it was routinely pretty awful. If you didn't like it, you brown-bagged it. There was no third alternative, ever. Given that schools CAN (and used to be) utterly totalitarian in this regard, why don't they become awful totalitarian dictorships that deliver ONLY reasonably healthy food, and if you don't like, tough s--t? What they HAVE become in the past few decades are enablers. {P.S. Private schools don't have any trouble being this totalitarian; they do it all the time. The kids plain don't know any better. I worked in one of them for two years.)

4) When I went to school, the liquid of choice was milk. Plain white milk. That was the liquid of choice, because that's all there was--that or water, or whatever your brought from home in your thermos. I understand full well many kids have various allergies and lactose intolerance, and I have no objection to schools stocking Lactaid and soy milk, as well as any of those various and sundry flavored and unflavored waters; in fact, anyone could put together a selection of a dozen or more alternative kinds of drinks that would give kids a lot of variety and choice, and still not be a single drop of corn syrup within hailing distance. It is eminently do-able.

Will kids still bring in candy bars and junk food from home if they brown-bag? Sure. But the difference is, the schools, the institution of education itself, won't be the enabler. And you taxpayers won't be enablers. Because it is you guys who are paying for and enabling all this. I may be the crusty Curmudgeon railing about "the way it used to be." But what about everyone else?

Elsewhere: "Faint praise, grudging given, infrequently bestowed." Jeez, Boko, I know I'm curmudgeonly, but I didn't think I was THAT bad. I kinda thought I handed out praise and appreciation fairly often. I even go on (positive)raving rants, or so I thought, when I like something. Well, maybe not. Have to work on that, I guess.

I would like to say here that I thank McD's for the introduction of the 1/3-pounder sandwich. I reference McD's food all the time in my science talks. I ask kids "How much do you eat in a day? How much does it weigh?" You get the usual smart-alecks (some of them 10-year olds who are getting close to my weight, and they aren't tall) who claim to eat 6 lbs a day, or 60 lbs. I'm not sure if they're just being exuberant, or they really have no idea -- or, I fear, they're being accurate. Anyway, I note that I really have no direct idea, but I know who does know -- people who make a living off selling meals. McD's. It's their business to know what they can sell in a meal. They make a good living off selling a quarter-pounder as a meal (sadly, many make a meal from 2 or 3 such bricks, but let's forget about that for now). A quarter-pounder, throw in some fries, and you have about 1/3 pound of food. With the 1/3-pounder, I won't need to strain their brains on the estimation process. So, three meals a day, about 1/3 pound each, how much does that make in a day? Anyone? Three times 1/3? Anyone? That's right, it's about a pound. A pound of food a day. So, in a year, how much do you eat? Roughly? Anyone? That's right, 365 pounds of food a year. So, if it probably will take you 2 years total to go to Mars, hang out for a year, and then come back, how much food do you need to bring with you? Anyone? Anyone? Two times 365? Anyone? Right, if it's a leap year, add another day. Anyone? 7... 7 hundred... 7 hundred thirty-... That's right! 730 days, so you'll need 730 pounds of food!

So, that's why we use robots to explore the solar system. And that's why we need to improve the teaching of critical thinking skills and science in schools.

SCC-...back I read "The Tin Drum" again.
Should be...back I reread "The Tin Drum"

Clumsy phrasing while boodling about "The Tin Drum" is sacrilege.

Curmudgeon seeks to deny that "chick food" exists as a distinct genre, but it surely does. I'm sure you know of a hen house restaurant in your town where no real man would be caught dead. The food is exquisitely priced little hunks of nothing wound up tight in cellophane under a glass-topped counter. You point to what you want, and they unwrap it for you. This is the proprietor's sole concession to your entertainment. To extract your money's worth, you have to stay in your seat under an asparagus fern to nurse one little demitasse of almond coffee for hours. I have been hoodwinked into patronizing such places all too often.

Sorry 'Mudge, but you only mentioned "The Tin Drum" once.

"The Tin Drum" is purty darn good Boko but I'm more of a "The Flounder" man myself. I went so far as making a couple of the recipes. Pretty healthy stuff too, BigM and soda were pretty rare in 17th century Silesia. How do you want your black radish sir, boiled or boiled?

Almond demi tasse drinker --
what does your name mean, ducks-something?

>Why are there soda machines in schools? For 150 years there didn't used to be any.

Well for starters there was no electricity for 50 of those years.

Mudge, you are bringing back memories of the elementary school cafeteria! In the basement, although it did have windows at street level. Painted light green, of course (Everything was, IIRC).

I didn't like the food, and my birthday present in the second grade was a lunchbox, which I used for the rest of my elementary career. I'm sure if I had the food now, I'd think it was okay, for institutional food. One thing they did very, very well was yeast rolls. Huge, puffy rolls - they were to die for. But that's all I remember. I ate a boatload of (homemade) pimento cheese sandwiches instead.

I spent a summer in Oxford during my college years and encountered the worst in institutional foods on the planet. God bless the folks at the college, they tried hard, but...peanut butter sandwiches with butter on them? Baked beans on toast for breakfast? There was a cultural gap we just couldn't bridge.

But no doubt we're getting much too big for health these days. When my younger daughter was home on spring break, I had her try on my wedding dress, just for grins and giggles. She isn't razor thin and has a nice figure but it wouldn't zip above her waist. I must have been skinnier than I remember.

Hoodwinkery!

>Why are there soda machines in schools?

To raise money. The school receives a percentage of the coinage put into them.

>Why don't we put healthy stuff in them?

Coca-Cola doesn't make healthy stuff and would therefore make no money from putting other companies' products in there.

>Why do we sell pizza and other unhealthy food?

The schools themselves have no say. At my middle school, we get food from Aramark, a subsidiary of Marriott. The district does business with Aramark, not the school. The school has no infrastructure to actually cook food, as it was built long after Aramark monopolized the food contract. The lunch ladies just reheat. If kids brown-bag it, Aramark makes no money. Since they have one of the larger lobbies at the state legislature here in TX, they have no worries that they will be dropped for a company willing to do it better, healthier, etc. So they sell what the kids buy.

Imagine if every kid brought their lunch to school for a week in protest of the swill they are being offered. That would be an impressive boycott, but it will never happen.

'Mudge;

I am so totally on your "Forward to the Past" bandwagon when it comes to school lunches. NukeSpawn's school actually does a decent job keeping liquid corn syrup away from the students, but the snack machine resembled a 7-Eleven shelf, so...

*SIGH*

"All my life -- indeed, I think I can speak for the overwhelming majority of the boodle --has been a general effort to do what I would call "upgrade"-- get a good education (possibly and hopefully including a college degree), get a good job, find a nice spouse, raise a family, have a nice home, drive a decent car, vacation in nice places, and eat in good restaurants -- in short, learn how to do and have a hundred small, medium and large aspects of an upscale life, the pinnacle of which is to be able to walk into a nice fording restaurant, be knowledgeable enough and comfortable enough to order a bottle of wine, order a nice piece of meat or fish or poultry that I don't have to eat with ketchup slathered on it, eat with the right fork, talk with a waitperson who doesn't call me "Hon," enjoy conversation with fellow civilized people over coffee and dessert (one dessert, two, three, or four spoons), calculate a proper tip, and pay for the meal with my credit card without thinking to myself, 'Jeez, now we have to eat beans and franks for three weeks to pay for this.' And do all this without embarrassing myself, my wife or my friends."

Well, that used to be the marketing target. Now that the majority of people have bought into that very mediocre conformist profitable rationale, marketers must change the rationale so as to make new profits. Culture moves on, y'know? "Chick Food: An Image of the Past" may be on the next bestseller list. (If "The Deerslayer" can make it, anything can.)

"But that's why Maxim invented machine guns." Mudge, you are my hero. (Joel, give him the Hero Hat.)

Or, maybe, CulinaryTim.

We had a soda machine at my high school. Maybe we had two, I can't quite recall. It was in the lobby near the entrance. If there were another one, it would have been near the parking lot entrance. $0.50 a can. At the end of many days, I treated myself to a Nehi grape, my libation of choice at the time. Notice that the soda machines were not in the cafeteria. Soda was not part of lunch, it was an end-of-the-day treat. Not on the buses, so you only got soda if you were about to walk home. By such clever choice of positioning, soda was made available, but its dire influence was limited. The soda machine, by the way, provided the raw material for my ring-mail armor costume as the Pepsi Paladin at a science fiction convention. I was cut-off, halfway through manufacturing, by the change in pop-top styles so that the ring didn't come off.

Still, it occurred to us even then, that we couldn't figure out why the school hosted any soda machines. What possible educational purpose could it serve? This was the stuff that our parents always were urging us to eschew. Why was it made available to us in school, the extension of our parent's umbrella of protection? Something clearly was not right. There were debates and editorials in the student newspaper -- I think. It's not like I really read the blasted thing, until I was dating a girl who worked on the paper (her father was an editor at the Baltimore Sun; it was in her blood).

Raysmom's association of chuck potlucks with regrettable food is exact. It's the light of the loaves and fishes seen through the lens of the Great Depression, when it was unseemly to bring a dish to pass that anyone would really want. There wouldn't be enough to go around.

There's nothing wrong with a cheeseburger, Error -- just make sure it is a GOOD cheeseburger, and try to eat something else occasionally. Balance. Moderation is all.

In Oklahoma, there are no vending machines in elementary schools. In middle and high schools, the machines have waters, juices, milks, etc., but not soda, and granola bars, etc., rather than chips & candy. Would it be better if there were no machines? Yes. Is this a positive step? Yes. Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall and the potential for continued profit, Pepsi worked with the legislature and the schools to stock "healthy" snacks, and other companies followed suit. We've also brought back the PE requirement.

By the way, many of the private schools here are too small to sustain a cafeteria. They contract out with local food service providers (read: Chick Fil-A and Maggios) for individual lunches. If possible, the Boy had worse lunches at private school than he does now in public school, at far greater cost. There, he brown-bagged regularly. Here, I force him to eat the school lunch, which usually has some nutritional value.

"Athletic, dashing, and heroic on screen, and a notorious bon vivant in his personal life, Errol Flynn ranked among Hollywood's most popular and highly paid stars from the mid-'30s through the early '40s", found this in another paper's movie review regarding Errol Flynn Collection. Sorry, wrong person. Still looking for the right presidential candidate.

OK, lots of "clean up" issues:

Ivansmom and some others asked about what consitutes manfood and man-salads, etc. Ivansmom, I happen to be a bit sentimental on this particular subject, since it was the topic of my very first boodle posting (you always remember your first...ah...whatever) waaaaay back on Sept. 12, 2005, at 4:44 p.m. Here's the link not just to my post, but to the entire discussion, which you'll enjoy:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2005/09/dont_wait_for_the_cavalry.html

CP, you are correct: I duly confess my sour cherry pie is indeed a faux sour cherry pie, and I do not object to so labeling it as such. On the question of whether pie is a manfood for chick food, I would say it is not gender-specific. Most pies seem to be non-specific, I think, and can comfortably be over-indulged in by anyone.

EF, you are certainly not a cretin. I, too, dislike sushi, and don't like sushi restaurants, and I'd rather have a cheeseburger, too. Also, I'd never pay $85 for a rack of lamb. But the point is, you don't disdain sushi restaurants per se, as somehow being "chick" places, or beneath your station in life, or whatever. You just don't like 'em, and I don't either, and that's fine. I happen not to like Indian food and curry-type dishes, and so don't eat in those places either. But I don't look down my nose at them (or up my nose, in cases of reverse snobbery).

And I, too, have been "too hungry" to eat in a certain kind of place. But not because it was "chick food." Just because I wanted something else. And god knows, I eat in fast food joints all the time (yes, admittedly way, way too often). And I like nothing more than a good old-fashioned mom-and-pop truck-stop diner, especially if it's one of those old railroad-car-type joints and their modern upsacle offspring like the Silver Dinner in Wheaton or Rockville or wherever it is. Silver Spring? Chevy Chase? It's not a snob thing or a reverse-snob thing. It's just the low-brow disdain for eating in a "nice" restaurant that bugs me. You are worlds away from that.

(My father was in the trucking industry his whole working life, and I grew up knowing and eating in every truck stop for a 50-mile radius; he knew the good ones from the bad ones [it's easy to tell: if there's ten giant rigs out back idling, it's a great place to eat. Count on it]. Anybody here know Olga's dinner on Rt. 70 in Marleton, NJ? My father practically OWNED stool number 7; there oughta be a commemorative plate on it. And my grandfather was a traveling rag salesman, and he knew every diner and hole-in-the-wall coffee/sandwich shop in four states, and who had good "java" and pie, and who didn't. And to this day, if I have a choice between a chain restaurant or a local mom-and-pop, I'll take the mom-and-pop. Yes, it's much higher risk, but it's the only way to tell which ones are good and which aren't. I know there are "good" Applebees and "bad" Applebees--like the one in Waldorf--but I frankly don't care about them one way or the other. But a hole-in-the-wall like Bowie's in Oakville, VA, or Yesterday's in Montross--ahhh, those are small little treasures.)

SCC: church <== chuck

"I'm so hungry I could eat at Arby's!"
- Lisa Simpson

Moi Moi is concerned about the effect of global warming on Moi Moi's vicchysoisse.

Mudge I would like to second your question as to why soda (or pop if you are Canadian), is so available to kids. Mine do not drink it, not because I am such a superior mother that I have trained them not to, they just don't like it. It is becoming increasingly harder for them to get drinks they like when they go places, people just assume children want pop.

My kids have neither a cafeteria or a pop machine at school, milk and bottled milkshakes are available. In the last few years they gave up the milk program that brought daily cartons of milk to the kids if they purchased it.

Rather than going to diet soda, how about pure fruit juices, water?

But it is not just the schools, parents must encourage and model healthy eating, and let the children exercise!

Real busy today so forgive me for skipping most of the comments and actually posting on topic.

According to several articles I have read, the disaster that is the American portion size kicked into high gear when Taco Bell (yes, Taco Bell) discovered that a certain type of male consumer would delight in paying a little more for a lot more food. After that it was all downhill.

I think it is disingenuous to blame restaurants, though, for forcing us to eat such big amounts. It's okay to throw some of that food away. The starving people in Outer Botslania (Not a real place so cut me some slack) will forgive us if we stop being members of the full plate club.

Now as for those people who manufacture dark chocolate M&Ms, well they have some serious 'splaining to do.

Off topic but delicious.
Monica Goodling, an key aid to Torquaberto, is taking the fifh. I seem to remember her name in connection with a person recently indicted (convicted?) in another Dept.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16977360.htm

Gomer, I understand your 1:13 completely...but how can you say, "The school has no say"? Of course it has a say. It is YOUR school system. You pay for it. At some level, it is run by elected officials, or appointed officials responsive to elected officials. It operates on your tax dollars. It almost certainly has a PTA. School board meetings are necessarily public events. Schools do NOT exist so that ARAMARK or anybody else can make a profit. FORD ARAMARK! I know vending machines exist to raise a little money--but how pathetic a reason is that? Jeeeezzz!!! "We're sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Public, but we are slowly and methodically poisoning your children so we can raise $214.87 to pay for the buses for the field trip." Jesus wept.

(I'm not yelling at you, Gomer, I'm yelling at the system.)

Raysmom, I agree, kudos to TGIF. But I suggest they'd have less of a rock-and-a-hard-place dilemma if they had just quietly reduced portions sizes and prices, and not made a big deal out of it. No one held a gun to their heads and told them they had to advertise their Hobson's choice. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

RDP;

We all know it's really Upper Botslania. Sometimes names have to be changed to protect the guilty...

Or is it...

:-)

OK, since we are talking food, I need some ideas. Wife of Nut is coming up on a b-day in May and has requested lobster. Anyone give me the name of a really nice eatery that does good things with said crustacean? Preferably within 25 miles of Silver Spring. All entries considered.

Tony Snow has liver cancer. The thing in his colon spread and seems to have metastasized. I don't like the guy, but this is sad to hear. I wonder if all the people who disagree with Elizabeth and John Edward's decision to keep on living will not shut the hell up, or will they also tell Tony he should quit being press secretary and go home and die instead.

I don't know the morbidity numbers on liver cancer. Anybody?

If you'll check out my 11:20 post, Mudge, you'll see what our elected offials have been wasting their time on. Rules that dictate what I am allowed or, rather, not allowed to do in my classroom, as if that were the problem. I could complain at PTO meetings and school board meetings and use my one vote to attempt to oust from office those of whom I disapprove, but it all seems a bit like trying to stop a traffic jam from happening by just reasoning with the other drivers...

"You over there! Let that lady merge in front of you!"

"And now it's your turn, sir! Go ahead, don't stop, merge!"

"If you would all just do the right thing and drive as if the rest of us matter as much as you, none of us would be stuck here!"

"Ma'am, get off the shoulder... what? Yes, I know he was taking too long, but if you would look in front of him, you would see the line of cars that he can't contr- Hey, don't cut me off!"

Even though I have great ideas about how to fix this problem, I will not get you all to work with me, kind of like how I can't get the food changed at my school by just wishing it so...

ebtnut, as far as seafood goes, you know you can't beat McCormick and Schmick's.

It's out of your mileage range, but if you also want scenery, I'd recommend the Treaty of Paris restaurant in the basement of the Maryland Inn in Annapolis, or go across the bridge into Eastport and eat at the Charterhouse. I can vouch for the lobster in both places. For a little longer drive, cross the Bay Bridge onto Kent Island, and eat at the Fisherman's Inn. Third-best cream of crab soup on Chesapeake Bay. (Mine's first, and I can fax you some if you want. Robert Morris Inn in Oxford is second.)

ebtnut;

Maine lobster, right? I'm terribly biased, mind you, having grown up with the fresh stuff on the New England Coast. Given that, if you don't mind a semi-chain, make the trek to one of the Legal Sea Foods in D.C. They at least make an attempt at an acceptable freshness pedigree. Haven't tried the lobster at M&S, so can't say.

Entenpfuhl is I believe a city in Germany

Twinkies aren't baked.

Velveeta is clear--until they add the color.

I actually do understand the distinction between manfood and chick food, or at least usually I do. And thanks, Mudge, for the historical link to that Boodle. What a great dissection of salads! My dilemma, I suppose, is that, along with most of my female friends, I like manfood as well as chick food. Okay, better than some chick food. Although I draw the line at any version of meat lover's pizza.

I brought carrots, apple, cheese and goldfish for lunch today. It was really hard to carry, as the water kept sloshing out of the bowl.

And people thought goldfish swallowing was out of style...

*L*

Okay, see, I forgot that what you see in the Boodle doesn't look the way it looks when I start my post, with the name at the top, followed by the text. Thus, I had thoughtlessly supposed that my last post would look like this:

HistoryTim

Or, maybe, CulinaryTim.

But of course, it didn't.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I, too, wish to join the outcry for making school "the way it used to be." The adults of the generation that bemoans how "kids today" are not schooled in what we consider to be essential culture, forget how we were schooled. Today, we get school curricula designed in response to policies promulgated by people who never "got" what education is all about; who think that teachers only work while lecturing classes, and it must be easy. They forget that our own educational opportunities were pretty good and it's what established our expectations for knowing all that cultural stuff. Maybe instead of these chowder-heads trying to invent some entirely new system, they should look at returning to the system from our own youth that we foolishly abandoned and just tweak it up a little. Throw away the sexism and the racism, but keep the idea that an educated person is exposed to a wide array of human endeavors. That you can teach language skills by learning about science, that you can teach science by learning about math, that you can teach math by learning how to modify the proportions in a recipe or by duplicating a metal artifact at a different size, and so on.

When I was in junior high school (a now-nonexistent category of school), we had science, English, social studies, foreign language, art, music, industrial arts or home economics, and physical education. Somehow, we managed to learn the fundamentals without devoting the entire curriculum to drilling on the fundamentals. Nowadays, PE is a one-quarter class, there is practically no arts education, language is an elective (just one language in PG County) and kids can be excluded because there isn't enough space for them. Math is taught in a double period, so that the last 1/3rd is basically wasted time, because nobody can concentrate on just one abstract subject for so long. At the same time, we have a public which increasingly has no knowledge of the world outside our borders, and really doesn't know where our borders are. We have an epidemic of morbid obesity, pediatric obesity, and adult and juvenile diabetes. But there's no time in the schedule for PE. There is no home economics, so nobody learns how to take care of themselves, or learns that food comes from all over the world, or learns firsthand about the interdependency of regions. Food is a packaged product that comes in a cardboard box, manufactured from some sort of abiotic plastic. You can't eat low-fat, because the food-packagers don't make low-fat, and that's the only source of food. You can't go out and play to get your exercise, because you have been reflexively assigned 3-4 hours of homework a night, because no one ever gets fired for giving too much homework -- it just shows you have "high standards." So our kids turn into fat slugs who are exhausted by the time they finish homework (assuming they haven't lost all interest in trying to actually succeed in factory schooling), it's too dark to go play in some physical way, so they sit on their butts and watch TV, because school has taught them that reading is a chore that is accomplished only so that you can fill in your danged reading log.

EVERYTHING about modern school reform, as it actually is practiced, is wrong. EVERY THING. All of it. Because, every reform that comes through in modern times is not about improving education. It's about some version of costing less without suffering too much loss in capability relative to the day before the reform. Teachers know what to do to make school better. People who took advantage of their education know what to do. But none of it ever gets done. Because those people are minority, and nobody ever aks "Say, you who have done what we say we want all students to do: what would have encouraged you and your friends to do even better?" Instead, we have idiots who rant about metrics and standardized testing and leaving no child behind by keeping all of them behind, and itallmakesmesoANGRYIjustwanttoSCREEEEEAAAAMMMMMM!

*Whew* *Whew* *Whew*

Sorry.

You can see the full numbers list online here now:

http://boodle.wetpaint.com/page/Book+Recommendations

*perusing NCI for liver cancer info*

I went to the grocery store last month to pick up a few items. I brought the boys to help me. When I was checking out, my 4 year old just happened to find the broken gum-ball machine. You know, the one where you just turn the handle round and round and the gumballs drop out without slipping the quarter in the slot. His pockets were full before I caught up with him.

Jackpot! for the 4 year old anyway. I'll never be able to go into that store again with him without getting dunned for a quarter. I'll bet you that the vendor did it on purpose.

If the cancer has metastasized I beleive the survivor rate is 10% after three years and the 5 year rate is 4%.

Mudge, my mother-in-law had colon cancer that metastized into her liver. We looked it up when she got the diagnosis. The reference said six months to a year. She lived 8. However, she was 83 and decided against aggressive treatment.

Hi, Pat! Hi, Entenfuhl!

Very nice rant, EducationTim. I'm pleased to say that one "reform" from which the Boy benefits is a special public school in which kids are taught by arts immersion -- Kandinsky with geometry, etc. --, they benefit from both PE and rhythm & movement, and everyone learns to play a stringed instrument. This will be followed by a public school IB/honors and performing arts academy. Is there any reason the arts immersion method can't be used in every elementary school? No. No good reason, that is.

I agree with RD that we should all take a deep breath, ignore our mother's voice in our ears, and NOT CLEAN OUR PLATES when presented with large quantities of food. Unless, of course, it is rabbit food. Or really really good.

The best I could glean at the moment is not very good for Mr. Snow... Less than 30% survival rate after a year. :-(

http://canques.seer.cancer.gov/cgi-bin/cq_submit?dir=surv2003&db=100&rpt=LINE&sel=1^0^5^2^0^^4^0^&x=Survival%20interval^0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10&y=Sex^0,1,2&dec=1&referrer=0&title=SEER+Relative+Survival+Rates+by+Sex~For+Liver+and+Intrahepatic+Bile+Duct+Cancer,+Ages+45-54,+All+Races,+All+Stages~SEER+9+Registries+for+1988-2002&template=faststats

Mudge, liver cancer is a bad one.
Marjorie Williams' lasted what, 4 years?
A former collegue of mine was with it a couple of years, being very sick for 4-5 months before dying. As omni says, it's a bad one. Not in the prostate cancer class at all.

Here's a scientific paper. This doctor, like myself, must love curries.
http://www.itmonline.org/arts/livcancr.htm
I admit that curries may be a learned habit, but I couldn't go without my dose of lamb Roghan Gosh or Korma chicken anymore. Korma cauliflower is absolutely great now that I think of it, it's a great way to have a different veggies. There is nothing wrong with sushis if a microwave or boiling water is available.

>Sorry, wrong person. Still looking for the right presidential candidate.

daiwanlan, it's just one character off, and when you're as much of a character as I am that's not a big deal. I'm just waiting for the early runners to flame out so I can make a last-minute bid. Plus it gives me more time to stockpile t-shirts.

Mudge, you're right of course about not disdaining good food, just not always being in the right space for it. Given your knowledgeable appreciation of a proper cheesesteak I know you're no snob.

Speaking of which I was once faced with the sad duty of explaining to the guests at my redneck neighbor's pig roast why "Freebird" really truly sucks as a guitar song no matter how much Bud they drank. That's probably as close as I've come to a lynching.

I also have to say my heart goes out to Tony Snow, as much as I dislike his official duties. I have a couple of spots on my liver as well. I'm hoping they're leftover popcorn.

Concerning the much maligned epidemic of *obesity in America*, I wonder whether it's because of increasing prevalence of flavor enhancers in prepared food. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is now in practically everything. Opinions of proponents of its use notwithstanding, MSG has no flavor of its own. It acts in the brain to reinforce eating foods that contain it. People especially nowadays and especially kids don't know when to stop.

Wow, having finally read all the comments I am shocked, shocked, to see that we are staying on topic. What's with you people today?

I agree that it would be nice if there were more healthful choices in schools. More diet sodas and the like. But who are we kidding. Just because a school offers "healthy" choices doesn't mean a kid is going to take them.

And I further assert that it isn't the soda and pizza a kid eats at school that is the trouble. It is the non-stop eating kids tend to do when they get home that causes most of the damage.

Mudge, you're absolutely correct-- some individually owned diners are highly excellent in the food they offer.
To me, the boundary between a diner and a restaurant is fuzzy-- what makes or breaks a diner?
Is it having a long bar with stools for people to sit down easily and eat on the run, such as truckers?
Or is it the prefab building, as Wiki claims? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diner
Can you call a greasy spoon a diner?

Incidentally, pizza wasn't exactly mainstream American food until the latter part of the 20th century.

Pizza was just not that mainstream and ubiquitious enough to be served in children's lunches, just like bouillibaisse, bubble n squeak, welsh rabbit, scalloped potates and ham, and eggplant/chicken parmesean aren't.

Heck, someday I'll be saying that octopup soup wasn't served back in my day, I'm sure.

One of my fondest memories was of an Catholic chapel in Arizona that had a soda machine in the back-- large, old fashioned glass bottles of Dr. Pepper.

This was before Dr. Pepper went national after being bought out by Pepsi. I remember for over 10 years I couldn't get Dr. Pepper at any restaurants out on the East Coast. Now it's kind of so ubiquitious (and canned) that it's lost its charm. But not its taste.

I will make amend for being on-topc RD.

A tsunami of raw sewage in the Gaza strip.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/world/middleeast/27cnd-gaza.html?hp

If it weren't for bad luck these people would have no luck at all.

I haven't been on topic in a single post today. I'm living in the past and posting on yesterday's topic.

RD, of course we're on topic today. We're talking about FOOD. Okay, and obesity -- but by and large (no pun intended) (much) you don't have obesity without Food.

Wilbrod, last week we couldn't get Dr. Pepper in Southern California. The Boy professes to like Dr. Pepper (good taste in soft drinks, I say) but I don't object if he orders it in a restaurant because he never finishes the glass; often he only drinks a quarter or so of the kids-size serving. He isn't allowed soda at home. However, his preferred drinks are apple juice (high sugar content) and Sunny D (high fructose corn syrup) so I'm not making much of a health claim here.

Okay offtopic... who wants eye of toad in their garden?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070327/ap_on_fe_st/odd_monster_toad;_ylt=AjkFEMwr6W9hB_1N0jh5PQlxieAA

Wow, good comments today.

Man, Tony Snow with full-on liver cancer? Wow. I hope he can beat it.

Good rants from *Tim, Mudge, etc.

You know, I don't have time to post a comment. I'm feeling a mite peckish at the moment, and there's one of those Taco Bell/KFC combo joints just across the street...

Oh, Tim, I appreciate the fact that you'd need all this food for flights to Mars, but, don't you think there'd be, er, a waste recycling system in place to suppliment food usage?

Before you ask, I'd ask what flavors it comes in (note: "Corn 'n cashew Surprise" won't cut it).

bc

bc

Mr. Snow's prognosis has the typical bad news/good news elements to it. My MIL is still taking treatments for her colon cancer. It, like Mr.Snow's has metastasized to her liver, and unlike Mr.Snow's, to her lungs. I would expect that Mr. Snow would keop to his work as much as it's possible for him to do. I hope he has the mettle to fight this condition in a manner similar to the way he communes with the WHPC. BTW, I think perfection salad is STILL on the menu on covered dish night at church. Yuck. The survivors of yesterdays accident at the front of the school grounds have made it 24 hrs. Good news.

We only had "pop" at home on special occasions or if someone was sick. (I still have very unpleasant associations with the taste if Seven-Up. Which is why I have been known to cut it with Seagrams.) This wasn't a health issue, really, but more of an economic one. Kool-Aid was a lot cheaper, and, believe it or not, apple-juice cheaper still.

Looks like I'm going on topic with this one: I usally just get a hamburger no fries and a large diet coke when I eat at McDonalds. I guess that partly explains my BMI of about 21.

Capitalism is exactly right. Why do you get 20 oz. sodas in a cup for less than from a bottle? Ice. Even more so, a 46. oz cup of ice costs a lot less than a 20 oz. (You would lose money if it were soda, but it's water.) I won't even entertain the insanity of bottled water, flavored bottle water, etc., because I am a fool who drinks soda. But the ultimate biggie size waste of your retirement: Starbucks. No "bigger" fans of that economic suicide store can be found than in DC. I laugh each time is see, as in yesterday, the DC area described as more "sophisticated, affluent, and diverse." Let's see, excluding small factors like cost of living and home prices, geez, yeah. We're all billionaires: NOT.

But completely off topic, liver cancer is bad but it is survivable. On the one hand, we lost two employees in only weeks, but, one the other, we have one gent who has beaten his form. Face it, 75% of us will die from cancer. It's just a matter of when. When we feel sad, it also must be for kids with neuroblastomas, and so on. God is an equal opportunity employer. So, I don't like Edwards, but I can deal with their stance. It's entirely reasonable. God Bless all.

Oh yum. Dr. Pepper and Welsh rabbit (rarebit, according my Granny. No bunnies are harmed in the making of this dish).
I remember Dr. Pepper from a childhood expedition to the USA and was heartbroken to learn it was not available in Canada (pity).
I tried it as an adult and nearly gagged. My sweet tooth must have fallen out.

bc, you may want to avert your eyes...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/27/people.eddiegriffin.ap/index.html

Boko you can always make one:

Fill a beer mug 2/3 full of beer. Drop a shot glass full of amaretto into the mug, and drink quickly! Tastes just like Dr. Pepper.

Since we're counting down the days until Shakespeare's birthday, here's some commentary on this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6500187.stm

Come I to speak in Bruno's funeral.
He was ursine, wandering and large to all.
Yet Bruno knew he was ravenous,
And Bruno was an honorable bear.
He hath ate many sheep herd'd home from Rome,
Whose corpses made the general farmers ill.
Did this in Bruno seem malicious?
When slain by Bavarians, Bruno did sleep.
Viciousness should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Germany says he was malicious,
And Germany has an honorable bear.
You all did see him on the nightly news
Roman thrice requested for the bear's return,
Germany did thrice refuse. Was this tradition?
Yet Germany says he was malicious,
And sure they have an honorable bear.
I speak not to disprove what Bruno ate,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause.
What cause withholds Rome then to mourn for him?
O Bruno, thou hast fled to brutish lands,
And men have lost their reason!

Bear with me.
My heart is in the freezer there with Bruno,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

follow the link and click on the seventh image and avert your eyes for real:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/gallery/070326/GAL-07Mar26-69288/index.html

SCC: Should be Rome, not Roman.

Actually, you get 20 oz. sodas in a cup for less than the price from a bottle because the 20oz sodas in cups come from a $36/5gal tank of "postmix" that makes 30 gallons of pop. That's 192 drinks, or $0.19 per. If you pay $1.29, that's a profit of --- carry the one - --- $211 a tank, give or take, even before doubling your yield with ice. (The cost of the CO2 to pump it is just about negligible.)

Seven-up with Seagrams? Boy, that sounds really sweet. I mean, as a taste sensation, not in the sense of "a good thing". Of course, we used to cut Kool-Aid with Everkleer, but I gave that up after high school.

Seven-up or Sprite was our upset-stomach drink of choice (still is) though apparently Coke syrup is more efficacious.

Now you're talking omni.
I forgot to ask this question yesterday.
Do any of you word mavens consider the use of mutual in the title "Our Mutual Friend" redundant?

Omni-

I believe you are referring to the "Flaming Dr. Pepper." The amaretto should be topped with a bit of 151 or some other flammable liquor and lit before being dropped into the beer. Then, chugged as you said, it does taste a bit like Dr. Pepper that'll mess you up!

That is really sad Scotty, but not infrequent. People with more money than brains and driving ability buy those supercars so lots of them end up smashed against a hard immovable surface. Remember hockey player Dany Heatly (now plays for the local team) crashing his Ferrari in Atlanta a few years back?
The idiot producer of the Griffin movie will allow the destruction of one of his TWO Porsche Carrera during the shooting. Sheesh

I'm sure BC is sobbing and saying "if they had let me stunt drive, just to touch the steering wheel for a minute...."

Racing for charity? They could just sell the cars and probably raise more money.

Tim, Tim, calm down, dude. I've got the franchise on berserker ranting today. (Not that you aren't 137.2% correct, of course, because you are.)

Gomer, I realize that as a teacher and therefore an employee of the school system, it is virtually impossible for you to make a strong statement to the people in charge. But that's one of the reasons I said so pessimistically in my first rant that we are all basically powerless to make any kind of dent in the system.

BTW, Tim, you said: "...who think that teachers only work while lecturing classes..." When I was working in that private school I had to teach a class in computer fundamentals to 7th graders. One day I said, "OK, take out pens or pencils and paper. I'm gonna lecture about some things and computer terminology, and I want you all to take notes. And yes, this will be on the test." Then I proceded to list a bunch of common terms --CPU, CD-ROM, motherboard, kinds and sizes of disks, who Adm. Grace Murray Hopper was, what Eniac was, and so on.

Well, you'd have thought I'd assulted a kid. I got called into the middle school head's office, and was told that "we don't lecture." The old conventional style, which was disparagingly referred to as "the sage on the stage" was dead, dead, dea. Kids were never taught how to take notes and written down the wisdom as it pours forth from the teacher's mouth, and etc. I said, "Fine. If no one has taught them how to take notes by this time, I will be more than happy to include that as part of the instruction, and this is how they can learn how to take notes in class." No, no, no. We aren't going to teach them how to take notes. Note-taking is dead. Things can be looked up on the Internet, and blah-blah blah. And this was an ADVANCED private school that boasted about its college prep work and its very high college acceptance rate.

Well, I was pretty disgusted. I was friendly with several upper school teachers and asked them who was nuts, me or them. They nodded sympathetically, but told me I was soooooo last century. Kids in middle school don't take notes, They don't drill. Rote learning is disdained even more than child abuse--in fact it IS child abuse as far as they were concerned. It seems it is more important for a child to learn HOW to think and HOW to solve problems rather than actually Do them. So learning was OK --just as long as you don't use rote memorization skills, drill, or lecturing and note-taking.

Yet another use for machine guns. (Damn good thing I don't own any.)

Scotty, sad to say, it's not the first Enzo I've seen wrecked.

I've never driven one of those in particular, but high-performance mid-engined cars with semi-automatic gearboxes transmitting over 650 hp to the wheels (and I have driven cars with each of the above, but not all three) don't behave like sedans or SUVs. They will bite the unwary if provoked.

bc

>follow the link and click on the seventh image and avert your eyes for real:

Heh, yeah and it wasn't even his car. At least he did it on a track and not some LA street.

Inspired by bill everything, and possibly premature for today, I'm ready to announce my picks for the boodle's three stars for today.

La troisieme etoile, the third star, to bc for "corn & cashew surprise"

La deuxieme etoile, the second star, to Curmudgeon for his rant and for the Maxim gun quotation

La premiere etoile, the first star, to CulinaryTim for his rant

Mudge- what I said was actually in agreement with your earlier post about how my one drop could never fill the bucket enough to tip it in any direction. Even as a parent, I could only go so far as to make a stance at the aforementioned meetings and to send my own kid with a brown bag.

Which he would end up trading for some other kid's fries. And he'd probably trade his apple juice for half a slice of pizza. So I didn't really accomplish anything except to make the neighbor's kid eat healthier.

Mudge I am confused - do they learn by osmosis now?

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