Category: Food

Reaching

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
In the pink.

I am a creature of habit.

We all have our little routines. Spontaneity, first thing in the morning? No, thank you, please. Predictability is what’s wanted before coffee.

So I arise at stupid-thirty, since that’s how we roll around here. Dress in the dark, because one day this will not be optional. Visit the bathroom. Greet Herself and Miss Mia Sopaipilla. Tidy up Miss Mia’s bathroom and give her a vigorous massage on The Chair of Love.

“Take me out to the ball game.”

And finally, make coffee.

Thus fortified, I usually scan the headlines to inspect humanity’s latest self-inflicted wounds. But lately that feels like rubbernecking at an inner-city ER. Let’s start with something light, shall we?

Jaysis. Even the weather report is all like, “We have good news and bad news.” The good news is that yesterday Herself and I took an afternoon stroll in shorts and T-shirts. The bad news is that high-temperature records are dropping like staffing levels at USAID and if the current precip trend continues we’re likely to be drinking our own wee-wee by March instead of August.

At this point a second cup of coffee is indicated. Black, hold the wee-wee.

Check the email? No joy there. Evil tidings, in fact. Avert the eyes.

Toast, then. With butter and jam. Also, and too, oatmeal, with banana, pecans, cinnamon, brown sugar, maple syrup. Black tea to give the coffee some backup. Play ball with Miss Mia.

Time for The Times? Y’think? And a-one, and a-two, annnnnd. …

Gods above and below!

Maybe I’ll just go back to bed.

Black (and Blue) Friday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Interdimensional gateway to a timeline where Beelzebozo lost the election? Naw, just our solstice tree reflected in a painting.

Turkey Day is done and dusted, and Black Friday is upon us like Nosferatu with the munchies.

We harmed no turkeys. But three chickens are missing thighs and I don’t think prosthetics or wheelchairs will help them cross the road anytime soon.

I cooked Melissa Clark’s sheet-pan chicken with sweet taters and bell peppers, plus a side of Martha Rose Shulman’s stir-fried succotash with edamame. Herself kicked in a delicious raspberry cobbler for dessert.

Miss Mia Sopaipilla got a yummy StinkCube® with her kibble. When I make tuna salad for sandwiches I squeeze the water from the tuna and we thin it with drinking water before freezing it in ice-cube trays to give Her Majesty a couple weeks’ worth of tasty treats.

I should’ve taken some pix, but after a four-mile trail run and all that cookery we just sat down and chowed down. The grub was gone before I even considered preserving the moment in pixels. If I remember I’ll take some snaps when we wipe out the leftovers this evening.

Herself texted with her sisters, I did likewise with my bros (not blood kin, the chosen variety), and we rang up my sis and her husband to exchange holiday greetings and gnaw our livers over the Pestilence-Erect. Good times, etc.

Today I hope to buy a big bag of nuttin’. Either that or I may hit Page 1 Books for some fresh brain food because I find myself rereading old books again.

There’s nothing wrong with revisiting “Nobody’s Fool” by Richard Russo or “Essays of E.B. White.” But there are roads out there not yet taken.

Closed on Thanksgiving

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

There’s a chain across this dump and a sign that says “Closed on Thanksgiving.”

The tears in your eyes notwithstanding, you’re gonna have to find another place to put the garbage.

Hope you have a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat. Keep an eye out for Officer Obie. You know what to tell the shrink.

Shits happen

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
“Tell Bezos to add Mickey D’s kiosks to these crunchy-granola stores of his.”

Jaysis, the Foods Hole was nuts this morning.

I couldn’t tell whether the ravening hordes were preparing to:

(a) Mark the final Thanksgiving before fascism;

(b) Celebrate the impending arrival of fascism, or;

(c) Stock up on four years’ worth of grub that has gotten at least a casual look-see from Big Gummint before all the food inspectors get laid off/processed into Soylent Green@ brand “liverwurst.”

Your Daily Don: Tongue got your cat?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
“They’re eating what?” exclaims Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.

You know how you can tell this is bullshit? Because if it were actually happening, TFG would have a piece of the action, through a shell company incorporated in Delaware with headquarters in Saudi Arabia and a board of directors drawn from Interpol’s Red Notices.

Remember Trump Steaks? Ran out of the money at Aqueduct and straight into your refrigerator.

How much capital would it take to start snapping up struggling animal shelters and add drive-through windows? Poach the Chihuahua that used to shill for Taco Bell? (That’s a cookin’ joke, son!) Better yet, make J.D. Vance wear a Chihuahua suit, see if the hillbilly sonofabitch can generate a little positive cash flow. The dog’s cuter, but Vance is already on the payroll. Put Stephen Miller on the job; he’d deep-fry his own mother if he had one.

Before you could sing a bar of “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” TFG would have franchises out the wazoo. Most of them along the border, of course. Your customers are your workforce and vice versa. It’s practically a perpetual-motion money machine.

And he’d tell you all about it on TV, too.

Just not as though it were a bad thing.