New slang, or early morning aural hallucination?

I was walking to the metro this morning, flicking through my iPod trying to find a song that wouldn't bum me out. So I had my earbuds in, but no music playing.

I was also a little bit tired, as I'd woken up at 3:30 in the morning and been unable to get back to sleep until 5, trapped as I was between the 24 hour earworm that is Britney Spears' "Womanizer" and ongoing anxiety about why--WHY????--it always rains when the Cardinals are in town.

So I'll willingly admit--I may not actually have heard what I thought I did.

But as I was walking down hill, I passed a group of the local female youth, presumably on their way to the local public high school. And they seemed to be talking about some difficulties they'd been having in their relationships with their male counterparts.

And one of them inquired "well, did he axe you about it?"

And her friend replied, "no, but it's not like I ain't gave him the message. I mean, I put it on his toenails."

So preoccupied was I--between my exhaustion and my weather related worries and trying to decide whether Van Morrison's "Caravan" or Flo Rida's "Low" would do a better job of chasing the permanent cycle of "you, you, you, ah, you, you, you, ah, womanizer, womanizer, womanizer, womanizer" out of my skull--that it took me a minute to process just how odd that was.

In fact, I was probably half a block past the young ladies when I ground to a startled halt and said aloud "she put it on his toenails????"

Assuming that I really did hear that, and that it was not some weird insomnia related hallucination. . . . . .what in hell does that mean?

Did she literally put it on his toenails? Like she painted it on his toenails?

Who lets you send a message to them by painting on their toenails? And what kind of message can you send?

Like did she ask him to prom by painting U & ME PROM? with one letter on each toe (and nothing on the pinkie toes, because they're not big enough to write on)? Or did she try to warn other girls off of him by branding DIS MY MAN across his feet?

Or is "I put it on his toenails" just a figure of speech? Is it the next-gen equivalent of putting your business "in the street" or out for all the world to see? Like "I'm not afraid who knows my biiiiidness. I put it on my toenails."

At this point, even I think we may have taken this whole thing a bit too far.

There are some things that I pretty much just always love to eat. One of them, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, is bacon.

That's not a surprise to anyone, right? Or have I been too subtle?

Anyway, another thing I pretty much always love to eat is jelly beans. Any kind of jelly beans. Gourmet jelly beans like Jelly Bellies; plain old Brach's jelly beans; those weird Starburst or Jolly Ranchers flavored ones that get reduced to like 95% off after Easter because no one else will eat them; the crappy generic ones you buy in the Hudson News at the airport. . .

. . .the point being, I am an indiscriminate lover of jelly beans, and a well known lover of bacon. So it may surprise you that "squeals of delight" were not my immediate reaction upon seeing this:

Yeah, that's right. Bacon Flavored Jelly Beans.

As I said, my first reaction did not include squeals of delight. Instead, it included a sense of fatigue, an arched left eyebrow, and a muttered "seriously?"

I'm sure that in part, at least, was due to the display they were part of. Because the bacon flavored jelly beans were displayed not just with the ubiquitous bacon air freshener and the famed bacon wallet; not only with the popular Mr. Bacon vs. M. Tofu playset (which I still don't have, by the way, hint hint); not merely with the ever present bacon band-aids. . .

. . .but also with the poorly reviewed bacon mints; something called "Uncle Oinker's Gummy Bacon (which is somehow strawberry flavored???);" and with gum shaped like both meatballs and cocktail wieners.

And seeing it all there, all laid out together like that, is it any wonder that I--that even I--began to think "enough already!" Faced with such a bounty of meat-inspired and faux-meat products, even I began to feel the onset of meat fatigue.

This did not, naturally, stop me from buying the stupid things. After all, I love bacon and I love jelly beans. Also, I liked the little bacon shaped tin, and I thought it might come in handy for carrying other things after it's empty.

Other bacon shaped things. Like my emergency supply of travel bacon.

But the point is, I didn't cave in and buy the stupid things immediately, like I would've a few years or even months ago. I walked around Pulp taking care of my other card and gift related needs before finally caving in and picking up the tin at the last minute on my way to the cash register.

They're cute, right? They're about the same size as Jelly Bellies, and they're a nice pink color. I was encouraged. And there was no bacony smell when you opened the tin, the way there can be when you're dealing with this sort of product.

So I popped one in my mouth. Chew chew chew. . . doesn't seem to taste like much of anything. . .chew chew. . . I mean, there's a sweet flavor to it, but nothing I'd associate with bacon. . .chew chew. . .

. . .and right there at chew #7 is where it hits. The "bacon" flavor. Except if you didn't have bacon in your mind, if you didn't know you were supposed to be tasting bacon, you probably wouldn't register it as such.

What would you register it as? Um . . .the best terms I can think of to describe it are "sweaty chewy meat vomit."

So you get in seven good chews, and then you're hit with the full force of sweaty chewy meat vomit. And somehow, there's still so much chewing left to do at that point, and the flavor doesn't go away.

And then some of it gets stuck in your molars, as jelly beans are wont to do, and there's a little concentration of sweaty chewy meat vomit flavor sitting there in the back of your mouth, just. . .tasting.

And the flavor makes you thrash your head about violently as you try to prize it out with your tongue, and you yell out "please, god, take this sweaty chewy meat vomit burden from out my mouth." And if you've ever tried to thrash your head, scrape your teeth with your tongue, and plead with an increasingly unjust god all at the same time, you'll know it's no easy feat.

But then you get it loose, and you think you're free, but as it comes out of the teeth and hits the open mouth, somehow your saliva reactivates the sweaty chewy meat vomit flavor, making it more potent than ever before. And you yell out "Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?" or if you're a LOLCat "'OMFG OMFG y do u haet me?"

And finally you manage to choke it down, and you do the "ptih, ptih, ptih" thing to try and get the taste out of your mouth. But it lingers. Oh, how it lingers. Past an entire brushing of the teeth with the Oral B Pulse Action tooth brush and a healthy swig of the orange flavored Listerine, it lingers.*

But after awhile you start to think "was it really as bad as all that?" And you eat a few more, and because you're eating them in quantity and without too much of a pause between them, you get kind of inured to the flavor, and start to forget how completely vile the initial experience was.

So you wonder if you overreacted, maybe kind of just a little. And you take the tin upstairs. And first you offer them to your landlord, who recoils from the tin and hisses as though it was a crucifix and he was Mr. Burns spoofing Gary Oldman playing Dracula.

But then you offer it to your upstairs neighbor, and she takes one gingerly from the tin. And chew, chew chew, she seems to be nodding, and chew, chew, chew, she has a thoughtful but interested expression on her face.

And then she gets to that seventh chew, and her face contorts with horror. And then the head thrashing begins, and she rushes to the bathroom and goes "ptih, ptih, ptih" into the toilet.

And as she starts yelling "OMFG, OMFG, y do u haet me?" you respond--calmly, and in your best Ashley from Rock of Love Bus voice: "That's what you get for having all of your friends over listening to The Best of Prince and taking illicit drugs right above my bedroom until 5 in the morning, biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch."

* And quite frankly, it will take a only the briefest of hiatuses after being temporarily drowned out by the garlicky passed apps and the cake at the birthday party you went to later, and even after another go with the Oral B pulse action toothbrush and the orange flavored Listerine, the sweaty chewy meat vomit will make a comeback the next morning.

. . . and then I passed out. . .

. . . which seemed the only logical response to seeing this. . .

. . . in the New York freaking Post.



And when I came to, I wondered where along the line I'd developed this phobia of even the most minor public recognition.



* Muchas Gracias to Carol for tipping me off to this, and for e-mailing a second time to make sure I didn't actually have a heart attack.

**Tom Colicchio, if you're reading this, please note that I never compared you to Kevin Costner. But I did think the "honor the protein" schtick got ridiculous. In fact, I suggested your Indian name might be "Struts with Big Cleaver," which, when you think about it, suggests good things about your wang. Please don't kill me.

I can explain. Really. I promise.

You see, I have this grandfather. And he's 91. And for every Christmas and birthday, he sends me a check for $25, and tells me to spend it on something fun.

Because he's my grandfather, and in his head I'm always young enough for $25 to represent a huge windfall. And because he's 91, and when he was my age, $25 would've been a huge windfall.

In return, I send him polo shirts with sports team logos, and Target gift cards (look, it's what he asked for).

So after my free premiere issue, I kept getting all these invoices encouraging me to shell out $19.98 for my remaining subscription to the Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade magazine. And I had this $25 check sitting around the house. And I thought "well, that would be fun. For me. In my warped, horrible way."

And I also kind of feel like--to my great shame--Sandra might actually be Pop Baker's kind of girl. Except that by his own account, he prefers redheads (which explains how he put up with my grandmother as long as he did and why I have coppery highlights. How she put up with him and I got stuck with this Algonquin schnoz is a whole 'nother story).

Also, I knew that if I didn't shell out $19.98 for my subscription, I'd probably end up shelling out cover price for each individual issue. And then I'd be angry at myself for not just going ahead and getting the subscription. The same thing happened with SELF and Soap Opera Digest.

And so I bring you: I continue to read the Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade magazine so you don't have to.

Let's discuss some flaws in marketing right off the bat. First and foremost, I saw the magazine in grocery stores and Borders' locations across the DC metro area long before I ever received my copy in the mail. And every time I saw it, I would think to myself in a Cartman voice "Goddammit, Sandra Lee! Where's mah copy of the megga-zine?"

Ok, sometimes I said it outloud.

And I clearly got aggravated about its absence. I would rush upstairs to get the mail first thing every night when I got home from work. And it became so obvious that I was waiting for something that when it finally got here (late last week), my landlord said "oh look, your magazine came!"

So now I'm that lame. I'm the girl who is KNOWN for waiting anxiously for her Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade magazine.

I need help.

Second:

Is it just me, or does that look like the exact same picture, just shrunk-to-fit and photoshopped on a different body (with a similar neckline)?

I mean, part of me wants to be charitable and think she's just one of those people who does the same face for a lot of pictures--because God knows, I'm the same way. Just last Sunday, my cousin's wife took a picture of me and her younger daughter and said "oh, you did the cheezy grin again." And I mentally added "the cheezy grin" to the list of things I should try to fix during pictures*.

But the other part, the larger part. .. it's the same goddamn head, right? Right???

Thirdly, you'll notice that in issue 2, we're already down in the recipe count. Issue 1 had 181 ideas and recipes; issue 2 has a meager 179. Badly done, Sandra. Badly done.

Now let's break it down:

1) The magazine opens with yet another letter from Sandra. I suppose we can expect this to be a regular feature. She yaps about how she thinks about us, her "Semi-Homemakers all the time." Then she says this

"I have created a new go-to family for you, called 'Team You.' Every member of Team You is working fast and furious to deliver on the original promise--to be your muse, the magazine that lets you do your day while we do the rest."

I hate this "go-to" nonsense. First she's our "go-to sister" and now her team is our "go-to family?" I already have a go-to family. It's called "my family--both biological and urban." And I have thousands of go-to sisters. They're called "homosexuals."

And that's without saying anything about the ridonkulousness of "Team You."

2) A feature called "Hello Yellow." It's essentially the same as last issue's "Pink it Up," except it's yellow. There are even some of the same type products, like an "Apron with Attitude" from laylagrayce.com, which, even at $32 (a drop of $50+ from the overpriced pink number) is still more than the similar wares from Bambino Amore.

3) Then we have this, which is perhaps the best thing in the magazine, if not the entire universe.

Oh yeah. For a mere $399, you can "grab your girlfriends and join Sandra Lee in Atlanta for a weekend of Semi-Homemade ideas!"

See, that--that???--I'm not putting aside my Grandpa money for.

Also, isn't Semi-Homemade supposed to be saving us "time and money?" How is it saving me time and money to get my ass all the way to Atlanta and spend $399 learning householder tips I already have a TV show, 60,000 poorly written books, and this crapfest of a magazine to tell me about?

4) Another "Shortcut Chic" spread, which tells us how to take shortcuts for things like home decor, centerpieces, and embellishments. Ok, I can see how using a pillowcase as a slipcover for a chair is a shortcut from, like, making one by hand or buying one at Target or something. But I fail to see how wrapping a terra-cotta pot in yarn or cleaning out eggshells to use as tiny vases is a shortcut for anything.

You want a shortcut on your centerpiece? Here's a shortcut: don't have a fucking centerpiece. You don't need one. Or if you do one, buy some damned flowers and stick them in a single normal vase rather than hyperventilating while you try to blow out four eggs to use as mini-vases.

Then we have a picture of this cake, which will continue to appear again and again throughout the magazine.

. . .which is probably more hilarious if you're as familiar with the Sandra Lee oeuvre as I am (and as I suspect most subscribers are), and you know that a very similar cake was featured on a highly mocked episode a few years back. Again with the retreads. Sandy, you disappoint me.

5) Yay, it's time for our "Supper Savings/5-Day Weekly Meal Planner!" This week, your family will be eating: 1) Salisbury Steak with Parmesan Green Beans and Garlic Mashed potatoes; 2) Spaghetti with Caesar Salad; 3) Pepperoni Pattern Pizza with Spinach and Hearts of Palm Salad; 4) Pork Chops and Apples with Golden Raisin Rice Pilaf; and 5) Shrimp Stir Fry.

On Saturdays and Sundays, your family won't eat. Because if they eat all that salty, preservative laden crap every week night, they'll be morbidly obese in record time.

The recipe from this feature that I've decided to . .. .feature for this issue is Pepperoni Pattern Pizza.

. . .because as far as I can tell, the sole difference between this and the recipe on back of the Pillsbury Pizza Dough Can is this:

"place pepperoni across pizza crust in 5 diagonal lines. Fill in spaces, alternating with olives and mushrooms."

So it's striped. It's striped pizza. But really, as "cool" as it may look (which is not so cool): it's pizza for which you'll have to apologize to at least one of your kids because from the way you sliced it, he only got olives and mushrooms, while his sisters got all the pepperoni.

6) "Serving Sunshine" gives you recipes to "surprise Mom with breakfast in bed." It's a goat cheese omelet and muffins made from muffin mix. My mom would laugh at me if I tried to surprise her with this. And then she'd throw muffins at me. And then she'd sic the dogs on me, but even they would reject me because I was covered in crumbs from crappy muffin mix muffins. And then my dad would say "seriously? You drove 14 hours for this?"

This is where things start to go downhill, and the pieces all start to have horrible, punny titles. For example, 7): Lean on Meat.

GAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Lean on Meat. As in "you just call on me brother, when you need a friend." Oy gevalt.

Anyway, it's all crappy recipes that help you understand why middle America hates vegetarians and East Coast liberal healthniks. Turkey Burgers. Chicken Spaghetti Bakes.

Oh wait. WAIT. It's not lean or vegetarian at all. It's just beige and fucking awful. Jesus Christ, I would slit my own throat and then allow myself to be gang banged by a bunch of desperate Norm Coleman staffers (who are super bored and non-aroused while waiting for their 9 millionth recount) while I bled out before I ate any of this shit.

8) "Ham it Up." Oh, God, the horrible puns continue. But, on the other hand, I could use some ideas for what to do with the 9 million pounds of ham that my aunt sent me home from SoMD Easter with. Maybe I'll make a Ham and Potato Casserole. No, wait, that looks disgusting. Ok, what about a Ham and Rice Casserole. Um, ok .. . still disgusting. What about a Ham and Spinach Bake. Totally, totally, super disgusting. And so I eat yet another ham and brie omelet for breakfast, followed by ham sammiches for lunch, followed by ham and fried rice for dinner. Because seriously. . .she sent me home with SO MUCH HAM.

9) "Golden Goodies" features a whole lot of yellow-ish desserts. Among them, the "Lace Cake" made from yellow cake mix and pineapple preserves; the "coconut banana cups" made from pudding, rum extract, and Cool-Whip; "Macadamia Sandies" made from Pillsbury cookie dough and macadamia nuts; "Almond Citrus Bars" made from Krusteaz lemon bars and marmalade; "Lemon Meringue Pie" made of pudding and cream of tartar; the aforementioned maypole cake and the above pictured "Pineapple Cheesecake Trifle" made of canned pineapple and "ready-to-eat cheesecake filling.'

VOM.

I think this has to fall under the "Joey Tribianni Trifle Rule" we've discussed previously in this forum--an amalgamation of things that sound GREAT separately ("jam? good! meat? goood!") but cannot help but taste like feet when combined.

Pineapple? Good. Trifle? Good. Cheesecake? Good! But all together now? Not so gret, aktually.

Aaaaaaaand. .. .it's time for.. . . 10) The Semi Homemaker's club. Oh wow, a bunch of Midwestern church picnic recipes that could've never caused embarrassment beyond their Midwestern church picnics were it not for this gawdawful magazine. Yawn.

11) Kimber's Heirloom Easy presents "Shepherd's pie SIMPLIFIED." And we are presented with photographic evidence of Sandra's resentment of her sister:

Seriously, my sister and I talk a) over facebook; b)when we're drunk; and c) when one of us needs family history details to share with our shrinks. And yet I'd never publish a picture that awful of her in my magazine.

Yeah, maybe it helps that she's a 25 year old 6 foot tall goddess with my face but better cheekbones, and so could not take a picture that awful if she tried, but whatevs. Still wouldn't do it.

Anyway, I've never eaten Shepherd's Pie, so I can't comment on the recipes. Maybe I'll make one or both of them. . . .

. . .or I'll drink more wine and watch the Dancing With the Stars Results show. LT was robbed, yo.

It's 12) Cocktail time! and we get a bunch of recipes for drinks and Chicken Satay. The only thing that appeals to me is the recipe for a "Spicy Bloody Mary," and the only reason that appeals to me is because I recently decided I should invent a similar drink involving carrot juice--for those of us who HATE tomato juice--and call it a "Jaundiced Mary."

13) The "Pantry Perfect/Sandra's Sweet 7" is relatively inoffensive this time. The seven are egg beaters; puff pastry; ready-to -eat cheesecake filling; Athens shells; sugar cookie mix; lemon curd; and sliced almonds. She doesn't suggest doing anything horribly outlandish with any of them.

14) "One Gallon of White" suggests things you can do with a gallon of white paint. They include: painting a dresser; painting a side table; painting a lamp; and painting a chandelier. So basically . . you can paint with it. You've got a gallon of paint that you can paint with. Sandra, you're a fucking trailblazer.

Honestly, isn't the point of these "X things you can do with Y" features to present new and inventive things? Shouldn't the verb be different in some of those sentences? I know how to paint with paint. I don't know if I can also use it for caulking, or sealing off puncture wounds, or as a go-to cake frosting.

15) "Lighten Up" a feature on white linens. It's as boring as it sounds.

16) "The Laundry Room: Loads of Fun." It's a 6 page spread on how to organize your laundry room.

I would make fun of the separate dark/white/colored bins if I didn't have separate clothes/household bins myself. What I WILL make fun of is this: "inexpensive woven place mats can be transformed into handy bulletin boards. . . They're the perfect spot to pin up household keys, tiny envelopes with spare buttons, and happy photographs of the people whose clothes you're washing."

(I've had, like, 3 glasses of Chard tonight, so my only response to that is "wash your own damn clothes, biiiiiiiitch." And you should imagine that as said by Ashley from Rock of Love Bus).

17) "Place On a Pedestal" offers ideas for five things you can do with a domed cake stand! If you're curious. . .

a) you can use it as a centerpiece with tulips!

b) you can make it into a punch bowl!

c) you can use it as a terrarium, which is hard to spell when you're drunk enough to make this magazine sound interesting!

d) you can use it as a cake stand!

YES!!!! You can use your domed cake stand as a cake stand!!!!!!!!! The Sandra has given you permission!!!! So, do you feel liberated as fuck all now, or what???

18) "Cleaning Solutions" tells you things you can clean with lemons and shit. It's basically a rip off of an article from last month's Real Simple, the other magazine to which I subscribe.

19) "In Community" tells you how to help charities and make poundcake. Or something. Three glasses of bad chard. Don't expect much.

20) "May Day Celebration" begins "with a history too long to print here, May Day in the United States has become a lighthearted celebration of springtime's outdoor beauty." And it goes on to become another horrible excuse to invite your girlfriends over to do shitty crafts.

This time, you're making paper cones of daisies while drinking Lemonade Champagne Cocktail. I feel like you all would punch me in the throat if I invited you over, served you one weak ass cocktail, and then made you do this crap. At the very least, you'd throw the daisies at me and say "make your own cones, biiiiiiiiiiiitch," in the Ashley voice.

21) "Growing Your Life" is the nourish/pamper yourself bullshit section with plugs for Burt's Bees products and reminders to drink water and get plenty of sleep. Best advice:

"Share yourself. Take to heart the phrase 'wake up without makeup.' Let your partner, the other half of you, see a little bit more of you each and every day."

Firstable, I wake up without makeup every day. Because sleeping with your makeup on is something you should only do if you're passed out from a drunken concussion or waking up with dudes you met when they saved you from more obnoxious dudes, and you'll be walking home this morning with your fishnets in your purse.

NOT THAT I'VE EVER DONE THAT, MOM.

Secondable. . . oh, meh. I've forgotten entirely what secondable was, but it was something along the lines of any dude who qualifies as a partner having seen me without makeup often enough not to make it a novelty, and how not wearing make up doesn't count as "sharing yourself" in any meaningful way.

22) "Cute as can Bee" teaches you how to make Spring themed cupcakes.

And it seems cute and relatively inoffensive until you

1) Cut yellow gumdrops in half.
2) To make bees wings.. .insert the rounded end of the sliced almonds
3) Using the black gel icing, pipe a circle between the almond wings for the bee's body. Add two "antennae" with the icing.


What, you thought I was kidding?

24) Tablescape time! The first one is daffodil parade, which. . .is a bunch of daffodils in vases. Again, quite disappointing.

25) "Easter Brunch" is a menu for an Easter Brunch much like the Easter Dinner I ate at 2 p.m. a few Sundays back in SoMD: ham, a green vegetable; devilled eggs; a roll.

We did not, however, have fruit kabobs, especially not fruit kabobs that included coconut truffles. I don't know what kind of fruit that's meant to be. You're losing touch with Middle America, Sandy.

We also did not have "Honey Pistachio Mini Cheesecakes." We had poundcake. Like real Americans do. Oh yes.

26) The preview for the next issue, which tells me I can "celebrate the onset of summer with plenty of grilling recipes form steaks to kabobs to mouthwatering burgers" and will celebrate Father's Day, Fourht of July, and anniversaries.

27) "A Family Affair" is a menu for a Mother's Day lunchoen. it includes bacony chicken salad; pimiento cheese psta salad; and fruity pretzel salad.

Now, before you say "hey, whoa. . .what's with all the salad?" Let me share with you the ingredients for fruity pretzel salad:

2 c crushed pretzel sticks
2 c sweetened flaked coconut
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 c butter
1 oz strawberry cream cheese
1/2 c confectioners sugar
8 oz strawberry flavored nondairy whipped topping
2 c boiling water
6 oz strawberry banana gelatin
15.25 oz canned fruit cocktail (and JOOS)
10 oz frozen strawberries in heavy syrup.

Yeah. It's that ungodly looking square thing up in the upper right hand corner. It's that thing that you can't see without thinking of the Gallery of Regrettable Foods, or like Part 5, Chapter 2 of Don DeLillo's Underworld with all the Jell-o and vacuuming and masturbation.

(You weren't expecting that, were you?)

So I suppose the theme for Mothers' Day Lunch is "Foods of Your Cold War Childhood." Happy Mothers' Day, Ma. We hope these dishes take you back to a happier time, a time when the nuns taught you to do the rosary on your knuckles in case the Commies swooped in and started suppressing religion.

28) And then we close with a recipe for an Egg Salad Sandwich.

Two issues in, I feel like I can safely say that the worst thing about this magazine is that while it's not good, it's not bad enough to be "so bad it's good." I mean, this is awful, yes. But it's not awful in any particularly amusing or diverting way.

Unless you drink $10 of wine from Target beforehand. In which case, even the DWTS results show will seem amusing, once you get over the fact that LT was robbed, yo. That waltz was the bomb.


* The others being my sister's advice not to tuck my chin because it makes me "look like a nun" and making sure that at least part of my hair covers my giant five-head.

I'm pretty sure that "raining toads" comes next, so you may want to take an umbrella today

This is what we call a new twist on a familiar tale.

I'm walking home last night, strolling down 13th Street. I've just hit the Target to buy some necessaries (wine, jelly beans, Icy-Hot patches, eyebrow brush). I'm wearing completely schlumpy clothes covered with a khaki colored trench that has gotten a little baggy on me since I bought it some years ago. My eyebrows are about a week and a half overdue for a waxing.

And my hair, thanks to our Noah-style rain yesterday, has embiggened itself into whatever one would call the Italian/WASP version of a Jewfro (a WOP-fro? a WASP-fro? a whitefro? a dagofro? a eurofro?).

You know where this is going, right? You know how 99.99% of all stories that start with me walking down 13th Street inevitably go awry, right?

I come to the intersection nearest my house, and coming towards me from the West is the Insult Guy.

(I should mention that since our last reported meeting, I've seen Insult Guy once. It was during one of our recent warm spells, and he was walking North up the street as I was coming south. he was wearing his ski cap, his blue blockers, sneakers, and a pair of Under Armour football pants. And that's. It. No shirt. None at all. As we crossed paths, he was singing to himself, and he sang out "aaaaand I'm stiiiiiiiillllll a hun-dred perrrrr-cent!"

I didn't write about that because a) I was feeling too traumatized and unclean from seeing Insult Guy shirtless, and b) doing so would've forced me to admit that Insult Guy was actually kind of cut, for a little person)

But back to yesterday. Insult Guy--fully clothed, thank jebus--and I are about to intersect. I am less than a block away from my house. I'm on the side of the street I need to be on. There is no way to avoid this meeting.

And I look like death warmed over.

I grit my teeth and brace myself.

And as we cross paths, he says. . .

. . .wait for it. . .

. . .wait for it. . . .

. . .waiiiiitt. . .

"You still look mad sexy."

My jaw dropped. I inhaled in surprise, and I think a gasping or coughing noise came out.

And then he added "And I'm still talkin' 100%."

I said "Thanks?" and we passed each other.

I walked the rest of the way home, so shocked that--true story--it barely phased me when I noticed that the locking cylinder is somehow missing from the driver's side door of my car.

Because that's how earth shattering this is. Insult Guy has been transformed into Weird Inappropriate Compliment Guy.

What the hell is next? Dogs and cats making friends? Lions and lambs lying down together? Rivers running with blood? The coming of the AntiChrist?

(While you try to process this shocking turn of events, don't forget to enjoy your 50 cent Iced Coffee today at Dunkin' Donuts.)

No, Colonel Sanders, not you too!

I was sitting around last night, watching some TV and trying to think about whether I should sit down and finally work on writing about the second issue of the Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade magazine, or just eat some delicious yogurt and rub Burt's Bees After Sun Soother on my completely scorched arms.

And I thought "oh, I should sit down and write about the stupid thing. Or maybe I should do something more useful, like emptying the dishwasher, or folding and putting away my laundry, or looking on the interwebs to see if I can find out what that one song in that Kia commercial with the hamsters is. Oh, if only the universe would send me a sign. "

And then this happened:


What. The. Fuck.

Ok, putting aside the unrelated questions--like who the hell is that other jackass, and SINCE WHEN DOES THE COLONEL GRILL CHICKEN???? I mean, really, does anything sound like a worse idea than a bucket of grilled chicken?--let's get to the real meat of the matter. As mysterygirl! eloquently put it in an e-mail:

Oh, God, why?! Why is Sandra Lee in a KFC commercial (for Kentucky Grilled Chicken)???? Whyyyyy?

See, I just can't put it any better than that.

I can try to explain some of my objections, though. First and foremost, where the bluedilly fuck does she get off promoting herself as "Chef" Sandra Lee? By her own admission, she a) dropped out of her only actual culinary education (a course at a Canadian Cordon Bleu branch that was meant to be anywhere from five days to two weeks depending on how much she's had to drink at the time), and b) has never been the head of a restaurant kitchen.

Even if you want to use the really loose, modern (and completely inaccurate) definition of the word Chef as meaning anyone who cooks professionally, she doesn't qualify. As we've discussed time and time again here, she doesn't cook food in so much as she assembles pre-cooked foods from various packages. She barely qualifies as a home cook, much less a chef.

Second, out of all the various culinary or quasi-culinary professionals that one could choose as one's Kentucky Grilled (shudder) Chicken pitch person, why in the bluedilly fuck would one choose her?

It doesn't make any sense for her to be shilling this product. She's not from Kentucky. She doesn't have a soul/country food aesthetic like Paula Deen or the Neelys, who would be logical fried chicken shills. And she's not famous for grilling, like Bobby Flay.

And I think that's what's killing me the most about this mésalliance of promoter and project. In the past, we've seen Sandra as the spokesperson for Ore-Ida, which she hawks as a shortcut instead of actual potatoes. That goes perfectly with her "philosophy" of using 30% actual food and 70% preservative laden crap to feed your family.

We've also seen her shucking Market Day, which makes sense when you consider her practice of serving your children crap out of boxes on color coordinated plates instead of taking the time to cook for them.

And even her association with Share Our Strength makes sense--who better to help end childhood hunger than a woman who singlehandedly raised her 97 brothers and sisters on a diet of tears and Bisquik?

But how, how, how does it make even the slightest bit of sense to have her pitching this chicken? It's not Semi-Homemade--it's entirely store bought. It doesn't have 30% fresh ingredients--it has 11 secret herbs and spices.

Please tell me we're not going to be subjected to her using this as an ingredient? "For my homestyle chikkun salad, we're gonna need one bag of salad, a nice bottle of dijon vinuhgrette, and a two piece meal of Kintucky Grilled Chickkun. Mix the bagged salad an' the coleslaw in a large bowl, then shred the chikkun over the top. Thin out the mashed potatoes using the vinuhgrette, use that to dress the salad, and WALLA! A chikkun salad that will be sodalicious, and it's that easy, and you take all the credit."

Or maybe what's really bothering me is that the use of my nemesis as a spokesperson makes what would already have been a brutal betrayal sting all the more.

Grilled, Colonel Sanders? Grilled????? How could you, sir? How could you?

(you'll get your magazine run down later in the week, once I've gotten over the shock)

Dear Express: You fail at both English and life

Let's get the first one out of the way first, because frankly, I'm less bothered by it. I've actually kind of gotten used to your rampant misuse of quotations--you've done it before when quoting me, and I'm sure you've done it to other people as well.

It is rather impressive, though, that you managed to condense a four paragraph screed that contained a lamentation of the Nationals' record over the past season-plus-one-week, and a rather lengthy House analogy, into this without the use of a single ellipses:

Wait, is impressive the word I'm looking for? Hm. . .maybe that's not quite it. Maybe I'm just looking for a way to say "moronic" without being insulting to morons.

I mean, who cares that you've completely changed the color of my statement by eliminating more than half of it? Who cares that you're representing this as a statement in its entirety, without indicating that you've changed it substantially*? Who cares that this is something I would have FAILED English 101 students for? Why should I expect more of the "professional" "journalists" who compile the Express' BlogLog than I did from a bunch of 18 year olds at mid-ranked state universities, most of whom were radically underprepared for college?

See? I'm not even really mad about that part.

What I am mad about, you ignoramus dickbag losers, is the caption underneath. "JORDANBAKER.BLOGSPOT.COM THINKS THE NATIONALS MANAGER SHOULD BE FIRED AFTER AN 0-7 START."

Now, technically, this statement is correct. I do think Acta should be fired, and I sad this (again) yesterday, which was after the 0-7 start.

But I can't help but feel that the way the statement is made mischaracterizes my words somewhat--it makes it sound like I think an 0-7 start in and of itself is grounds for firing.

And that, you crapless wank wizards, is fundamentally untrue. I don't think he should be fired because of the first week of this season. I think he should be fired because of the entirety of last season.

I think he should be fired because there are a number of ways a team can run up 3 digits in the loss column, but "good management" is not among them.

And I didn't just start thinking this "after an 0-7 start." I've thought it--and said it--for months now. And if you didn't already know that, if you missed out on, for example, the fact that I implied in January that he must have "pictures of one of the Lerners fellating a goat" to explain his continued employment, then you probably could've picked up on it if you'd read the parts of what I said that you decided to cut out.

Among them was this statement: "I'm the last person on earth who wants to go all doom and gloom a week into the season."

See? See?? It's not about this season, you skunk faced jerkwads. This season has barely even started, and after 30+ years of following baseball, I know not to put too much stock into what happens in April.

When you have an April like this after a full season like the last one, though, you've got to think about what's stayed the same and stayed wrong. And Acta is a big part of that.

I suppose I should be thankful, though. You could've made it much worse. You could've quoted the part where I suggested we shoot him in the street like a dog.

Or you could've bypassed the baseball snips altogether, and quoted me as saying "I look forward to actually seeing Kal Penn, at which point I will hump his leg a little."

You still would have mishandled the quotation**, but at least it would've been funny. And, frankly, probably accurate.

* Correct form: "Why does Manny Acta still have a job? I mean, seriously. . .Think of it this way: if you have a brain tumor that makes your arms and legs twitch uncontrollably, do you cut off your arms and legs? No. Of course not. You get the tumor removed."
**Corect form: "I look forward to . . . actually seeing Kal Penn, at which point I will . . .hump his leg a little."

Things I've been thinking about instead of blogging

* Why does Manny Acta still have a job? I mean, seriously. We have a team that had an abysmal record last year; a spring training that was. .. .fraught in a variety of ways; and now they're the only team to go winless through the first seven games of the season.

And coming off of the aforementioned abysmal season, the management undertook a massive housecleaning, the result of which was the firing of the entire coaching staff. . .but not the manager.

I suppose the thinking could've been that Acta would perform better as a manager with a different support staff, but in retrospect you have to admit--and I'm the last person on earth who wants to go all doom and gloom a week into the season--it seems like the dumbest move ever.

Think of it this way: if you have a brain tumor that makes your arms and legs twitch uncontrollably, do you cut off your arms and legs? No. Of course not. You get the tumor removed (unless you're being treated by House, in which case his team probably thought you had independent tumors in each of your four limbs before House realized that they were all caused by the same brain tumor, and told you this in a ranting monologue where he called you "Stumpy" before turning you over to Chase for brain surgery).

Acta--in case you missed the analogy--is the tumor in the head that is causing all of the team's limbs to flail about maddeningly. And he should be fired (and/or shot in the street like a dog) before he manages to make last season's record look good.

* How are the Syke #9 commercials supposed to make me want to buy their product? I mean the first batch was nothing but a bunch (maybe 9?) skanky girls telling me about why they were the hottest Syke #9 girl. And I understand tht using skanky girls to sell products is nothing new, but these girls never said anything about the product. It was all "I'm Nikki, and I'm the hottest Syke #9 girl, because I'm hot, and my hottness is full of hottitude" and then the annoyingly earwormish jingle ("Every can/ every time/ we're always hot for #9").

But the new ones seem to be mock press conferences/announcements designed to "assure" me that there are only "trace amounts" of cyanide and arsenic in the beverage. And that. . . .honestly, I didn't think anything could make me want less to drink that shit, but kudos, ad wizards behind Syke #9. You done gone and did it.

(Oh, and I would've linked to your site, but my computer crashed the first three times I tried. So smart work there too, geniuses).

* I get my first ever fillings this afternoon, after 32 years of no cavities (which, yes, may have been prolonged by those 6 years of no dentist). Gaaaaah.

* How to turn bread baking into a blog-worthy experience. I took all these pictures when I baked bread last weekend, but . . .I don't know. I'm wildly proud of myself for having baked bread, but it's not terribly different; it wasn't terribly amusing; and the photographs are all really. . . brown. And yeasty.

* How will the ongoing problems with the Somali pirates affect my pirate fetish? Because I feel kind of guilty now about having a pirate fetish. Like I should clarify that I'm hot for the "of Penzance" kind, and not the Somalian kind.

* Whether my utter cranky pantsedness over the fact that Kutner shot himself in the head on House last week* is relieved some what by the fact that Kal Penn is moving to DC.

I mean, on the downside: a) no more guaranteed weekly dose of Kutner; b) this probably means more screen time for dead in the face 13 and Cameron with her ridiculous vests; c) first we lost Amber, then Debbie the Diagnosticat never made a second appearance, now this? d) People can't just leave the show without their characters dying? Everyone who quits the team stays in the same hospital and works down the hall? To get out of your contract at Princeton Plainsboro, you actually have to put a cap in yourself?

But on the upside: a) I look forward to the Reliable Source posting sightings of him, which I can't help but feel will be hilarious; b) increased possibility of actually seeing Kal Penn, at which point I will do what I always do when I see someone even remotely famous, and babble incoherently, and make an ass of myself, and possibly hump his leg a little.

* Things you should never do at work: google image searches for Kutner. Don't click there. Don't do it. Goddammit, I warned you. Now you have some explaining to do.


*Oh, I'm sorry--you TiVoed it and hadn't watched yet and now I've spoiled it for you? Fuck you, whiny crybabies. It was two episodes ago. Once it's aired, keeping "pure" is your own damn responsibility.

I am calling the fashion police, and you, sir, are getting the chair.

Let me say first: I have, through very little fault of my own, somehow become the owner of three pairs of orange crocs.

And I will defend vocally the right of every adult American to wear the damned things IN THE PRIVACY OF THEIR OWN HOMES.

And I can even make a case for allowing them to be seen in public if one is washing the car or doing yard work.

I think they're absolutely allowable if one is running outside to fetch the newspaper on a rainy morning.

I can make a case for wearing them in public if one actually works in the medical or culinary professions--though frankly, even there I think their exposure should be limited. If you're wearing them while you're pushing a gurney through the halls of a hospital or standing outside your restaurant while waiting for the fish guy to make a delivery, that's fine. But wearing them on the subway kind of defeats the purpose of having hypoallergenic shoes.

And I will be the first to admit that they are GREAT if, for example, you have a broken toe that you need to keep in a closed-toed shoe because you're a clumsy asshole who keeps banging your foot into things, but you can't get a normal sized shoe on your foot without screaming in agony. That's why I bought a pair.

But do you know what is never, ever, ever, ever, ever acceptable?

WEARING THEM IN PUBLIC, IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, WITH A BUSINESS SUIT.

Seriously, guy, what made you think this was ok? Is it because they're "black?" Color alone does not a dress shoe make, good sir, and these things are made of fucking plastic.

I'm sorry if this embarrasses you, my fellow commuter. I'm sorry if you were already feeling humiliated when you heard my shocked gasp when I saw your feet in front of me on the escalator, or if the click of my phone camera filled you with a sense of dread as you realized that you'd been caught on film, and that nothing good could come of this.

But if it makes you think twice before you do something this awful again, then I've performed a public service.

Because you can't be allowed to carry on thinking that this sort of behaviour is ok. If you don't care that it hurts the rest of us to look at you, then pleas--please, sir--think about what you're doing to yourself. You cannot possibly be getting laid walking about in public like this.

(What's So Funny 'bout) Peas, Love and Understanding?

This weekend I was enjoying the warm but freakishly windy weather and trying to find a way to put off finishing my taxes (I suffer from a debilitating fear that the $40 interest I earned on my savings account in the last year will catapult me into a new and terrifying income bracket, one where I'll actually have to give money to the gubbermints rather than vice versa). As I contemplated the green of the oncoming spring, and the green of the H&R Block logo, and the green of the cash that I could be giving to or getting from my (not as) rich (as before) Uncle Sam, it occurred to me:

I could make Pea Soup.

I love Pea Soup. Really Good Pea Soup--not the greyish sort that comes out of some cans--is one of my favorite things. And I really love making Pea Soup, because in addition to being delicious to eat, it's tres easy to make. There are usually something like four ingredients, and one of those is a bag of frozen peas.

And frozen peas are one of those things I always have on hand. In fact, I always have multiple bags of frozen peas on hand. The logical explanation for this is that I always forget that I already have one or more bags of frozen peas, since the sneaky little bastards tend to wander toward the back of the freezer, and keep buying additional ones.

I'd be willing to accept that explanation if I only had one or two extra bags of peas on hand. But the truth is I have SO MANY bags of frozen peas that the only plausible explanation is that the peas are breeding. My freezer is some sort of singles bar for bags of peas where they can meet other bags of peas and hook up. Which, in my mind, looks something like this:


(Except that in my mind, it's a lot more sophisticated and Pixar like, and you can't see my hands. And there's a well developed B plotline where the Pink Lemonade finds love with the Orange Juice, and the Southwestern Burritos have a threesome with the Black Bean Burrito).

(And yes, I know that I just filmed my freezer. Believe me, I feel the shame. I felt it the minute I saw my insane cat lady neighbor--the one with Tourettes who once came to the door at least topless to yell at my upstairs neighbor--peering in my window and judging me as I shot the final frame. It's a hard day when you become the crazy neighbor in a 'hood that features insane topless Tourette's cat lady. But I really didn't want to finish my taxes)

Anyway, I usually use a Pea Soup recipe from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat, which is kind of like this, but without the balsamic (which, frankly, sounds kind of odd). It's incredible--it tastes like someone smashed springtime and put it in a bowl. But this time I decided to try this Pea and Pesto Soup recipe from Nigella Express, because it sounded interesting, and because after it's over, you have the leftover pesto around the house for all of your pesto related needs.

I have many pesto related needs. The primary one being "eating pesto with a spoon." You can't do that without pesto.

And also, it's green, so it goes with my theme. Mise en place ahoy:

You will need: peas; pesto; lime juice, Kosher salt; scallions*; and water. See how easy this is going to be? And so green!

(You'll notice I didn't use either of the bags of peas that were in my movie. It would've felt dirty, and besides, I have SO MANY BAGS OF PEAS that it wasn't necessary)

Anyway, you start by boiling some water. While that's going on, chop two of the scallions and wedge up the lime (you'll only need about 1/4 of it--you can use the rest for squeezing into your gin. Or vodka. Or water).

Once the water is boiled, put three cups of it into a pot. Add 3 cups (about 1 bag) of frozen peas, a tsp of salt, the chopped scallions, and the lime juice.

Let them boil away merrily for about seven minutes. At that point, you're meant to remove it from the heat and remove the scallions. To that I say: fuck that noise. You try finding and removing a bunch of small green things in an entire pot full of small green things. Also, I like scallions. So I left them in.

You then dump the peas and their liquid into a blender and add 1/4 cup of pesto.
(Try to focus on my cute new red blender rather than the filthy looking peas floating in brown liquid perched on top of it. It's actually a blender/food processor--two different tops that fit to the same base. It's a great space saver if you're like me, and live in a very small apartment that you've already overpopulated with an ice cream maker and a deep fryer and a stand mixer and a beverage fountain and . . .anyway, it's also red, which means it goes with my Apple Green and Red kitchen theme, and it's from Overstock.com, which means I got a relatively good deal on it once I got over the fact that I hate their commercials)

Long digression! Back to the soup!

Anyway, you blitz the hell out of it, venting the top so you don't get a peasplosion all over your kitchen, and stopping periodically to check the texture.

Also, if you're like me and you have a history of killing blenders, you're going to stop periodically because you've come to expect the worst every time you blend something, and the mere act of pushing the power button on one of the damned things is enough to make you think "I smell burning. . . "

Fortunately, my new blender survived its debut performance, and produced this delightful soup:

The recipe says it makes "two hearty bowls," but really I got four me-sized portions out of it. And it is goooood. It's quite different from the other Nigella Pea Soup--rather than tasting like smashed springtime, this one tastes like. . . pesto.

Which is emphatically NOT a complaint. But in terms of truth in advertising, this shouldn't be called Pea and Pesto Soup. It should be called PESTO and pea Soup. Because especially after having ripened for a day, the pesto flavor is what you get the most of.

It is, in fact, almost like eating pesto with a spoon. Which I do. But this is better, because I have to feel like all the peas and business adds extra vitamins that I don't get when I'm just eating pesto.

Anyway. I love it. It's especially good with a piece of buttered, homemade wheat bread.

Which I also made this weekend. Because I really didn't want to finish my taxes.



* I used green onions. I hear they're pretty much the same.