The secret ingredient on Iron Chef tonight is lemon, and because the first thing I try to do mentally with every secret ingredient is to try to imagine it as an ice cream, I realize I have never had lemon ice cream. I’ve had lemon ice, and lemon sherbet, but no lemon ice cream. Why is that not sold?
Also, this is pretty awesome:
We also got to meet Barry Eisler, author of the novel Inside Out, who will be with us on the Book Salon on July 3. (Not to give anything away, but Dan Froomkin appears as an FBI Agent, Marcy Wheeler is the antagonist’s ex-wife, I appear as a Director of Information Security, and both Josh Marshall and John Cole are on ex-boyfriend duty.)
COOL.
WereBear
Well, John, you gotta visit up here in NY. The Stewart’s chain of convenience shops have lemon ice cream, and it’s fantastic.
Actually, it’s hard to find one of their ice cream flavors I don’t like. They even have a kind with pop rocks in it.
Congrats on being bildingsromaned.
Mike Schilling
I’ve had lemon ice cream (33,000 Google hits for it, too.)
freelancer
Cool shoutout John,
but is this implying in some hypothetical fictional universe, that you and Josh used to be an item?
JGabriel
John Cole:
.
Apparently there is a lemon ice cream, but sherbert is far more common, probably due to the lemon/cream curdle factor – as anyone who’s ever tried putting milk and lemon into the same tea can describe, vividly.
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jeffreyw
Way cool!
RedKitten
Whoo-hoo! Canada just whupped the U.S. in women’s hockey!
And yes John, that is a seriously cool shoutout. BJ is even mentioned by name in the book, evidently.
Comrade Luke
Lemon gelato in Italy will curl your toes.
Tim F.
I would not try to make lemon ice cream if you paid me to do it. I’d rather throw back cement mixers.
thejoz
Not just “Cool” but COOL?
That made me laugh. I don’t know why.
To be full of the most win, however, it should mention Tunch as well.
MikeJ
PM Gordon Brown: “You are the pride of our country and we thank you very much. We know this debate continues in America today. I would say to people who still favour ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, look at our experience in Britain.”
Brown may be as exciting as his name, but it’s nice to see the leader of the country with which the US has a “special relationship” (ooo aaah nurse!) say the right thing.
Comrade Mary
The gelateria just down the street from me makes an awesome lemon gelato. You can try making your own. Also.
(I wish my gelateria would offer pineapple and basil again, but I think I was the only one who loved that.)
And — wheee! Hockeyhockeyhockey!
r€nato
You have never had lemon gelato? ALWAYS my favorite.
Gina
I’ve had lemon frozen custard, it’s delicious. There’s a stand outside of Saranac Lake NY that we used to go to way back in the late Jurassic (early ’80s) that sold it. Not sure if they still are there, and if they still make it. They’d rotate flavors so it wasn’t always available.
Delia
I’ve had lemon ice cream and it was very, very good. One of the nice little secrets of Utah that gets lost under all the crazy the state legislators seem to specialize in. Utah State, which used to be the Ag school in the state, still has an on-campus dairy where they train their students. Everybody knows they make the best ice cream in town. Last time I was there visiting family we went over to get some on a warm summer night. I had the lemon, and it was wonderful.
John O
John, that is VERY cool. Congrats.
As for lemon, for me, it can be too dominant, though I love me some whiff.
Heresiarch
Hey, so I got an email from my grandfather that links to a game on resist.com:
http://www.resist.com/other/border_patrol.swf
The point of the game is to kill as many illegal immigrants, including families, as you can. I’m pretty fucking infuriated at this.
Is this a thing that I can send to the ACLU or something? Or did I miss the bus and everybody already got pissed about it and now we’ve moved on to other, better things?
WereBear
@Gina: You must be speaking of the internationally famous Donnelly’s.
And yes, they are still there. Had some last summer!
rmp
Iron Chef, I knew there was a reason I liked you.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Somebody stop me. The urge to hippie punch is like, a lot.
I will just use my rubber mallet to brain meself instead, and be a good Obot. Gang sign
On an unrelated note, got some peridental doggie toothpaste and went to brush Charlies teeth with it. Quite the experience, he hated it and I think now hates me, at least temporarily./ The kit has a finger brush which worked pretty good until the dog bit it, and my finger, a little, didn’t break skin. But sir charles breath is much better, so it was worth it.
Carrie
W00t!
Hayley Wickenheiser, i love you.
John O
How long before John goes Villager? :-)
I mean, as much as we hate it, it’s hard not to understand the temptation of Village life.
There but for the grace of FSM go we.
RSR
Alton Brown’s first Good Eats ice cream episode had a pretty good formula for ice cream/fruit base which you should be able to work into lemon ice cream. I used it to make a blueberry ice cream from a blueberry preserve.
Cat Lady
OT except to Tunch, but am I the only one who can watch that new Friskies cat food commercial over and over? I love that handsome black and white cat, the song is great, and the alternative cat fantasy world just seems so right. It’s a cat lover’s mushroom stoked Pixar paradise.
+3
pixelpusher
Sealtest Lemon Chiffon anyone?
JGabriel
John Cole, in re: your fictional alter ego, I think this may be the link you want to read: skippy on art imitating blogs.
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General Egali Tarian Stuck
I am wondering what exactly is ex-boyfriend duty. Is that like on call stud service. Or, carry the garbage out and bury the dead cat duty.
Tara the antisocial social worker
The scret ingredient as ice cream? You do realize they recently had 3 shows in a row with various types of fish for the secret ingredient?
JGabriel
Damn, this is good. From Eisler’s site, a summary of Inside Out:
And here’s the page for the book that name checks Cole, Faultline.
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AhabTRuler
So the entire book is one long cockswallow where he names characters after the proprieters of popular blogs who, but then also namechecks the blogs themselves?!?
…and isn’t that just lazy writing?
CaseyL
I’m still trying to figure out exactly who John’s supposed to be an ex-boyfriend of: Josh Marshall (who is kind of cute), or Jane Hamsher of the Left (which is kind of mind-boggling, for so many reasons).
I might be interested in this book, but only after a reading or leafing through it at the bookstore. It risks being too much of an insider roman a clef.
(“Leafing through a new book to see if you want it,” is, BTW, another thing eBooks can’t do and don’t offer to do and is therefore another reason why they’ll never be able to replace bookstores.)
KCinDC
@JGabriel, “Ben Treven”? Shouldn’t that be Steve Benen? Or possibly Josh Treviño?
Uncle Glenny
I figured that iif I needed random throwaway character names (especially bad guys) that rather than using a phone book, I’d choose from the list of names of donors to Proposition 8.
Leisureguy
I’ve also had lemon ice cream—in fact, I think Baskin-Robbins sold it. It had a great flavor, somewhat along the lines of a good lemon custard, but creamier and (of course) ice cream.
BTW, you would probably enjoy Barry Eisler’s blog, too.
divax
longtime lurker, but i used to own a gelateria and my lemon gelato was yummy. Also did a lemon buttermilk sorbet which was unbelievably tangy and for my less adventurous clients i did a lemon chip ice cream (mashed up hard lemon candies) and a lemon shortbread cookie ice cream. big lemon fan. and it really works well in ice cream, curdle factor aside.
JGabriel
CaseyL:
Sarah Hosseini, a young Iranian American lawyer … according to the Amazon review, anyway.
.
JGabriel
@Leisureguy: Put the bold tags outside the link tags.
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WereBear
@CaseyL: Amazon offers sample beginnings for their Kindle books.
I’ll tell you what makes me buy them for the Kindle app on my iPod touch. I now have 500 books, from classics to pulp novels, in something that fits in my parka pocket. Most of them were free.
I think they have their place.
Emo Pantload (fka Studly)
@Cat Lady:
Agreed. When I saw it, I thought, Hey, there’s finally a cat-food commercial for the stoners.
tyrese
Well, you can send it to the ACLU, but I’m mystified about why you would do that. What do you think the ACLU’s response would be? A call for censorship?
Francis
ok, completely random question.
I’ve adopted a husky mix bitch. [cheers to petfinder.com] She’s now six months old. As I’m unemployed, I’m home a lot (like all the time). Within the last few weeks, if she doesn’t go to the park every day (she lives in Long Beach, CA, where dog parks are open year-round) she gets crazed by early afternoon and starts chewing everything — me, books, chairs, rugs, etc. But now that I’m taking her every day, she is just exhausted. She’s eating less; she sleeps the day away.
So, am I doing the right thing? Is it possible to over-exercise a puppy? She seems happy and she loves going to the park, but I’m worried I’m somehow doing long-term harm.
thoughts, plz.
MikeJ
This has never stopped them in the past.
TonyT
Leatherby’s, in northern California, used to sell Lemon Flake icecream, my absolute favorite freaking flavor, it makes incredible milkshakes
Then I moved to LA …
Lurker
@Heresiarch: Reminds me of that infamous 80’s Atari game, CUSTER’S REVENGE.
Bill E Pilgrim
It’s perfectly clear what this means. There’s a character in the book based on someone who’s been involved with him.
In other words, Tunch has spilled the beans.
@CaseyL:
Not quite true. I leaf through free trials of Kindle books on my iPhone all of the time, before deciding to buy them.
I still read books of course and agree that they’re in a different class, I think it’s sort of like since electronic/recorded music arrived, people probably predicted the end of classical music played live on wooden and metal instruments. Nope. Going strong. They can both exist.
Having a small collection of interesting books on the iPhone to read on the metro however is great, beats the hell out of trying to fold a newspaper or carrying six paperbacks around. Or even one.
PS:
http://www.bonappetit.com/blogsandforums/blogs/projectrecipe/2009/08/05/the-ice-cream-that-can-improve.html
Joshua Norton
Or, carry the garbage out and bury the dead cat duty.
That one. Normally without benefits.
JGabriel
Heresiarch:
Resist.com is one of those Stormfront-like “White, Racist, and Proud of It” sites.
Maybe point your grandpa to the top-line home site and ask him if that’s the type of site to which he wants to be pointing friends and family.
As for the ACLU, I’ll second what Tyrese said: why would you think the ACLU would support censorship? They’re pretty much free speech absolutists.
.
WereBear
@Francis: When you consider that sled dogs ran all day pulling heavy sleds; that’s a real energy machine you got there.
As long as you aren’t making her do anything, she’ll do the right thing regarding exercise. In fact, most dogs suffer from a lack of exercise!
SiubhanDuinne
Something went very weird with the site (for me, anyhow) about an hour ago and my nice long paean to real lemon ice cream never got through. (Too bad, as it was one of the most eloquent and beautifully-crafted things I’ve ever written.) I’m not up to recreating it, especially on a BlackBerry. Suffice to say, L.I.C. once existed, it was wonderful, then it disappeared, lemon gelato and sorbet are fine but not the same, they should bring back L.I.C., The End.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Francis:
I hear ya. No, perfectly normal for a young dog, I think. My Charlie is like clockwork. He is quiet and well behaved till around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, and starts getting restless to go out and burn energy. Or me taking him for a mile or two walk. He gets hyper and lets out these odd moans and will jump up in my lap and bark, and he never barks any other time. So I hump my arthritic ass a mile or two every day, even when I don’t feel like it. Good for him and me, despite my whining about it. Welcome to dog owner world:)
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Francis: OH, and puppies sleep, a lot. So I wouldn’t worry, but not overdue the exercise for such a youngin; After Charlies romp he calms down and naps in between wondering the apartment and checking out what Purl the Parakeet is up to in the other room.
CaseyL
@JGabriel:
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Yeah, I know amazon and B&N and etc will usually let you read an excerpt from a book. I should’ve been clearer.
What I meant was, in order to enjoy a full buffet of new books, some of which you don’t know by title, or author, but the cover art might attract your attention…. or it’s by an author you like but hadn’t thought of for a while… or you just like browsing from book to book, genre to genre*… then you still need a real bookstore for that.
*I can spend 3-4 hours in a B&N, or Third Place Books, without any effort whatsoever. The hard part is when I wind up at the register with 6 books and realize I’ve just blown my book budget again.
SGEW
I had a lemon gelato in Venice that was absolutely amazing: knocked my socks off. Unfortunately, I have yet to find an equivalent in the States that comes anywhere close to it’s sublime perfection. Alas.
Also:
This really amuses me.
Lurker
For those interested, yet another horror story from the American health insurance system:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35584865/ns/politics-politics_daily
Susan S
Lemon custard ice cream.. at Whole Foods. Tiny tubs, a little pricey but absolutely worth every cent. Oh yes, just what you need for your shoulder.
Batocchio
Scott Horton’s interview with Barry Eisler, author of Fault Line (3/31/09):
Tax Analyst
Wait!. So all you have to do to get your name in a book is run a blog?
Harrummpphh…well, that’s OK…I have my own vanity entry for some stuff I wrote that available on the InterTubes. So I can Google myself whenever I want to without even having to run a blog.
So there.
Also, I was watching some Network Crime Drama last week and the name of the very, very bad, nasty, serial-rapist murder was the same as mine.
Actually that kind of made me cringe a little bit…well, actually more than a little bit.
Bill E Pilgrim
@CaseyL: Clear enough, and I entirely agree that the two experiences are not the same.
OTOH the Kindle books, on the iPhone at least, give quite a sample, like a third of the book it seems. Maybe not that much, but lots. I was happily reading through several long chapters of Doug Hofstadter’s latest book before I hit the limit and remembered that it had only been a preview.
Again to me it’s sort of like saying that I like a fire in the fireplace sometimes and at others appreciate being able to flip on the heat, when far too busy for the former.
Also this is pretty cool (scroll down to the images of the iPhone about halfway down the page).
An audio guide to a museum exhibit that they put up as app. The nice part with this is that you keep it, like taking the audio guide with you. It’s been fun to look at the images of the paintings and listen a bit just in preparation, I won’t even go until this weekend.
kormgar
There’s a fantastic gelato place (Almare Gelato) in Berkeley that’s been getting some pretty amazing local meyer lemons lately.
The resulting gelato is…well…otherworldly.
SGEW
@kormgar: Honestly, I’m jealous.
Heresiarch
@JGabriel:
Okay, the ACLU was a bad idea. I was just trying to think, in the heat of the moment, of some way of trying to draw attention to it.
But, everybody seems over it anyway, so I’ll just have to have a chat with my granddad.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
You liberals are learning this hillbilly to be cultured in fine cuisine and desserts. But I bet you never had wild Rhubarb pie after a delicious squirrel casserole with a side dish of pickled pig foot.
scav
@CaseyL: Ah Browsers. We’re a cult. The joys of bookshop browsing (which mentions a grand title Lars Porsena – On the Future of Swearing.. I know a few of us who get grumpy when the library isn’t open-stack.
and SGEW? If I didn’t have your exact Venitian gelato, I definitely had its cousin. If I’m ever very very very very good, my heaven will have acqua alta.
SGEW
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: As a fully credentialed Over-Educated East Coast Liberal (Manhattan resident, no less), I can tell you that I, indeed, have had squirrel casserole and pickled pig foot (in West Virginia, actually). Pretty tasty, yes.
But to tell the truth, I’ve never acquired a taste for Rhubarb.
[SGEW + several, yup]
Martin
I have a lemon tree and an ice cream maker and lemon ice cream is in regular rotation. Suck it northerners (particularly Canadiens who beat us at hockey today).
And before you even think about a retaliatory post – I’ve got an apple tree too, so just give it up.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@SGEW:
LOL. Not my fav either, Wild Blackberry pie is the ticket, and my dear departed granny made the best I ever et.
Yutsano
@kormgar: I had a friend in California who discovered with me she had a Meyer lemon tree (she sent me some and I ID’d them by acid content and sight, she confirmed by the shine on the leaves) and I’ve made fantastic pies out of them. They are truly an amazing flavor beyond anything I’ve ever had. Funny thing is I offered to buy her a tree without even knowing she had one!
Yutsano
BTW just gonna say this now since no one else has bothered to say it: I’m sure John is more than used to ex-boyfriend duty.
I keed, I keed, please don’t smite me.
Delia
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
When I was a kid we had a rhubarb plant in our garden, and my mom used to make a rhubarb and strawberry pie that was to die for.
But does anybody else remember gooseberries? My long-departed grandma in Idaho had a gooseberry bush, very prickly with these big green berries that were incredibly sour even when they were ripe. She used to make jelly out of them and had to add a ton of sugar to make it edible. I could never figure out the point. But she belonged to the waste-not generation.
I do agree about the wild blackberries, though. I’ve discovered them since I moved to Oregon, though they’re officially a noxious weed here.
The Moar You Know
@Heresiarch: Resist is a white supremacist website. What the hell did you expect to find there?
As for calling the ACLU, they defend against censorship, they don’t participate in it.
The only problem is that your grandpa is a racist dickhead. Accept it, get over your butthurt and get on with your life.
The world has racists. Deal with it.
Heresiarch
@The Moar You Know:
Sounds like you need to get over a massive butt ache yourself. It probably took you more time to respond to my post than it took for you to read it in the first place, so why the fuck are you wasting time on an anonymous Internet moron like me?
Anyway, I already admitted the ACLU thing was a bad idea, and I apologize for not keeping track of every single fucking racist website that pops up – I sure as hell didn’t expect to get sent there by a relative.
Mike
We make a Lemon Custard ice cream, 18% butterfat and organic cane sugar that’ll knock yer sox off.
D-Chance.
On to truly important subjects…
RIP, Sully’s Green Revolution theme. Back to the blue…
Just noticed the change in the cartoon. Good-bye, bespectacled chick.
r€nato
I ‘liberated’ some lemons (Sorrento variety, I think) from the island of Giglio last summer, and in about 15 years I’ll have some kick-ass lemons to make gelato and limoncello with!
Barry Eisler
Thanks, John. And remember, everyone, most of the characters in my books don’t live long, and this is no reflection on the bloggers they’re named after!
The New School conference was excellent — well worth getting snowed in here in NYC, where I’m currently stuck. Great panel discussion, and getting to spend some time with Jane and Glenn was a pleasure.
Hope to see some of you at the Salon book salon on July 3 — should be fun.
Thanks again,
Barry