Open Thread
Sorry for the lack of posts, but had a busy weekend. I had some company in town, and then on Saturday we had a food co-op to cook for that took up the whole day. Basically, eight different people joined the co-op, and we make a main course for eight people, put it in tupperware, then meet and swap so everyone has something different for eight meals. It was actually a lot of fun, and I got some good eats in freezer. I made a stuffed pepper dish of sorts. I put a bed of cilantro infused rice and black beans down, then stuffed poblano peppers with a mixture of queso, chorizo, and rice, then placed them in the container, then topped it with a red sauce with onions and peppers from the garden with some spices and then put melting queso all over that and baked it. It turned out pretty well, I think.
I’m also now on day five without a phone, and am starting to get used to it. I think I actually like it, to be honest.
September 5, 2010 8:38 pm
Posted in: Open Thread
83 Comments
83 Responses
The Dangerman - September 5, 2010 | 8:40 pm · Link
Tunch ate that too? Feed!!
demo woman - September 5, 2010 | 8:50 pm · Link
Sounds like a great weekend and a detailed recipe would be appreciated.
I’m watching The Last Station. It’s time for the Academy to designate a special Best Actress award just for Helen Mirren.
Polish the Guillotines - September 5, 2010 | 8:53 pm · Link
Maker’s Mark + Noilly Pratt sweet Vermouth + Angostura bitters = Manhattan = PtG +1 (ESF +2). Now that’s math I can believe in.
So, what to add to a Manhattan to create the “Ground Zero Mosque?” It’s already got bitters, so that accounts for the wingnutz.
Rim the glass with hummus? Garnish with a date instead of a cherry?
TBogg - September 5, 2010 | 8:57 pm · Link
That food sounds kind of suspicious. If this were Arizona, we’d be asking for your papers, John.
Or should I say: Juan?
AhabTRuler - September 5, 2010 | 9:04 pm · Link
@TBogg:
Hey now, let’s not start that confusion again!
Larry Signor - September 5, 2010 | 9:06 pm · Link
BongBalloon Juice on a Sunday night. What better entertainment.Joey Maloney in paradise - September 5, 2010 | 9:08 pm · Link
@AhabTRuler: Don’t juanna get into that again?
The next to last samurai - September 5, 2010 | 9:10 pm · Link
What do the headless bodies need with 8 different entrees? Papers please.
mr. whipple - September 5, 2010 | 9:11 pm · Link
Good for you and your phone being out. It’s so peaceful.
SiubhanDuinne - September 5, 2010 | 9:14 pm · Link
//sad// I suppose having no phone means you can’t take any pictures of Tunch for us . . . .
//sad but coping with it //
Ross Hershberger - September 5, 2010 | 9:16 pm · Link
Food sounds awesome. Very creative, and probably healthy as well.
I hate talking on the phone, and pretty much everyone around me knows this or figures it out in a hurry.
When I am King, allowing a telephone in My presence will be grounds for immediate banishment from My realm.
jeffreyw - September 5, 2010 | 9:24 pm · Link
Thread needs more tomatoes.
sven - September 5, 2010 | 9:26 pm · Link
I tried to give up my cell phone a few years ago. I really liked not having a phone but after 1 month the peer pressure to re-join the collective became extreme. My normally reasonable family and friends could not accept that it might take whole hours to reach me.
THE HORROR
!
jeffreyw - September 5, 2010 | 9:27 pm · Link
Tomatoes need more hot dog.
jeffreyw - September 5, 2010 | 9:29 pm · Link
Please! Hot dogs need no more tomatoes!
sven - September 5, 2010 | 9:30 pm · Link
@jeffreyw: Seriously, do not post pictures like that unless you’re also willing to start a delivery service.
I’ll take six of your dogs, no make it eight,... just in case I have guests!
Ross Hershberger - September 5, 2010 | 9:31 pm · Link
I’m really fussy about keeping communications confined to the simplest channel necessary. Need to tell me something? Send an email. Need me to know it right now? Send a text. If and only if we need to discuss something right now, call me. That’s about 1/10 of my communication, and I’m fine with handling the other 9/10 through TXT and email.
Some people just automatically pick up the phone and are never going to get out of the habit. Phone calls require both parties to stop what they’re doing and concentrate on the phone at the same time. I respond promptly and politely to email, but if I’m up a ladder balancing a pan of paint and the phone rings, something had better be on fire somewhere.
chicago dyke - September 5, 2010 | 9:33 pm · Link
this post reminds me of grad school days. we wuz po. so we’d get together around dinner time, everybody would bring what they had or could buy with 1$, and we’d toss it all together and make a big fancy dinner our of the combination. it was always fun and sometimes we’d even act like those cooking shows, and judge who could do best with the least or some odd combo of food items. “queso” needs to be defined. i live in the midwest, and people here have at least two versions of it.
i’ll probably be trying that ‘no phone’ thingee soon. this economy is so fun, innit? but it’s clear that even at corporate prices, it makes little sense to pay for a land line, a cell phone, and the internet when with the right single device you only need one connection. i resist using my cell phone as an internet device, but i will happily use my computer and google phone. i may not be able to get gay married, but i am surely married to my computer, sigh.
Amanda in the South Bay - September 5, 2010 | 9:37 pm · Link
I wish I wasn’t so poor so that I could own an iPhone, but really, all that does is give me internet access on/while waiting for public transportation, so I can waste my time scanning blogs. I’m more than happy with my combo of cheap ass phone +iPod Touch. Oh noes, I’m not the egocentric queen of the universe who needs to update her Twitter from everywhere 100x a day!
Chad N Freude - September 5, 2010 | 9:39 pm · Link
@Larry Signor:
Mmm . . . Let me think . . .
Chad N Freude - September 5, 2010 | 9:40 pm · Link
@Ross Hershberger: You could always not answer the phone if it’s inconvenient.
Chad N Freude - September 5, 2010 | 9:42 pm · Link
@chicago dyke: It’s legal to marry a computer in Illinois? I guess that’s some sort of progress.
ETA: Does Rick Santorum know about this computer-on-woman sex?
chicago dyke - September 5, 2010 | 9:45 pm · Link
@Ross Hershberger:
Ross, you must not work with a lot of people who are old, resistant to technology, or poor. i have been ready to go to one device and act as you describe for many years. but the truth is if i did act like you do, a lot of people and businesses i have to deal with would not be able to reach me. does your mom text? mine doesn’t. my dad’s doctor refuses to email patients or their families, he’s “too busy.” but i manage my dad’s care and still have to reach his doctor sometimes. my grandmother just moved to a mountain top retreat with nothing more than smoke signals. i have to send her snail mail to communicate with her. don’t get me started on how useless the websites and email functions of big corporations really are. have you ever tried to work thru a billing problem with AT&T exclusively via email? good luck with that, yo. and volunteering and charity would be utterly wasted if they conformed to communication habits like yours, if you get my point. there are plenty of people out there who are still “not plugged in.” there are many who never will be, for economic reasons.
i would love it if everyone were like you in their communication habits and i agree with your perspective. but it’s gonna be a while before that’s a stable majority of people and businesses. it will be even more interesting in the future as corporations are given the freedom to determine communication speed, as well. google phone is great, but if your internet provider is AT&T and they want to slow down your connection cause you’re using free google phone “too much” instead of your AT&T landline, how do you think that will work out?
funluvn - September 5, 2010 | 9:48 pm · Link
Dunno John. That queso thingy sounds kinda south-of-teh-border if you know what I mean.
Other than that, it sounds delicious.
While I don’t condone people getting together to better accomplish an interest in working around the corporate farm stranglehold on consumers, using some nice organic meats and vegies as a reason to do so and creating a coalition for themselves outside that obvious utopia, I still give you kudos for being a rebel. I give me kudos for run on sentences.
Poblano is an ‘Merikan word, rite?
Ross Hershberger - September 5, 2010 | 9:51 pm · Link
Regarding answering the phone: not picking up is an option, but some (usually older) people take the phone for granted as the default method of communication and they’re insulted if I don’t answer. They’ll leave a voicemail that I then have to find and listen to, which is inconvenient. When appropriate, I respond to these messages by email, gently putting the communication back on my preferred terms.
I’m a bit of a crank about this, but I reject having to be at everyone’s beck and call, 10 digits away night and day.
If you need bail, gas or advice on a plumbing disaster by all means call. I’m there for that. But if you just feel like shooting the breeze go to the Apple store or something. They’re paid to indulge the bored.
funluvn - September 5, 2010 | 9:56 pm · Link
@Ross Hershberger: Answering the phone is SO 2004!
Real people now screen everything and call back if they fuckin’ feel like it. As it should be, of course.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason - September 5, 2010 | 9:57 pm · Link
@Polish the Guillotines:
I don’t actually think makers is that great. Granted, added condiments in a cocktail cover up the flavors, but try tasting makers neat sometime; I don’t think it holds up nearly as well as knob creek or six roses. But a Manhattan should definitely be made with rye whiskey, not bourbon. Old Overholt has been in production for over a century for a reason… :-P
Mnemosyne - September 5, 2010 | 9:57 pm · Link
@chicago dyke:
I think I saw that on “Futurama” last night.
Larry Signor - September 5, 2010 | 10:00 pm · Link
@Chad N Freude: In my defense, my bride just had her gallbladder out, so…
Mnemosyne - September 5, 2010 | 10:03 pm · Link
For some reason, I’ve been wanting chili mac lately, so that’s what I made for dinner. Ground turkey, canned tomatoes and frozen onions, because that’s how I roll. Oh, and half a cup of beer because I didn’t have quite enough tomato sauce and I was afraid the mac wouldn’t fully cook if I didn’t have enough liquid in it.
I got a little overgenerous with the chili powder (for my taste, anyway), but it’s still yummy.
Litlebritdifrnt - September 5, 2010 | 10:05 pm · Link
@Ross Hershberger:
I would be absolutely delighted if phone conversations were restricted to important stuff, however, heard recently in the grocery store phone rings “hi what cha doin” “nuthing I’m at the grocery store what chu doin” “oh nothing, so what is up” “nothing, what is up with you” ad infinitum. I turn my cell phone off as soon as I leave my car. My home phone has caller ID, therefore I do not answer calls that I do not recognize, I do not feel the need to be “available” 24/7. Imagine there were times when human beings were unavailable for whole hours, nay days, nay weeks at a time. I do believe that civilization survived.
jeffreyw - September 5, 2010 | 10:07 pm · Link
@sven: I’ve been calling them hot dogs, but they are much better than any hot dog I ever ate. It is closer to a sausage than a hot dog, not to go all fan boi for em, but they’re the best thing of the sort I can find at my podunk Kroger grocery store.
debit - September 5, 2010 | 10:10 pm · Link
@Litlebritdifrnt: I am with you there. I don’t like talking on the phone but must all day at work. When I’m off the clock, I don’t answer if I don’t want to.
Ross Hershberger - September 5, 2010 | 10:13 pm · Link
My sister in law showed me a very cool feature on her new Droid phone: voice-text TXT messaging. It can compose, transcribe and send a TXT completely by voice interface. I fervently hope that this catches on widely. It would save me hours of phone calls if the info just appeared on a screen for me to read in a few seconds instead of a voice call with all of the introductory and closing greetings, throat clearing, how’s your mother and so on. Just the facts, m’am.
Montysano - September 5, 2010 | 10:21 pm · Link
@Litlebritdifrnt:
And of course there were no damn kids on your lawn.
When I was 19, round about 1974, I wanted to hitchhike from Indiana to Maine in pursuit of a woman. My parents were like “Well, be careful”, and for the next 8 days, I was gone. Out of touch. I sent postcards. Hard to imagine that scenario today, and that’s kind of a shame.
Ross Hershberger - September 5, 2010 | 10:21 pm · Link
I worked in high end retail and every phone call on the floor was a potential tar pit of unending customer service.
This bottle of cologne doesn’t smell the same as the last one. My undershirts are insufficiently luxurious. I lost my diamond. Get me another.
If you took the call, you owned the problem until the customer, however misguided and unreasonable, was happy.
I learned to really hate the phone and appreciate when I was free of it.
eemom - September 5, 2010 | 10:22 pm · Link
if God had meant us to answer the phone, He wouldn’t have created caller id/vmail/texting/e-mail. Or telemarketers.
burnspbesq - September 5, 2010 | 10:23 pm · Link
@Ross Hershberger:
Just curious: what do you do for a living? In my profession, I can’t not be available 24/7. And clients, BY DEFINITION, are NEVER misguided or unreasonable.
Polish the Guillotines - September 5, 2010 | 10:23 pm · Link
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: Never had Maker’s before, so I figured I’d try it. Not bad, but not a life-changing experience. I’ve used Sazerac Rye for Manhattans. Good stuff. I’ll have to try Knob Creek at some point.
Generally, my cocktail philosophy is to find the right combination of quality and budget. These days, the emphasis is on budget.
Chad N Freude - September 5, 2010 | 10:29 pm · Link
@Ross Hershberger: It’s not like we’re shaped by our own experiences. When I was four years old I gorged on peanut brittle at a party my parents gave and that night suffered a ruptured appendix. (Don’t worry, I survived.) For approximately twenty years I was repelled by the sight of peanut brittle and I couldn’t understand how people could eat it.
ETA: No they were independent events. Sheesh.
burnspbesq - September 5, 2010 | 10:29 pm · Link
.@Ross Hershberger:
Yeah, God forbid you should ever give exceptional customer service and win that customer’s loyalty forever.
Honus - September 5, 2010 | 10:30 pm · Link
Telephone: an invention of the devil which mitigates much of the advantage of keeping a disagreeable person at a distance.
Ambrose Bierce
stuckinred - September 5, 2010 | 10:31 pm · Link
@Montysano:Never mind
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people) - September 5, 2010 | 10:32 pm · Link
Just finished watching Fareed Zakaria’s interview with the jihadi Anjem Choudary on my DVR. Can’t get over Choudary’s twisted pretzel logic and basic cowardice (taking advantage of democratic freedoms in the UK to make pronouncements that would get him killed in Saudi Arabia, Iran and other places).
Ross Hershberger - September 5, 2010 | 10:32 pm · Link
@burnspbesq:
I’ve worked as a mainframe SA, a machinist, Saks jewelry salesman, BA for OnStar, freelance electronics tech and now I maintain equipment for a large public school system. I also do a little freelance tech writing for publication.
My boss @ the school system is a good friend. I take his calls 24 X 7 because if he calls it’s really urgent & that’s what the phone is for. Everyone else is learning that if the night shift blows the engine in the floor buffer I’ll deal with it in the morning.
I used to work for the local power utility supporting the power outage computer system. We had pagers. Remember those? Good riddance.
debit - September 5, 2010 | 10:34 pm · Link
@burnspbesq: There are some people who cannot be pleased no matter how exceptional your customer service skills are.
Alice Blue - September 5, 2010 | 10:36 pm · Link
@Montysano: Sorta kinda reminds me of my grade school years in the early sixties. On Saturday afternoons, I’d yell out to my parents “I’m going outside” and their response was always “well, be back before the street lights come on.”
Michael G - September 5, 2010 | 10:38 pm · Link
@Montysano: Did you get the woman?
stuckinred - September 5, 2010 | 10:41 pm · Link
@Alice Blue: As you stood in the cloud of mosquito spray.
Alice Blue - September 5, 2010 | 10:45 pm · Link
@stuckinred: I can’t count the number of times I rode my bike through clouds of DDT.
WaterGirl - September 5, 2010 | 10:48 pm · Link
@debit: This is completely OT, but you mentioned about a month ago that you process payroll for about 40 companies. I started a small payroll business earlier this year and would love to ask you a few questions off-line if you’re up for it.
Origuy - September 5, 2010 | 10:50 pm · Link
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today.
Montysano - September 5, 2010 | 10:51 pm · Link
@Michael G:
No. But I had a great time. Got a ride at sunrise on the Maine coast, from a guy who had fled to Canada to evade the draft and then snuck back . A different world, eh? War was much less abstract.
debit - September 5, 2010 | 10:57 pm · Link
@WaterGirl: Sure! E-mail me at debhatdc @ yahoo.com (just remove the spaces).
Omnes Omnibus - September 5, 2010 | 10:59 pm · Link
During the 35 days my wife and I spent traveling through Europe earlier this summer, we did not have phones. We had a laptop with us and were able to keep in touch with people using it. We also stayed with people in various cities who had phones, so we weren’t entirely without access to a phone. I had forgotten what it was like to not have that working phone in my pocket; it wasn’t bad.
Sentient Puddle - September 5, 2010 | 11:03 pm · Link
@Ross Hershberger:
Um…at that point, isn’t it just a phone call?
sven - September 5, 2010 | 11:10 pm · Link
@jeffreyw: Thanks for the recommendation, I also have limited selections locally but I bet I can get them at Albertson’s. Have you tried cooking with them? I may use them the next time I make jambalaya!
Corner Stone - September 5, 2010 | 11:10 pm · Link
@Ross Hershberger: I’m with you man. But I’ve never known a time in my adult professional life where I could actually decide to pick up the phone or not.
When it rings it’s usually bad news, and that’s my job. I get paid to make those decisions.
Kristine - September 5, 2010 | 11:13 pm · Link
@demo woman: I watched the final chapter of Prime Suspect last night. I now want to get my hands on all the episodes. Never saw them. Must remedy this soon.
Kristine - September 5, 2010 | 11:22 pm · Link
@funluvn: That’s what I do. Funny. Email/IM are my standard forms of communication. Phone calls are for when I have plenty of time free to talk to someone. It’s become the leisure option.
Joey Maloney in paradise - September 5, 2010 | 11:22 pm · Link
I have a very shaky command of the native language where I’m living, so if the phone rings and it’s a number I don’t recognize it’s almost certain to lead to a couple minutes of mutual confusion until I manage to sort out the right words for “sorry, wrong number” and make them understood in my atrocious accent.
So I don’t bother. (Fortunately, no one here leaves voicemails, either. The convention is you see the missed call and call back.)
arguingwithsignposts - September 5, 2010 | 11:35 pm · Link
Now that @jeffreyw is retired, it appears all he does is cook. I hope he has an exercise program in place, or he’s feeding his neighbors, because this food pr0n …
Ross Hershberger - September 5, 2010 | 11:41 pm · Link
@Sentient Puddle:
The difference between a phone call and a TXT message from a voice-text system is that the sender can create the message when they have time and the recipient can read it when they have time. No interruption. And no typing, because some people hate that. I have high hopes for this.
A few years ago on a 2 week trip out of the country I neither drove a car nor talked on the phone for 13 days. Even though I was in an unfamiliar place with odd smelling food and incomprehensible money my stress level went down to zero. This was a completely unexpected revelation. I stopped taking the phone as a given and now I avoid it as much as possible.
Technology is supposed to give us more options, but I see all of the change in communication in the directions of more contact. I’d like to use technology to reduce unwanted pressures on my time like phone calls but I’m definitely swimming upstream.
jeffreyw - September 5, 2010 | 11:44 pm · Link
@sven: Well, I have dropped a few into some gumbos before, but I tend to use real andouille for such things these days. I like the Johnsonville stuff for a quick meal. Still enough boy in me to savor hot dogs on a bun. Too damn old to be eating those damn pink tubes.
Corner Stone - September 5, 2010 | 11:45 pm · Link
@Ross Hershberger:
You were just responsible for yourself and your own well being during this time, correct?
WaterGirl - September 5, 2010 | 11:51 pm · Link
@debit: Great! Just sent you a message.
roshan - September 5, 2010 | 11:59 pm · Link
Yeah, Cole, you keep on trying to be a Jeremiah Johnson while living in a house with pets and a internet connection. I think, maybe cutting back on the get-togethers and food co-op visits on weekends will help you reach your full potential.
General Stuck - September 6, 2010 | 12:13 am · Link
Scumbags
Omnes Omnibus - September 6, 2010 | 12:17 am · Link
@General Stuck: Do you mean the lack of decency or the assholishness?
General Stuck - September 6, 2010 | 12:18 am · Link
@Omnes Omnibus: All of the above and more.
roshan - September 6, 2010 | 1:10 am · Link
Did anyone know about this?
via (One Dollar, One Vote? MotherJones, Kevin Drum)
I didn’t realize someone had done a study of what probably is CW among us.
Kristine - September 6, 2010 | 1:31 am · Link
@jeffreyw: I like Hebrew National or the organic Applegate Farms brand. They both taste like meat, although neither of them taste like the hotdogs I remember as a kid. You got them from the butcher and they came in links…
Jeez, I sound like a fogey.
Ross Hershberger - September 6, 2010 | 1:31 am · Link
On my own, more or less. Responsible, definitely not.
Alexander Graham Bell was a reasonable and intelligent man. If he had foreseen how his invention would usher in a new era where the least interesting people never have to shut up he’d have taken a fire axe to the apparatus rather than inflict that tragedy on us.
roshan - September 6, 2010 | 1:46 am · Link
Some lefty geezers out there can really write up a storm. Here’s a taste.
sven - September 6, 2010 | 1:49 am · Link
@jeffreyw: I will definitely look into ordering Comeaux’s. I live in an area where getting quality ingredients can sometimes be a challenge but I hadn’t even considered mail-order sausage… The shipping is a little expensive but the sausage itself looks quite affordable. It’s often striking that quality ingredients really aren’t much more expensive than their ‘cheaper’ alternatives.
BTW, the asparagus frittata+tomatoes at your website looks delicious. I know what I’m having for dinner tomorrow!
Platonicspoof - September 6, 2010 | 2:04 am · Link
@roshan:
Bartels also wrote
the review called What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter
with Kansas?
(pdf., 26 pages, but loads quickly. 2006 version).
Cain - September 6, 2010 | 2:11 am · Link
@Polish the Guillotines:
Try Eagle Rare, it’s a pretty good whiskey and makes good Manhattans.
cain
roshan - September 6, 2010 | 2:15 am · Link
@Platonicspoof: Thanks for the link, I’m going to read it up.
Restrung - September 6, 2010 | 3:57 am · Link
asiangrrlMN - September 6, 2010 | 6:34 am · Link
@Kristine: I have seen all but the last episode. I am saving it because I cannot bear that there will be no more. I know, irrational, but then again, the luminous Helen Mirren does that to me.
Phone: I have a cell. It’s turned off and stashed in my purse. I don’t answer my landline unless it’s someone with whom I want to talk. For the people annoyed that I screen—if I’m talking to you, that means you made it past the screening, duh! I don’t like text-messaging, and I adore email.
Cole, that sounds yummy. Pic of Tunchie, plz?
asiangrrlMN - September 6, 2010 | 6:34 am · Link
@Kristine: I have seen all but the last episode. I am saving it because I cannot bear that there will be no more. I know, irrational, but then again, the luminous Helen Mirren does that to me.
Phone: I have a cell. It’s turned off and stashed in my purse. I don’t answer my landline unless it’s someone with whom I want to talk. For the people annoyed that I screen—if I’m talking to you, that means you made it past the screening, duh! I don’t like text-messaging, and I adore email.
Cole, that sounds yummy. Pic of Tunchie, plz?
Chris Wolf - September 6, 2010 | 8:42 pm · Link
Huh.
I’ve never had a cell phone. I laugh to myself when I see someone at the beach on a beautiful day screaming his or her head off into a cell phone.
Renee at Applegate - September 7, 2010 | 10:31 am · Link
@Kristine: @Kristine: You don’t sound like an old timer! Just in case you would like to know the difference between our organic and natural products, here’s a link to show you what we mean by organic, thanks! Renee and the Applegate Crew http://bit.ly/dfWKPo