An update on the soup from earlier:
Honestly, it was delicious and I wouldn’t change anything.
by John Cole| 8 Comments
This post is in: Food
An update on the soup from earlier:
Honestly, it was delicious and I wouldn’t change anything.
by John Cole| 21 Comments
This post is in: Food
So I made up a new soup today. It’s still cooking, so I will add pictures afterwards when it has cooked down to where I want it.
I had soaked some navy beans over night and was just going to make navy beans and bacon ends with some carrots, celery, and onion, and noticed that I was down to my last quart of chicken stock, so I ran to Aldis. I needed stuff anyway, so it wasn’t a wasted trip.
While I was there, I was picking up the chicken stock, and I noticed in the “specials” aisle that they had poblano chicken stock, and I said to myself “That’s interesting. Never seen that before.” And then it hit me and I knew what I had to do.
Ingredients:
1 lb chorizo
I also diced a raw chicken breast I had in the fridge.
2 lb’s soaked navy beans
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 red peppers minced
a couple garlic cloves
couple quarts chicken stock
one sweet one yellow onion
2 bunches cilantro
1 red onion
1 ripe but firm avocado
sour cream
salt
pepper
cumin
red pepper flakes
Pressure cooked the beans in the stock. I browned the chorizo and chicken, and removed the excess grease with a cheesecloth bag. Diced and minced up everything else except the red onion, one bunch of cilantro, and the avocado. Put it all in a pot to simmer. When it has cooked down to where I want it, I will check for a final seasoning, and top with the finely diced red onion and thin slices of avocado. May or may not add a scoop of sour cream.
I’m excited.
The total cost is around 10-12 bucks (chorizo was pricey- like 5 bucks. Everything else was cheap).
This post is in: Food, Music, Something Good Open Thread, War in Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made a surprise video appearance at the music industry's star-studded Grammy Awards celebration in Las Vegas and appealed to viewers to support his country ‘in any way you can’ https://t.co/hwQYnEpLGx #GRAMMYs pic.twitter.com/dKTBCkfEB8
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 4, 2022
???? Ukrainian singer Mika Newton performs with John Legend in a tribute to Ukraine during the #Grammys https://t.co/5w8R5Vxuvs pic.twitter.com/ixOYmntPns
— Reuters Showbiz (@ReutersShowbiz) April 4, 2022
Joni Mitchell has won a Grammy, the ninth of her career, for best historical album for “Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963–1967).”
Along with her musical team, she thanked her physical therapist, whom she called “my angel.” https://t.co/0PRE8AiC6O pic.twitter.com/0jFGZhw0A4
— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) April 3, 2022
"I figured maybe in a couple of decades or something they'd wheel me out, but I'm really happy to take it tonight." Bonnie Raitt says she wasn't expecting her lifetime achievement award from the #Grammys but is grateful for the recognition. pic.twitter.com/Lu2Kgsk12K
— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) April 4, 2022
With one plate of food at a time, we may not end this war…but at the very least we are going to make sure that people don’t suffer more. So proud of our @WCKitchen team in Kharkiv, serving every day on the front lines. Watch this… #ChefsForUkraine ???? pic.twitter.com/Rm9vCyitZE
— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) April 4, 2022
Monday Morning Open Thread: Music & Food, Two EssentialsPost + Comments (72)
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Food, Open Threads, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You
And this is why nobody wanted to go back to their shitty, low-paying jobs. https://t.co/OQ021StFzI
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) March 25, 2022
Mine is the opposite of a sophisticated palate, but Applebee’s is one chain restaurant we don’t patronize, because the food is naaaaasty. I know that corners must be cut to serve the economic Golden Triangle (Fast, cheap, good: choose any two), but not every dish should taste like it’s been marinated in high-fructose corn syrup and then dressed with an entire shaker of salt. Also, if you’re gonna microwave entrees, make sure they don’t reach the customers still frozen in the center. (On the other hand, I always heard their cocktails praised as ‘generous pours’, so…)
Per the Kansas City Star:
… A spokesman for AFC said the email sent from Wayne Pankratz to other company officials does not reflect the company’s position. Pankratz’s LinkedIn page says he is executive director of operations for Applebee’s restaurants.
“Most of our employee base and potential employee base live paycheck to paycheck,” Pankratz wrote fellow executives on March 6. “Any increase in gas prices cuts into their disposable income. As inflation continues to climb and gas prices continue to go up, that means more hours employees will need to work to maintain their current level of living.”
He went on to say that those rising costs, and the fact that people have run out of government stimulus money and extended unemployment benefits, will work to the advantage of companies like AFC.
Furthermore, he wrote, the company’s small, mom-and-pop competitors are going to face some tough choices under the current business conditions and will either have to raise prices or pay employees less to hit their profit margins.
“Some businesses will not be able to hold on,” Pankratz wrote. “This is going to drive more potential employees into the hiring pool.”
As that happens, employees won’t be able to demand the $18 to $20 an hour many were getting when the demand for workers outstripped supply.
“The labor market is about to turn in our favor,” Pankratz concluded. “What can you do? Besides hiring employees in at a lower wage to decrease our labor (when able) make sure you have a pulse on the morale of your employees. …
Some pig pulse, Pankratz!
AFC, based in Atlanta with offices in Kansas City, owns more than 100 Applebee’s and Taco Bell restaurants in the Midwest.
AFC spokesman Scott Fischer said the email does not reflect the company’s policies or culture and that the author of the email has no authority to issue any company directives related to hiring.
“He doesn’t have the authority to create policy for our company for the brand or anything. … Maybe he wrote it in the middle of the night. I don’t know,” Fischer said. ”The main message here is that this in absolutely no way, shape, or form speaks to our policies or our culture, or anything like that with our brand.”…
American Franchise Capital owns and manages Taco Bell and Applebee’s restaurants in nine states with annual sales in excess of $200 million, according to its LinkedIn page. The company had 329 job openings on its webpage Wednesday.
It’s not clear if those openings included the jobs vacated by three out of the six managers at an Applebee’s in Lawrence who quit this week after seeing the Pankratz email, according to the Lawrence Journal-World. That restaurant was closed Tuesday as a result, but had reopened by Wednesday…
Tsk. These capitalists sometimes say the quiet part out loud. @Applebees doesn’t want to pay workers. It wants to pay executives and shareholders. #BoycottApplebees until they value employees as much as investors!https://t.co/d1XrXeBZLe
— Charlie Galvin ??? (@cxarli) March 26, 2022
… Applebee’s workers earn an average hourly wage of $11.76 an hour, according to Payscale. That’s far below the average hourly pay of $17.22 an hour earned by people working in the leisure and hospitality sector in February, according to the most recent government data. Wages in the sector have jumped by 14% from a year earlier…
The CEO of Dine Brands, which owns Applebee’s, took home an estimated $6.7 million in 2021.
The company increased weekly sales 12.6% from 2019 and reported $19.8 million in net income last quarter.
The CEO also told CNBC it’s looking to replace workers with robots: pic.twitter.com/yZUOX4Aubb
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) March 25, 2022
Notably, #Applebees was the vector of an E. coli outbreak in MN, and fought a case all the way to the NH Supreme Court from a man who suffered permanent, life-altering effects from a salmonella infection. They tried to blame his pet lizard.https://t.co/SFvLyjdgUP
— Devin Nunes' Alt-Mom (@NunesAlt) March 26, 2022
Now onto the working conditions and employees. If you work for #Applebees or #IHop, you should know that they have been sued numerous times for sexual harassment, discrimination, and shady wage practices. They won't tell you this.https://t.co/qRxr19yO2R
— Devin Nunes' Alt-Mom (@NunesAlt) March 26, 2022
Saturday Night Open Thread: Applebee’s, the Easiest Boycott EverPost + Comments (108)
This post is in: Food, Open Threads, Popular Culture
An instant noodle store, where customers can cook their own three-minute meal, is an unlikely culinary hit with the youth in Thailand https://t.co/m4zMGE42Um ?? pic.twitter.com/0Jyrun5vRa
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 24, 2022
I’ve been seeing, out of the corner of my reading, various paeans to the ‘retro’ pleasures of the Automat. I have fond childhood memories of occasional visits to the original storied Horn & Hardart Automat in Times Square, but a big part of the thrill was getting to chose which of a dozen mac’n’cheese plates or apple pie slices behind glass for which you would swap your nickels. There have been efforts to revive the automat with a ‘modern’ twist, none so far successful.
But I can imagine a reboot of the concept — prepackaged ‘instant’ products in wide-windowed vending machines, prepared by hidden attendants who could also stock / dispense simple add-ins (soft-boiled eggs, packets of diced chicken / tofu or greens, say). A wide, well-advertised varieties of hot sauces and similar ‘exotic’ condiments…
Market it as a change from microwaving the same old serving-for-one in the office breakroom. Encourage participation by partying groups prepping for a night of drinking, or for a bold, defiant brunch with the buds after a hot yoga / spin class?
Late Night Open Thread: Coming Soon to A Hipster Food Court Near You…Post + Comments (38)
by Betty Cracker| 144 Comments
This post is in: Dog Blogging, Food, Open Threads, Politics, TV & Movies
Politico’s New Year’s resolution? Continue to be a boil on the arse of the body politic:
When Joe Biden first came into office, progressives said he could be the next FDR.
Now, as Biden’s relationship with the left has come under strain, liberals are talking about treating him like former President Jimmy Carter instead — and mapping out a Democratic primary challenge in 2024.
A steaming load of horseshit from start to finish. The reporter got a click-bait quote from some lefty PAC nobody who used to be AOC’s PR flack. Even the crap article notes that actual Democrats, including uber progressive House members, are backing Biden. Rep. Ro Khanna is quoted in the article saying Biden will have his “enthusiastic support” in 2024.
The potential challengers listed are cranks and kooks like Nina Turner and Marianne Williams. But still the article makes this risible assertion:
The fact that any primary challenge at all is now openly being discussed demonstrates how disappointed some progressives are about Biden’s presidency.
That’s just unadulterated bullshit. Dozens of people challenged President Obama in 2012, including a fellow named Vermin Supreme. No one took it seriously because it wasn’t serious. This Politico story isn’t either.
***
TV notes:
We finally saw “The French Dispatch.” It was worth seeing, but it’s not Anderson’s finest work, IMO. Peak quirky, but that’s mostly it.
We’re also watching the “Station Eleven” series, and four episodes in, it’s good. But the TV adaptation departs from the book’s narrative structure in an important way that I hope doesn’t blow up later.
Food notes:
We’ll be making a margherita pizza later. Fuck a bunch of black-eyed peas. I’ve never been a fan and can conclusively testify that they do not work as a good luck generator. So henceforth, I’ll be eating things I actually like on New Year’s Day, such as pizza.
Puppy notes:
Progress on the housetraining front! Twice Pete went to the door to indicate he wanted to go outside. I took him out to take care of business both times, which he promptly did. A third time, he went to the door, but I didn’t see it because I’d stupidly paid attention to something else. Found a puddle in front of the door.
That’s my mistake, but eventually I’ll have to teach him to bark to let me know he wants out instead of silently standing in front of the door. That’s been the breakthrough moment with all the dogs I’ve trained, including Badger, who learned very fast. If Pete gets it as soon, he’s a genius.
Cute little bugger, isn’t he? And yes, my WiFi thingie in the background is on a stack of accordions. Isn’t everyone’s? (Neither of us plays the accordion, but the mister’s late father collected them, and we inherited several.) Bonus Pete picture:
Open thread!
by Betty Cracker| 158 Comments
This post is in: Food, Open Threads, Politics
Looks like I picked the right weekend to unplug from the news! Instead, I made lots of cookies with my family. Here are some of the spritz cookies we produced toward the end of the evening, when quality standards had obviously slipped:
Check out the rare trilobite cookie in the center, which only occurs when the cookie gun misfires or gunner error results in a double tap. The only gun I own is a cookie gun, but obviously I should take it to the range more often.
Let me tell you, there’s nothing more satisfying than pumping buttery cookie slugs onto a baking sheet. It really gives you a chance to work through your hostilities, you know?
Of the weekend’s political developments, I’ll say only this: I’m glad Jen Psaki read Paw Paw Blacklung for fucking filth in front of God and everyone.
I’m not sure how effective an “elect more Democrats to offset the tiny percentage who truly suck” pitch would be, but I plan to test market it on my budding revolutionaries.
Open thread!